The Engadget & Joystiq Interview: Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft

Yesterday afternoon Joystiq editor Ben Zackheim and I sat down with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss the Xbox 360. We talked with him about what he thinks it's going to take for the Xbox 360 to be a success (he thinks they're going to swipe the top spot from Sony), his take on the PlayStation 3, why we might see one or more new versions of the Xbox 360 next year (hint: never say never to a next-gen optical drive), Microsoft's plan for backwards compatibilty, some more details about the new console's integration with the iPod and the PSP, and how all of this fits into Microsoft's living room strategy. Also present for the interview was Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach.

The first question is one of the obvious ones, but are you a gamer?

Am I a gamer? Casual. I'm the father of three boys who are not as casual as I am.

What do they have?

I've got three different age ranges. I've got a thirteen year old, I've got a ten year old, and I've got a six year old, and they're all in different phases of life. The thirteen is kinda classic. He's sort of a first person shooter guy more than anything else. The second is a sort of a massively multiplayer game type guy, mostly PC-

Yeah, you're talking PC so far, huh?

No, no, no, my first guy is almost all Xbox. My second guy is almost all PC, with a little bit of Xbox. And I've got a six year old and he's actually a little PC-these sort of lightweight kind of cheap games you get online on the PC. And there are a few games he likes on the Xbox.

Do you play with your son on the Xbox?

Yeah I do a little bit. I do a little bit. But, you know, I have nowhere near the agility or capacity to learn which I should at my advanced age, I'm afraid.

Have you gotten any time with the 360?

Well, with the box itself? Yeah. Obviously we're not sort of in full play, but production mode...

But did they let you bring one home?

No. Well, actually that's untrue. I have the silicon at home. I was with the silicon team last week during this MTV thing and they gave me one of each of the chips to take home in a little case, so I do have those. My sons were kind of impressed, I'll say.

Pulled some strings, huh?

Yeah.

How are you going to define success for the Xbox 360?

Well, I mean in the simplest of ways. I'll start very simple. If Peter Moore (who runs our marketing) was here, he'd tell you about brand and positioning and image. I just want to sell more consoles than anybody else in the next generation. And in the simplest of ways, you know, the number of units we sell is really important to me.

So you have to grab at least 50% of the market for this to be defined as a success?

I wouldn't go quite that far, but I think we will. I think we're going to have market leadership in this round. The big question is how well do we do in Europe. I feel quite comfortable we're going to do well in the US. Sony's going to outperform us in Japan. We're sort of doing well in all of the other markets relatively. And the question is how well will we do in some of the big European markets. And how well do we do broadening out the base? We're not going to abandon in any sense, the hardcore, the faithful gamers that have brought us here, but you know, as I think we made clear in the session last night, we are going to try to broaden out and get a new class of people involved with the console this round.

Yesterday Sony unveiled the PS3, and at least on paper it seems to outclass the Xbox 360 in terms of teraflops and support for 1080p, and it's going to have a next-generation optical drive which the 360 isn't going to have—

No... we just haven't announced anything yet. Sony may have announced a non-standard drive last night. We just haven't announced anything.

There are going to be some more surprises on the hardware end?

Could be! Look, for us to say we're going to go through a whole generation without an HD capacity drive—I think that would be naive to assume that we'll be sitting here at the end of the Xbox 360 generation and no such device will have shipped. On the other hand, we haven't announced anything, Sony's announced something, and who knows? You know, they could have announced support for Beta instead of VHS. We're trying to watch and really be agile on our feet, relative to the issues between HD DVD and Blu-ray. As a platform provider we're trying to make sure our software standards are well-supported in both places. As the provider of the Xbox, we're sitting there saying, "Look, we're shipping NOW." This was not an option. Neither one of these things were an option for our first shipment, so it's kind of a moot point. Sony's saying, "Who knows what the standards are, but we're going to commit to what we're going to commit to." I think we can be nimble and agile and that'll be important.

