X06 All Over Your Face

[ForumBot 0.8 beta]

X06 All Over Your Face

Microsoft did it's X06 *thing* today. It's still going on, but here's the best tidbits of news:

- As I guessed, Guitar Hero 2 is coming to the 360. Downloadable content confirmed.
- Bioshock is console exclusive to the 360. Coming this Spring with the PC version.
- Splinter Cell 5 is a 360 exclusive.
- GTA4/360 will get two expansion packs on XBL. They're supposed to be as long as Liberty City Stories.
- There is Assassin's Creed footage for the 360 now.
- Doom hit the 360 today. Sensible Soccer coming as well (awesome).
- Eidos is not releasing ANY PS3 skus for 2 years. Everything is Xbox exclusive. ZING!

There's a ton of other XBL stuff out there, as well as lots of trailers. I'll make a little compilation thing of the videos I can get later this week. Needless to say, Microsoft is kicking ass. That's not opinion by the way, it's truth.

[Big Gulp]

There's a ton of other XBL stuff out there, as well as lots of trailers. I'll make a little compilation thing of the videos I can get later this week. Needless to say, Microsoft is kicking ass. That's not opinion by the way, it's truth.

Yep.  360 has the North American and possibly the Euro market all sewn up.  I'm not prepared to say that Nintendo will come in second, but it's definitely a race between them and Sony.

[Endie]

That's a brave statement, Gulp, and I'm not sure I'd go quite as far as that, but I am certainly feeilng very smug at making the decision to go 360 early (only my second launch day console purchase - other was PSP, doh).

[murdoc]

I'm impressed so far with all the info Microsoft is releasing, not only through the media but with downloadable content on XBL.

I need a bigger 360 HD.

[Fabricated]

I'm discouraged by most of this since I'm in the camp that Microsoft will kill console gaming should they get ahold of the market.

[schild]

That camp is stupid and for fat kids.

[Fabricated]

That camp is stupid and for fat kids.

Homogenized shit will truly be the order of the day if Microsoft ends up the only game in town.

[Velorath]

That camp is stupid and for fat kids.

Homogenized shit will truly be the order of the day if Microsoft ends up the only game in town.

I'm curious how you make that leap in logic.  If the game market were to become homogenized shit, that would be the fault of the people who make the games not the consoles.

[schild]

More than that, what? There's more of a variety of shit on the xbox than any other system. They're single handedly bringing back the shmup also. At first it was just FPS titles and shit, but they've expanded quite well. Even companies like Namco, Idea Factory and Genki are jumping in.

Microsoft has done something the gaming world has needed since its birth. A solid hardware platform with a solid software dev kit. That's what Microsoft does. If they rule the gaming world, things will only get better.

Just sayin.

[Trippy]

Xbox is very small portion of Microsoft's overall revenue (under 10%) not to mention the group is still running at a loss. If they somehow manage to get Sony and Nintendo to quit the market the Xbox will go the way of IE -- they will neglect it unless some other serious competitor comes along since it isn't worth their time and money. Windows and Office is where they get over 85% of their revenue and all of their profits except for a teeny tiny contribution from MSN.

[Endie]

To be fair to fabricated, his knee-jerk anti-M$ stance has an arguable premise beneath it.  Microsoft has traditionally developed quite a few of its best products when there is competition forcing it to innovate.  Excel advanced rapidly while Lotus was around, most of the better aspects of Word are ancient now, dating from the WordPerfect era.  VB was perhaps that oddest of things - real, greenfield MS innovation - but Visual Studio benefited a lot from Borland's pressure (although I admit caution on that one - I was once interviewed for and offered a role working on the VS compiler engine team, which was in France and definitely not with MS themselves)

There are some counter-examples, of course, not least in the opsys: for instance OLE may have been up against CORBA but that didn't stop it being slow, cludgy and leaky.

I don't want MS to dominate: I want Sony, MS and even Nintendo to compete fiercely on price and innovation.  But the prophecy that MS will "kill console gaming" is mong candy.  You and David Icke should get together and go bowling some time.

