Impact of Windows Home Server on the perennial 360 vs PS3 debate

[FireGoblin]

Questions/musings, geared towards the this forum...

>Will Windows Home Server (WHS) be able to store (protected) content downloaded through XBox Live - Games, Demos, Movies, TV?

>If so, will WHS be able to stream ALL content in real time to a 360, or will games etc have to be shuffled on/off the local H/Drive?

>Could the 20Gb local drive be used as a buffer cache to enable content be be stored remotely (on WHS), but launched as though stored locally?

Open questions...

>If you had a WHS with RAID (or the cluster level data duplication that WHS offers) would you be happy to download full games without having a physical DVD?

>Do you consider a PS3, with its expandable local storage, to be functionly == a 360 plus a WHS

Just my ramblings..!

 

[Supernatural]

I believe Windows Home Server is the secret target for Microsoft. That's why they pushed the managed copy. That's why they do not put a bigger hard drive for the 360 on the market.

They envisioned a single storage unit for the connected home, that serves PC, 360, WiFi Phones, and so on.

I believe it's a great vision.

 

[FireGoblin]

As do I. Furthermore, personally, I think there is more to be revealed regarding the ability of an XBox 360 to offload game data storage to a WHS server.

To my eye, the fact that games have a 9GB (DVD) ceiling means that storing (either legally ripping or downloading) them on a seperate device and streaming to the console is both achieveable and realistic - something that might not be true if game designers had the facility to be 'lazy' and push the space upto 25Gb for HD storage media. This should be easy to implement for the smaller XBox live games that are already e-distributed and have a technical, and financial, model that takes into account the 'ease' with which the data files could be copied.

I further believe the reason MS are witholding any further info is that they don't want to give Sony the chance to say that the $600 PS3 is the equivilent of a 360 plus a WHS, which will inevitably cost considerably more.

I think a larger 360 local drive will be offered, but this will be to placate those people who view their console as the 'hub' of their 'network' - their ultimate aim is to offer a solution based around 'locationless' storage for ALL media.

I also happen to believe that the old rumours of three SKU's for the 360 is still true, and we have yet to see the 3rd unit. This could be a combined 360/WHS device, or a combination of the two (maybe replacing the drive attachment for the 360 with a eSATA link between the two if they do not want to link them using IP?).

Bottom line, I think a lot, much of which is twaddle, but some of which might have a kernal of fact!

 

[Rangers]

I believe Windows Home Server is the secret target for Microsoft. That's why they pushed the managed copy. That's why they do not put a bigger hard drive for the 360 on the market.

They envisioned a single storage unit for the connected home, that serves PC, 360, WiFi Phones, and so on.

I believe it's a great vision.

I dont know what they're doing, but it's all coming together so neatly.

I never believed in Live as a big selling point for Xbox. Lets just say, now I do.

 

[habbe]

Home server sounds a bit like DLNA/UPnP ?. (but with more features)

I thought Microsoft was a member of the DLNA group.