1: I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. They are going back to older ideas that WE KNOW work, and making some great changes. And new Ideas too. Nintendo is also very original.
2: As I read more and more of this stuff, I’m starting to think there’s no reason for any of us to mock the others. Friendly sportsmanship, yes. But everyone has good reasons to like the systems that they like. They really ALL have stuff certain people can find attractive. It’s like arguing over blondes and brunets… why bother? You can say “brunets are the shit”. It just all comes down different tastes.
Microsoft didn’t dethrone Netscape by pouring millions into IE and writing a better browser. They did it by illegally leveraging their Windows monopoly to “integrate” IE into the OS and screw up Netscape (and now they’re going after AIM).
Without a Windows-monopoly-type trump card in the video game console war, Microsoft will have a damn hard time dethroning Sony any time soon.
Oh and by the way Slacker, I said some nice things about your comments last night but I didn’t see that remark. I find it interesting that you must refer to someone ELSES post for an example of intelligent conversation.
Besides, people . . we are talking . .VIDEO GAMES? Since when does intelligence enter into THAT topic?
Jet Set Radio Future, Gun Valkyrie, Toejam & Earl III, and Panzer Dragoon Orta will not be available for the PC, and Knights of the Old Republic and Halo won’t be available for the PC for at least a year. Also all three consoles are technically computers, but none of them are PCs; many xbox games are available for PC but that doesn’t mean it is one. To sit down and play it is no different than the ps2 or the cube.
Xbox will have FFXI and Phantasy Star Online 1 & 2 and those are just the MMORPG’s, xbox will have a lot of online support. Plus many xbox owners like me will be playing Everquest or Star Wars Galaxies on the PC. It’s premature to assume ps2 will dominate online gaming.
I’m in full agreement with you about the ie/netscape wars, but in the console wars I think m$ is playing a different strategy. I think they just wanted to get their foot in the door with xbox, make a name for themselves as a respectable console maker, and slowly chip away at the king of the heap, Ps2. In that regard I think they’ve succeeded. Some Ps2 owners may think the xbox is an overpowered, craptastic behemoth, but many early adopters like me are still happy with their purchase. But I admit it would be unusual for bill to employ a plan that benign. He didn’t get his face borg-ized on slashdot for nuthin. Either way, the group that benefits from aggressive competition among the mega corps is us, the consumers.
That’s still a rumor, I think. At least, FFXI isn’t on the Upcoming Games list… 'course, that list could simply be incomplete.
As for the Xbox being a PC… people only say that because it has a hard drive. I find that odd. Is, say, the iPod a PC just because it, too, uses a hard drive?
Not to hijack this further, but I don’t think there’s anything debatable about it – Microsoft Senior Vice President James Allchin himself wrote an internal email in 1996 that noted (a) Netscape continued to dominate the browser market over IE, and (b) Microsoft’s only solution to change that was to tie IE and Windows together, to leverage their Windows monopoly power.
It even made court evidence in the MS antitrust trial. See this link for details.
As recently noted in Salon, Sony’s big advantage is that they control all of the technology in the PS2 – if they can consolidate the hardware further, they can lower the price of the PS2 more, which will cause Microsoft to either lose customers (by not lowering the XBox price to match) or lose more money (by cutting the price further and taking an even bigger loss on each unit sold). Nintendo can also play the same game; Microsoft cannot.
And if PSX magazine is to be believed, Sony is currently selling 65,000 PS2s per week, compared to Microsoft’s 28,000 XBoxes. Not only do more units attract more developers, but Sony could lose half of their weekly sales and still maintain a big lead in the market.
I doubt FFXI will come to the Xbox, but it could happen, MMORPGs like to have as many potential customers as possible.
And people say it’s a PC cause it has a hard drive, network adapter, Intel processor, Nvidia video card, and Microsoft OS. (Of course it’s a lot more complicated than that - I don’t disagree with you, just pointing out where people get the idea)
SPOOFE is right FFXI for xbox is not confirmed, and the last time it was brought up was almost a year ago: Final Fantasy XI To Go Multiplatform, but it is still a possibility.
As for xbox hardware not coming down in price as fast as ps2, that might be right, but it will still drop; a celeron 733 and a GF3 don’t cost what they did a year ago by a long shot. And, Microsoft has said they are willing to lose serious money on this project for at least three years. Their resources allow them the luxury to do it. Also I said earlier that m$ sees the massive potential in the video game market, I think everyone does now, and they are not going sit by as Sony and Nintendo split billions of dollars between themselves even if it they have to lose millions before they start making a profit.
All I said was that m$ wanted to chip away at ps2, assuming those numbers stay steady, and not factoring gcn into things there should be about 1.5 million xbox’s sold this year and about 3.4 million ps2s. If you ask me that’s a sizable chip in the gaming market.
::minor hijak:: I do realize that Microsoft is an especially nasty, domineering company. Deep down I wish xbox was made by Atari or Sega or some other company that isn’t m$, but for me its like nike shoes. I know the company does shady shit that isn’t right, but I can’t help but prefer their product to the competition. And seriously, do jaggies bother no one but me? Hell I was laughed at in the IGN forums when I suggested Sony develop a limited supply of high end, pricey ps2-turbos, same system, same games, faster hardware, more ram, ethernet, and a hard drive.
