Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (
More info?)
On Sun, 22 May 2005 16:13:29 GMT, Matt Costanza
<somewhere@nowhere.com> wrote:
>Simon Juncal wrote:
>
>> Matt Costanza wrote:
>>
>>> Did you get a close look at those "X-box 360" demo kiosks? Did you?
>>> Did you look close? You were holding a X-box 360 controller but it had
>>> a cord. Hmmm. Why was this?
>>
It had a cord to stop it being stolen............ !!!!!
The actual RF controllers were also there and working, but only pulled
out for invited-press demos.
>>
>> Because they wanted their controllers to be around for more than the
>> first 5 minutes of the show?!? Just a guess there genius...
>
>You missed the point completely. Microsoft is launching in six months.
>Do you not see a problem here?
>
Many a slip 'tween the cup and the lip..........
The hardware and software design complexity is one order of magnitude
greater than the Xbox, which was an evolutionary derivative of the PC.
And the Xbox360 is also no PC. A single critical bug firmware or
hardware in the shipped product and M$$ eats the total cost of the
returns. No disk-based OS here. No user access to update Video-BIOS or
other firmware.... And if you think that I as a brand-new Xbox360
owner would return mine and accept another which was not brand-new
(and updated) but re-cycled, supposedly updated, from an unknown
consumer, you have another think coming............
No actual Xbox360 core-hardware at E3 is very ominous. Seems as if
even one single piece of complete alpha-hardware is not available. M$$
is setting themselves up to cut their own throats on unwanted returns,
if their management insists on a pre-Christmas shipment , and
insufficient time is given to both <<FIND>> and FIX both silicon and
firmware bugs.
The PS3 schedule is far more realistic, as far as having a stable and
bug-free product of this complexity.
John Lewis
>>
>>> Was it because the Xbox-360 in the demo kiosk was not really powered
>>> on? If you looked close enough, you would have seen the two MAC's in
>>> the back of the kiosk where the games were actually running on.
>>
>>
>> That would be the developers kit. What part of "tech-demo" didn't you
>> figure out? Was it the choppy frame rates and incomplete gameplay
>> elements that lead you to assume that a fully working, fresh off the
>> assembly line production xbox 360 was running back there? Or perhaps it
>> was all the confusing words like "unfinished", "alpha", "early beta"
>> "representative of the finished product" etc.?
>
>Again. These were demo games. Launching in six months. This is certainly
>not sending the right message. It's also no secret that Microsoft made a
>decision to speed up the launch to get to market before Sony. This
>decision is going to hurt them in the long run.
>
>Regards,
>--
>Matt Costanza
>Austin, Tx USA
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