Clearly the CEO of this company Microsoft has employed to develop solid-state memory for the Xbox 2 couldn’t possibly be expected to know the hardware specs.
We could. We could also guess that there will be a hard drive add-on (available in multiple sizes at different costs) which could magically add backwards compatibility and be required for MMOs. All other downloadable content could just as easily be stored on Xbox Live, since the vast majority of it is multiplayer content. (Alternately, there could be an offline storage option for hard drive owners.)
Is backwards compatibility particularly relevant to most console buyers? How many PS2 owners played their first PS2 game and said, “Wow, I’d love to go back to those PS1 graphics.” Or alternately, they bought their PS2 and suddenly tossed that PS1 into the garbage.
Were people bitching that they couldn’t play their N64 games on their Gamecubes?[/quote]
I think backwards compatibility helps. I suspect a lot of people don’t want the fuss of having two systems hooked up.
I also don’t like the idea of the downloadable content being stored on Xbox Live. Does that mean every time I want to play a new map it has to be loaded over the Internet? It’s one thing to take five minutes to download a new Splinter Cell map to my Xbox hard drive. If I have to wait to have it download into memory every time I want to play it online, that sounds like it could suck.
Maybe Xbox Live for the Xbox 2 will require the flash drive.
So, has Microsoft confirmed this yet? I’ll wait for word from them. Also, my pet theory is that if they do have any type of hard drive they’ll sell it with the next gen Live kit.[/quote]
What if you already have Xbox Live? Will you be required to buy the kit again with Xbox 2? That won’t sit well with some folks unless the kit is the same price as the renewal fee.
Well, if they have this and a hard drive, they’re complete idiots. That’s insane overkill, and I doubt they’re in the market for insane overkill. Getting away from that is what got them looking for storage alternatives for XBox 2 in the first place.
So, has Microsoft confirmed this yet? I’ll wait for word from them. Also, my pet theory is that if they do have any type of hard drive they’ll sell it with the next gen Live kit.[/quote]
What if you already have Xbox Live? Will you be required to buy the kit again with Xbox 2? That won’t sit well with some folks unless the kit is the same price as the renewal fee.[/quote]
Who ever said Live for the Xbox and Xbox 2 were the same service?
C’mon now Rex, logic has no place here!
–Dave
I suspect backwards compatibility is important more in theory than in practice. How many people have played PS1 games on their PS2? How many people will want to play Halo when Halo 2 ships, or Madden 2005 when 2006 is out for Xbox 2 or PS3? Maybe it’s important for six months, or a year, but I doubt it goes much beyond that.
I also don’t like the idea of the downloadable content being stored on Xbox Live. Does that mean every time I want to play a new map it has to be loaded over the Internet?
Yeah, but maybe you wouldn’t notice it. Or if you had an optionable external storage device, you wouldn’t need to do it. Or it could be stored on your PC. There are tons of ways to get around not having a hard drive.
It’s one thing to take five minutes to download a new Splinter Cell map to my Xbox hard drive. If I have to wait to have it download into memory every time I want to play it online, that sounds like it could suck.
Maybe Xbox Live for the Xbox 2 will require the flash drive.
Or the hard drive, whatever. When you sign up for Live, you get a headset and a hard drive/removable storage. There’s little single-player content, and the majority of those extras are delivered via demo CDs anyway.
Anyway, all of this is speculation until Microsoft actually announces the specs for the thing.
Well, here’s a question. Why would they move to a format that is closer to dollars per MB rather than a format that is dollars per GB if they are trying to keep the cost down?
I suspect backwards compatibility is important more in theory than in practice. How many people have played PS1 games on their PS2? How many people will want to play Halo when Halo 2 ships, or Madden 2005 when 2006 is out for Xbox 2 or PS3? Maybe it’s important for six months, or a year, but I doubt it goes much beyond that.
[/quote]
True. Even though I would like it I don’t know how much I would use it. I have played 1 PS game on my PS2.
Anyway, all of this is speculation until Microsoft actually announces the specs for the thing.
No, no you misread the thread title, it’s CONFIRMED.
Well, here’s a question. Why would they move to a format that is closer to dollars per MB rather than a format that is dollars per GB if they are trying to keep the cost down?[/quote]
Because they actually are trying to keep the cost down? They can sell the memory units seperately instead of just giving away free HDs with every XBox sold. Or they could be idiots, which I allowed for in my argument. Anyway, they’re not going to have both this and a hard drive. They’re just not. It’s going to be one, the other, or neither.
I suspect backwards compatibility is important more in theory than in practice. How many people have played PS1 games on their PS2? How many people will want to play Halo when Halo 2 ships, or Madden 2005 when 2006 is out for Xbox 2 or PS3? Maybe it’s important for six months, or a year, but I doubt it goes much beyond that.
I think it matters to parents who don’t want to figure out how to hook up multiple consoles to one TV. I think it matters to people who have Xbox and PS2 games and will be deciding which console to get, PS3 or Xbox 2.
It may not be a huge thing, but it will be a sales factor.
