XBox Goes Down in Public

rosewood sent in a story about the X-Box Crashing in Public. Of course, it obviously is beta hardware so such things are to be expected, but that doesn't mean that you can't point your fingers and generate a nelson style HAHA at a multi billion dollar corporation's expense. They'll get the last laugh in 24 months when no software vendor dares release a game for any other system.

E3 demos crashing? Non-final hardware? Uhh, so?

OK, as we all know, this post is more about having a laugh at Microsoft in OG Slashdot style than being informative. Let me explain the incredibly ordinary events that the article said happened.

A game demo on the Xbox crashed, and restarting it revealed that it was running on Xbox-like PC hardware. In the uncomfortable pause while the system was restarting, a PR droid gamely tried to explain that the demo systems don't have the unified memory architecture of the Xbox itself.

So, a pre-alpha demo of an Xbox game crashed? Shocking. No, actually, it would be news if a E3 demo of a game which is six months or more away from release never crashed during a demonstration.

Maybe the news is that the final hardware wasn't ready to show at E3. But everyone expected that. Again, it was news that Nintendo did have GameCube hardware at the show.

But hey, good excuse for a link to the GIA!

Re:The Windows 2000 Kernel

Your link isn't to a "more accurate story", it points to a story about an entirely different crash! The story on xbox.com was written prior to E3 (see the beginning of the last paragraph), while the story on thegia.com is about a crash that happened *during* E3, almost a month later.

Do I think it's unreasonable for the box to crash? Maybe not, but at this point, late in the develpment, it sure doesn't bode well for the release of the product, does it?

Take those informative moderation points and put them where they belong... On informative (and correct) posts :-)

24 months later...

One key diffrence between the game market and the PC market is gamers are almost expected to have more than one console.
Also PCs are productivity machines game consoles are entertainment.
If the only productivity software available is for one platform you are screwed. Use it no matter how flaky.
If however all the games are for one platform and that platform is no-fun.. We get a new video game dark age.
(Like the last video game dark age... when nobody could sell video games and everyone was playing non-computer based games like chess and RPGs)
You are kinda locked into your computer platform. When you upgrade you only upgrade a part of the system. You need to maintain compatability with your old hardware.

Compaire this to video game consoles. Every upgrade you toss the whole box and start over from scratch. You aren't locked into anything.

Microsoft CAN get all the video game makers to produce all games for Xbox. Microsoft CAN get a lot of gammers to buy the box. But if it dosn't rock it is dead.
The problem is simple. The Xbox dosen't simply compleate with every game console. It compeates with the fickle short attention span of the gamers.
Only the early addopters will scoop them up and try them out. If they suck then you'll see a bunch of web pages on installing Linux on an Xbox and other such uses. This becouse the early adopters will simply put the investment to good use.. That use being something other than playing games.

I expect Microsoft isn't aware of the realitys of the video game console world and think if they can throw out some fancy hardware (working or not) and sell games they'll make money.
If the box is defective then someone will produce something better.

Happens to all consoles.

This article is pretty much a Troll as far as I'm concerned. I was at E3 last year for the unveiling of the PS2 and there were plenty of crashed demo stations, the same goes for the Dreamcast games that were showing of the new online play back then.

Now, they didn't put up a blue screen or anything, they just locked up hard on screen, but it's E3, most of this stuff isn't even beta yet. Ya can't blame M$ for someone else's mistake (as much as I'd like to ;).

Not a real Xbox anyway

I played several games on the Xbox at E3. However, the only actual "box" to be seen was one sealed up in a big plexiglass case, you couldn't actually see the consoles you were playing on. That's because (according to one of the developers there) they were playing on not much more than modified PC's! (Gighz Athalons, etc.)

I was initially really surprised to see "playable Xboxes" on the show floor because I'd just read in Wired that Nvidia was nowhere near ready to start fabbing the chips, and wouldn't be ready until mid or late summer. So these machines (whatever they have inside) don't have either the right processor or the right graphics card -- so however they look (and crash :) has really nothing to do with what the production Xbox will be.

