I agree. $149 isn't the "real" price. First of all, We know that this product won't be on the market for a long time. Maybe even a year or 2. I think Microsoft is betting on the fact that those specs will be commodity parts by that time, and won't be expensive to use. 2nd, you know that Microsoft will have rebates, and MSN deals to lower the price. I think that that when it's out, it'll be closer to the $600 range. But after the rebates, promotional "coupons", and your 3 year contract to the MSN "gaming service", you'll be able to get it at the slick price of $149.

I believe Microsoft is just keeping its options open when it says "up to 1 gigahertz". Stop and think for a moment. This is microsoft. In a deal with AMD. I think the odds of them paying 500 bucks a processor is pretty damn slim, thats current retail price (nearly) and we are talking a year from now with a buy-in-bulk deal with a company struggling for recognition. I suspect MS would probably pay closer to the 200-300 dollar mark, maybe less (remember, at this point, AMD already sells many of its processors at a loss just to keep up with intel, they'll do anything for marketshare).

And as for the other components, I don't know about you but I can walk into a store today and buy a DVD drive for

Just my $.02

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler

Hey, what's this button do? Everybody calmly file out, nothing to see here.

You should also keep in mind that every console manufacturer loses money on the console itself, and only make their profits on the games. (This may not be true for PlayStation any more, it being ancient technology now, but certainly was when it was new, and is still true for N64 and Dreamcast)

M$ has never been able to compete on quality, and that's all they'll have to sell. I think their experience in the console game market will mirror their failure in the handheld arena.

----------- "We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us." -- Gene Wolfe

As for the pricing, all games boxen are sold as loss leaders

The manufacturer has to make their money from somewhere. They either make it on the box or on the software. The current game boxes such as Nintendo and Sony can afford to loss-lead on the boxes since they control and take a cut on all the games. How are M$ going to control and take a cut of all games that run on Windows?

Phillip.

Yep. PIII/Athlon are too big, too expensive, and do too much. A games console doesn't need one. What it needs is a good media processing chip. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and suggest they may be using a Nuon. It has all the attributes needed for a good games console, and in particular, should be priced very cheaply.

Probably around the time that this X-Box comes out 1.0 ghz chips will go for around 300-400 dollars at the most. I predict around 200-300 dollars. The thing is it doesn't cost Intel or AMD 200-300 dollars to produce the chip. It costs more like 50 dollars, which they sell to vendors for $100 which then sell to us for $200-$300.

This means that Microsoft will probably be able to get the chip for around $100 or $150 at the most, and the HD will be around $20 (4gb harddrive in two years will be tiny) 56k modems will be like 10 dollars and the RAM will be like $20 so it will only cost around from $150-200 to produce is my prediction. So M$ takes a loss, but make it up with game licenses as mentioned in other posts.

All in all this is a disappointing Slashdot post...The "specs" are still very vague and nothing that hasn't been previously speculated upon.

The Dreamcast is more or less "off the shelf" (SH4, NEC 3D accelerator) parts and its doing fine.

Current mid-Range PC hardware is as (or mroe) powerful as a current consoles (including Dreamcast). The comparable PC, sans monitor, of course, would be about $500 retail. Streamline and standardize the case, streamline the hardware (surface mount stuff, stamp the HW out in an automated fashion, forget about standard PC-style expandability and upgradibility) and you're down into console price territory.

The reason AAA games on the Dreamcast look better than most current PC games is on the PC, you don't know what video card, sound card, etc the user is using, so you have to be fairly generic, unless you want to optimize for all potential configurations (hah hah! not likely!). Once everything is standard, companies will know what to expect, and the XBox specific distribution of these games can be fully hardware optimized.

And the "up to 1Ghtz" statement disturbs me. Does this mean that M$ might consider offering the X-Box at different power levels? A different price for a different processor, etc, that sort of thing. I don't think M$ is looking at this the same way that Sony and Nintendo are, and I think that might be their downfall.

_____________________________

Mello like the Yello, but without the fizz.

If you like Transformers and UT, stop A HREF="http://www.examinepc.com/t

No, but of course I don't generally run Windows in safe mode 100% of the time ... more like 5% of the time when something incredibly screwy happens (mind you, pretty screwy things happen all the time, but not always "Safe-Mode (TM)" worthy screwy things -- follow?).

Who knows what Windows crash stats would look like for safe-mode....

