In my (not so humble) opinion, that''s bull. MS does not own the market because of the high quality of their products. Their products are crap. The reason MS owns the market is because they were the only ones in the business when the whole pc market exploded. They''ve just been killing off upstarts ever since.

Loqi, if that rumor is correct, X-Box will blow everything away!!! That would be sweet because independent developers like us could do stuff, whereas with things like PSX, you have to get it approved by Sony first, or so I''ve heard...

If you code it, they will come...

Commander M
http://commanderm.8m.com
cmndrm@commanderm.8m.com

I wouldn't worry too much about Microsoft taking over the console industry. Why? Because if every other console makers out there still stand by their consoles and keep on developing for it, people will buy them. I know alot of people who bought a N64 just for Zelda, then again I know alot of people who bought a PSX for Final Fantasy too. So as long as a console has developers putting out good titles, and the console still sells, it will not die out.

Also price is a *BIG* factor since most people who play console games are between 10-24, and lets face it most people in that age group don't have alot of cash to burn.
But I am curious on just how does Microsoft expect a 200$ price tag with conponents most PC owners would drool over (700Mhz processor, custom GeForce...).

Anyway just my opinion, feel free to flame me

Edited by - Blah! on 4/7/00 4:26:38 PM

Actually, freedom buddies, XBox was originally the great genius--captain freedom''s (my) idea. However, due to lack of coffee and snicker bars, I had to goto FreeDOM Market and when I was back to my Superhero Headquarters, I lost my model! I suspect that MS has stolen it. I designed it with much more--I even added a Freedom Call button (so you can call me when you''re in need of good news) but the evil company has removed such button from the Xbox!

I am sad, and I need a shoulder to cry on... I called the high commander, and he should be at the headquarters any minute... then maybe we''ll go shopping for snickers and spandex for my pets SuperCat and FreedomDawg...

Well, I wish you good luck in all your endeavors, freedom stock!

THE FREEDOM SAYS, THE FREEDOM SAYS THIS,
THE FREEDOM SAYS, THE FREEDOM SAYS THAT!

MS is working with nVidia to develop a chip to beat all, supposdly 150 million polyes per sec !

You know.. Microsoft''s tried it''s luck on the computer and computer equipment market before. Most of their attempts (the computer MSX etc) have been complete failures, except for their controller equipment. Now, for the screenshots - I don''t consider them to be anything really special. They have big things nicely shaded, and that''s it. No billion textures nicely bumpmapped or mindblowing realism, I believe most of the superpriced gaming computers now could do that in 12-30FPS.

Unfortunately, XBox is not an Open Platform. Bill Gates himself said this. It features a ''traditional'' licensing model, basically meaning a devkit will be tens of thousands of dollars. Also the screenshots were generated by a ''simulator'', which is usually a piece of hardware whit multiple rendering cores, audio processors, etc. which attemp to emulate the final hardware. Basically a hardware based X-Box emulator. As far as whether or not Microsoft will corner the console market, that largely depends on what developers decide to do. This has been a subject of much debate between commercial developers/programmers I personally know, and I think it will come down to who has better hardware and larger numbers of units in the field. For MOST ISVs, producing games for both X-Box, PC, and Playstation 2 will not be possible due to prohibitively high development costs. If X-Box sells as well as the PS2, then developers will probably go with Microsoft because a port to PC/XBox will be less complicated. It least that''s my opinion.

--Cauldron the Sage

I was at the CGDC when he announced the thing and the demo was in realtime. Portions of it were fully interactive.

The reason Microsoft is so powerful is because they became the defacto industry standard. Game developers don''t want to have to develop games for macs because they don''t have enough marketshare. If there were a dozen OSs with equal shares of the market, developing games would be hell.

The Xbox is going to have a hard drive. This alone will change console gaming. I hope I don''t have to spell out why.

The Xbox is going to use the next iteration of an industry standard operating system. It''s going to make life a lot easier for developers who already know what they''re doing with directX 7. (or so we''d like to assume)

$0.02

To all of you who say that it all comes down to Hardware on the consoles. This is not what makes a person buy a console. It''s the games. People don''t really care about the Hardware as long as they got a good game to play on it. I''m not saying that the Hardware is not important at all, but look at the GameBoy. A watch got a biger prossesor than a GameBoy. But people buy it. Why? The games are great.

Also. Why is there more good games for some consoles than others. Well. This is often (not always) desided by how easy the platform is to develope for. Think about it. If the companies use a lot less resources on bug fixing and stuff like that that is there because the platform is so hard to develope for, they could use a lot more on gameplay, graphics and other features that makes a good game. To mention the GameBoy once more. It''s a thrill to develope for. I have done it my self and by experiense I have understood why most of the games on the GB are as good as they are...

Anyway.. If anyone disagree with me... Let me know

Scha

According to numerous video game sites and such, those XBox pics are being displayed in realtime, at a smooth 60 fps. Pretty damn amazing when you consider it. But to add my two cents to this conversation, I''m wondering why no one mentions Dreamcast? Only Dolphin, PS2, PC, and XBox. Don''t forget that Dreamcast has two OSes, Sega''s Dragon, and a modified Windows CE. This means that any PC developer can convert games to DC with almost no problem. Add to this that in September Sega will have launched a giagantic on-line network with tons of new massive multiplayer games, and what do you get? The first time a console has ever done this, and not to mention a HUGE advantage over the competition. Now add in that in September Sega will be GIVING away Dreamcasts, and giving $200 rebates to people who already have one, to EVERYONE who signs up for a year of internet service with their ISP, used on both DC and PC. What genius is running this company? Now add in that there are already TONs of GREAT games, both gameplay and graphically, and you have another thing going for it. Then you have to take into consideration that this has been out like 2 years in japan, PS2 just came out, and DC can almost match PS2 graphically using certain rendering short-cuts DC has built in. Sorry for getting off-topic here, but my point is there''s room for more than one console out there, although XBox does look pretty awesome...but then again they are only rendering 2 characters on screen...check out DOA2 on DC, up to 4 players on screen at once, they look FANTASTIC, plus it''s running at 60 fps with AWESOME environments. ANyway that''s all I have to say, for now.

~WarDekar