So there's a possibility of an Xbox 360 Mark II coming along?

I won't hypothesize on how we get there. I just think it's just wrong-minded to think that somehow we'd go a whole generation without this. We're not going to be sitting here five years saying, "Oh jeez, we don't have HD DVD-type storage." But we're going to out perform Sony in a lot of things. We're faster on integer than they are, they're faster on floating point than we are. To sit there and just take a look and say "Well, they're just faster..." Well, we've got three cores, they've got one core. Actually, we were pleasantly surprised by what they announced. They're later, and yet we think we're going to outperform them on a bunch of stuff. We think we've got better balanced system performance than they do. Now, when you're the second guy of course you're going to be faster. We sit there and say "There are some things [on the PS3] that are faster... [whispers] but there are some things we're faster on, too."

How much of an advantage does being first this round give Microsoft?

If we execute well, we think quite a bit. Just as being first gave Sony something of an advantage the last round. If we execute well, we're first to critical mass. And that matters a lot with the publishers, that matters a lot in terms of consumer word of mouth broadening out interest. We think we're going to be very, very competitive. We think we've got the fastest system even despite the fact that we're coming out first. We think there are a lot of advantages in being first. We've been targeting to come out this holiday, the holiday of '05. In the game theory of things, we assumed there was some probability Sony would match us, and probably a higher probability Sony would come later. And we said, "I hope they come later," because we'd see all the advantage of being first.

What has Sony done right?

Sony's a great company in many ways, and they're going to engineer something that's got some decent capability. There's no doubt about that. They have partners that have succeeded with them. I think we're doing a really good job of nurturing some of their partners. Their box didn't look bad, it looked ok—but I like our better. It's a little bit hard for me to laud the competitor, but Sony's a good company, and we have to assume that they're going to execute some things quite well. I was shocked that they didn't have more to say about online [gaming]; I just think of online as pretty fundamental at this stage. They didn't have much to say about online, and what they said was more than what they've said before, which I think is an interesting thing. We're both pretty keyed up on HD games—you can take the format and the disc aside—but we're both pretty keyed up on HD games. Of course we love what we're doing with personalization, but they were mostly about performance in their discussion last night.

Have you seen the game clips that they've released?

I haven't because I just came down today, but I'm sure competitive intelligence will be sharing those as broadly as they can. [laughter]

Regarding backwards compatibility, it seems like that's going to be on a kind of a selective basis from what we gather—is that correct?

We are working very hard to get compatibility. Of course the prioritization in our technical work is in the leading selling games from the first generation, just like the PS2 didn't run all PS1 games, it is unlikely we'll ever be able to say the 360 will run all Xbox 1 games. I think there are some games if we get them to run that means many, many other games will run, and I think rather than give some statement that is either too conservative (because the engineers can do better), or a bold statement we can't live up to, we thought we'd make our strategy clear that as we get further down the road and as our engineers do more work, the execution will speak for itself.

And there's also the possibility of patching over Live to allow for more games down the road—is that something that's being looked at?

Robbie Bach, Chief Xbox Officer: Sure, there's a number of different ways you can distribute the capability. The thing you have to recognize is we got to a point at E3 that we said look, there's so much speculation about this even though the work is ongoing, we should just deal with it and get people focused on the right thing rather than on the wrong thing. We wanted people knowing we're doing the work, but you don't want to say we're going to do every single game, because we don't know that to be a fact today.

Ballmer: We've actually dealt with this issue more than any other company in the world (with every Windows release). The truth of the matter is we run a high percentage of apps, and every Windows release we hear about the apps that don't run. But because there are fewer console releases than there are Windows releases, it's even more of a front and center question. But I think we have a pretty good sense of how to do this. Live gives us another asset to go after this, of course—we have a strong Live base, but it's still only a few million people at this stage, it's not all of our installed base, so we can't count on it as the only mechanism to try to get the strongest backward compatibility possible.

Will backwards compatibility be determined on sales if you proceed with the plan as you have? Will it just be the best-selling platinum hits?

