X-Box 2 - No HD and No Backwards Compatibility

[groov]

i think the idea that the hard drive is being omitted because of hackers is absurd.

microsoft merely realized that the majority of people didnt even come CLOSE to using the 8 gigs on the xbox- most people's savegames can fit on a 16 meg memory card. Why piss away money on a HD when you can omit it and then charge people for flash memory cards? Its a pretty obvious move on their part.... why give people something that pushes the console price up when you can charge them for it afterwards.

 

[Doaln]

i think the idea that the hard drive is being omitted because of hackers is absurd.

microsoft merely realized that the majority of people didnt even come CLOSE to using the 8 gigs on the xbox- most people's savegames can fit on a 16 meg memory card. Why piss away money on a HD when you can omit it and then charge people for flash memory cards? Its a pretty obvious move on their part.... why give people something that pushes the console price up when you can charge them for it afterwards.

exactly. eliminating that aspect of the piracy issue is just a bonus.

 

[misfit]

thnak jesus someone one finally said that it wasnt fuckert modders that killed the hd deal

 

[Musashi]

its the hackers fault....thing of all the pirated games and homebrew apps xbox has. xbox has been hacked to pieces.

no, Hackers are not at fault. The are the cause but they are not to blame. The vast majority purchased their X-boxes legally and I think they have a right to play with it any way they want. Once I buy something, fuck you, it's mine. I can use it as per the manual or I can use it as a booster seat at chucky cheese's.

The fault, the BLAME, goes to Microsoft, with their orwellian need for control.

as for the software piracy, again... fuck em. I buy disks and packaging, I refuse to acknowlage ideas as property as long as the IP laws are so fucked. I'll respect your IP rights when you respect mine.


Bottom line, HAckers were in the right and microsoft has sand in the pussy.

 

[Achilles]

I buy disks and packaging, I refuse to acknowlage ideas as property as long as the IP laws are so fucked. I'll respect your IP rights when you respect mine.

Please, explain how intellectual property laws are improper.

 

[Musashi]

Please, explain how intellectual property laws are improper.

When the US constitution was written, the term of protection was 14 years.

over the past century corporations have purchased laws extending it (for all intents and purposes) indefinatly.

Public domain is being sapped away and our fair use rights are being sodomized. What we are seeing is similar to the 17th century land-grab in europe, where lords snapped up all of the common lands and kicked the commoners to the curb. today, it's not the common lands that are being snatched out from under us, it's ideas.



I'm sorry, but untill IP law is fixed, I'm ignoring it.

 

[Doaln]

When the US constitution was written, the term of protection was 14 years.

over the past century corporations have purchased laws extending it (for all intents and purposes) indefinatly.

Public domain is being sapped away and our fair use rights are being sodomized. What we are seeing is similar to the 17th century land-grab in europe, where lords snapped up all of the common lands and kicked the commoners to the curb. today, it's not the common lands that are being snatched out from under us, it's ideas.



I'm sorry, but untill IP law is fixed, I'm ignoring it.

 

[Musashi]

that fucking mouse WILL be public domain someday, just not in my lifetime

 

[MST3K-rules]

If they do a big flash drive like 1 gig, then that'll be okay.

Backwards compatibility would be too hard since they switched hardware.

What matters to me is that they make it graphically superior to everything else and that the included flash technology is good enough to allow for the great load-time reducing features of the Xbox.

 

[Sigma8]

I hope everyone realizes that if it wasn't for the extreme moddibility of the X-Box, it very likely would have died an early death, ala Dreamcast. I'm sure you remember the lack of really decent game on the X-box for a long while (with the exception of Halo and a couple of others)

Dreamcast was highly moddable. It stands right now as probably the most heavily modded console yet. I think it was the first console to run Linux, and well, I'm not sure what else you do with modded systems other than play pirated games. Warez and linux. Anyway, it did that.

MS was supremely pissed at the modders, because MS knows that they basically were packaging a $600 windows PC and selling it for $300. And if it was easy to run Linux or whatever on it, they could look forward to every linux hacker in the world buying the cheapest linux PC ever at $300. Colleges would build beowulf clusters out of the shit, if it were legal. And all that while, MS would be eating that $300 loss for each unit--and presumably most of these purchasers would have ZERO interest in buying games.

