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"Microsoft, X-box, and their foreseeable failure"

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Thu 10/05/01 at 19:45
Regular
Posts: 787
Question: Why have Microsoft entered the console market?

Answer: Because they think they will be able to take it over like that, make a load of cash and be one step nearer to owning your brain.

I think MS should just stick to what it's good at. No, not PC OSs, as anyone who have used Linux will tell you, but small apps like IE, Outlook Express (not 2000) and Excel. Maybe Word. Everything else is just total bloat. Did you know, that laser printers cause a miniscule amount of Ozone (toxic). If you were to print out the Windows source code, you kill half the amazon rain forest?

Anyway, Microsoft are cheating. The X-box is using lastest third party hardware, and will be way expensive. And, have you seen the size of the thing! Basic unwritten console law states a console must have a max size of an A4 piece of paper.

Also, MS have no heart, because all they want to do is conquer the market. I believe Sony, Nintendo and Sega actually enjoy making millions of people happy.

Impressive as the specs are, I believe the X-box will fail. Let's face it.

a) It's a small PC

c) It's Microsoft

d) It runs off Windows, for god's sake!!!

opinions?
Fri 11/05/01 at 11:19
Regular
"Complete Banker"
Posts: 562
I think the success of the X-Box will be pivitol on the quantity and quality of exclusive titles. With the obvious similarity to a PC it will be tempting to developers to convert PC titles to the X-Box and visa versa. With many many people owning PC's and with PC games generally being cheaper than console games (£5 - £10) the PC/X-Box games will do little to tempt consumers.
With a few notable exceptions the PC games market is stagnant. There is little innovation and the majority of games are RTS, FPS or RPG's. Only games such as Black & White are injecting life into the PC games market.
But back to the X-Box and exclusive titles. With the spiralling development costs these days many codeshops want their titles to have as wide an audience as possible (obviously) and for that reason there are many multiformat games out there.... Tomb Raider is one - it appeared on practically every possible format bar the N64.
This spells bad news for Bill, unless he can get some quality exculsive games - without buying the company (Halo -Bungie), or paying the developer huge amounts of cash (Munch's Oddysee) he'll have an uphill struggle on his hands against the also new GC and the established PS2.
However I feel that there is room for 3 successful consoles in the market place today, each of the 3 appears to be offering different things to different classes of people and for that I feel that the X-box will do well (especially in the US), but will not be number 1 and will certainly not dominate the market like the PSOne did the last time around.
Fri 11/05/01 at 00:28
Regular
Posts: 14,117
I think MS will do a damn god job of making a console.

Why?

Well, let's go back in time a bit shall we? About, say seven or eight years ago. There was a company called Sony. The had absolutley nothing to do with games, never made 'em, never made machines to play 'em. Then one of them had a sudden brainwave "Let's team up with Nintendo, and make a CD based add-on for the SNES."

So they did, it's just that, for various reasons, it never came out as an add-on, it was a stand alone machine. Which became amazingly popular!

Just because MS haven't made a console before, doesn't mean that their first attempt will be bad.

So what if the XBox uses a version windows? The DC did and I never had any problems with my console crashing. Chances are it will run Windows CE, a completely bullet proof cut down version windows, same as the DC.

Also, you said that MS are using third party hardware. What of it? Do you really think that Nintendo, Sony and Sega, designed and manufactured all the chips and components for their console themselves? Of course not. They came up with the design of the overall machine and the parts, and got third parties to manufacture them.

Surely MS way is better, they are using the third generation (or is it fourth?) of graphics cards. Where is the problem in this? Surely it's a good thing. All games companies who develop for the PC will have had at least a few years of programming for that chipset. I can see only advantages of MS using recognised third party hardware, it should mean that it takes less time for the developers to get to grips with the machine, this means we get the chance of better games straight away. Is this not a bonus?

You also say that you thought Nintendo and Sony actually enjoyed making gamers happy. How does that work? They are both businesses, as are MS. As a business their prime target should be to make profits.

Moving onto the software side of things, i dont think that the XBox will suffer from that point of view. There is a long list of titles being shown off for the XBox at E3, which starts in a few days i think. Also, remember the main thing about games is definately: Quality over quantity. We all know that Sega make amazing games, and they have been signed up to release games on the XBox.

All in all i think the future looks good for the XBox, especially as it seems they will be at ECTS and neither Sony or Nintendo will be. This will guaruntee a good publicity for MS.
Thu 10/05/01 at 22:03
Regular
"ATAT Supremo"
Posts: 6,238
Now I'm no Bill Gates lurker, but I actually think the X-Box will do well. Plenty of people enjoy PC games and they will look to this as being the console to have as it will have their favourite PC games on it.

I think a lot of it will come down to who ends up making games for the X-Box. If the third party companies are pumping games into the machine, then people will part with their cash.

Personally, like a lot of people, I don't like Microsoft's attempt at dominating everything. I hope the others such as Nintendo, Sony, etc don't get forced out of the market.
I tend to be one of those people that will buy more than 1 system if I like more than 1. But I don't just go around throwing cash at anything that comes out, especially with the prices asked. The Gamecube is looking very good so far and good luck to Nintendo. I'm a little defensive with my wallet when it comes to Microsoft though because as you've already mentioned, they have produced plenty of dodgey stuff that crashes and is not very reliable.

They will have to do plenty of proving before I show them the queens heads in my possesion ;-)
Thu 10/05/01 at 19:45
Regular
"Eff, you see, kay?"
Posts: 14,156
Question: Why have Microsoft entered the console market?

Answer: Because they think they will be able to take it over like that, make a load of cash and be one step nearer to owning your brain.

I think MS should just stick to what it's good at. No, not PC OSs, as anyone who have used Linux will tell you, but small apps like IE, Outlook Express (not 2000) and Excel. Maybe Word. Everything else is just total bloat. Did you know, that laser printers cause a miniscule amount of Ozone (toxic). If you were to print out the Windows source code, you kill half the amazon rain forest?

Anyway, Microsoft are cheating. The X-box is using lastest third party hardware, and will be way expensive. And, have you seen the size of the thing! Basic unwritten console law states a console must have a max size of an A4 piece of paper.

Also, MS have no heart, because all they want to do is conquer the market. I believe Sony, Nintendo and Sega actually enjoy making millions of people happy.

Impressive as the specs are, I believe the X-box will fail. Let's face it.

a) It's a small PC

c) It's Microsoft

d) It runs off Windows, for god's sake!!!

opinions?

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