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Comment Worst Console Add-on Ever (Score -1, Troll) 280

All the major gaming sites say the same things over and over again:

Input lag problems
Tracking problems causing games to loose sync with your movements
You need about 7 feet of distance from the device and another 3 foot or so around
Issues with lighting, clothing, and other environmental problems
Voice tracking only works half the time
Menu navigation is tedious and pointless and slower than just using a controller

No wonder Microsoft resorted to faking their two E3 demos of Kinect and refused to let the press have access to it before the thing went on sale. 500 million in advertising and PR isn't going to salvage this disaster of a console add-on.

Comment How Far Microsoft Has Fallen (Score 1, Troll) 1

Blowing 500 million dollars selling PS2 era Eye Toy motion controls.

I remember back in 1999 or 2000 when it was rumored and then announced by Microsoft that they were entering the console market. The Microsoft people were talking like they felt pity for Nintendo and Sony because they were going to be wiped right out of the market by the Xbox. And Microsoft fans were saying how Microsoft could just buy out the entire console market with Bill Gates 'pocket change'.

After eight years and some seven billion in losses(much higher if you take away all the profitable products that have been used to hide the Xbox losses) and Microsoft is now trying to turn the five year old Xbox 360 hardware into a Wii type device by bolting on Eye Toy type motion controls. No one would have believed you a decade ago if you told them that was where the Xbox would end up.

Microsoft has closed down or let go almost all of their first party studios and are now left with just Rare, Lionhead, and Turn 10. They have pretty much given the finger to their existing Xbox userbase. And now other than another Gears of War game in late 2011, their exclusive releases over the next year is barren for non-motion control titles.

500 million dollars and Oprah isn't going to turn the RRoD plagued Xbox 360 hardware into a mass market Wii type success. Microsoft's Kinetic motion controls were so bad they had to resort to faking the past two E3 demos. And similar to the Final Fantasy XIV fiasco, Microsoft has been desperately trying to keep the gaming media from having access to and reviewing the Kinetic hardware in fear that it will get trashed once people have had actual time with the controls.

Hopefully Kinetic will fail quickly and not linger around very long and Microsoft can get back to taking care of the sickly and dying PC gaming market.

Comment Microsoft's E&D Just Lost 180 Million Last Qua (Score 2, Interesting) 585

Yes. Xbox fans have been making this inane claim for the past eight years.

The eight year long Xbox fiasco has racked up some 4-4.5 billion in losses for the first Xbox, another 3-4 on the second Xbox. And these are just the visible losses that come after all the other profitable software products Microsoft mixes the Xbox losses in with.

I've heard Microsoft people say the actual Xbox losses are in the 15 billion range when you separate them out from all the profitable products thrown in to hide them.

Just last quarter the E&D division that includes the Xbox lost 180 million. That means that even with all the other profitable products in E&D plus the hundreds of millions in online fees Microsoft charges a year, the Xbox still after five years losses enough money to help drag the entire division into the red.

 

Comment Laughable Drivel (Score 2, Interesting) 124

"Sony had to put an NVidia graphics processor in the thing late in the development cycle, once people finally realized that the Cell CPUs couldn't handle the rendering."

My god. You are repeating that Beyond3d forum lie in late 2010???

"For games, this sucks"
"Trying to hammer programs into that model is painful. (Except for audio. It's great for audio."
"In many PS3 games, the main MIPS machine is doing most of the work, with the Cell CPUs handling audio, networking, and I/O."
"It's not necessary to use an architecture as painful as the Cell."
"tough to program."

It's like you tried to parrot every Beyond3d x86 fanboy talking point you could remember.

Comment Re:MS Garbage Products: Xbox,Kin,Bing,... (Score 1, Insightful) 391

Please stop spreading fanboy lies.

The PS3 has had a sub .1 percent failure rate for the entire history of the console. Nintendo has reported similar figures but has had to less often due to the fact that Xbox fans have spent less time trying to smear their console's reliability.

Just a quick google shows survey after survey of Xbox 360 failure rates in the 55 to 75 percent range. The largest and most reliable of those is the 65 percent failure rate that most people use as the best estimate.

Comment Re:MS Garbage Products: Xbox,Kin,Bing,... (Score 4, Interesting) 391

"Some people had hardware issues -- oh no"

A 65 percent failure rate on a piece of consumer hardware?

A 1 percent failure rate would be insane. That would be 1 out of every 100 consoles consistently failed. Well made consoles like the PS3, Wii, PS2, GameCube have failure rates in the sub .1 percent range.

The Xbox 360 is a piece of garbage. Microsoft knew it was defective before they rushed it out the door back in 2005 and did nothing to fix the inherent design defects.

Microsoft deserves the hate of gamers and the console world. They are reaping what they sowed. The console world has prided itself that it was gaming that just worked. You plugged your new console in at the start of a generation and it kept working to the end of the generation. Microsoft' piece of garbage Xbox 360 made a mockery of that concept.

Comment Re:Cellphone Market Turning Ugly For Apple (Score 5, Insightful) 176

Apple still has an army of fans in the media who will proclaim every new product as 'innovative' and 'amazing' regardless of the actually quality which will help less the blow of Android dominance. However there is now an air of acceptance from Apple fans that the iPhone is on its way to a Mac like marketshare and quite a bit of revisionist history of "Apple never wanted to dominate the cellphone market" rationalizing going on.

Comment You Should Be Criticizing The Shoddy Tech (Score 5, Interesting) 130

Microsoft was caught faking their demos for their Eye Toy style motion controls for the past two E3s.

And first had reports constantly talk of horrible lag between arm movements and response.

You can't play games while sitting down.

You need to have a relatively large area completely clear in whatever room you are using it in.

There are lighting issues that cause the system to have trouble recognizing motion.

There are clothing issues that cause the system to have trouble recognizing motion.

It doesn't recognize fine motions like finger actions.

It only supports two players.

It should be obvious why Microsoft was forced to fake their demos and so far there has been almost zero real world demos outside of carefully controlled showings with people Microsoft is certain are going to hype the product.

Not that any of that really matters. There isn't any game even remotely interesting or fun that Microsoft has show for the system. When Nintendo showed off the Wii they were confident enough to let everyone at the very first E3 where it was shown play it and had games that both gamers and non-gamers really wanted to play.

Most likely the only people who will end up buying this shoddy tech from Microsoft are the same ones who jumped on the dead HD-DVD format.

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