Ballmer Justifies 360's Costs 104
Next Generation follows up on news last week of the enormous financial burden the 360's launch has placed on Microsoft. CEO Steve Ballmer sent around an email discussing the company's bright outlook with the new console. From the article: "While Xbox 360 hardware itself is the most prominent area of videogame-related investment, Ballmer indicated that further development of Xbox Live is also integral to the success of the platform and its respective division, saying, "We must execute our Live strategy with speed and precision." Relatedly, Live's downtime yesterday has resulted in an underwhelming feature addition: messaging.
Speed and Precision (Score:5, Funny)
a. Speed
b. Precision
You know the rules, Steve. You pick one or the other.
Re:Speed and Precision (Score:2)
It's amazing that there was a whole day of down time just to add text messaging.
Re:Speed and Precision (Score:4, Interesting)
a. Speed
b. Precision
c. Low Cost
You can pick two but cannot have all three. From what they've been spending, it seems obvious they choose the first two. I more or less think they done a good job of it (except let me download from the marketplace in the background while I'm watching TV!!!!!) I use my 360 as a Media Center Extender to watch TV, movies, internet radio, etc, etc but the damn thing cannot yet begin a download from XBox live and keep that going in the background while I switch to the media center to watch TV! Really my only complaint, but VERY annoying.
Re: I think you're missing the joke (Score:1)
I guess this is one of those jokes that's not funny if you have to explain it. Aw hell, it's not all that funny even if you get it right away, though I did chuckle a bit.
TZ
Re:Speed and Precision (Score:2)
Re:Speed and Precision (Score:2)
You must not be following Vista's development. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You must not be following Vista's development. (Score:2)
From the article:
Researchers at Gartner said in a report Tuesday that they believe Windows Vista won't be broadly available until sometime between March and June of 2007. Gartner is basing its projections on the progress the Redmond company has made in getting test versions of Vista out the door. In a statement on Tuesday, Microsoft said it disagreed with Gartner's views and was still on track to
Re:Speed and Precision (Score:1)
Re:Speed and Precision (Score:2)
Naw, as long as the errors execute quickly...
Re:Speed and Precision (Score:1)
Re:Speed and Precision (Score:2)
And since the answer is always the same (100% reliability!) you can forego the output altogether. I think you have stumbled onto a new paradigm in high-speed, high-reliability computing!
Re:Speed and Precision (Score:3, Funny)
Obj. Simpsons:
Homer:[] Kids, there's three ways to do things. The right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way!
Bart: Isn't that the wrong way?
Homer: Yeah, but faster!
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/AABF09 [snpp.com]
Maybe Steve should change his name...
=tkk
He can do both... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:He can do both... (Score:1)
It's 2 of 3 and he's got the third... (Score:2)
You may pick 2 of the 3.
He's picking fast and done right and screw the amount of cash it'll take.
MS vista for gamers? (Score:3, Insightful)
"The software giant also plans on releasing the gaming-focused Vista operating system to the public in January 2007."
Since when is MS Vista focused on gamers?
Re:MS vista for gamers? (Score:2)
Re:MS vista for gamers? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:MS vista for gamers? (Score:1)
Re:MS vista for gamers? (Score:2)
DX10 (Score:5, Insightful)
However, MS Vista does contain DirectX 10-- and as far as has been announced so far, DirectX 10 will only be available for MS Vista. Before long, DirectX 10 is going to be required to play any new video games. So if you want to keep playing video games and get all the features and whatnot, you are going to have to upgrade to Vista. So you just have to learn to think like Microsoft. The way you probably think, "focused on gamers" means "designed to appeal to gamers and make gamers want to buy it". The way Microsoft thinks, "focused on gamers" means "we will be forcing gamers to buy it".
In other words, Vista is "focused at gamers" the same way a sniper rifle might be "focused at" someone unexpectedly running across the White House lawn.
Re:DX10 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:DX10 - OpenGL (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:DX10 - OpenGL (Score:2)
Re:DX10 - OpenGL (Score:2)
Re:DX10 - OpenGL (Score:1)
Re:DX10 (Score:1)
I love that analogy, its scarily accurate!
Shame it'l be attributed to AC when quoted!
