Xbox 2 revealed on MTV the week before E3

Bill Gates will let a nipple slip.

I’d say he’d be delighted to suffer a wardrobe malfunction rather than an XBox one.

In the Star Wars tradition: Fuck Xbox!

(Recent convert to PS2, playing Final Fantasy Tactics for PSX on it. Sweet.)

Given that literally everyone I know with an X-box has had to replace it at some point due to the CD-drive going bad, they are going to need all the good PR they can get if they expect us to buy into the next gen. :D

It’s sure a good thing there were no reported drive issues with the Sony consoles. Otherwise Sony could be in a similar boat!

I realize you’re not nessecarily defending the hassle and added expense with memory cards, but boy does that sentence irk me. Gouging consumers for a always-too-small propriety storage format that can’t be backed up to PC is great for shareholders, absolutely awful for gamers. After dismissing the value of HD myself, after a week or so with the Xbox, I became a huge believer in it. Were I to be a one console gamer next gen, the one with a HD would get my money.[/quote]

Oh, don’t get me wrong SK, I like the hard drive and I like not having to buy a memory card. I’ve filled up memory cards on both the GC and PS2, and it’s annoying. When I have a choice, my Xbox is the preferred platform for that reason and others (like controller and graphics smoothness).

But that said, MS just threw everything they thought would be cool into the Xbox with no reference to the typical console revenue model staples of expensive mandatory accessories and gradual cost of production decreases over time. It’s great that the Xbox is a complete solution and that you can take it home without buying anything other than games and start playing. But now they know that providing that level of service means they left money on the table.

Not to mention that when it comes to hard drives, it’s not a question of whether they’re going to fail, but when. 10-15 years from now, a working Xbox will be hard to find.

…and provided a superior customer experience. :wink:

Like I said, the manufacturer that provides a hard drive (or barring that, an easy archival solution) will get my money if I go with just one console (a likely possibility, since space is limited and I don’t see myself disconnecting my Dreamcast anytime soon.) So to get my $20 for a memory card, they’ll leave my $200 for the console (loss leader, I know), my $30 for an extra controller, and my $x * far too many for the games all on the table.

Yeah, because it’s not a problem to find a cheap, working NES these days, and the console never had a problem with the cart connector having gone bad.

You tell me… :wink:

Rick- Yeah, and that’s when a console really makes money. 10-15 years after launch is a sweet spot of bottomless revenue.

The HD is so sweet. How many PS2 memory cards did you have to buy? I ended up with 3. That’s $75. Not to mention the hassle because an criminally large number of PS2 games only use the first memory card slot. I have to fuck around with the cards every single time I want to play a PS2 game. Every single time.

Dave-

  1. Please never use the “All the lurkers love me!” line again. Please. I know you love putting on the martyr hat, but that’s a new low.

  2. Nintendo has managed to keep market leadership in handhelds for 15 years. They also managed 2 successful generations in the home console marketwith the NES and SNES. There’s nothing unique about Sony, they are just as vulnerable as Nintendo was in 1994.

Well, I have a first-gen (Day One) Xbox and I’ve never had to replace anything, nor have I had any problems except for with those darn Official Xbox Mag discs that everyone seems to have problems with. (The boiling trick really does work, by the way…it makes every OXM disc I’ve tried work flawlessly)

On the other hand, my PS2 is a bit of a crapshoot. Some games load up fine, while other give me occasional read errors. I couldn’t play Ratchet & Clank 2 at all.

In 10-15 years it will be trivial to replace with a solid state equivalent…

…heck, that’s what I do now to retire old SCSI 1 drives hooked up to an ancient Apple II. Hello CompactFlash and homebrew board!

a. Handhelds are quite different from regular consoles.
b. The Genesis outsold the SNES, though not by very much.
c. Sony, as far as I know, never contracted with one of the largest electronics companies in the world, who wasn’t even in the games business, to make an addon for the Playstation, and then double-crossed them, goading them into turning the addon into a standalone system that went on to dominate the console games industry for over a decade and counting. As far as I know.

IIRC, the SNES numbers actually ended up higher than Genesis in the long run. I think the Genesis held the lead for a while but the SNES overcame them ultimately when Sega went with the Saturn.

Just as vulnerable? In 1994, Nintendo had pissed off devs and publishers with restrictive licensing fees, heavy censorship of content, and decided to stick with cartridges despite far more restrictive space limitations and more expensive media.

What mistakes has Sony made? If anything, Xbox is adapting to the Sony model next generation.

Given what we know now about both Xbox 2 and PS3, what reason is there to think there will be any reversal in fortune between the two companies next gen?

Yes, the SNES outsold the Genesis/Mega Drive worldwide. I forgot the exact numbers, might have been 35 million for Nintendo’s system and 22 million for Sega’s.

-Julian

The PS2 is the only thing making money for Sony.
The XBox is the only thing not making money for Microsoft.

Sony better hope they don’t slip.

I know what you’re saying, but if the Xbox is the only thing not making money for MS—assuming that’s true—the Xbox is under just as much pressure. Why should MS keep it around if it’s losing money?

Ben-

  1. You’re a jackass. Someone specifically asked me why I posted. I answered. It had nothing to do with you.

  2. I don’t understand this comment because all you’re doing is enforcing my point. Nintendo managed to keep market leadership in handhelds for 15 years. No one has ever really dominated two console generations in a row except Sony. SNES did not outsell Genesis by very much and Sega led for most of the generation until they launched 32X/Saturn and ended Genesis support too soon. Sony has broken the precedent that existed before and shows no signs of slipping next gen.

–Dave

Can we start comparing Dave to HRose now?

I think this next gen is going to be a pitched battle. MS will again have the superior hardware despite the PS3 Reality Distortion Field borrowed from Jobs. Now all they need to do is win over the PS2 only games makers. Why didn’t they spend some money and get some of the weird Japanese shit ported to XBox? Hell, buy Squenix, you can afford it.

There ya go… My opinion is worth(less) just as much as Daves.