I'd say it a little differently. I'd say what we will do is pick a set of titles and do all the technical work to get those to work. The truth is when you do some of those titles, you do get dozens to hundreds of other titles because you take any game that pushes the system and exercises it. If you can make backward compatibility happen for it, you'd handle any game that has a subset of what it does. So it's wrong to say it's about individual games, it's right to say we're going to prioritize the general purpose technologies based upon that which is in that league of games.

Bach: The other thing you can say is you can assume Halo and Halo 2 are fairly close to the top of the list... [laughter] for both the reasons Steve states. Because they're top selling games and they're some of the most technically complicated games...

Ballmer: ...so if you get those two, you'll get a lot of other stuff.

J. Allard touched on the issue last night on synchronization with the iPod and the PSP that the Xbox 360 is going to have, but he didn't really explain much about what form that would take.

Let's say... music, MP3s... if you have any music in AAC format there's not much anyone can do with it because Apple doesn't want anybody to do anything with protected AAC, so you take anything that's not in protected AAC format. We want you to be able to get that music over to the Xbox and enjoy it while you're gaming. So we're doing the work—whether it's with iPod or some of the other handheld devices—to move appropriate content back and forth. It's a nice thing. I think it shows our openness. It's good value for the consumer. I don't think it's big time rocket science.

Bach: Basically, anything that's unprotected. You know on the iPod, most music is unprotected, it turns out. So as long as it's not proprietary, based on something Apple's done, or any other music player for that matter, we'd like to be able to play it.

Ballmer: Yeah, 90% of the iPod music is unprotected, ripped legitimately (or illegitimately).

We wouldn't know anything about that [laughter]. Were there any mistakes made with the original Xbox that you learned from when it was time to start work on the Xbox 360? And if so, what were they? Give us the top three. Besides the design, that is.

In a way, yes. And in a way no. [chuckles] Sure, I actually think that in a way the design really worked for us in generation one. I mean everyone knows how to criticize the design. But in terms of really establishing us with the hardcore, our design was not all liability. It gave us a certain je ne sais quoi I would say. But we learned from the design, and we certainly learned financially about what sells, what doesn't, what drives value, what doesn't. So we were able to think that through in a different kind of way. So we know now what the value is of each component that we put in the system. Generation one, we just put components into the system because we were trying to get to market fairly quickly. So I think, you know, when we made the decision to go wireless we kind of knew what that cost would be and we could anticipate the benefit. We had a lot more judgment about that than we would have in any decision of that kind that we made. We had to decide how much memory. The decision to go to 512, that was a big, expensive decision that frankly was not where we were 3 or 4 months ago. So when we made those kinds of decisions I think we were a lot smarter. With 20/20 hindsight, maybe we would not have made all decisions the same. But I know we're making them smarter. That would be number two. Number three, the kind of content and content mixes that we need for different people, different geographies. I think we're a lot smarter about that. I mean we did a great job in the US and the English speaking countries like Northern Europe. I think we know we need a little bit different mix of content, and probably a little bit different marketing approach in France, Germany, Italy, and some of those countries. We certainly learned a lot about that in first generation.

Bach: The role of first party.

Ballmer: Yeah. That's right. What is the role? Our whole economic model and thesis, at least the one that got sold with the original business plan, has changed. Which is fine. I'm confident we'll have much higher unit volumes in the second generation and we'll also make a lot more money. We'll make money. And it will be a lot of money! As opposed to not making any money! We will make money, and a lot of money in this next generation! So [we learned] a variety of things.

You mentioned that you're probably not going to beat Sony on their home turf, but is there a specific plan to grab a bigger slice of the Japanese market?

You bet! This generation has given us real things to think about in Japan. We'll build some share in Japan and I think we're quite enthusiastic about that. We certainly have more good content lined up for the Japanese market, both first party and third party. That's exciting. When I say I think we can be number one this generation—and will be number one this generation—it's not because we're assuming we're going to get 45-50% market share in Japan. We'll get there with strong US performance, strong performance in Europe, and let me just say all the other markets except Japan. And we'll do better then we did first
generation in Japan.

