The xs360 wi-fi USB adapter is not that bad of a deal...

The nervous connections from our senses to our brains have been measured to ~ 11Mb/s. It's not the actual amount of sense data "hitting" our bodys the number refers to.
So it wouldn't work with something like a direct uncompressed video connection, but with compression it "evens out".
Guden Oden said:
Besides, talking about analog data in megabits/sec is somewhat of an oxymoron really... :LOL:
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What part of the word "equivalent" didn't you understand? ;)
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Crystalcubes pointed out the main concern. How many people have 'a' networks/routers? As well as a $100 XB360 WiFi adapter you'll need a Wifi 'a' router/bridge device. The only a+g combo router at eBuyer is £72 ~ $130 = $230 dollars for WiFi.
Sounds like an extremely expensive solution making WiFi on XB360 unlikely for most.
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Okay, as clarified here Wifi 'a' isn't needed, it's just supported.
Q: Why doesn't wifi work out of the box?
A: we worked with game designers and talked to hard core gamers and asked them what their top priorities were and the bulk of our investment went into the silicon to the cpu and the gpu so we would have kick **** games. we had a fixed budget and could not do it all. in the end we had a budget and had to offer wifi as an option but we did decide to add "a" as a standard in addition to b and g. we are also compatible with existing devices already on the makret.
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That does make the adapter better value than it first seems, as the OP points out. It'd be a smarter move IMO to provide Wifi b/g for cheap, and 'a' for those that want it. 'A' is very much underused and seems to be included only for streaming. For just getting onto the internet wirelessly this is overkill.
 
Why are Microsoft making it USB?
That takes one port which could be used for the camera or other peripheral that really needs it.
Why did they not make it for the Ethernet port?

Edit: It must be so that it does not need external power.
 
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Besides, we have a couple million nerve sensors in our skin that measure touch, pressure, temperature, pain, etc...
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You'd be surprised how long it actually takes to transmit signals from our nerves to the brain. Let's just say it travels less than 500 feet/sec.;)

Your brain also blocks itself from information overload by not processing every single nerve transmission. They only need a few. It'd be kinda stupid to have to process every single transmission from every single nerve cell. In fact siezures are caused by information overload to the brain.
 
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Wireless to ethernet bridges cost more than wireless USB adaptors. But I've had bad experiences with ethernet USB adaptors where the USB plug wasn't secure and it kept dropping connections. The RJ45 seems more secure.

One reason the 802.11a products are more expensive is that it's not as popular so it doesn't benefit from the economies of scale. Plus the fact that it uses a different frequency adds to the cost.

802.11a support is to encourage you to get MCE PCs, pure and simple. Wired quoted people like Gates and Ballmer talking about how X360 could stimulate MCE adoption.

Of course if the X360 had a HDTV movie disc drive, you wouldn't need to stream from a $1000 piece of equipment to go along with your $400 console.

In fact, with new copy-protection schemes like AACS, it's not clear that you will be able to stream HDTV video to the X360, which lacks HDMI with HDCP outputs. It's likely that for people with only analog component inputs on their displays, they will only get 480p output from HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players. Since the X360 only has analog component outputs, it's probable that streamed or not, it can't output HDTV movies above 480p.

But MS should know this. They are one of the founders of AACS and they know all about competing and complementary copy-protection schemes being considered for both HDTV movie disc formats.
 
Rockster said:
Part of the reason for the inclusion of the "a" standard, is that it's the only "supported" wireless transport for MCE.
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And for good reason. If it wasn't for the 5GHz A standard, Wifi would suck for streaming. I don't know what all the fuss is about. No one should use Wifi unless there is absolutely no alternative. It flat-out sucks for anything more than browsing on your lap-top or PDA.
 
Squeak said:
The nervous connections from our senses to our brains have been measured to ~ 11Mb/s.
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How? The data isn't digital.

What part of the word "equivalent" didn't you understand? ;)
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What is "equivalent" though? You can't simply say a 22kHz waveform is equivalent to 705kbit/s, because it isn't. Digitizing a signal always means approximating it, so what one means by "equivalent" is purely depending on how large the errors will be.