NTSC (that's those TV thingies) are more like 378x200 something. If you do the math, it take rediculously less power to drive the same number of polygons around at that resolution

Second, in most modern rendering chipsets the fill rate (the rate at which pixels can be put into polygons) is grossly higher than it needs to be: it is the polygon rate (the time to compute the position of each polygon) that is limited. Therefor, increasing or decreasing the resolution will have almost no effect on the frame rate, as the system will be limited by how many polygons it can cram onscreen, not how many pixels.

Lastly, remember that the X-Box will be running DirectX on Windows CE (Control Everything). The intent is to make it very easy to port from the console to the desktop (as long as the desktop has broken glass for an OS, not rotten fruit, flightless waterfowl, or satanic influences ;^) )

Lastly, for something like this to sell, the BOM (Bill of Materials, the cost of the parts to make it) would have to be about $75 for it to sell at $150 (the rest is eaten up with manufacturing cost, NRE (non-recurring engineering costs), shipping, stocking, returns (my box just gives me this funky blue screen, I want a new one) etc.) This is even if the whole thing sells at a loss. MS wants to dominate the game market: they sell this as a loss-leader, they get all the hot games made for DirectX, they get all the game programmers indoctrinated into The MicroSoft Way Of Doing Things and they kill all competition. They almost managed this without a game console: look at how many games are DirectX rather than OpenGL. However, today, game companies are starting to realise that if they want to make Mac ports (or Linux/BSD ports, or console ports) they had best program for OpenGL. Case in point: Aliens Vs. Predator is being ported to OpenGL so that they can make a Mac version. Hopefully, the folks at Activision are learning a lesson from this and will do all future games in OpenGL.

--
there is no .sig

Yep. (although the problem was a corrupted dll)

I've also had win98 crash during the install process. (haven't figured that one out yet)


penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.

In addition, not all illegal page faults and GPFs happen in userspace. The kernel can follow bad pointers too, giving that lovely blue and white screen we all know and hate.

In any case, the hostility is quite unwarranted. Anonymity is not an excuse for being an asshole, despite what some around here seem to think.

--
Why is the compiler calling /usr/games/pom?

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Why is the compiler calling /usr/games/pom?

_____________________________

Mello like the Yello, but without the fizz.

If you like Transformers and UT, stop A HREF="http://www.examinepc.com/t

But otherwise does this mean my game console could be infected by Word macro viruses?

I will stick with my athlon system for a while longer and just keep my eyes on the PS2.
Hey, what's this button do? Everybody calmly file out, nothing to see here.

M$ is designing for the lowest common denominator, just like they do for all their products.

Anyway, MS will watch their steps a lot more now. They just had this monopoly trial remember? They definately don't want to screw up again.

sid=moderation

Honest, officer, my sig file was *right* here, really!

This is not entirely unlike the new generation of "WebPCs" that companies like Dell are pushing...on-paper great PCs at really low prices, but no real way to upgrade them.

Assuming of course you can also drop the microsoft OS and put Linux on there (which should happen within a week of it being released, I'd think).

Last year, when Bill Gates spoke at Indiana University, he discussed some of the differences in strategy between open and closed platforms. He explained that Nintendo and Sony have their plans set up as completely closed (Nintendo even more so, since you must do the development with the SGI and special peripherals) and as a software developer, you must pay royalties from your product to the console manufacturer.

Microsoft, on the other hand, allows anyone to produce software with no licensing agreement between you and Microsoft.

So not only would they cause all sorts of negative press and make the iMac be the gaming computer of the next generation, but Bill would have to eat some more words.

-Derek i-grub.com

Sounds like a bonanza. If Microsoft can port any of their OS's to it, Linux will be ported to it. Voila, we've got an inexpensive source for linux machines.

...and maybe Microsoft does plan on selling these boxes at a loss. Oh well :)

That's the one thing they'll never do. For all his faults, Bill Gates knows that having unhindered development is the road to success. He's argued the point on many occasions, and from what I've heard, they plan to do the same for the X-Box. They'll just release the box, and a development kit and let anyone develop for it. No official submission, no licensing fees. Just find yourself a publisher and/or distribution deal and away you go. That is what's going to kill Sega, Sony and Nintendo, not the technical superiority of the box (in fact, they don't even need to be technically superior).

And because it is developed by the devil themselves (Microsoft), this console will be marketed to no end, and can be released at a low price point without Microsoft losing any dough.