Will you be distributing double A, triple A titles through Xbox Live? Not just arcade stuff, but actual titles?

I think current course and speed, titles are just getting bigger and bigger. So, the question is what will even be the consumer convenience? I talked to some publishers today who will tell you [in a "dude" voice] "Gosh man within two years we really do need massively more storage." And you know, which gets you back into the HD DVD format question, and when are we going to have the capacity? So, I can imagine more things getting sold directly. We're certainly going to support the consumer. Whatever the consumer wants at the end of the day we and our partners—retailers and publishers— we will figure out how to deliver to that consumer.

I think that those who predict that there will be a radical shift in distribution itself in the next few years, that's unlikely. The way games get played may shift quite radically. The importance of that online connection I think is just going to skyrocket! It will be because it changes the way the games are played and the way you work with other people. I think it will be important to some kinds of buying but I don't think it's going to dislocate today's existing model. I think there is still a lot of convenience to a GameStop, or a Target, or a Best Buy, or whatever your favorite choice is in terms of the experience.

Are there going to be multiple configurations for the box? Will there be version with a built in TV Tuner and an expanded hard drive?

[laughing] We love the one configuration we've announced and we're creative guys and I think you're creative guys and so the notion that there might some day be other configuration is eminently possible. It's a little bit like the discussion about HD DVD type storage. Will we have it? Sure. It's not like by the next generation there won't be a way to get massive storage on an Xbox. You'll get it. And there will be other configurations that come to market. When and how and exactly which ones... when there's news I'm sure we'll be happy to trumpet those. Right now we love our one configuration that we got in market for this Holiday.

So just one configuration is targeted for the Holiday release?

Yeah, given that we know we're going to have to hustle to produce all that people are going to want, that kind of keeps life a lot simpler for the retailers. If you said, "Look we're coming to market with three configurations, and we were in short supply, and we got the wrong mix of configurations," it would just compound all the problems. We're really quite excited about the proposition for having just the one configuration in market particularly for this holiday.

There's a lot of talk about innovation on the 360, but the titles you showed Monday night were platformers, shooters, RPGs, nothing new. How can Microsoft help developers innovate?

Well, let me give sort of two completely different sides of the coin. Number one: we have to give an environment in which people can really do innovative things. Certainly the publishers I talked to today think we're doing a pretty fantastic job of that in what we have coming in Xbox 360. The live environment, the XNA environment, the hardware environment—I heard a lot of enthusiasm about that. Let's call that standard, normal stuff. The other thing we have to do, frankly, is tell the story. We've got to be there telling the story and showing those things which are more interesting. Whether it's a Spore or Kameo, which is a different kind of a game for the console world.

I think there will be other things that matter, and we gotta be willing to put our money where our mouth is both in terms of our own development and the promotion that we do with third parties. Not only are we very willing to do that, in a sense we have an incentive to do that. We have an incentive for people to understand that our platforms—because we have two of them, the Xbox and PC. Our platforms are the platforms where people are doing the most innovative games, some of the things you mentioned are clearly as PC centered as anything.

Bach: The other thing, think about things that are interactive entertainment that you might not think of as traditional video games. Take something just to pick a generic example, like video chat Texas Hold 'Em. Is that a video game? I don't know? Is that a broad game that a ton of people know how to play that would be really exiting and fun to do? The answer is yes. You get into the world of things that are completely new and have never been done before, and things that are just not thought of as video games that the environment really enables in addition to all the stuff Steve mentioned creating a canvas for people to innovate on.

Ballmer: Take today's passive video content, add a little interactivity to it. Take today's interactive content, games, and add a little bit more video sequencing to it. It gets harder and harder to tell what's what, but we want to facilitate the delivery of a variety of different forms across all our platforms, today with the Xbox more than anything else, but with Longhorn—and some of the investments we're making around Longhorn Windows and Xbox—again, I'll think you'll get an evolution in the set of genres that are interesting, whether it's because of Media Center and greater integration of the TV experience or because of some of these other things.