I guess I’m just wondering why you wouldn’t want to make the Xbox 2 backwards compatible? As a consumer, why wouldn’t I want that? What compelling argument is Microsoft going to make to me that makes me think I don’t care that my new Xbox 2 won’t play my old Xbox games? I would prefer that it did. Kind of sucks if it won’t.
Man, if only Microsoft owned some sort of technology that worked on the G5 that could let them emulate a Pentium III, you know, something like VirtualPC.
Oh, wait.
…and you apparently didn’t follow the link. I posted it exactly as it was posted on Team Xbox.
–Dave
If you look at Microsoft’s latest strategy, they are focusing more on having the home PC be the central work horse and have other products networked into it. They have made some comments about this in the past when asked if the Xbox would become the central entertainment unit, and they pointed out that it would just be a satalite for the PC. So I’m sure the thought process here is that the Xbox could share information with the PC, and that would remove most of the need for a stand alone HD. Unless you don’t have a PC, or you don’t have a network laced into your living room. Which is most people.
Of course, last I heard, the PS3 was supposed to have a HD included… Odd.
K
So, has Microsoft confirmed this yet? I’ll wait for word from them. Also, my pet theory is that if they do have any type of hard drive they’ll sell it with the next gen Live kit.
If this ends up being true it should have a pretty big impact on your company’s ability to make CRPGs for MS. The company line always seemed to be that there was no way to make KOTOR on a system without the hard drive. MMOs may be able to get away with “Hard drive add on” required, but most other games will be crippling their sales if they do that. Xbox Live is currently in maybe 10% of Xbox owning households?
Are you kidding? You unplug one and plug in the other. That’s not complex. Most figured out how to run a DVD player and a VCR at the same time, or they paid extra to get the VCR “emulated” in a combo player.
Anyway, Nintendo never makes its consoles backwards compatibile, and somehow Mario fans (or their parents) figured out how to have an N64 and a Gamecube hooked up for the time until the new Mario game is released.
(And let’s not forget that the people buying the next-gen consoles right out of the game know what they’re doing. The apparently ignorant masses will wait until there’s a compelling reason to buy, or the price drops.)
It may not be a huge thing, but it will be a sales factor.
Not if there’s enough launch titles to make people say, “Why would I want to play that old and crappy game?”
What compelling argument is Microsoft going to make to me that makes me think I don’t care that my new Xbox 2 won’t play my old Xbox games? I would prefer that it did. Kind of sucks if it won’t.
The compelling argument is that you already have an Xbox, so why would you want two of them?
By not including the hard drive in Xbox 2, it could, in theory, lower the price of the console, making it launch at, say, $249 instead of $299. Would you be willing to pay extra money for a hard drive solely to have your old console emulated on your new new one? If you answer no, emulation isn’t that important to you.
Just for the record, I think Microsoft is making a lot of smart moves and I’m encouraged by all that we’re hearing regarding the next console. The hard drive is not needed. I think it was a big mistake to include it as standard. It also sounds like they’re not as committed to turning it into a media center machine which I absolutely applaud. There’s no reason why these game machines need to do a million other things too. Having it be able to do stuff with the PC as the hub makes a lot more sense because if I don’t want to pay extra for that, I don’t have to.
They’re now following a more standardized console model that has proven successful for the major console makers in the past. It’s all about creating lean and powerful hardware that you can sell for super cheap. Anything that prevents the “cheap” part from happening has to go and the hard drive was definitely preventing that and not making up for it significantly in software related ways.
Also, I’m all for thwarting piracy through non-standard internal hardware design. Whether it’s Nintendo’s little discs that spin the wrong way or building your system around something closer to a Macintosh, it makes great business sense.
–Dave
Some things people are forgetting is that flash media is dropping in price pretty fast. DaveC obviously hasn’t looked at prices in a while, it’s down to about 25 cents a meg, retail. That’s practically half of what it was a year ago. On top of that, a company buying them in bulk quantities (like MS would have to do to put them in xboxes) would most likely save a large chunk of change.
A guestimate of 10 cents a meg for mass quantities right now, and an estimate of it halfing twice again before the xbox hits shelves, puts it at 2.5 cents per meg by the time the xbox needs to come out. That would mean a 512mb flash card in the machine would cost MS all of 15 bucks. Even if it were 30 or 40$, it wouldn’t matter too much.
They’ll be selling the console at a loss when it is released, and they’ll be picking parts that will become cheaper as the lifetime of the console increases so they can turn to profitability. Flash is the perfect medium for this.
I still don’t understand how that makes Flash a better choice than a hard drive. I mean, Flash is cheaper than it used to be, but even at 25 cents per MB (retail), it’s nowhere close to being as cheap as a hard drive, which costs about 75 cents per GB (retail). For the same price, you get about 300 times the storage space.
Yeah, but then you also bulk up the system with a lot of other devices. You need some kind of IDE controller; harddrives add size and weight to the system; harddrives have a minimum associated cost due to materials and manufacturing alone. Shit, I would bet that just the added weight to the system alone increases their shipping and distribution costs.
I think there are a lot of factors, and I think what it comes down to is that flash is simple, and harddrives are complex.