Microsoft received the rights to an updated patent that describes the addition of an external hard drive to the Xbox 360 game console.
The original patent application was filed in December 2004, or almost one year before the introduction of the Xbox 360, and granted in September 2010. The update was filed in April 2011.
The content of the patent is almost entirely unchanged, but Microsoft added 15 more references of prior art, one of them dating back to 1967, which describes a "Circuit breaker box and operator with improved lever and interlock means", and one other patent referring to an "encryption device interlock" invention from 1978 that explains a connector interlock plate for an electronic device cabinet.
Microsoft's patent details the addition of an external HDD to the Xbox 360, specifying the way how the device is attached and supported by the console frame.
Or the Sega 32X. Or the Sega Mega-CD...
if it does, then what we have here is yet another flagrant abuse of the patent system
Or the Sega 32X. Or the Sega Mega-CD...
I would like to notice that I only named one that was successful outside of Japan...
Else want a modem for your NES ?
A 12 year old understands that other people have valid opinions.
Why an X-box?
It costs 1/2 of the graphics card I just purchased and I've gone through many such upgrades during the life of the 360.
You can sit down in a more social setting with others in the living room.
It accomplishes what you can do on a PC (say watch Huluplus, Skype, Play music) without the technical hassle of hooking a PC up to an entertainment system. It also boots and gets on task in a fraction of the time.
It has a Kinect sensor so you can say "xbox, pause" when you need to get more popcorn.
Don't be an elitist PC gamer. I game more on PC but it's not that hard to see why I also have an Xbox.
Do you realize what site you are posting on? 80% of the males that read this site haven't had a social life beyond WOW, EQ2 or AoE for like 10 years. The closest they have been to having a girlfriend is the guy who was pretending to be a girl on WOW.
btw: I'm not in that 80%, I'm married have a kid on the way. Haven't played any MMO's in like 8 years.
Does a Boy Friend count?
Exaggeration aside, Co-op multiplayer shooters or MMOs are really no substitute for face to face relationships. Xbox offers both the co-op online and the living room social experience.
My PC just offers the co-op/mmo experience. (PvP FPS isn't social in the slightest)
Like if I patent a particular clock design, and then sue everyone who ever made a clock.
Put simply, my PC shits on games consoles. Yes, Hulu/Skype/Etc is a hassle to televise, but neither does it cost me a subscription to Xbox Live Gold, without which my Xbox 360 becomes retarded and is magically unable to do most of the features quoted in the interface. Unless M$ are piping these services through their own hardware I fail to see why Gold tax is justified.
Yes, the Xbox is cheap - it's also shitty, and multiple generations behind the latest hardware. Before someone argues that it still "runs the latest games", recall that it runs them at a fraction of the FPS of your typical modern PC. Also, bear in mind that the reason it still runs them is because most games have to be written for them to make money. Ever wondered why so many modern games look and run exactly the same? Even years apart? Consoles are quite literally holding back technical advancement in modern video games.
Yes, the Xbox boots reasonably quickly - a boot time easily bested by my computers. They will also roundly thrash the Xbox at load times for games.
Kinect is an intruiging idea for human interface with menus and commands... and other machine vision applications... but for gaming, I hate Kinect with the force of a thousand suns. Unresponsive. Buggy. Unintuitive. It's atrocious. Simply atrocious. If you think otherwise, you are the reason the gaming industry is buying into this shit and I hate you as much as I hate the Kinect itself.
But yeah, totally not a PC gaming elitist or anything. I just feel the consoles have their place, and comparing them to PCs does both platforms a disservice.
It does if your gay...AND he's gay....AND he's giving you ass.
god it must be sad that even when i play an mmo, im barely social... only grouping when absolutely necessary.
If you can patent something as simple as "A thing that attaches to another thing and enables extra functionality" something is wrong wrong wrong.