Bach: Just to give you a specific example, wouldn't it be cool to have the game that has the person on the PC being the general who is driving the strategy and the person on the console on Xbox Live executing the strategy. That is a completely new genre, not sure what you would call it, but that's a completely different experience, and it leverages everything that steve talked about that we're putting in place. That's the kind of thinking that we're going to get people to, whether it's first party or third party.

Look past the gaming aspects of the console, how does the Xbox 360 serve as Microsoft's beachhead into the living room. A 20GB hard drive isn't a lot of space for storage, but since it does have this broadband connection, how is it going to integrated with IPTV, streaming video, and streaming audio?

Three things: Number one, who knows what configurations will be there by the time we're done. I think that's important to say. Number two, because you do have the network connectivity, whether you have a Media Center PC or not. You can put an awfully big hard disk on a regular PC and plug into this ecosystem, we have plenty of extensibility in terms of storage. And then number three, you take the IP TV work we're doing, and that technology can run on a PC, on a set top box, it can run on an Xbox. So there will be, in conjunction with the work we do with the video delivery companies, particularly the telcos, who have tended to be our strongest customers for our IPTV stuff, there will be yet another way to acquire and use video content. So you have set tops, you have the set top experience, you have the Xbox, you've got a big hard disk, you've got networked to the PC in the home, so I think there will be a lot of ways to get that media onto the Xbox.

Is there a plan for people to be able to purchase TV shows or movies via their Xbox even if they don't have a Media Center PC?

Right now we're working hard with a number of partners, like SBC, like Bell Canada, a number of others, to get IPTV to critical mass. As IPTV gets to critical mass, you will find that those partners are anxious to have as many people monetizing their investment as possible , and the Xbox community will be one of them.

They're looking at Xbox as a distribution channel?

I think so, we're certainly talking to them about all of these things. Until there is some real business deal to announce I won't announce it, but we're set up technoliogcally, but it does require some sort kind of business relationship.

Thanks very much for taking the time to meet with us, we really appreciate it.

Thanks, I appreciate that you guys were able to take the time today.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

[Quoting #134]
"Also, the XBOX360 will be the easiest next-gen system to work with, so developers will lean towards developing for it rather than the more complex and confusing (just like ps2 was) Cell processor. Devs only RECENTLY were able to tap the true power of the ps2 because of this complex and confusing design. Now, DOH!!! Sony did it again and made their system hard to develop for."

Personally, I hate SCE(sony computer enternaiment | sony's gaming and software division), and everything they make, for the 'lamme' way they act towards the competition, as we saw when Dreamcast was announced and the way they still do the things, as we have for example the E3, were many tech demos were shown but no games (yea, Final Fantasy tech demo looks amazing... hey Futuremark's 3D Mark has a lot of amazing tech demos but hell, never saw a game running like that in my computer besides those tech demos...), I don't like sony ce, neither I'll ever buy any game console with the playstation or sony ce logotype there.

But! What you said about microsoft PWNING the whole scene, looks to me as a MS fan boy conversation than anything else... Let's be smart, you don't have the knowledge to say that PS3 is hard to code since you are not a programmer and even if you were, I bet sony dind't lend you an SDK development kit. According to what programmers said Sega Saturn was HARD to code and mainly they atribue Sega Saturn failure to this. I hate sce. But don't act like a 'lamme' sony boy, get the facts and talk about the facts. period.

