Uhm. First off 1.) This posting was origianlly about XBOX, not Microsoft Corp. or Windows! damn it! cant you people let a topic that involves MS be discussed without constantly ranting about Windows? achhh

anyways...
I think the X-Box will be ideally revolutionary for game developers. Up until the Playstation 2, developers were pretty strapped for ways to get librarys, etc., and with the X-Box, developers can take advantage of already established standards such as DirectX. A console with easy to understand PC architecture and no hardware differences? you tell me. Lets compare here: x86 processors: double speed ~ every 9-18 months (i.e. the X-Box will probably ship with something more like a 1GHz PIII, if not an IA-64 based chip by the time shipping comes) the clear advantage of this is that MS can up their specs at the last possible instant before going to market without needing to rework the entire system. Console systems dont compare as well. Does anyone actually know how much time was spent developing the PS2''s chips. I guarentee you, its a lot longer than Intel will spend on the X Box chips.

Now something against the X-Box
Obviously, the X-Box will be the more powerful of the companies with "muscle" (i am discounting Sega and Nintendo, because I quite frankly dont believe they have the resources to survive against Sony and Microsoft''s market value) but if you look at the respective demos of the games, do you really notice all THAT much of a difference? I sure dont. I am planning on buyin a PS2 this fall, and probably having about 50 games by the time the X-Box is released. I will probably still play my origianl playstation games(FFT) and I WILL buy an X-Box when they become available. I buy consoles that are supported and have many games, which is why i have waited for the "gold" games to be released for the Dreamcast(SHining Force, Phantasy Star, etc.) and I see that sony has the clear support of leading game developers, adn MS too has a strong following. Look at the MGS2 videos, or Z.O.E. and you can see that its going to be 3rd parties that will drive these companies to success, and the lack of their support will crush anyone. This is what will be bad for Sega and Nintendo, because they dont have anything to fall back on should their consoles fail. Sony is a leading maker of Consumer Electronics, and many seem to forget the small fact that they were a multi billion dollar company before the PSX. Im tired now...

I still have good feelings about PS2. I think sony made a VERY smart move making the thing backward compatible with the original... Keeps the sales on old titles going. I probably will not get an X-Box. Demos of not yet released software are flakey enough but not yet released hardware? Come on...

Microsoft bash ahead -
The X-Box spooks me just a bit in another way. Being by MS, it will run an MS OS (alphabet soup?). Just imagine an entire sector of people introduced to computing WITHOUT an alternative to MS. Kids growing up and getting into real computers that don;t know there is anything else...

OK, OK - visions of doom - I know. But I''m allowed.

I just noticed something - The ad banner on top of this page just said -
"MS, it''s not a company. It''s a neurological nightmare!"
I just thought it was funny.

Anyway, Mr. Gates got his start as a crook. The version of DOS he ''developed'' and sold to IBM was simply a compiled version of CP/M. Which was available as source. IBM screwed up and didn''t get an exclusive licence. Double boo-boo.

Where did you hear that?!

CP/M was a completely separate product. Gates bought the OS that became MS-DOS (QDOS) from Seattle Computer Products for $25k. QDOS was not a "compiled version of CP/M", as CP/M was not even available for x86 processors at the time. Gary Kildall, president of DRI, was trying to make a deal with IBM for the OS, but Gates won the contract. DRI eventually did release CPM-86 for PC''s, and it even was available as an alternative to MS-DOS on IBM machines, but it didn''t sell well.

CP/M was not and still does not have source code available. Jeez, where do people get their information?

P.S. Don''t feel bad about the guy who sold MS-DOS for $25k. MS hired him as an engineer a few months later, and he''s worth millions now.

Ok, as far as MS goes, the only opinion I have now is that they''re there, the OS works for what I need to do, and if they lack in certain aspects, I complete it with third party software.

But as this topic is about the X-Box, I''d like to pose a few questions/comments.
1) Consoles can have the hardware and specs, etc. But their success is ensured by the software, ie. games, that is produced for it. The failure of the N64 is a prime example, even after a 1.2 gig cartridge was developed for them.
2) Now, you may argue with me on this, but Sony DOES have a certain standard when licensing a a devkit to a 3rd party developer. Basically, if the game sucks or is too controversial...you can''t release it. Before you flame me on this, ever wonder why ''Deer Hunter'' or ''Thrillkill'' never came out on the PS? The games were done...but Sony said ''no''. Sure they made some mistakes, and yes it may seem an unfair practice but it does affect the image of a console system in a marketing aspect. Question is can X-Box also enforce such a standard? Or will their games market be saturated by a wave of amateurish games that bring the avg. game quality of X-Box game down statistically?
3) I however do feel that this does give many new 3rd party developers a chance to hit the mass market if they can make a quality game. The X-Box shares a good trait with the PS, where a dev company doesn''t need to spend a year to even learn how to develop for it. Portability is good, and we may see many budding companies take their places in the Industry. All that matters is putting a good game out that people will play, and that''s all that should matter IMHO.

