Xbox 2 specs...

[tec699]

LINK

It doesn't look all that promising...

backwards-compatibility isn't guaranteed, and probably no hard drive unless PS3 ships with one. The Xbox was clearly the best hardware on the market this generation and that's why people bought it. They'll need a similar reason to buy Xbox 2 instead of the PlayStation 3, or they'll go for the safe, Sony choice.

 

[Saulbadguy]

The article keeps going back and forth with "They plan on this, but might do that, depending on what Sony/Nintendo does". Seems too inconclusive.

 

[thrashev]

just rumors and speculation

nothing official

 

[NorthRiver]

They are gonna kill themselves without the hard drive!!

 

[sman789]

its like a super gaming pc and sounds like it'll be at least 300 again

i'll just take my PSP (prolly $150) and wait for ps2

 

[PricklyPete]

I'm going to take these with a huge grain of salt until I see something official from Microsoft. I agree that no hard drive and no backwards compatibility would be a huge mistake...but I'm not believeing it at this point.

On the subject of no backwards compatibility...I don't see how that can be true. The whole point of DirectX is to have a layer between hardware and games that is geared towards performance. You do not write hardware specific DirectX games like you do OpenGL games (at least you can write an OpenGL specific game by using that hardware vendors extensions).

That doesn't mean that you can't optimize for a specific piece of hardware. That just involves understanding how the DirectX API interacts with the piece of hardware and writing the program to take advantage of the hardwares strong points. If the ATI hardware that is going into the Xbox 2 is outrageously fast, than it should not have any difficulty running DirectX 8.1 games written for the Xbox 1.

Now there could be some intellectual property infringment that Microsoft could have gotten themselves into with nVidia...but I have a hard time believing they would have been that stupid.

 

[labrat25]

blu-ray? i thought there was a flormat war for the next DVD spec goin' on

and the all important question... hackable? (fingers crossed)

 

Xbox2 = Dreamcast Redux

 

[JoeKing]

WHAT no Harddrive!! the harddrive is one key reason the xbox rocks. still at 50k+ blocks even with 3 cds on the drive.

 

[tec699]

Originally posted by: labrat25
blu-ray? i thought there was a flormat war for the next DVD spec goin' on

and the all important question... hackable? (fingers crossed)

Well I have a feeling that the Xbox 2 might not have the harddrive because of the fact that people were modding and ripping games on the console. Hard to do if the console doesn't have the harddrive.

Also, the cost of those harddrives must be eating into Microsoft's profits.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: tec699

Originally posted by: labrat25
blu-ray? i thought there was a flormat war for the next DVD spec goin' on

and the all important question... hackable? (fingers crossed)

Well I have a feeling that the Xbox 2 might not have the harddrive because of the fact that people were modding and ripping games on the console. Hard to do if the console doesn't have the harddrive.

Also, the cost of those harddrives must be eating into Microsoft's profits.

I read somewhere recently (newspaper I think) that they lose close to $1 billion a year on the X-Box. Not sure where the figures came from or how accurate they are.



Edit: With only 13 million sold, that's darn near impossible. I think they lose about $100 on each, for a total of about $1.3 billion. I'll see if I can find the article I was reading
Text

 

[Cuda1447]

Ya its ALOT easier to rip games onto the harddrive of an X-box then it is to copy Ps2 games. ALOT EASIER. They must lose alot of money on that.

 

[Murphy Durphy]

Originally posted by: mugsywwiii

Originally posted by: tec699

Originally posted by: labrat25
blu-ray? i thought there was a flormat war for the next DVD spec goin' on

and the all important question... hackable? (fingers crossed)

Well I have a feeling that the Xbox 2 might not have the harddrive because of the fact that people were modding and ripping games on the console. Hard to do if the console doesn't have the harddrive.

Also, the cost of those harddrives must be eating into Microsoft's profits.

I read somewhere recently (newspaper I think) that they lose close to $1 billion a year on the X-Box. Not sure where the figures came from or how accurate they are.



Edit: With only 13 million sold, that's darn near impossible. I think they lose about $100 on each, for a total of about $1.3 billion. I'll see if I can find the article I was reading
Text

Yes, but every company loses on hardware sales. Your forgetting to factor in the sales from software, where they make all their money.

 

[phatj]

those arent specs, rumors at the best. Microsoft hasn't released anything yet, there are "xbox 2 specs" from a year and a half ago floating around.