Long live SEGA and Nintendo.
And a good and healthy living to Microsoft Games division.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

#132 I mean :P

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

I am getting sick of people saying Microsoft "stole" from Apple. That's like saying the japanese stole the car from us. They didn't steal, they improve on it! Just like MS did. Thats why they lead in the industry, because they made a better product.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

.18 + .88 is not 1.75 TFlops not even close to it it only 1.06 TFlops

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

.18 + .88 is not 1.75 TFlops not even close to it it only 1.06 TFlops

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

No woulder you guy think the xbox 360 is so powerful, it because you guy cant count. hahahaha

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

I got a kick out of toms hardware guys trying to find a real xbox360 at the show. What they found at the games being demoed were the new "wireless" controllers hardwired to a pair of macintosh G5's. Having a competitor's computer running microsofts demo must be embarrassing (No wonder the G5's were hidden away). The only working 360 was at ATI's booth showing off a pre-rendered movie showing off the ATI hardware. No actual 360 machine was playing a 360 game demo. The release date is only 6 months away.

If Microsoft is to have sufficient quantities for a world wide release date of Dec 1, 2005, Production has to start very soon. I wonder if Microsoft might be a little optomistic on their release date.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

sorry my mistake - it was Anandtech

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

The games proposed for sony puts me off. Tekken 5, Gran Tourismo 5, metal gear solid 4 etc tec. there seems to be a lot of PS2 emotion engine style guff as well. As far as Microsofts comment about making money - Isn't that what they are all in it for? Last time I checked I thought that was sony's main aim as well (perhaps thats why we suffer from such a dirge of repeat titles with nothing new every year such as the like of GTA, FIFA etc) I hope the Xbox 360 does well and gives sony a much needed kick up its complacent arse.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

seems to me a TON of people are hyped about the 360, i work for gamecrazy so far you can preorder both 360 and playstation 3.

29 preorders for 360,
2 for ps3

Just something to think about. Sony might be winning on raw specs, but i think xbox made a group of gammers who wont let them down(my self included) I didnt buy an xbox because of the power, i bought the xbox because of halo which then turned into xbox live. Xbox live is worth 99.9% of the games on ps2. I havent spent 250+hours on a game sense pokemon. Xbox live adds mass replay to games. Sonys online is a joke, untill they get a GOOD service i wont be looking at it. Hopefully sony will make a good online if they want to get some of the xbox fanboy crowd.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

The impression i get is that they are admitting that PS3 has more features. So they plan on upgrading the xbox in some time. This means, that u will have 2 buy additional components to get stuff like HD-generation drives. Or, perhaps buy a new updated xbox360 later on. That seems ridiculous since sony will provide everything out of the box. Even if sony comes out with a higher price point, it would make more sense to release everything as one so that the developers know that every1 will have the capability. Just like the mistake with the multi-tap, not everyone had it so the developers didnt necessarily have 2 support mroe than two players because alot of ppl did not buy it. however, if something is included with the system, everyone will have it and the developers will fully support it..

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

#50 & 51: Get a grip on reality! Apple went to Xerox and said we heard you had a cool idea, can we have it? Xerox said yes. Whereas MS came along all sneaky like and said �If you let us look at your new cool stuff, we�ll be able to make better stuff for you!� Meanwhile, they created their own stuff in secret, sold it in secret, and blindsided Apple with the sucker punch of the century� selling more of an inferior product than had ever been done before. So you wo and people like you need to shut the hell up and learn your damn history!

#58: You want to know the difference between MS not including a next-gen disc drive and Sony not including a hard-drive? Let me clear it up for you since your Redmond-colored glasses appear to be obscuring your vision: The HDD was merely an accessory, something you would not Need to play games. If MS is forced to release a peripheral like a next-gen disc player, it will be because it has become an industry standard, and no doubt, game creators will be clamoring for it, so they have more storage space to play with. MS is being stupidly shortsighted here.

To those of you yammering about whether or not HD-DVD is obsolete or Blue-Ray is obsolete� think about this� Blue-Ray is supported by tech companies (Dell, HP, Apple, etc.) and other well respected companies due to it�s clear technological superiority, whereas Toshiba is stuck with a bunch of movie studios (a powerful group it is true) who have only joined them because they don�t want Sony to make money since Sony also has a movie studio. When the majority of PCs come out with Blue-Ray� you tell me what will be obsolete.

