Xenon info?

[one]

In the last month Koei already announced 'Oni' for the next-gen PS

I was talking about "who" as in the console manufacturers annoucing support for a console before it's officially annouced. You won't see SONY, Nintendo or MS say anything about this until after the console have been officially annouced.

Well, at the press conference of 'Oni', there was a congratulation message from Ken Kutaragi Blu-ray support and so on for the 'Next System' was already announced, too. Come on, at least be reasonable.

we already know of many developer stating they are working on next gen projects.

Really? Please pick up an officially announced title for next-gen consoles. Your argument is about how MS/Sony/Ninrtendo secures developers, right?

 

[Spidermate]

As for Cell, it is designed to prevent bottlenecks. Only time will determine how this achichitecture may actually perform, but as of now, it seems to be challenging your claim.

I'm sure it's intended to do many things, but I always understood that Cell's main design was to prevent the bottleneck of single CPU, single core chip power. I never understood it to be mainly focused on solving a particular software problem (like 3D rendering, for instance). Maybe I'm mistaken, though.

I really can't go into too much detail on that since IBM,Sony,and Toshiba are keeping pretty quiet on that part. I'm only reporting what I know in which Sony has allowed leakage on.

 

[jarrod]

Xbox disc scratching problem in Japan is one of factual accounts.

Sure, but Microsoft never suffered a class action lawsuit as a result of their console reliability. At least not that I'm aware of.

In the US, no one can be free from arbitrary lawsuits, OK?

The PS2 "DRE" suit is hardly what I'd call arbitrary... really the Xbox suit doesn't compare. Finkelstein, Thompson & Loughran (the firm who brought the largest class action suit against SCEA in 2003) specializes in consumer fraud actually. Another class action suit was brought by Galex, Tortoreti & Tomes in 2002 and another by Jonathan Shub in 2003. This isn't some isolated arbitrary situation here, there's a reason SCEA is fixing PS2s past warranty date for free (provided they meet certian conditions).

Once again, has Microsoft even suffered a class action lawsuit as a result of their Xbox reliability or build quality? Nintendo? Sega? Atari?

 

[one]

Once again, has Microsoft even suffered a class action lawsuit as a result of their Xbox reliability or build quality? Nintendo? Sega? Atari?

No, not yet, possiblly because the Xbox user base is smaller anyway...

 

[jarrod]

Once again, has Microsoft even suffered a class action lawsuit as a result of their Xbox reliability or build quality? Nintendo? Sega? Atari?

No, not yet, possiblly because the Xbox user base is smaller anyway...

Smaller than what PS2 was in 2002?

 

[Spidermate]

I didn't say Sony was going to fall. I just predicted a loss of marketshare. I don't know how you misunderstood my meaning. I'm not saying the sky is falling for Sony.

I just want to clear something up.... Do you believe Nintendo will ever get any more market share on the Xbox/Xenon console? Explain your answer.

On your other points:

IMO it's not likely there will be many games which require more than a couple of DVD discs with 6GB each on them. Very unlikely in fact. It's too expensive for all that art content.

Are you sure about this or are you just making a simple guess? I'm assuming B. Also, with the tools we are using now, I'm not the slightest bit surprised. But, what happens if what these guys are predicting with XNA and such actually sped this process up beyond recognition? Do you believe content will matter then?

It's also hard to say whether MS buying IPs and outsourcing the manufacturing is going to be less or more expensive than Sony's multi-billion dollar investment in fabs. Regardless, Sony will lose a lot of these potential cost advantages if MS only has to supply DVD and not BR like PS3.

I'm lost. :?

 

[wco81]

So is anybody else hoping that Gates really does talk about Xenon at CES in January?

We might actually have some meat for these discussions instead of basing most of these discussions on wisps of speculation.

 

[wco81]

duplicate post.

 

[Spidermate]

MS will be out of the Xbox production business soon enough, but it won't be due to failure. MS will merge Windows/PC with Xbox. MS does not want to be in the hardware market, I don't think. They're trying to get the debate framed as a software war where they know they can (A) make a profit and (B) use Windows to crush opposition. XNA is the first step towards that.

I completely agree. I suspected this when XNA was first mentioned. Right now, they are competing with the competition outside of their dominating turf. As long as they remain here, which is where Sony seems to be the strongest, I honestly believe they will always have a few unwanted problems they will have to deal with.

 

[London Geezer]

now, they are competing with the competition

Cute!

(Ignore me guys. Like you usually do)

 

[Tuttle]

The developer support list that is launched for a new console doesn't tell anything abot the real support the console will have at launch or after. Nor does it tell about the future success of the console.
One just needs to check the N-Gage developer support list that was published pre launch. How many of them have actually released an N-Gage game, did Sega's support mean N-Gage became a success

That's is true for the general marketing blurb type of list every everyone who isn't actively denying they will have anything to do with a console manufacturer. But I was referring to the more specific list of developers targeting a platform exclusively or at least not as just another system to port their games to.

If we already know the market reaction to those very same companies this generation, there is no reason to assume the market reaction will be significantly different next generation. The known exclusive developers MS has lined up so far looks like to be almost exactly the same as they had this generation.

 

[Ty]

... maybe they can just trade Sony some quality assurance engineers in exchange.

Err, what does that have to do with the Xbox looking like a pretty clunky console?

Fact is Sony has a very talented industrial design team that constantly is winning kudos for the appearance (since that is what we are talking about) of various products. I may not think that their products are the best but I am darn impressed by the look of them.

 

[Tuttle]

Which is why MS is trying to look for different revenue streams for Windows, such as XP MCE (rumours are that in 2005 it becomes the XP Home edition as a stopgap before Longhorn).