[schild]

Once again:

You buy systems because of third party developers, not because of Microsoft. Unless you're a noob FPS player with a love for Halo.

[HaemishM]

Xbox is very small portion of Microsoft's overall revenue (under 10%) not to mention the group is still running at a loss. If they somehow manage to get Sony and Nintendo to quit the market the Xbox will go the way of IE -- they will neglect it unless some other serious competitor comes along since it isn't worth their time and money. Windows and Office is where they get over 85% of their revenue and all of their profits except for a teeny tiny contribution from MSN.

That's now. Microsoft isn't looking at the now, they are looking at the future. How long do you think Windows PC's are going to be as prevalent as they are now? Not that long, because really, normal people only use computers when they have to. You give them a set top box that can browse and buy shit off the Internet, that they don't have to fuck with to get to work right, and that they can write letters and balance checkbooks with? They'll toss that computer and NEVER LOOK BACK. If Billy can also play games on it, even better. The X-Box and the 360 are not about the right now. They are about the hooks being put into households for the 5-10 year future periods.

[Fabricated]

I base my assumption off of all of Microsoft's activities in every sector of business they've gotten into. The "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" mantra discovered during the anti-trust suits seems to actually be their strategy in nearly everything they do. I don't believe it's any different for their Xbox division. It's not really about making massive profits right now or even holding a majority of the market in the short OR Long picture, it's holding ALL of the market that's the goal.

[schild]

Even if they held all of the market, it wouldn't matter. The gaming industry is a creative industry and an entertainment industry. Microsoft had never set foot in an industry like this before. No matter what happens, they can not hurt the industry the way you say. Take off the tinfoil hat.

[Trippy]

Even if they held all of the market, it wouldn't matter. The gaming industry is a creative industry and an entertainment industry. Microsoft had never set foot in an industry like this before. No matter what happens, they can not hurt the industry the way you say. Take off the tinfoil hat.

And you think XNA Game Studio is the second coming of Robot Jesus. You can't have it both ways -- either Microsoft has absolutely no influence on what game developers do on their platform or they are *the* major influence.

Xbox is very small portion of Microsoft's overall revenue (under 10%) not to mention the group is still running at a loss. If they somehow manage to get Sony and Nintendo to quit the market the Xbox will go the way of IE -- they will neglect it unless some other serious competitor comes along since it isn't worth their time and money. Windows and Office is where they get over 85% of their revenue and all of their profits except for a teeny tiny contribution from MSN.

That's now. Microsoft isn't looking at the now, they are looking at the future. How long do you think Windows PC's are going to be as prevalent as they are now? Not that long, because really, normal people only use computers when they have to. You give them a set top box that can browse and buy shit off the Internet, that they don't have to fuck with to get to work right, and that they can write letters and balance checkbooks with? They'll toss that computer and NEVER LOOK BACK. If Billy can also play games on it, even better. The X-Box and the 360 are not about the right now. They are about the hooks being put into households for the 5-10 year future periods.

I've talked about this before but there is no way Microsoft would cannibalize their OS sales by putting IE on the Xbox unless they have a monopoly position and institute the "Microsoft tax" on the Xbox at which point it's no different than a PC except that they control all the hardware as well (how convenient).

[Fabricated]

Even if they held all of the market, it wouldn't matter. The gaming industry is a creative industry and an entertainment industry. Microsoft had never set foot in an industry like this before. No matter what happens, they can not hurt the industry the way you say. Take off the tinfoil hat.

To be honest I have the same fears about Sony but they've proven to be supremely incompetant in securing any of their technologies as a standard since they don't understand the lock-in comes AFTER your scheme is adopted widely.

[HaemishM]

I've talked about this before but there is no way Microsoft would cannibalize their OS sales by putting IE on the Xbox unless they have a monopoly position and institute the "Microsoft tax" on the Xbox at which point it's no different than a PC except that they control all the hardware as well (how convenient).