I think there is something that no one mentioned yet.

The X-box will run on an 6th generation x86 system. Last I heard they will be using Pentium3 (though, for the longest time they were going to use AMD, according to some leaks... wonder why they changed thier minds $$$). The Pee3 runs on Intels ancient GTL+ bus, which was designed to run at 66MHz, and was amazingly pushed up to 133MHz.

But... thats not nearly fast enough.

with the processor running at 5.5 (or higher) times the speed of the bus, the processor is going to be severely limited in what it can do.

Not to mention that almost every single console out there is 100% specialty hardware designed from the ground up for games.

x86 was not designed for games.

So what does that leave us with? Microsoft needs to put in these busses at super fast speeds or raise their bit-depth. (I believe the busses are at 64 bits now, but thats nothing at 133MHz)

- Memory-CPU: obvious
- Memory-GPU: Fast texture loading and management, unless the GPU is going to have a huge amount of memory on-board... which would make the console cost a lot more.
- CPU-GPU: Perhaps the most critical of the three, since a huge amount of vertex data is going to be passed from the CPU to GPU per frame.

I doubt they will beef up the busses though, because that will take a lot of money to develop, and they want a cheap console. (Unless they start selling consoles at a loss... then that is blatantly illegal.)

===============================================
If there is a witness to my little life,
To my tiny throes and struggles,
He sees a fool;
And it is not fine for gods to menace fools.

quote: Original post by Mithrandir
Unless they start selling consoles at a loss... then that is blatantly illegal.

Every console you can buy is sold at a loss. The companies take huge losses to install a huge user base, and then make their money in the games. If they tried to make money, or even break even, on the consoles, nobody would buy one. No matter how great a library of software you put out would put $600+ consoles in anybody but the most hardcore gamer''s house.

Jesse Chounard

Glad to see the post is making it''s proper topic now. =)

Anyway, I saw that someone didn''t have a lot of faith in Sega/Nintendo, personally, my faith in Sony is diminishing almost daily with the PS2.

First off, they''re treating many developers like crap, who they perviously treated well then the jumped onto PS1.

Second, and this comes from a writer for Imagine that I know. Yet alone a writer for PSM. I asked him how PS2 is going in Japan "Slow. There aren''t any exciting titles." He''s right. Sure, Ridge Racer is good, but it''s a sequel. Tekken? Sequel. DOA2? Sure, its only part 2, but its on Dreamcast.

But this post is about Xbox, so I will stop that. =)

Anyway, I agree with the post that said MS will probably put a 1GHz chip in there.

Nintendo, on the other hand, had better have something big going on behind it''s doors, because the American mass market buys stuff for how fast it is. Its true. Every non-gamer I talk to says this "Dreamcast is better because it''s 128-bit", "PlayStation is better because it has better graphics, look at Final Fantasy 7".

Its a big big fight ahead of us, and looks just a little exciting. =)


-Jesse

Well it'll be interesting to see what PS2 titles look like a year from now. Will devs have maxed its power, will Xbox devs easily surpass it in their first gen titles?

Of course PS2 titles are slow going right now, devs have had over 5 years of getting acquainted with the PSX, and the PS2 seems like like a radical change for ease of development. I really can't see how MS can screw this up. Nearly every US dev has got to be pounding on their door for dev kits. Even foriegn devs I imagine will make the switch fairly quickly.
It doesn't seem like the Sony name is worth the head ache involved with developing for the PS2 when compared to the Xbox and the mass view of MS is fairly positive(no where near the hatred of the Online community)



Edited by - Homer Schmodkiff on May 13, 2000 3:18:16 PM

Hey,good news!Most consols like psx and N64 were made in japan so they were shiped in japan first right?then we had to wait about a year for it to come out here!well since the Xbox is being produced in america then the release will be here first and we will finally be able to make japan wait its turn for a next generation consol!!!!!!!!!hahaha! take that japan!

Chairman of TriSpherical Arts