Could the Xbox 360 replace the PC?
You can hook up a keyboard, browse the internet, download songs, etc.
Is the Xbox 360 an attempted replacement for the PC? It would be a good chance for Microsoft to take over the hardware side of the buisness, and to get away from the stinky decendents of the 8088.
If so, then Sony and apple should merge, and the PS3 should run Mac OS X.
Is the Xbox 360 an attempted replacement for the PC? It would be a good chance for Microsoft to take over the hardware side of the buisness, and to get away from the stinky decendents of the 8088.
If so, then Sony and apple should merge, and the PS3 should run Mac OS X.
Comments
We really have to stop looking at computers as a collections of chipsets and take a more holistic view. We'll see that the general purpose computers has to be flexible and the supporting chipset must support this. Game consoles need only do a few things very well.
Originally posted by e1618978
You can hook up a keyboard, browse the internet, download songs, etc.
Is the Xbox 360 an attempted replacement for the PC? It would be a good chance for Microsoft to take over the hardware side of the buisness, and to get away from the stinky decendents of the 8088.
If so, then Sony and apple should merge, and the PS3 should run Mac OS X.
No offense intended, but what planet are you on exactly?
M$ want to rule the Living Room now with a great new console that at least for the time being will be the best..
they will lose money on the console to get penetration (oh er!
This has nothing to do with their strategy for X86 support in winbloze..., yeah I can really see M$ deciding to switch all their OS's to run on IBM chips.......
Later, there will be a corporate version of the Xbox which will allow corporations to deploy their own Xbox Live servers. At that point, Microsoft will be completely free of all obligation to PC vendors, and completely unrestrained with what they do with their own platform. They will tell you what you can do with your data, and you will say Yes, Sir.
yeah I can really see M$ deciding to switch all their OS's to run on IBM chips.......
The initial dev kits ran a custom build of Windows NT, so they already ported their OS to an IBM chip.
Originally posted by cubist
The answer is, Yes, they will replace the PC for home users. The next generation of consoles will all include web surfing capabilities. Microsoft will deploy a version of Office (or Works) that allows the Xbox 360 to be used for word processing and spreadsheets. There will be heavy DRM; it will not be possible for users to move documents between platforms, but nobody will care.
You have got this sooo right!
Later, there will be a corporate version of the Xbox which will allow corporations to deploy their own Xbox Live servers. At that point, Microsoft will be completely free of all obligation to PC vendors, and completely unrestrained with what they do with their own platform. They will tell you what you can do with your data, and you will say Yes, Sir.
Um.. and er.. you mean games companies, right?
Originally posted by cubist
The answer is, Yes, they will replace the PC for home users. The next generation of consoles will all include web surfing capabilities. Microsoft will deploy a version of Office (or Works) that allows the Xbox 360 to be used for word processing and spreadsheets. There will be heavy DRM; it will not be possible for users to move documents between platforms, but nobody will care.
Later, there will be a corporate version of the Xbox which will allow corporations to deploy their own Xbox Live servers. At that point, Microsoft will be completely free of all obligation to PC vendors, and completely unrestrained with what they do with their own platform. They will tell you what you can do with your data, and you will say Yes, Sir.
The 1984 scenerio may be their intention initially, but I don't think that they will be able to replace the PC market without being more open than that.
Originally posted by e1618978
The initial dev kits ran a custom build of Windows NT, so they already ported their OS to an IBM chip.
They didn't port their OS.. they made changes to the NT kernal to allow a custom build to run as you say.
Yes, I can just see all the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of apps for winbloze being re-compiled.... I would be VERY suprised given the investment in x86...
I think what is VERY likely is what Cubist states in his first paragraph.
With a hard drive, USB, and wireless, I can't see any technical reasons MS couldn't take over the casual computer user market with the 360. One sticking point is the display; until people really adopt HDTV, standard TVs are horrible for doing text work on. MS also has that little monopoly issue. I suspect if MS released an Office 360 Dell, et al would start to cry unfair.
Apple gets away with controlling the whole package because of their tiny marketshare.
What would be interesting is if Sony goes after the casual PC user. They'll sell a zillion PS3s in Japan, and Japan loves multipurpose devices. Maybe Sony will do cool things in Japan and less in the USA/English countries?
As to consoles having specialized chips that run slow doing general stuff, I'm happily using a G3/350 and I remember when computers were a LOT slower. Guess what, they worked just fine. Sure, you probably won't want PageMaker, or a 3D modeling program on a console, but they have plenty of horsepower for basic word processing, email, web surfing, etc.
- Jasen.