Did you ever hear about the PSX needing upgrades and service packs? No, because the idea is to release the platform spotless from the start. The 4 GB hard drive is worth nothing; it's not a feature, it's a way to circumvent future bugs M$ know they're gonna get. Who wants to connect to the Internet and download service packs for your platform? That's gonna hurt the X-Box's reputation immensely.

Incidentally, did anyone notice how M$ and Nintendo always explain their performance by comparing it to the PS2? 'We'll be faster than the PS2'. Hmm. It's just funny how the PS2 is already a standard, a full month before its Japanese release.

Finally, if they need a 1 GHz processor to work this thing, then they're doing something wrong. The PS2 achieves 25M pps with only a dedicated 266 processor. A 1 GHz processor sounds like infinitely more than what's needed to power a cutting-edge gaming platform at this time.

This is gonna bomb. M$ is not ready for this.

"Science is magic that works." -- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

...to rush a production and issue bugs afterwards.

Issue bugs? That's the latest fad in computing, didn't ya hear? =)

Hmm. It does sound weird, until you remember it's Microsoft we're talking about... :)

"Science is magic that works." -- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

I know this wasn't the main point of your thread, but there is a lot of misleading in that statement. Yes, the PS2 uses a 300 MHz chip to do massive graphics, but it is a 128 bit chip, not a 32 or even a 64. It also has an 150 MHz "graphics synthesizer". M$ would need a fast 32 bit CPU to keep up, particularly running Windows CE.

For some more information about the PS2 to use for comparison, I suggest IGN's PS2 FAQ. For additional info about the PS2 including other information, try ps2.ign.com.

B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."

Microsoft has a fair bit of experience due to Windows CE. Windows CE may be a lot of things, but its not unstable. Try using a CE device. The OS for this console will almost certainly be a light-weight wrapper over DirectX, winsock, and very little else. Even Microsoft isn't likely to fuck that up much.

Did you ever hear about the PSX needing upgrades and service packs?

Comparing a console to a PC is useless. PSX doesn't have to worry about new hardware, non-standard hardware, etc. I don't really understand why people rip on Microsoft for service packs -- I mean, does anyone rip on Linux for having so frequent kernel upgrades?

Finally, if they need a 1 GHz processor to work this thing, then they're doing something wrong. The PS2 achieves 25M pps with only a dedicated 266 processor. A 1 GHz processor sounds like infinitely more than what's needed to power a cutting-edge gaming platform at this time.

Using Intel processors basically means you need more mhz than other true-RISC processors for the same type of performance. This need for high mhz numbers is offset by the bonus of having a standard CPU, allowing developers to easily create XBox apps on a regular PC and the Intel CPU economies of scale.

This is gonna bomb. M$ is not ready for this.

Maybe it'll bomb, but I doubt it. How many people said Sony wasn't ready to jump into the console market? Don't underestimate the power of brand and marketing. Microsoft hasn't, that's why Bill Gates is richer than God.

Comparing a console to a PC is useless. PSX doesn't have to worry about new hardware, non-standard hardware, etc. I don't really understand why people rip on Microsoft for service packs -- I mean, does anyone rip on Linux for having so frequent kernel upgrades?

I'm comparing a console to a console. The X-Box will have 4 GB of hard drive in order to provide upgrades. That's what it says in the specs. Now, we all know 'upgrade' in M$-speak means 'bug patch'.

I would loudly complain about kernel upgrades if there was a Linux-based console that required them. Upgrades and patches are for a PC, not a gaming console. When I buy a gaming console, I expect to be able to play with any game by popping in the CD/DVD/cartridge, and not worry about service packs.

"Science is magic that works." -- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

Mhz are one of the most meaningless speed measurements these days, *especially* when referring to console processors.

The PS2 has a 300MHz processor, but what is hidden is that fact that it has 2 additional 300MHz vector coprocessors, creating a total of about 12 floating point accumulators and 6 dividers that can be used simultaneously, yielding (yet another meaningless statistic) 6.2Gigaflops. However, since VU0 and VU1 are heavily optimized for vector processing (as opposed to dividing by 0), the majority of the 6.2 billion floating point operations can be utilized in the average case. Add to that the Emotion Engine's fully 128-bit design, and you've got a processor that can outrun any intel processor up to ~1.5Ghz, and a memory bus that can actually supply needed data when it is needed. Granted, a Willamette 1500 would be able to do integer operations much faster than the Emotion Engine, making it a better general-purpose CPU; however, for gaming and signal processing integer operations are minimally important, making the EE a much better processor for multimedia purposes.