 

[TuxDave]

I see nothing wrong with no backwards compatibility. NES-SNES-N64-Gamecube are all on its own.

 

[Electric Amish]

X-Box goes MAC.

 

Microsoft exec comments. Confirms probably no HD but multi-processor.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=dev&aid=2897

 

[PricklyPete]

Originally posted by: TuxDave
I see nothing wrong with no backwards compatibility. NES-SNES-N64-Gamecube are all on its own.

I agree that it would not make or break my decision...but it would seem silly to leave out especially when in the Xbox's case, it should be so easy to implement.

 

[Thraxen]

I see nothing wrong with no backwards compatibility. NES-SNES-N64-Gamecube are all on its own.

Except for the fact that the current market leader, Sony, is supporting backwards compatibility.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: HajikuFlip

Originally posted by: mugsywwiii

Originally posted by: tec699

Originally posted by: labrat25
blu-ray? i thought there was a flormat war for the next DVD spec goin' on

and the all important question... hackable? (fingers crossed)

Well I have a feeling that the Xbox 2 might not have the harddrive because of the fact that people were modding and ripping games on the console. Hard to do if the console doesn't have the harddrive.

Also, the cost of those harddrives must be eating into Microsoft's profits.

I read somewhere recently (newspaper I think) that they lose close to $1 billion a year on the X-Box. Not sure where the figures came from or how accurate they are.



Edit: With only 13 million sold, that's darn near impossible. I think they lose about $100 on each, for a total of about $1.3 billion. I'll see if I can find the article I was reading
Text

Yes, but every company loses on hardware sales. Your forgetting to factor in the sales from software, where they make all their money.

No, Microsoft loses money on their entire X-Box divison:

The losses suggest that it will be difficult for Microsoft to make a profit on the division for some time unless it starts selling a much larger number of games and begins reaping profits from the upcoming launch of Xbox Live, its online gaming service.

 

[dr150]

I read that a lot of what MS will do with the XBOX2 will depend on Sony's moves. Analysts are criticizing MS's thinking as foolhardy since Sony enjoys a SUBSTANTIAL #1 status BY..........XBOX2 will have to be better IN EVERY WAY to attract Sony users to MS--not only be the first one to market, as is their intention.

HUGE MISTAKES:
1.) Plus, MS is getting substantially criticized for potentially NOT making Xbox games COMPATIBLE with Xbox2 as this would cost more money to do. MS wants to ultimately SAVE money where it can, due to their mistakes from the first Xbox................Such a move would ANGER MANY Xbox users as they would want to definitely enjoy older games on the Xbox 2 as well. In comparison, Sony has always gone out of its way to make old games compatible with the new hardware.

2.) MS says they will also NOT add a hard drive if Sony won't either. Game developers are criticizing this move as well, as they say most games will be online which will need HD SPACE for maps, upgrades, etc for their titles.


I really hope MS gets it right and not massively cheap out on its customers. I feel sorry for everyone who currently has an Xbox machine if indeed the future Xbox2 rumors hold true.

 

[FFactory0x]

well in order to be backwars compatible they would need the original NVIDIA gfx chip on board along with the new ATI chip. Wouldnt they have to pay NVIDIA for that chip in order to use it unlike ps2 which owned the ps1 chip and was able to put that onboard with the emotion engine

 

If the Xbox2 does not have a hard drive built in it's dead. No hard drive means no backward compatability. Being Halo3 will not ship with the Xbox2 at launch, they will have no killer exclusives to rely on and no backward compability. What's the point of buying an entirely new system like that?

 

[RagingBITCH]

That article sucks, it just goes back and forth like everyone said. I'll wait until the actual specs are out to pass judgement. I will say like everyone else is saying - no backwards compatibility or hard drive = bye bye Microsoft

 

[PricklyPete]

Originally posted by: FFactory0x
well in order to be backwars compatible they would need the original NVIDIA gfx chip on board along with the new ATI chip. Wouldnt they have to pay NVIDIA for that chip in order to use it unlike ps2 which owned the ps1 chip and was able to put that onboard with the emotion engine

The PS2 runs the PS1 games through emulation...not direct hardware support. Microsoft should not even have to worry about emulation since the basis of DirectX is to build an API layer between the hardware and the top level software. This should not be an issue.

Now there is a small problem with the fact that the system will be using PowerPC chips instead of x86 chips...but I know MS can put an emulation layer to fix that problem as they own the company that already does that for Macs (forgot the name).