Microsoft looks in it for the long haul.

(Btw if your just gonna come here to flame Microsoft. Don't lets all save each other some time, Theres plenty of anti microsoft threads as it is.)

But Microsoft seems extremely persistent about making this console a success, I'm actually fairly surprised by the dedication. Expecially with such the rough reception they are recieving, They seem adamant about making a name for themselves in the business, And keep pouring money into the console even tho its not meeting the original expectations.


http://news.com.com/2100-1040-976094.html

Microsoft on Wednesday said it would pour more resources into its efforts to carve out a position in the $10 billion video game market rather than cutting its losses and exiting from the venture.
When asked if the software giant


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had an "exit strategy" for the year-old Xbox video game machine, Chief Financial Officer John Connors said in a Webcast: "The fallback position is probably to double down and make it successful."

Although Microsoft hasn't disclosed how much it has spent on the Xbox so far, figures released last month showed that the home entertainment division, which includes the Xbox, lost $177 million in the last quarter.



Analysts expect Microsoft to spend more than $2 billion over five years on the Xbox machine, which launched a year ago as part of the company's push to get its technology and software off the desktop and into living rooms worldwide.

Connors was speaking at the Credit Suisse First Boston annual technology conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., which was closed to media.

Japan's Sony, whose PlayStation consoles have been the best-selling video game machines in history, is competing aggressively with Microsoft to hold on to its leading market position.

Both the Xbox and the PlayStation 2 are now linked to the Internet, which is expected to fuel further growth in game titles as users play video games and compete against each other in virtual worlds from their living rooms.

Shares in Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft closed down 17 cents to $56.54 on the Nasdaq composite index after trading higher for most of the day.

Story Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

[Johnmiceter]

Wowww, another Xbox Fan, it seems if you post anything good about Xbox on this board you get flammed.

Just goes to show you how many people have been sucked into Sony's Hype with the ps2.

Well I don't know if you like or even own a Xbox CHris, but I do know it's a top Console and easily the best out of the 3.

And you's will start to see why with in the next year

Well I don't know if you like or even own a Xbox CHris, but I do know it's a top Console and easily the best out of the 3.

No I don't own it. But the fact that I Like microsoft is no secret on this board =p

[campi]

well I think the xbox is better in hardware then ps2, but they just don't have the game support from publishers and game creators

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The One And Only <<||_Sa Te BoLi RaCkU ba_||>>

[Raziel]

What pisses me off is that the guys is not talking of GCN on purpose.

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[Kaiser Sigma]

> What pisses me off is that the guys is not talking of GCN on purpose.

It's a war... no company plays fair so... you don't have to care much about it...

[Exophase]

Originally posted by Johnmiceter
Wowww, another Xbox Fan, it seems if you post anything good about Xbox on this board you get flammed.

Just goes to show you how many people have been sucked into Sony's Hype with the ps2.

Well I don't know if you like or even own a Xbox CHris, but I do know it's a top Console and easily the best out of the 3.

And you's will start to see why with in the next year

Blah blah blah, Sony's hype, it's like a fanboy to think that only those who have "fallen for hype" don't like their system. People are allowed to have their opinions about consoles, okay? Just because they don't like the console you like doesn't mean their opinions aren't necessarily just as legitimate as your's (which may be of questionable legitimacy as it is but we'll leave that for another day)... if anything it looks like you're the one who has fallen into anti-Sony propoganda campaigns (after reading other threads of your's, LOL PS2 SUX IT HAZ GOT TEH JAGIES!!!!1).. and you're the one who's blindly hyping XBox right now, so..

- Exo

[Demigod]

I think the Xbox has the potential to be something big. Microsoft just needs to work at it a bit more. When games arrive that fully utilize the Xbox's DX8 capabilities it'll blow everything away (plus it might give us PC gamers some new DX8 games as well ). MS has the funds to continue with it and I'm sure their efforts will amount to something.

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[Adair]

Fact: Xbox has the most powerful hardware.
Opinion: Xbox has a handful of good games...oh wait, every console has a handful of good games.

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16x DVDrom & 4x4x24x CDrewriter | Enermax EG465 (430watt power supply)

[Kaiser Sigma]

I don't know... everything is possible... besides MS has something that no other company has... money to back up the XBOX for at least 3 or 4 years... at that time I'm pretty sure it will feature some great games...

> (...) (plus it might give us PC gamers some new DX8 games as well ). (...)

Now that's a good way of thinking...

[Ninjaa]

Originally posted by Adair
Fact: Xbox has the most powerful hardware.

Prove it. I will accept a game that has obviously better graphics than anything seen on the other 2 systems as proof.

[Exophase]

Ninja, you know it's true, you hardly need "proof", especially not the kind of subjective one you're asking for. He's saying XBox has more powerful hardware, and what you SHOULD be saying is that it doesn't really matter, not that it's not true.

- Exo

[Ninjaa]

I know that some aspects of the Xbox are more powerful, yes. I know that GameCube's power is superior in other areas. It's not like there is a vast difference in power between the two, it's just that they are powerful in different ways. You of all people should know that Exophase.