Re:computers vs. game consoles

he is going to be horribly insulted when his game console crashes.

Rubbish. You don't know crap about consoles.

On one hand, no game console should ever crash. On the other, having owned EVERY game console, and spent immeasurable hours in arcades, I've seen just about every machine crash.

From the Atari 2600 all the way up to the Playstation 2 I've seen games lock up, crap out, go blank, reset, garble the screen, make horrible noises, and just plain die in plain view.

It's not a matter of -IF- game systems are going to have problems. But it's going to be a matter of how LONG you're going to go before you see them.

Until the Playstation came along, crashes were very, very rare. Now it wouldn't be hard to compile a nice list of modern console games with SERIOUS issues. (I think there are even a few N64 games with serious issues!)

The X-Box is not going to be that much worse than the Playstation 2 because software developers will know it's a static machine and they'll learn how to avoid crashing the system.

Consoles are not PCs, and the software developement process is not the same. It's a static environment that lends it's self to a deeper level of mastery.

So, in 2 years if we see games crashing, rest assured they'll all be Electronic Arts and Acclaim titles.

"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"

Re:Uh... ok, that was almost news

> Wanna watch my Linux box crash if I tell the kernel it has 256MB of memory and only have 128MB (and then try and run Mozilla :-P)

But why would you do that? To make Linux look bad?

Well in this particular situation, Microsoft was demoing their product, and tried to show it in the best light, and thus really had no interest whatsoever to sabotage their own product. And you can be pretty damn sure that they have enough money to put a decent enough amount of memory in the box too.

computers vs. game consoles

I think Microsoft is going to have to swallow hard and accept the fact that while Joe Sixpack may find his computer complex and doesn't find it odd that it crashes every once in a while, he is going to be horribly insulted when his game console crashes. ("What the..? Piece of shit..")

This is one arena where MS is not the "OS" leader. Nintendo, Sega, Sony, even Atari have established "operating systems" that work damn well on their games boxes and don't blue screen every couple of hours. The fact that XBox crashed in such a high-profile tradeshow displays pathetic programming. When Joe Sixpack learns that this is what he can expect from XBox, he will quite simply go with one of the established gaming vendors that has a box that can actually run.

Blue Screen Of Death

Sounds like a really kool game.

Is it out for the PlayStation yet?
_O_

Re:computers vs. game consoles

I think Microsoft is going to have to swallow hard and accept the fact that while Joe Sixpack may find his computer complex and doesn't find it odd that it crashes every once in a while, he is going to be horribly insulted when his game console crashes.

At one time I'm sure we would have said that no one would accept an OS which crashed every few hours.

MS's marketing department has a good track record of changing customer expectations to be `we desrve to be shafted, please let us pay more so you can do it harder'.

If they can sell that to professionals and corporations, selling the same to J Random 14 year old shouldn't be a challenge.
_O_

Why the X-Box is setting up for failure

With all the news and information about the X-Box, I am convinced that the X-Box is doomed to fail at market for a number of reasons.

First, consider the hardware capabilities of the X-Box. For a console, they may seem impressive, but take a look at what they really are. First, the bogo-measurements: 4.8 gigapixel/sec (antialiased), 100M/sec sustained polygons. This may seem like a lot more than current-generation consoles, but due to diminishing returns, it isn't really.

Now, consider what's inside an X-Box: an Intel 733MHz processor, a (slightly modified) GeForce 3 video card, an 8 gig hard disk, and 64 megs of RAM. Sound like a PC? That's because MS wants easy porting. Unfortunately for Microsoft, historically every port from console to PC or vice versa has been a complete failure without exception. This is because of the different styles of play that consoles demand. Worse, Microsoft seems to promote "lazy" porting (add a few #ifdefs and recompile); this will be a disaster for the X-Box, since PC developers design their games to install to hard disk. There's one thing console users absolutely will not tolerate, and that's having to deal with the installations and disk space issues typical of PCs.