What MS has forgotten is that the PC platform is a terrible architecture for gaming. Everything about it is just mere upgrades on 20 year-old technology. Maybe Microsoft has something really sneaky up their sleeves, such as using a 1Ghz SH-4 (Dreamcast processor) and a custom-designed bus to an optimized GeForce 256 processor. That could (theoretically) approach PS2 level performance, but I'm not going to give MS that much credit.

Why should I trust you?
Remember Mulder: trust no-one...

Typical Microsoft nature. Step 1: Release product as fast as possible. Step 2: Release a flurry of patches to make product work.

That's not Microsoft-specific. Its the nature of virtually all closed-software companies to do that that days. Its even in the nature of most open source projects to take that same path, but due to the nature of open-source its more of a benefit than a drawback.

$149 -- as everyone has been pointing out, this is ridiculous, seeing as how you couldn't buy several of the individual components for that price, and, even given drops in prices, this time next year, there's no way that the entire unit costs that amount. The DVD licensing alone would drive the cost above $200 bucks, that's why nintendo's next gen machine won't play DVD videos.

2001 -- yeah, ok. A machine with no announced specs, no announced 3d party developers, from a company that hasn't produced a piece of hardware this interesting since, um, ever, and I'm supposed to believe that it's going to hit a few months after the PS2? Maybe they squeeze it in by Christmas, but not at $149. And they sure as hell can't make it in the market alone, as consoles live and die by 3d party involvement. do we really think that ms *or* game developers are going to like the sound of that?

Sony -- i'm honestly scared of the PS2. it's a monster, and it's going to shape the rest of the market. by the time this supposed console hits the market, sony expects to have sold in excess of 10 million ps2's. where's the market for a machine which, while it has a hd, doesn't give any indications that it's oing to much more powerful, from a graphics rendering standpoint, than sony's machine? the ps2 will have a hard drive, probably larger than 4 gig, by the end of next year, anyway.

now, i could be wrong. and i'd love to be, cause there's no room for a 4th console right now, and i'd love to see ms fail in an attempt to strong-arms its way into a market it knows nothing about and in which it has no experience.

you've got to add to this the fact that console games and pc games are totally different and cater to totally different audiences. microsoft's crappy sidewinder controller wouldn't fly for a second with console gamers, next to dreamcast and sony's new analog controllers. console gamers don't want to play the sims, and pc gamers don't want to play soul caliber. so where's the market for what's essentially a windows pc without a mouse or keyboard when it's being marketed as a game console? have you tried playing quake 3 without keyboard or mouse?

best of luck, bill. here's hoping you know wat you're doing.

Bleem! for X-Box! Not as compatible as the PSX2, as PSX2 will have most of the actual PSX hardware in it...But....still!

-faster floating point performance than any PC

True!

-costs

X-Box will be cheaper!

-can be a dvd player

X-Box can too!

-can be upgraded like a PC

Do you really think PSX will be MORE upgradable than a console based on standard PC parts?

-uses Linux as its development platform

While a nice bit of trivia..So? Visual C++, which will undoubtably get extentions for X-Box development, is my favorite IDE. Linux has some nice things coming up, like KDevelop -- but nothing too great right now, unless you're a diehard Emacs or VIer. Don't take my word for it? Ask John Carmack, hero to many Linux-heads, his opinion -- or just read his previous Slashdot Q&A posts.

I highly doubt the X-Box will be cheaper than the PS2 by the time it is released. The X-Box is nothing more than rumors for now, while the PS2 will be in Japan in a month. Even if it is cheaper from the start, Sony will be able to drop the PS2 price and still have the advantage.

_____________________________

Mello like the Yello, but without the fizz.

If you like Transformers and UT, stop A HREF="http://www.examinepc.com/t

Traditionally, a lot of Windows crashes have been due to a combination of poor apps and non-robust hardware drivers - that is to say, drivers that go kablooey if you feed them bogus data. (Of course, when the "poor app" is also Microsoft, there's not much excuse.) But with a console, you don't have to worry about, say, SuperNeoWhizzy writing buggy DirectX drivers for their SuperNeoWhizzy-3D video card; the hardware and APIs are developed by the console manufacturer (or outsourced) and aren't released on the world till they're quite solid. Thus, you know that your game is going to work on your test box exactly the same as on the box the end user is using. Plus, I fully expect the firmware is written to be crash-resistant (we all know there's no such thing as crash-proof).