Competing with themselves (Score:3, Interesting)
So here's a question - rather than get Vista, why not simply buy a 360? All of the games that are going to get the most benefit out of Direct X 10 are also going to be on the 360. Probably first!! Between Vista and a new video card, it really seems a gamer would be better off with a 360.
Microsoft ha
Re:Competing with themselves (Score:2)
The answer is still just as simple as it was when the question was "why not get an Xbox" or for that matter "why not get a Playstation" or what have you.
That answer is still flexibility. For instance, even though Halo PC was a complete bugfest, that's still where I chose to play it, because it meant I could use mouse and keyboard and map my keys however I want. Typically, console games give you none of that.
360 can use a mouse and keyboard (Score:2)
The answer is different when you throw in a $200 OS into the mix, whereas before with the XBox chances were your PC was about as powerful or perhaps a little more so. The 360 is more ahead of the curve in that regard. And of course not many games were all that high in resolution, where 720p is starting to get pretty decent if you have a good display.
With every step Microsoft ta
Re:MS vista for gamers? (Score:2)
Re:MS vista for gamers? (Score:2)
Well... Ever since you needed a top of the line gaming rig just to run Vista with all the desktop effects on.
Re:MS vista for gamers? (Score:2)
Re:MS vista for gamers? (Score:2)
Re:MS vista for gamers? (Score:2)
Metaphors... (Score:4, Insightful)
A marathon where you're bleeding money for most of the race. Sure hope another company doesn't zip past you on a bicycle [folklore.org] or something.
Re:Metaphors... (Score:2)
If each sale of a console costs Microsoft money, it is our duty to buy one and get gnu/linux or *BSD running on it.
Linux on 360 project [free60.org]
Xbox Live as a money maker is not going to happen (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Xbox Live as a money maker is not going to happ (Score:2)
Re:Xbox Live as a money maker is not going to happ (Score:2, Interesting)
Just to put that in perspective, Sony who didn't see the need focus heavily on online gaming last gen had more people playing online with just one of their games, SOCOM, than the entire subscriber base of Microsoft's online service. What a humiliation.
Microsoft's online service is a vastly reduced long time dream of Microsoft that goes back to the days of the Internet taki
Re:Xbox Live as a money maker is not going to happ (Score:1, Insightful)
How do you know they are much better if they haven't even come out yet?
Re:Xbox Live as a money maker is not going to happ (Score:1)
while that may be true... Sony's online service is free, whereas Microsoft's service is paid.
Re:Xbox Live as a money maker is not going to happ (Score:3, Insightful)
Hardly surprising, there are what - 22 million Xbox units out there compared with maybe 4 million 360s? What surprises me is how many 360 titles ARE in the overall top 10.
Likewise, I find it interesting that to this date MS refuse to state how many Live subscribers and users they have
Some facts from Microsoft [gamerscoreblog.com]:
Re:Xbox Live as a money maker is not going to happ (Score:1)
Re:Xbox Live as a money maker is not going to happ (Score:1)
Wrong stats to use. The ones that we can use are:
#1. So there you have it. 4 million consoles (let's be generous, the figures are a little old), and "more than half" are connected to Live.
#2. I seem to remember the Live attach rate for Xbox 1 being around 10%, so figure another couple of million there.
So 2 million Live subscribers on 360 and 2 million Live subscribers on original xbox. A level
Re:Xbox Live as a money maker is not going to happ (Score:2, Insightful)
If you're looking for specific numbers accurate down to single digits, you aren't going to find it -- no company is that specific; specific information gives too much away to compeditors. They occasionally release figures when they hit milestones, and release general information about the service in their quarterly reports.
They always issue press releases with non specific, skewed numbers to c
Re:Good grief... (Score:2)
Taking losses in all these niches fits with their business goals, believe it or not. It's their goals that need fixing as much as their methods.
Re:Good grief... (Score:2)
Re:Good grief... (Score:2)
Re:Good grief... (Score:3, Funny)
Stick to Office Suites.
Re:Good grief... (Score:3, Insightful)
The Xbox was a mighty success considering it was their first attempt at that market. They beat Nintendo easily and they were pretty much on-par with Sony. I'm talking in terms of units/games sales, not how good games were, by the way.
Re:Good grief... (Score:2)
I hope Nintendo comes through and takes the lead because I think they're the best games company out of the three, but it does seem unlikely.