You offer a figure essentially grabbed out of thin air, and then go ;) when it is questioned. That doesn't work!
 
Johnny Awesome said:
This seems like a cool device:

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?childpagename=US%2FLayout&packedargs=c%3DL_Product_C2%26cid%3D1115416826619&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

I found one for $80, but it won't surprise me if you will be able to get something similar at X360 launch for $60 or so. Not too bad, since it will also work on Xbox and PS2.
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Yep I've posted about that unit for use with GCN, Xbox, or PS2 before. Don't see why it wouldn't work with Xbox 360. D-Link also has a similar device. Heck even MS has their own WiFi device for Xbox for a rippoff price though.

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=307005&pfp=BROWSE
 
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scooby_dooby said:
What about using a PS3 as your wireless bridge?
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If Sony does go through with what they say about Wireless Capabilites and Networking..then thats what i'll be doing. Maybe that was the plan all along!!!

tEh sonY and Microsoooft are teh friendZ!!!!
 
scooby_dooby said:
I think they should release an b/g card for $20,
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Why not just buy one of the already available ones?

Someone above said that MS wireless adapter supports A purely to drive people to Media Center--a duplicitous ploy on Microsoft's part. Of course, this makes me scratch my head in wonder--exactly how does a device supporting some standard "drive" someone to do anything is beyond me. However, there is a simple and very reasonable explanation for why MS would release a wireless device that supports A, B, and G: in an end to end scenario, the customer better have a good experience:

Joe Consumer hears about the media center capabilities of the Xbox 360. He's been wanting an extender for a while, so he plunks down the 300 for the core unit. He wants to network it with his Media Center PC at home so he checks out the wireless adapters and sees that there are two versions of wireless adapters: one for 100 bucks, the other for 20. "Hmm" he thinks, "They look identical." The Best Buy store clerk says, "The 20 dollar unit is cheapo and doesn't work that good." Typical retailer pressure tactics, thinks Joe, and decides that the 20 dollar unit is good enough for him. He smiles condenscendingly at the store clerk, thinking, "your tricks won't fool me! I just saved 80 dollars!"

He takes the Xbox 360 home and hooks it up to his 50 inch HDTV set and plugs in the wireless adapter. "Hey, lookee that! I can view photos! This is so cool!" Then he tries streaming the Terminator 2 hidef movie from his media center. "What this?? It's dropping half the frames??"

After trying several other hidef movies, he realizes that Microsoft has screwed him over! The Xbox 360 is shite, plain and simple, and can't even work well with Microsoft's own Media Center.

He throws it in trash and sets the trashcan on fire.

The End.

.Sis
 
exactly, the only reason to do this is cause they don't want to confuse the customer, they can't rely on them to choose the compatible hardware.

But it sucks the rest of us have to pay out the ass...
 
xbdestroya said:
'A' I believe is the most 'secure' of the current Wi-Fi standards, which is of course why Microsoft is all over it. It's popular (relatively) in office environments and operates on the 5 GHz band. By the way, it's range totally sucks compared to b and g; it's just more or less a failed Wi-Fi standard. But if it's the 'official' Wi-Fi of Windows Media Center, that would explain a lot of the reasoning behind this otherwise bizarre move.
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How about I move next door and bring my cordless phone with me? Then we can figure out what is truely the failed wireless standard. Both B and G are wiped out by even a moderately powerfull cordless phone.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.
 
scooby_dooby said:
exactly, the only reason to do this is cause they don't want to confuse the customer, they can't rely on them to choose the compatible hardware.

But it sucks the rest of us have to pay out the ass...
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Which is surely some 90+% of the Joe Public market. It wouldn't be hard to package a 'a' WiFi adaptor with MCE logos and film graphics to effectively communicate customers need the more expensive variety for MCE streaming, while the 'b/g' adaptor is all that's needed for internet access over a home network.
 
aaronspink said:
How about I move next door and bring my cordless phone with me? Then we can figure out what is truely the failed wireless standard. Both B and G are wiped out by even a moderately powerfull cordless phone.
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Hmmm...m B/G network is up and running fine along side m 5.8 Ghz cordless phones....
 
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