Under these circumstances, even Microsoft could tune the OS specifically for this thing until they had it just right. (In fact, speaking completely out of my hat, that may be where the Windows derived part comes in - perhaps they forked the WinCE code base.) This is particularly true if they don't have any specific commitments to release the X-Box on a certain date - if it's still crashable, they just slip the schedule.

Please, for the sake of the industry, don't.

The Sony Sega Nintendo traingle is already enough competition as it is, and if any more companies try to get in I think we'll see a massive breakdown. I'm not talking about a total collapse, but consumers will get fed up and stick to one single system.

We've already got NUON to worry about, though it's about as much of a game system as those games in my Nokia phone, so I really hope X-Box stays where it's been for the last 6 months: in Microsoft's little development rec room.

Microsoft sees the future -- it knows PCs will play a smaller and smaller role in it. They aren't going to just drop this.

The 4GB drive will be useful for game extentions -- like new maps. The standard consoles have been moving to this themselves, with products such as N64's ill-fated DD, and the Dreamcast Zip drive coming out.

Monitor? Do understand the concept here? There wont be a monitor. It will plug into your TV, which wont be included in the final price. Ditto keyboard and mouse..optional items..This is a console not a PC.

Also, you're forgetting that it will be far cheaper for Microsoft to assemble on these components onto a single motherboard, that is just punched out at a factory -- everything surface mounted. Its a CONSOLE, not a PC, upgradability won't matter. My guess is the end price for them will be about $250 a unit to start. They can afford to lose money on HW sales until they sell enough units to get economies of scale even if they don't charge software developers to license titles.

Also, the OS SHOULD be really light weight, compared to desktop Windows.

Scinomaly.org Science outside the norm

Once you have a nice DVD streaming system in place that you can rely on due to standardization of hardware, that's more than enough. Try playing Soul Reaver on a Playstation (2 MB of system memory!!), it uses great CD streaming that allows it to load everything in the background -- you never see a "Loading" screen once the game first loads.

selling at a loss is called dumping and is illegal, at least in the U.S. The claims about Sony not making a profit off of the Playstation don't say that Sony was selling at a loss, just very near cost, and that any profit was made off the sale of games.

If MS were to try to sell a piece of hardware at a significant loss (and if the specs are at all reliable the loss would be quite significant) then they would be in even deeper doo-doo than they are already with the web-browser business.

By my (admittedly under informed) calculations, a box matching Nintendo Next's specs would cost almost $150 for parts alone, without the processor. Clever bookkeeping may be able to assign assembly, packaging and marketing costs away, but it would be very hard to cover up the raw parts costs.

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Well, it is good market-thinking... Except, ***WINE already *does* include DirectX.*** (or at least DX support)

Not only that , but large amounts of it. In fact, I've heard many beleivable stories about nuking Zerg (in Starcraft) under Linux. It seems, as always, entertainment leads the way... ;-)

Really, I beleive the Win32 API includes a lot of low level system/OS interaction thingies (threads, start/stop, IDs, etc), so many that DirectX, despite its 'low level' suppport (it is after all, an abstraction layer, at least for 3D), cannot stand on its own--It sits on top. You really need W32 to make DX worth it.

Even a compatibility library wouldn't really be worth it, I don't think. But I'd have to go away and read the SDK [sitting on my harddrive!] to be either specific or authoratative. And I'm not (yet) that suicidal. ;-)

He who fights and runs away,

Lives to, uh,

Run another day?

elide nucleartrigger etc., add mail.com

Scinomaly.org Science outside the norm

Honest, officer, my sig file was *right* here, really!

1) 56K Modem? This has GOT to be a made up stat as any game hardware company (besides SEGA) would be retarded not to include broadband (Cable, DSL, etc.) ability in their console, especially when the average console life span is around 4 years or so (easily taking us into mainstream broadband access timeframe). Forget your "MSN subscription for life" arguments - any new console MUST offer broadband capabilities.

2) X-Box WON'T wipe Sony out... what a joke. That's like saying "Yamaha's making a new motorbike that goes 20mph faster than any other bike - all the other bike companies will go out of business!". Microsoft dominates the PC s/w market because it got in early and Apple stumbled big time. The game industry is much more mature and companies like Sony, Nintendo and Sega are FAR more entrenched in terms of market share. MS will eat a big portion of that pie perhaps, but not enough to put Sony out of the game business.

