Bringing Gaming Mainstream - The Xbox 360 debuts on MTV
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 12, 2005 11:18 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Always Connected and Never Modded?
One of Microsoft's very clever tactics with the Xbox 360 is the inclusion of a multi-tiered Xbox Live service. For those that aren't familiar with it, Xbox Live is Microsoft's online gaming network for Xbox owners. Priced at around $50 per year, Xbox Live will let you play Xbox Live enabled games against gamers all over the world. With the Xbox 360, Microsoft is introducing two tiers of Xbox Live subscription: Gold and Silver.
The Gold tier will apparently be similar to what people are paying for today, with all of the new features brought forth by Xbox 360 (e.g. better matchmaking capabilities, more downloadable content, etc...).
The Silver tier is a free option to all Xbox 360 users that Microsoft says will offer the following:
"Players can express their digital identity through their Gamer Profile; connect with friends anytime, anywhere through Xbox Live voice chat; send and receive text and voice message; and access Xbox Live Marketplace to download demos and trailers along with new game levels, maps, weapons, vehicles, skins, classic arcade and card and board games, community-created content, and more to the detachable Xbox 360 hard drive — all right out of the box at no extra cost. Composed of user-generated information such as Achievements (rewards players have earned in games), Gamerzone (style of play), and a custom-created Gamertile (a visual icon to represent the gamer online), the Gamer Profile makes it easy to connect with the Xbox Live community."
So basically, the Silver tier will let you download some new content, trailers, chat with friends and give you an avatar among other things. But what's interesting is that Xbox Live Silver will most likely also be used to prevent people from hacking/modding the xbox 360. The current Xbox can be modded to run just about anything - from Linux, to working as a media center to running pirated games. There is one major exception - Microsoft checks a number of items about your Xbox when you login to Xbox Live to make sure it isn't modded; if it is, you can't connect. By offering a free Xbox Live service to all users, Microsoft is trying their best to combat the mainstream market from modding their Xbox 360s - however in order for the ploy to truly work Microsoft really needs to make the Silver tier more attractive. But then again, maybe Microsoft isn't concerned about the limited modding community and is more interested in making sure it doesn't spread modding mainstream as it takes the Xbox 360 more mainstream.
The other limitation to the Xbox 360 modding community will be the fact that all Xbox 360 games are supposed to be Live-enabled. If the more compelling features of future titles revolve around Xbox Live, modding interest in this new console may be further diminished but by no means dead.
The new Xbox 360 controllers feature a "360 button" in the center, that will act as sort of a "home" button - taking you to a screen where you can launch games, view messages from your online buddies, get access to downloadable content, etc... Microsoft brought a console to market with the first Xbox, but with Xbox 360 they are really trying to build another flexible machine to have in your home, supported by and working with your PC.
The Xbox 360 will accept images from your digital camera, movies and music either through its USB ports or (presumably) over the network.
Final Words
There's a lot more to this powerful new console, and we will be covering it as well as the hardware behind Sony's Playstation 3 during next week's E3 expo in Los Angeles.
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ImJacksAmygdala - Friday, May 13, 2005 - link
Does the Xbox360 upscale DVD 480p to 720p or 1080i via HDMI to an HDTV?Can I surf the web with a wireless keyboard and mouse via the USB?
Can I use a MCE remote?
Can I get DD5.1 or greater for games and movies on my audio reciever?
If the answer is no to any of the above I will pass on the Xbox360 and just build a HTPC. I hope Microsoft has been paying attention what the HTPC and widescreen gaming crowds are doing.
Does anybody know the answer to these questions?
creathir - Friday, May 13, 2005 - link
I suppose water cooling is hard to believe for most here in the PC world because most PC users are used to the giant tanks of water and stuff with tubes coming out the back of your machine. Water cooling in these cases is because the heat dissipation is relatively similar to that of with just air, but ya don't have to have the high RPM/giant fans that you do with air solutions... It really does make a lot of sense why they do it...- Creathir
Houdani - Friday, May 13, 2005 - link
I predict that ATM will next accuse Anand of *hosting* the alleged torrent/warez site. Sheesh.So, um, ahem -- ATM, what'cha doing with those dubious files which supposedly originated from an illicit source anyhoo?
pot = black = kettle
DCstewieG - Friday, May 13, 2005 - link
Why is water cooling so unbelievable? Apple is using it. And IIRC even Dreamcast was.milomnderbnder21 - Friday, May 13, 2005 - link
"#15, so you're marketing a GAMING product to NON-gamers...This makes complete sense..."They know that the gamers are going to be watching all the coverage of E3 next week, or they are reading the specs online, they don't need to appeal to us on MTV. They are on there to catch the interest of the people that otherwise wouldn't be too interested. Marketers are smarter than you give them credit for.
"water cooled (I also doub't that) or not."
What, you think they are going to just straight up lie about that? Again, how stupid do you think they are? They wouldn't be so a big, rich, powerful corporation that out of nowhere broke into the console industry if they weren't smart.
I think the system looks pretty sexy, and as more coverage comes out of games and stuff I'm getting more and more excited about this, as stupid as the MTV thing was I understand it wasn't meant for me. I'm really looking forwards to what comes out of E3.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, May 13, 2005 - link
AnandThenManIt does look very close, here's my MCE shot (ignore the file name, the MTV Guide was off yesterday for some reason but the timestamp explains all):
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/xbox360/...
As for the cores being really hot - remember that they are much simpler cores than any modern day desktop CPU, so don't assume they would eat the same amount of power. And it is also possible that IBM is using the same sort of dynamic domino logic in the Xbox 360 CPU as they did in Cell to keep power consumption down.
Take care,
Anand
blwest - Friday, May 13, 2005 - link
#15, so you're marketing a GAMING product to NON-gamers...This makes complete sense...blwest - Friday, May 13, 2005 - link
#8, why are you even on these forums? Go AWAY.blwest - Friday, May 13, 2005 - link
By the mere fact that Microsoft associates themselves with MTV, I am NOT buying one.creathir - Friday, May 13, 2005 - link
#36You need to adjust your monitor...
His capture is different from your capture.
The color differences are quite apparent.
#22
The official Microsoft specs state the following:
Overall System Floating-Point Performance:
1 teraflop
Check it out at:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm
That’s where the figure comes from... it also was mentioned by J. Allard at GDC, as well as in the ourcolony.net video. Anand got it right;)
- Creathir