MICROSOFT'S DECISION to make its Xbox 360 box available for the Yule season is likely to put pressure on PC OEMs, distributors and dealers attempting to sell full blown Media Centre PCs.
Source: The Inquirer
This is a good argument. If you are looking for a Media Center PC, the $400 price tag of the Xbox 360 is surely tempting. It does have a User Interface, although it is just not Windows XP. That might not be such a bad thing. The Xbox 360 will be able to do music, photos and video just like a Media Center PC, plus it can play Xbox and Xbox 360 games. You could go as far as saying that the Xbox 360 is much more a "Media Center" then the Windows XP powered Media Center PCs that are on the market.
Article comments
1 - Rob
This doesn't make sense. You can't watch movies on an Xbox 360 without a media center PC. So frankly you're going to have to purchase both, if you want the functionality of both.
Without a media center pc. all you can do it watch photos and play music on your Xbox 360. Xbox 360 will connect to you XP machine over the network, and will play stuff off of USB devices like iPods, JumpDrives and even PSP's.
Rob
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2 - DrPat
On the other hand, many games do not load and play easily on the XP.
In gathering background to my Myst review, I saw two sites tech-supporting XP-Riven players for every site that extolled the game, and that's just one game. (Although the video- and audio-rich nature of the Myst games challenge any system, these games worked without trouble on my seven-year-old 98/ME platform.)
3 - Victor Plenty
Windows 98 SE was the last OS friendly to classic gamers, IMHO. Just so long as you don't mind rebooting every time you want to switch to a different game.
4 - Dave Nalle
I can't imagine why anyone would buy any product from Microsoft. The way I figure it, if a game isn't good enough to be ported to the Mac then it's probably not all that worth playing in the first place.
Dave
5 - Victor Plenty
The market differs with you, Dave. Many MS games elicit loyalty and excitement even from die-hard Microsoft haters in the Linux community.
Halo, Age of Empires, Dungeon Siege, and many others have been strong sellers with hotly anticipated sequels.
Granted, Microsoft achieves this mainly through buying out game developers who actually know how to innovate.
6 - Dave Nalle
>>Granted, Microsoft achieves this mainly through buying out game developers who actually know how to innovate.<<
So true. They bought out the makers of my favorite game so they could take the engine, shut down the company and stop producing the only computer game I've ever really liked. They are truly evil.
Dave
7 - nojok3
i agree with rob in comment #1. this post makes no sense because you need the media center to use the media center capabilities for the x36o. learn your stuff ;-)
8 - Matthew T. Sussman
Stamp out racism and italics.
9 - Ken Edwards
Dave - As much as I like my Mac games, that is a poor outlook on Microsoft, the Xbox, and their games. I can be a Mac zealot as much as the next guy, but games are not made for the Mac because they don't sell. They sell for Windows and the home consoles.
And I didn't realize you would need to Media Center PC, or a normal XP box to be able to use USB devices with the Xbox 360 like the iPod, PSP, or thumb drives. If so, that is pretty lame and crippling.
But then you just know that people will be installing Linux on their Xbox 360 in due time. And with detachable hard drives, it makes it that much easier.
10 - Ken Edwards
Someone wasn't kind enough to close their italics tag. Maybe that did it.
11 - Ken Edwards
Grrr. How about now?
12 - Victor Plenty
Never assume malice when stupidity can explain the situation.
I tried to close all my italics tags. Check the page source if you don't believe me. I just happened to miss the / on the last one, leaving two open tags in need of being closed.
Sorry about that.