3) MS would again be retarded to attempt to offer multiple models of the X-Box at different price points (i.e. base model for $149, deluxe model for $250, etc.). This is misinformed speculation as releasing multiple models fractures your install base, meaning developers can't count on a common platform spec (the same problem that doomed the SEGA 32X and that currently plaques PC land).

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Why?...think about this: currently, many, if not most, computer and video games developers create games for one platform with the intention of later porting it to other platforms. Naturally, the game developer wants their game available on the greatest number of different platforms to increase market audience reached over-all by their game. A good example of this "intended" development especially comes with the sports games. A beautiful example is the current Tomb Raider series: after Tomb Raider I, all the Tomb Raiders were planned with both the PC and console in mind.

Now how does this matter with the X-Box? Well, as previously mentioned, most developers develop first for one platform, release on that platform, wait for a period of saturation on that platform while they port to another, then release on their secondary platform. This porting costs money and time. Now what if, they only had to write the game once to reach both the console and PC markets? Would they choose to do that and save the money?...of course!

So here's where the X-Box's potential as a real market changer lies: if MS's "Windows-based OS" supports DirectX as an API to create games for the X-Box, a near port-less possibility to creating games for multiple platforms simulatenously now exists that game developers are going to leap at to use...

Now I'm not saying this is by any stretch a good thing...actually, I think it's a dangerous thing...but I can see why the X-Box might succeed...

Since Microsoft has been pointed out as the blatant software monopoly it is by a Federal Court, would it not be illegal for them to enter the console market selling at a loss? Sounds like a clear violation of the Clayton (or is that Sherman? Damn) anti-trust act to me.

Department of Justice, are you listening???

--Michael Bacarella

Just a reminder, Microsoft runs each Business Unit already as a separate business, trust or anti-trust. The HBU (hardware biz unit) has none of the issues that WOBU (windows office biz unit) has, or that the OS BUs have.

The hardware guys are accustomed to making products that are expensive to revise, can't be patched in the field, and need to run under fairly rigorous use without crashing.

When a product can be released patched, from a business perspective, why shouldn't it be released and patched?

:-)

Secondly, why use the name X-Box? It seems as though they are trying to confuse people about Linux. What better way to do so than by creating something with a name like X-Box, when Linux and X-Windows is stamping out Microsoft machines left-right and centre?

That's all,

c0rarc

This isn't the 1st time Microsoft have released inflated specs of a product they may never release, to deliberately stiffle sales of the current opposition, and generally put about the notion with the uneducated deciders that "Microsoft are the greatest".

Remember Microsofts "Avaj". Feh.

But by that time the Service Pack that makes it stable-ish might be out...

- - - -
(((((You)))))(((((are)))))(((((getting)))))(((((sleepy)))))

To be honest, at this point in time, I can't imagine MS selling a computer at any price without such strings attached.

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"Bill Gates is just a monocle and a Persian Cat away from being one of the bad guys in a James Bond movie." - Dennis Miller

...and could cost as low as $149.

and

Up to 1 GHz CPU

They've lost right there. Who want's to go to the store and wonder how fast they want their gaming console to be? One of the great things about it was that there was only one choice (per vendor). You'll buy a game, have a blast playing it on your 1GHZ machaine at home and then take it over to a friends to show him/her, and it will play like shit 'cause they could only afford the $149 400MHZ console.

Just remember 1GHZ chips arent out yet (perhaps kryotech or alpha). When they are they will probably cost upwards of $800-900. One year later (2001 launch date for Xbox) the average chip prices will be nowhere near making this economically feasible for microsoft.


penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.

Actually, It is quite standard practice for console makers to sell their gaming consoles at a loss. The Key to success in the console market is to sell lots of consoles thus establishing a large user base to which you can sell your games. The way to sell lots of consoles is to sell them cheap. Once you have established a large userbase, then you make money off the games they buy.

I've heard talk that Playstion 2 will be selling at a loss of > 200 dollars per unit, so i don't find this pricing to be unusual (although 300 dollars would sound better, and still be a loss).

The interesting thing to me here is that this box will use standard computer hardware. I can just immagine yet another MS screw up wherein they neglect to solder the parts in place thus causing an x-box buying frenzy based around people buying them and stripping them for parts.