But they won't cannibalize their OS just by giving away IE on the X-Box 360. It's not like businesses will start using 360's on every desk. The consumer market for OSes is not large enough to restrict them in that way, and the business side of the OS market is never going away. The 360 is actually more like what Microsoft wishes the PC side could be: they get to choose what media and software you can run on it, and they get a cut of most of those media/software sales. Microsoft doesn't really want to sell you a copy of Office, they want to sell you an Office subscription.

[Yegolev]

Why don't we talk about how Bioshock is going to be a console game instead of a real System Shock successor, and how the babies need mommy?

[Trippy]

I've talked about this before but there is no way Microsoft would cannibalize their OS sales by putting IE on the Xbox unless they have a monopoly position and institute the "Microsoft tax" on the Xbox at which point it's no different than a PC except that they control all the hardware as well (how convenient).

But they won't cannibalize their OS just by giving away IE on the X-Box 360. It's not like businesses will start using 360's on every desk. The consumer market for OSes is not large enough to restrict them in that way, and the business side of the OS market is never going away.

Consumer PC shipments in 2005 was 36% of the total (consumer + commercial). I don't know how the consumer vs. commercial licensing costs works out for MS but assuming they are the same (XP Home is cheaper than XP Professional for the consumer but large businesses probably get a significant discount on XP Pro) then that's $4.4 billion in revenue and $3.4 billion in profit.

[Sky]

Why don't we talk about how Bioshock is going to be a console game instead of a real System Shock successor, and how the babies need mommy?

No, let's just stay in denial.

[HaemishM]

I've talked about this before but there is no way Microsoft would cannibalize their OS sales by putting IE on the Xbox unless they have a monopoly position and institute the "Microsoft tax" on the Xbox at which point it's no different than a PC except that they control all the hardware as well (how convenient).

But they won't cannibalize their OS just by giving away IE on the X-Box 360. It's not like businesses will start using 360's on every desk. The consumer market for OSes is not large enough to restrict them in that way, and the business side of the OS market is never going away.

Consumer PC shipments in 2005 was 36% of the total (consumer + commercial). I don't know how the consumer vs. commercial licensing costs works out for MS but assuming they are the same (XP Home is cheaper than XP Professional for the consumer but large businesses probably get a significant discount on XP Pro) then that's $4.4 billion in revenue and $3.4 billion in profit.

And if you eventually end up transferring even 1/4 of that 36% to the 360's successors, and tie things like web browsing and email and Microsoft Word and such into an X-Box Live subscription, you've got some pretty decent monthly revenue. $72 a year for the Live subscription vs. a one-shot $99 buy for XP Home is not a bad trade, especially if they can manage to make the X-Box hardware a profitable proposition.

[Trippy]

And if you eventually end up transferring even 1/4 of that 36% to the 360's successors, and tie things like web browsing and email and Microsoft Word and such into an X-Box Live subscription, you've got some pretty decent monthly revenue. $72 a year for the Live subscription vs. a one-shot $99 buy for XP Home is not a bad trade, especially if they can manage to make the X-Box hardware a profitable proposition.

Then they are instituting a Microsoft tax. I only said they wouldn't give away IE for free on the Xbox.

[HaemishM]

It won't be free, since it'll be tied to Live subscription fees. And Microsoft tax? You just made some Microsoft Exec get a woody.

[Trippy]

It won't be free, since it'll be tied to Live subscription fees.

Xbox Live Silver is free for Xbox 360 owners.

[schild]

ALL OVER YOUR FACE.

[Sky]

I'm weeping turd tears.

[Yegolev]

I'm weeping turd tears.

Once again, everyone in my immediate area wonders what I am laughing at.

[HaemishM]

It won't be free, since it'll be tied to Live subscription fees.

Xbox Live Silver is free for Xbox 360 owners.

So don't give it to Silver users, which is what I meant when I said "tie IE into the Live subscription." I don't consider Silver level a subscription to Live, since the whole point of Live originally was to be able to play online.