The X-Box is traditionally compared to current-generation consoles, such as the PS2 and Dreamcast. These comparisons are invalid, for two reasons. First, considering the release date, the X-Box must be compared to the next generation (NCube etc). Second, the XBox is, from a hardware perspective, not a console. Consider: it has the form factor of a PC, it is full of PC hardware, and it runs a modified PC operating system with PC APIs. The X-Box is not competing against Sony, Sega, and Nintendo; it is competing against Dell, Gateway, and Micron. The fact that the X-Box is not stable strengthens this argument; people will accept crashing from a PC, but certainly not from a console. X-Box looks good from a cost perspective for now, but its release date is still some ways off, and people will be willing to pay more for a general-purpose device than for an equivalent single-purpose console.

Another indicator is that Microsoft doesn't seem to be very confident in the X-Box. Look at what they've been spewing out to support it: vague promises, specs years in advance, and worse of all, faked screenshots. History has shown that Microsoft never gets anything right on the first try, and the X-Box will be no exception.
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A picture is worth 500 DWORDS.

Re:computers vs. game consoles

If they can sell that to professionals and corporations, selling the same to J Random 14 year old shouldn't be a challenge.

You're comparing corporations and professionals to 14 year olds when it comes to knowledge of these systems? That's a terrible insult--to the 14 year old.

Taco the defeatist?

They'll get the last laugh in 24 months when no software vendor dares release a game for any other system.

That's right... We should also throw up our hands and stop using linux, because MS is obviously going to beat us here too. There definitely aren't other consoles to provide competition...

Seriously, was there a glitch in the slashdot or something because I thought we didn't see microsoft as invulnerable over here.

not_cub

Haha

"XBox Goes Down in Public"

Am I the only one that thought unsavoury thoughts when I read that?

Uh... ok, that was almost news

Hmm, it's Sunday, so I suppose it would be a slow news day. But wow, was that a non-story. The story itself contained one sentance about the X-Box crashing, and apparently the X-Box sample that crashed wasn't the same hardware configuration as the final X-Box, namely lacking memory. So the game probably tried to address non-existant memory and crashed. Wowee.

Seriously though, this is really, really weak. Yeah, you could do a "Ha-ha" towards them, but this is really just purely immature. Wanna watch my Linux box crash if I tell the kernel it has 256MB of memory and only have 128MB (and then try and run Mozilla :-P)? Making fun of a pre-release verison crashing because it's not the same hardware is really foolish and immature.

I suppose the Nelson reference is appropriate - this article is about as mature as Nelson.

Re:The Windows 2000 Kernel

A more accurate story about the crash...

More accurate? Er.. it says "©2000-2001 Microsoft Corporation. " at the bottom of the page.

I'm not commenting on stability (to be honest my windows 2000 box has only crashed twice, both due to driver problems // allthough my linux box has never crashed) - i'm just saying that you are calling people anti-MS bigots but then posting a pro MS article from a MS site - hardly impartial either are you!

more bloatware

The X-Box itself is also quite large, especially in comparison to the slim PS2 and the petite Gamecube.

Wow, Microsoft seems to transition pretty smoothly to hardware.

Kurdt

Crashed of Game Consoles

What you should take from this is that the XBox is far too complex a device to be considered merely a game console. The whole point of game consoles is that they are simplified specialized computers. The OS should be simple, and reliable. To provide an unreliable OS in such a device is completely inconsistant with the target market

OK, you say, providing an unreliable product is ALWAYS undesirable; well I maintain that it is more of a problem here because the target market is less technically inclided that that for a computer. Computer owners have the will and ability to pursue problems and correct them. Game Console customers are generally less inclined tward this way of thinking. For this reason, Microsoft will have to adopt the Apple MAC OS support strategy 'If it doesn't work, re-install it'.