SOME STATS:
========
And for Varnish saying it "prolly" loses money, that's more like "definitely" or "known as a fact". That's hardware. As far as software, not so sure.. But you figure:

about 15 million units worldwide. average loss of $150 per unit (early ones were bigger losses than current ones, due to streamlining)
total loss = $2,250,000,000
marketing budget (for 1, 2 or 3 years.. I forget): $5 billion
net loss: 7 and a quarter billion dollars.

Claimed titles sold per system: 2 or 3 (anyone help?)
my estimate on average titles sold per system: 10 (which I would say for any console)
royalties: cheap you say? I think Sony was about $10 per title, so we'll say $8 = $1.2 billion dollars royalty profit

Figure that everyone bought Halo, as one of those 10 titles, so add the remainder from the royalty price and the wholesale price that retailers pay (figure $8 + $22 (developer) + $20 (retailer) = $50, so $22 * 15,000,000)
= $330,000,000

So 1.53 billion dollars of profits to date, versus $7.25 billion in losses

I'm sure I am missing a lot of numbers here. There are probably additional profit sources, and sources of loss as well (R&D?)

 

[Doaln]

If they do a big flash drive like 1 gig, then that'll be okay.

Backwards compatibility would be too hard since they switched hardware.

What matters to me is that they make it graphically superior to everything else and that the included flash technology is good enough to allow for the great load-time reducing features of the Xbox.

it'll be very interesting to see which system comes out as the best graphics wise. all three systems are using IBM chips, and if i remember right, PS3 is using the "cell" technology and Xbox is using multiple processors. i forget about GC. it might end up being the order they come out.

 

[Doaln]

Sigma8: you are greatly over exaggerating the loss on console sales. I'm not even sure it was $150 loss when the system came out, and i think they are turning a profit now.

edit: actually, probably not a profit now, but less of a loss.

 

[PsioniX]

next gen GC will be backwards compatible

they said so on gamespot a while ago

also they are planning to get it out first

 

[Achilles]

Patent Term History:
- US Constitution, Article I, section VIII: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

- The first United States Patent Act, that of 1790 was a short act of seven sections only entitled "An act to promote the Progress of Useful Arts". Under its terms any two of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War and the Attorney General were empowered to grant patents for terms of up to fourteen years for inventions that were "sufficiently useful and important" provided that the grantee submitted a specification describing the invention (and where appropriate a model thereof) to the Secretary of State at the time of the grant.

- In 1836 a provisional act was made to provided for the possibility of obtaining a seven year extension to the basic fourteen year term in certain circumstances.

- In 1861 a number of amendments were made. Among the more important were: the changing of the term of a utility patent to seventeen years from the date of grant and the provision of terms of three and a half, seven, or fourteen years for design patents at the choice of the applicant

No term was established in the constitution. Further, the patent term of 17 years was extended to a term of 20 years in 1995 because the average US application takes approximately 3 years of prosecution before the patent is issued. Prior to 1995, the patent term began from the date of filing and applicants essentially lost 3 years of protection due to prosecution. Post 1995, patent rights began when the patent was published effectively giving the owner full protection for the full term. The term is 20 years upon which the patent expires and the intellectual property becomes public domain.

I fail to see how this is unjustified.

 

[Doaln]

Patent Term History:
- US Constitution, Article I, section VIII: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

- The first United States Patent Act, that of 1790 was a short act of seven sections only entitled "An act to promote the Progress of Useful Arts". Under its terms any two of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War and the Attorney General were empowered to grant patents for terms of up to fourteen years for inventions that were "sufficiently useful and important" provided that the grantee submitted a specification describing the invention (and where appropriate a model thereof) to the Secretary of State at the time of the grant.

- In 1836 a provisional act was made to provided for the possibility of obtaining a seven year extension to the basic fourteen year term in certain circumstances.