Re:Good grief... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good grief... (Score:1)
Actually, they lost their ass to Nintendo. "On Par" has absolutely nothing to do with Market Share. It has everything to do with Profit Margin, and in that area Nintendo took a nice healthy shit all over Microsoft then wiped their ass with Sony.
Yeah, but Nintendo actually made money (Score:1)
Re:Good grief... (Score:1, Insightful)
The Xbox lost $4 billion over its lifespan (and counting - some of those new losses are still attributable to the original).
What MS seems to have forgotten is their original predictions (and you can still do a Google search and find these quotes) were for an "investment" of around $2 billion, followed by sustained profitability by the 3rd year of the Xbox's life.
They also were aiming for Xbox 360 profitability from day one (again, Google "xbox 360 profit"). So for
Re:Good grief... (Score:1, Interesting)
Hmm, this isn't true. If you are talking about just the 360 in isolation, Microsoft talked about the 360 going green at the two year mark. But that was back before E3 last year and the year long trainwreck the 360 has gone through.
Those estimates for profitability were made on the assumption of huge numbers of people paying for the online service and certainly didn't include the horrendous expense of having to eat the losses of having to give t
Re:Good grief... (Score:2)
Re:Good grief... (Score:2)
360 is a decent machine, still needs work (Score:3, Interesting)
So why did I take it back? Well, perhaps I wouldn't have if street fighter II was out already and Oblivion wasn't such a bugfest (and runs suprisingly slow at times for a 360 game). The machine is noticibly loud (I even took it back and got another and it was still loud). If I had an enclosed cabinet, this wouldn't have mattered as much. The future announced games didn't hold much interest to me. But the biggest factor was that the 360 sucks as a media center, and it couldn't replace my hacked xbox with Xbox Media Center. Lack of divx support and video only available to MS XP Media Center Edition killed it as a media center. My TV only has a couple componenet video inputs, so my decision was to keep the xbox and take back the 360.
What MS needs to do is quiet down the console (they are already taking steps towards this with a smaller chip), add divx support (and FLAC tag support, but that doesn't have as wide an appeal as divx), remove the "XP media center" lock-in for videos (they are taking steps towards this, but we will see what they actually do), improve the media features in general (better media player features), and add more games to xbox live (porting abandonware would be cheap and make a killer system IMO).
Re:360 is a decent machine, still needs work (Score:1)
Re:360 is a decent machine, still needs work (Score:5, Informative)
Just some nitpicking:
While Oblivion does have its share of bugs, the only slowness I noticed was after playing for a while and letting the game cache get fragmented. There's a work-around to clear the cache by holding down any button on the controller when you start the game (hold it through the BethSoft logo. Once the 2K logo displays, you can let go). Not the best solution, but it is a solution. I'm right there with you, wishing for SFII. What ever happened to shipping it in March?
You should clarify that the DVD-ROM is loud when it's spinning at full speed. The machine itself (fan noise) is very quiet, and the DVD-ROM is also quiet while watching DVDs. There's not a whole lot you can do about drive speed when it's running that quickly (the 360 DVD-ROM is something like 16x, compared to the 4x in the Xbox or PS2).
You're dinging the 360 for not doing something it never claimed to do. The 360 is a Media Center Extender. In other words, it's completely dependent on a Windows Media Center PC to feed it media. It sounds like you want the 360 to be a stand-alone media player (or mostly stand-alone, while occassionally pulling media from the network).
As for having limited component video inputs, get yourself a mux. I'm preferential to Audio Authority's 1154A [audioauthority.com], but you don't need to spend > $200 on a mux. You can find decent ones (minus auto-switching, audio format conversion, and the cool rack-friendly form-factor) for less than $50. You do realize the PS2 can do component output, right? The graphics will still look PS2-bad, but the color and sharpness will be better (and if you have a game that can support 480p, like GT4, you can only do that over component).
There is no such thing as "abandonware", legally. Either the games are released to the public domain, or they're not (or they're released under a license that makes it possible to port them without legal troubles). "Abandonware" games that are still technically under copyright cannot be ported without proper consent. The question is, who gives that consent? How do you get permission to port a game that's been out of print for 15 years, and the original developer/publisher has been out of business for 10? Who currently owns the property? You have to track down the series of sales of IP until you hopefully find the right company you need to deal with. This is painful.