Over the past 20 years we have been conditioned to accept bugs in software. In fact the software industry in the only industry where companies are not pushed out of the marketplace for providing defective products. As the adverage level of technical expertise of computer owners declines, this becomes more prevelent, because new users again, just accept this situation as the status quo.

On occasions too numerous to count I've had to tell new computer owners something along the lines of:

"Occasionaly computers will crash. This mains that some unexpected condition has occurred within the system. IN the event of this happening, here are some basic steps you can take..." bla bla bla.

I should Never EVER have to tell someone that. Game Console users should certainly not have to deal with that.
TO be perfectly fair, Over 15 years of using Nintendo Game Consoles, I have seen them crash. Perhaps 25 times in 15 years. As compared to any (windows based) computer, that record is pretty good.

In the spirit of complete fairness, lets close by looking t it from Microsoft's perspective:

See, Microsoft has contributed to computer science by making otherwise deterministic systems completely non-deterministic. Wait, Isn't that a requirement for true artificial inteligence. See It's a feature. People have been trying to create non-deterministic computing systems for 30 years... And Microsoft has succeeded.

That's all I've got folks. I can accept computers crashing occasionally, buy Game consoles? Give me break!

--CTH

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Re:could they be fooling us?

There were also indications that the hardware is not entirely stable

Well then by Micro Soft standards they can release it now.

Re:The Windows 2000 Kernel

More FUD from someone who didn't read the article. The X-box in question crashed at a meeting of Microsoft's X-box development team. The meeting was NOT open to the public. I'd hardly call that showing it "to the world". You can't just make things up and magically have them become true.

Re:The Windows 2000 Kernel

You anti-MS bigots are so pathetic.

A more accurate story about the crash is here [xbox.com] The link is on Microsoft's front page, and the machine that crashed was the first ever working prototype. The machine was running pre-alpha code. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a few crashes during the development phase of a system, do you? I'm sure your code always compiles perfectly the first time you run it, with no bugs whatsoever. I'm sure Linus never had a kernel panic either when Linux was in the prototype phase of development.

If you're going to bash Microsoft, at least come up with some legitimate gripes, otherwise, you come off sounding like a bunch of raving lunatics.

Don't sweat the Xbox

I was doing some thinking about Xbox today, and I realized that this is the first time that comes to memory of Microsoft trying to break into an alien and well-established industry. PC operating systems, office applications, web browsers.. these are all things Microsoft stuck their fingers in quite early into the game to do their whole "embrace and expand" (read "slash and burn") tactics with.

However, we have Microsoft now trying to get into an industry that is extremely well-established. Of their two major competitors, one has been in the business for over a decade, and the other for about half a decade. Beyond that, this isn't just a software endeavor any more; this also involves hardware, something that Microsoft has historically left alone. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the Xbox is just an example of Microsoft's ego and cockiness running away with them. "We're Microsoft, and we can take over any industry we want." They might as well be trying to make movies or gasoline.

You can't really compare Microsoft to Sony when they were first starting to work on the PlayStation because Sony had two advantages that Microsoft didn't: Some previous console experience (the PSX was supposed to be a CD add-on to the SNES) and experience in the consumer electronics area (hardware). Hell, even Phillips and Panasonic were better prepared to enter this field than Microsoft.

The Xbox so far has no killer apps (nothing worth looking at in light of Final Fantasy and Zelda), has no serious hardware advantage to distinguish itself from its competition, and generally has no direction (even compared to PS2. "I'm a game console! No, wait, I'm a cheap PC! Nope, um, maybe a DVD player with extras?"). It's this kind of wishy-washiness that has allowed Nintendo to deflate Microsoft's months of hype in a single weekend.

There's just no way the nightmare scenarioes I'm seeing in these posts can come about. Microsoft is not going to dominate the console industry because, unlike IE, they have about 20 years of catching up to do, and they seem to be allergic to hard work.