Xbox is, with out a doubt, the most powerful of the 3. It is basically just a "stripped down" PC in a box. But what is important is, who is developing for it. Nintendo and Sony both have top name comanies developing for their consoles while MS does not seem to have that many top name companies developing for Xbox. Also, Sony and Nintendo have excellent reputations as video game companies and just plain companies in general. But MS's reputation as a video game company is still forming (based on the success of the Xbox) and it's reputation as just a plain company has been severly hurt by the Anti Trust lawsuits steming from Windows.
This is what could, ultimately, hurt the future of the Xbox.
BTW the Anti Trust Law suits against MS are not over yet. Yet another one is being brought to the Supreme Court. Looks like MS isn't out of the woods yet.
ChrisRay, I also like MS. I enjoy Windows and since 98 and XP have been out I find Windows to have become a very good and stable OS. Also, like you, i am not afraid to say that I like MS and their products. It is just that I do not agree w/Bill Gates business policies at all.
sincerely,
sx/amiga

[Exophase]

Originally posted by Ninja
I know that some aspects of the Xbox are more powerful, yes. I know that GameCube's power is superior in other areas. It's not like there is a vast difference in power between the two, it's just that they are powerful in different ways. You of all people should know that Exophase.

In what way is the GCN more powerful than the XBox? I think you're just talking. I didn't say XBox was vastly more powerful than GCN, but it is definitely more powerful.

- Exo

[grahf]

Originally posted by Exophase


In what way is the GCN more powerful than the XBox? I think you're just talking. I didn't say XBox was vastly more powerful than GCN, but it is definitely more powerful.

- Exo

GCN has a 64 bit CPU whereas Xbox has a 32 bit CPU. PS2 has a 128 bit CPU. So technically, Xbox is the weakest and PS2 is the strongest of the three.

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[Ninjaa]

Well, I think that the most striking hardware difference between the GameCube and Xbox is the GameCube's memory architecture. Using SRAM decreases latency and increases the effectively usable memory bandwidth. This translates into much faster load times than you see on the Xbox, as well as the general performance enhancements that you see in the GameCube.

PC hardware enthusaists I believe are too focused on the specs that they know than is really proper I believe. GameCube is a hybrid built from many types of technologies that you simply do not see in PCs, so the Xbox always leads in discussions by default, as the GameCube is so difficult to benchmark.

The GameCube was built with extreme efficiency in mind, and a lot of the raw power that's present in the hardware can be directly tapped. (loose quote from Denis Dyack, Silicon Knights)

I think it's safe to say that the Xbox can push more polygons than the GameCube, but I think it's also safe to say that the GameCube has better texturing abilities than the Xbox.

The CPU power in the consoles should be about neck and neck, all things considered. The GameCube uses a PowerPC on steroids, with about 40 extra instruction sets, and the Xbox uses a castrated Pentium III with half the regular amount of L2 cache. Given that the GameCube CPU is also a more advanced technology than the x86 CPU that the Xbox uses, the difference in MHz is wholly irrelevant IMHO.

But really, the more powerful system should have better looking games right? Which do you think looks better?





NOTE: Apologize for the low quality shots. I will attempt to find better ones. The Xbox one is too small, and the GameCube one is of crappy quality.

[Exophase]

Originally posted by grahf


GCN has a 64 bit CPU whereas Xbox has a 32 bit CPU. PS2 has a 128 bit CPU. So technically, Xbox is the weakest and PS2 is the strongest of the three.

No offense, but your reasoning sucks. It's bad enough that console companies have turned "bits" into marketting lingo to try to convince others of their competitor's inferiority, but the fact that 15 years later people still aren't educated about it, is just sad.

BTW, you're wrong anyway. GCN's CPU is every bit as 32bit as the XBox's, and PS2's is 64bit.

- Exo

[Exophase]

Ninja, I'm sure the XBox's dual DDR400 can whip the GCN's memory most of the time, and beyond that its x86 cache is much much faster (I don't know how much cache the Gecko has but I seem to remember it being not as much as even the XBox's "P3" with 128kb), and I'm sure the XGPU has a decent amount of very fast texture cache too, although these numbers aren't really disclosed.

- Exo

[Exophase]

Ah, and I really doubt that the GCN's texturing abilities can compare with the XBox when the XBox has pixel shaders and the GCN doesn't. That aside, I do hope you meant 40 new instructions and not 40 new instruction sets o_o.. and according to Anand (the same article you once quoted, iirc) even a Celeron 500 can beat the closest comparable processor out there to the Gecko in benchmarks; the G3 500MHz. The Gecko has 40 new instructions which are probably SIMD, and probably not that much different than the XCPU's (we'll call it that for now) SSE, which it also has over the Celeron. Likewise it has a faster FSB, and of course a higher clockspeed. You can say PPC technology is more advanced all you want, but where are the benchmarks? But really everyone knows that CPU's aren't very important at all in modern consoles (except GBA of course)

Ninja, for you to say that PC owners are too focused on the specs while you know what "really matters" is speaking your own bias because honestly I don't think you're much better informed than anyone, and at best all you can do is quote Nintendo's supporters. If you think GCN is more powerful in various ways, fine, but don't call other people ignorant when you can't do a very good job backing it up objectively yourself.

And about those shots, I think the PS2 and the XBox can manage them without any problem at all. But for me I'm more what impresses me with graphics stems more from how well things are put together and drawn than how much work the machine is doing. Isn't that really what it comes down to, in the end? And that's why your screenshot comparisons will never be even the slightest bit objective. Sorry.

- Exo