Look, any MS executive looks at the profit from their Windows division, and looks at the profit (cough) from their Xbox division, and adds up the numbers. The console business can be extremely profitable, but it also can be extremely expensive. Sony has dominated the past two console generations, and sold a ridiculous number of boxes - you don't think they wouldn't trade places with MS in a second?!

I don't think they Sony would, if they are thinking long term. How much is the OS division going to be worth to MS in five years? I'm not going to claim windows is going to just disappear next week, but I've been closely following the MS/Linux/open source news for the past five years now and the trend and outcome seems pretty clear to me that MS's OS revenues, and probably the office suite revenues too, are going to take a dramatic decline over the next few years. As long as MS doesn't control the hardware, they have no ability to stem the increasing number of defections to Linux/open source systems. The only thing left for MS outside of controlling the hardware seems to be IP lawsuits - see the news today about Balmer and Linux:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/18/ballmer_linux_lawsuits/

I think it is only a matter of time before windows either gets booted from consumer pcs and/or MS has to slash their prices by some dramatic amount. If I remember correctly, I think they are already having to slash their prices by %70 from reading about some of their competitions with Linux/OpenOffice over the past year.

I don't see any way that MS can stem the Linux tide other than migrating consumers to hardware that can't run anything but a MS OS. MS has been desperately trying everything they can think of for the past three years. The IP lawsuit threats seem to be the last stand, but they seem to be just generating more hostility towards the company.

 

[Qroach]

Please I've heard this hardcore linux argument numerous times and I still don't beleive it. I've always said, and will always say, that linux is an OS for sys admins, hobbiests, and programmers. Windows is an OS for the average consumer. IMO linux has done zilch to make inroads to the main stream desktop market for a number of reasons. One of those being its not nearly as easy to use for a person with average computing knowledge. and a second is the software selection.

I could start using linux right now if I wanted, but I don't want to get bitten by all those little quirks in the OS and sofware updated form various open source development teams. I also have NO need to compile my own kernel or modify source code to do some specific task. If I was a programmer I would be all over linux. Being more of an average consumer, I simply couldn't care.

 

[Lazy8s]

rabidrabbit:

I don't know what good hiring QA staff from MS would do, as their quality on xboxes hasn't been too good either,

Its construction is military-grade. A point-blank shotgun blast can't even penetrate it.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I still think that too much is made of particular exclusives. The most important IPs are the non-exclusive titles like EA Sports and other EA licensed titles. Getting out there first with all of those mass market games is a potential winning strategy.

With that being said, you need some great exclusive IPs and right now Halo is the number two exclusive IP in the US market (after Gran Turismo). GTA isn't an exclusive IP and if MS can secure a GTA game for Xenon along with EA Sports in the early going, the Xenon will be pretty hard to resist for the average gamer.

I'm interested to see how well MGS3 does and whether or not the franchise has the legs it used to. Same with GT4. I'm sure both games will do well, but I'm not sure they have the same steam they had three years ago.

The other big point to consider which ties in with what I've been saying is that people tend to buy what their friends have. If MS ships 5 million units of Xenon in the first year with games people want to play (EA games etc...) then this can create a momentum where another 10 million buy them just because the first 5 million did. This can snowball into a large userbase like it did with PS2.

I know a lot of people that said they liked Xbox, but all their friends had PS2 and it had lots of good games too. They passed on superior hardware, even though they liked a lot of Xbox games, simply because all of their friends had PS2s. A similar thing COULD happen with Xenon.

 

[Jov]

Please I've heard this hardcore linux argument numerous times and I still don't beleive it. I've always said, and will always say, that linux is an OS for sys admins, hobbiests, and programmers. Windows is an OS for the average consumer. IMO linux has done zilch to make inroads to the main stream desktop market for a number of reasons.

Quite a number of companies have Linux on its desktop road map. Take the biggest Telco in Australia for example, they're adopting Linux which is a big statement to the rest of the corporate world.

Linux is not going to take over the desktop overnight, but its making inroads. Even if it doesn't, it has caused MS to lower its prices and keep Windows functional bugs… err features in check.

 

[Jov]

The other big point to consider which ties in with what I've been saying is that people tend to buy what their friends have. If MS ships 5 million units of Xenon in the first year with games people want to play (EA games etc...) then this can create a momentum where another 10 million buy them just because the first 5 million did. This can snowball into a large userbase like it did with PS2.

Lets not even consider the PS3 hype and use the Xbox as reference. How long did it take the Xbox to reach 5 mill?

 

[wco81]

Linux is also used for consumer electronics products. Can you say Tivo?

If the world moves from PCs to simple appliances, like say people surf on simple cell phones or some other home appliance which offer comparable experience, then Windows might be in trouble.

But even if Windows decays from this point on, it's such a radioactive commodity that it could continue to pour money for decades.

BTW, Sony put out a product called Location Free. It's an LCD panel with a base station which you could use not only to surf wirelessly but transmit TV/video content.

Real pricey now. But if they integrated surfing on some future console with support for fine image-quality displays, you really wouldn't need a PC since it would provide most of the functions (surfing, entertainment) that a lot of people use PCs for.

 

[Xeno]

The other big point to consider which ties in with what I've been saying is that people tend to buy what their friends have. If MS ships 5 million units of Xenon in the first year with games people want to play (EA games etc...) then this can create a momentum where another 10 million buy them just because the first 5 million did. This can snowball into a large userbase like it did with PS2.

Lets not even consider the PS3 hype and use the Xbox as reference. How long did it take the Xbox to reach 5 mill?

PS3 will be like the second coming of Jesus, Nostradamus has foreseen this