I do agree Microsoft needs to add more games to XBLA, but I don't think that's really going to be a problem for them. I think we're just in the lull before the storm right now, having not had any new XBLA games since Jewel Quest. Prepare to be bombarded (good thing I just finished up Oblivion, so I'll be ready to play some new arcade games)!.
Re:360 is a decent machine, still needs work (Score:3, Informative)
What about the dirty disk errors that pop up at random? (the oblivion tech forum is rampant with them, so I know it wasn't just the two machines I tried). Yah, I know how to clear the cache, but have you tried riding a horse? The loading every 3 seconds is unbearable. And the fact that with a PC with similar specs to the 360 gets farther grass draw distance is per
Re:360 is a decent machine, still needs work (Score:1)
I must be extremely lucky. After > 100 hours of Oblivion on the 360, completing all achievements, I've never once run into a dirty
Re:360 is a decent machine, still needs work (Score:2)
"Abandonware" is just an excuse for copyright infringement. There's no law (or moral justification, IMO) that says that just because a product isn't being sold anymore it's legal to make and distribute however many copies you want.
Sure, right now, companies like Electronic Arts aren't that keen on worrying about all the disk image copies of F-117 for Commodore 64 floating around, but you can bet your ass that if a company like Microsoft trie
Kudos to MS (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all about the user experience, not the keyboard.
But it still remains to be seen how well MS competes in a world dominated by primarily device-driven devices - particularly since this seems almost the exact opposite of their business model and strengths.
Despite widespread rumors on the internets, (Score:2, Funny)
Strange... (Score:3, Insightful)
So what M$ and Ballmer did was exactly right. Heck, I bet Sony'd love a $40 billion slush fund right now, then they could offset PS3 losses against it. In fact, any company would love to do this - all to often you hear about a single product bombing and taking a whole company with it...
Re:Strange... (Score:1, Interesting)
Let's look at Microsoft's second fiscal quarter, ending December 31, 2002 (I know, it's far back, but I this source [tribuneindia.com] has all the info I need for this example).
Net profit: 2.28 billion
Revenue: 7.78 billion
This means that they had 5.5 billion in expenses during 3 months, or about 22 billion in that year. (Assuming all quarters were equal, which they weren't.) If Microsoft didn't have any revenue, their 40 billion dries up in 2 years. In
Re:Strange... (Score:1)
Re:Strange... (Score:2)
Sony dumps a bunch of money into chip fabs so that they don't have to line the pocket of any hardware manufactures, and then makes it back on the hardware once they've brought production costs down. Despite all the claims to the contrary, Sony does not expect to lose money on the hardware in the long run.
But his strongest justification is.... (Score:3, Funny)
Turn XBox-Live into a moneymaker! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Turn XBox-Live into a moneymaker! (Score:2)
Re:Turn XBox-Live into a moneymaker! (Score:1)
Downtime NOT just for messaging (Score:4, Informative)
This is a myth. Microsoft have said repeatedly that the downtime was not for any specific new features but to prepare the various systems (Xbox Live, xbox.com, forums, etc) for future upgrades and the onslaught of E3 (masses of trailers, demos, etc). The messaging addon is nice, but you can't seriously believe they took down the entire network for a day to add a feature like that.
I can understand the 13 year olds on the forums not understanding the need for downtime for infrastructure upgrades and rework, but I'd expect a little more from the
To paraphrase the great Unknown (Score:2)
Nobody ever went broke overestimating the stupidity of /.'ers. Or, uh, something like that.
(It's a joke, people, laugh a little)
--
This sig is on the Red List
Re:Downtime NOT just for messaging (Score:1)
People don't let truth and reality get in the way here.
Re:Downtime NOT just for messaging (Score:2)
Or, you know, they could have testing servers, and get the new stuff working on those, and then flip 'em over. With a halfway intelligent architecture it could be done totally invisibly.
Downtime can be avoided (Score:1)
Re:Downtime NOT just for messaging (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Downtime NOT just for messaging (Score:2)
Sorry, I got confused, were you talking about two different groups?
Everybody is saying basically microsoft should do (Score:1)
Re:Everybody is saying basically microsoft should (Score:2)
Dont forget Development Costs! (Score:1)