- In 1861 a number of amendments were made. Among the more important were: the changing of the term of a utility patent to seventeen years from the date of grant and the provision of terms of three and a half, seven, or fourteen years for design patents at the choice of the applicant

No term was established in the constitution. Further, the patent term of 17 years was extended to a term of 20 years in 1995 because the average US application takes approximately 3 years of prosecution before the patent is issued. Prior to 1995, the patent term began from the date of filing and applicants essentially lost 3 years of protection due to prosecution. Post 1995, patent rights began when the patent was published effectively giving the owner full protection for the full term. The term is 20 years upon which the patent expires and the intellectual property becomes public domain.

I fail to see how this is unjustified.

i think he meant copyright or whatever. the whole fiasco we had last year around this time when congress voted to extend them again (thus keeping the mickey mouse out of the public domain).

 

[Sigma8]

Sigma8: you are greatly over exaggerating the loss on console sales. I'm not even sure it was $150 loss when the system came out, and i think they are turning a profit now.

edit: actually, probably not a profit now, but less of a loss.

I actually think I read about a $7billion loss somewhere. Keep in mind, that includes all those commercials. That's not just hardware-induced loss.

As for the $100 loss, it may not be $100 now, but I bet you it's at least $50. At launch, it was in excess of $200 per unit. And I remember hearing they had cut it down quite a bit, but it was still a significant loss. Remember they cut deals with nVidia, and the hard drive people well in advance. They get good prices, but if the floor suddenly drops out from beneath the market on an item, they are still locked in at the agreed price. So I doubt they are getting rock bottom nVidia prices just because nVidia has started to suck all of the sudden.

 

[Doaln]

I actually think I read about a $7billion loss somewhere. Keep in mind, that includes all those commercials. That's not just hardware-induced loss.

As for the $100 loss, it may not be $100 now, but I bet you it's at least $50. At launch, it was in excess of $200 per unit. And I remember hearing they had cut it down quite a bit, but it was still a significant loss. Remember they cut deals with nVidia, and the hard drive people well in advance. They get good prices, but if the floor suddenly drops out from beneath the market on an item, they are still locked in at the agreed price. So I doubt they are getting rock bottom nVidia prices just because nVidia has started to suck all of the sudden.

if you check early reports i think MS didn't expect to see a profit on xbox until 2005.

 

[Sigma8]

Patent Term History:
- US Constitution, Article I, section VIII: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

Achilles, the spirit of the above intent in the constitution is to allow people to invent something, and to get profit from it for a limited time. Not to be able to invent one thing (like one-click shopping) and then be able to sit on their fat asses and be rich forever.

It was meant to allow innovators to get income, with the understanding that after a reasonable period of time, everyone would get public domain access to the work, so it could be expanded upon and improved in unforeseen ways. Meanwhile, the inventor would move on to something else, and would presumably create another money making invention that would fund their next product, and so on.

What the whole concept of public domain is meant to do is foster both making money AND a common, public good from sharing of the wealth (of knowledge). And it's meant to PREVENT fatass pig companies that exist solely to own IP and sue people for using it, while themselves doing absolutely nothing productive in society or business (i.e. SCO).

 

[Achilles]

Trademarks:
- names (such as company names, product names)
- domain names if they label a product or service
- images
- symbols
- logos
- slogans or phrases
- colors
- product design
- product packaging

Patents:
- manufacture
- machine
- process
- composition of matter
- or an improvement there of...

So you don't respect IP laws because you don't respect the laws that govern trademarks?

 

[Achilles]

Achilles, the spirit of the above intent in the constitution is to allow people to invent something, and to get profit from it for a limited time. Not to be able to invent one thing (like one-click shopping) and then be able to sit on their fat asses and be rich forever.

It was meant to allow innovators to get income, with the understanding that after a reasonable period of time, everyone would get public domain access to the work, so it could be expanded upon and improved in unforeseen ways. Meanwhile, the inventor would move on to something else, and would presumably create another money making invention that would fund their next product, and so on.

What the whole concept of public domain is meant to do is foster both making money AND a common, public good from sharing of the wealth (of knowledge). And it's meant to PREVENT fatass pig companies that exist solely to own IP and sue people for using it, while themselves doing absolutely nothing productive in society or business (i.e. SCO).

There are two different issues: Patents and Trademarks. Your example of one-click shopping is an example of a patent not a trademark.