What psychotropic drugs are you people taking that allow you to believe in any reality that MS might have the faster system? The PS3 is clearly, by hardware specs, and demos (both CGI, Gameplay, and scripted events) the superior model, and this time, by the admission of developers is much easier to develop for than PS2 was� witness the great demo by Epic for UT2K7 that they made in only 2 MONTHS!

And trust me, there would be a special download necessary for any upgrade to HDDVD or BlueRay from the DVD� and we know hoe wonderfully reliable and easy MS updates are!
#88: wake up silly! I�m sure that the reason Sony, IBM and Toshiba put up money for all that research and all that time (3 years+/- ?) and built entirely new facilities in which to fabricate these new Cel chips only to make them modified PowerPC chips� you idiot! Tech magazines were talking about how revolutionary and different these chips were back when they wer created, and they are still some of the coolest advancements yet.

#96: How big will games be? As large as they are allowed to become. If there is 50Gigs of space, it will be filled. Check out how many games come out on multiple CDs or a full DVD� if the space is there it will be used. What does that mean practically to the game developer and his fans? More content, bigger stories, better graphics, and so on. MS is setting themselves up to be in a bad position when someone wants to port to X360 but finds out� oops! There�s not enough freaking space, damn, do I really want to make the players change multiple discs? It�s been done before, but most people prefer plug and play, not switching between games.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

I think what the Big 3 (SONY, MS, NINTENDO) should do is combine the best of all three technologies and make them able to run any game imaginable going all the way back to Atari. That way they can be all proud of monopolizing the market with there all-in-one machine call the "Playbox 360 Revolution"

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

from what I have seen so far I have to say I am going with xbox 360. as far as performance goes the two are pretty close, during gameplay you will hardly notice the difference. sony having blu-ray seems like a bad move to me. who cares if you can hold 54g of data. a current xbox game is on a dvd that holds 9 gigs, of all the games I have (30+) only about 5 of them go over 5 gigs. the biggst game is jade empire at like 7.2 gigs and thats a complicated and expansive game so optical media space isnt a real big problem. if you want a console just for games, sony all the way. if you want something that can do more than just play games then get a 360. i personally look foreward to being able to play my mp3s straight from my mp3 player into the games as mentioned in this article. I just think that the 360 has more features than the ps3 and should cost a lot less. for my money i am going to get a 360. dependig on how much the ps3 is and how nice it is I might pick one of them up too but so far xbox360 all the way

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

The only thing I'm sure about at this point is that I like the design of the Xbox 360 a lot more than that of the PS3 and Revolution.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

Is he on crack or what?

http://www.killsometime.com/Video/video.asp?video=Steve-Balmer

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

@ #148

:: PARC Xerox
=============

Dude, nobody cares anymore except the fanboys. I note no-ones having a go at the developers of KDE, Gnome, NeXT Step however...

This is the same old MS vs Apple rubbish I hear every day and is completely irrelevant to the original post.


:: BLU-RAY vs DVD-HD
====================

Do you honestly believe the success of DVD as a medium is due to being able to purchase DVD-ROMs for your PC ??

The success of DVD in general is simple to quantify and explain if compared to pre-existing video media formats; hardwearing media, superior image & audio quality (to VHS at least) and the huge promotional push by the movie studios to make it a household media format.

If you want analyse further, you can easily argue that no small part of the DVD success has been down to the availability and cheapness of two other things; pirated movies and region free dvd players / modchips.

I fail to see how putting HD-DVD or Blu-Ray into a desktop PC will push one format over another. You will end up in a situation where there is little or no compatibility - something modern PC users would fail to accept. Also, I may be incorrect in this assumption, but aren't there issues with the Blu-Ray spec and the proposition of reading current DVD's ?

PCs very rarely require any more storage than is found on a DVD, in fact, the only thing that is going to require that sort of level of storage in the near future is going to be high definition DVD. (Did I hear someone whisper WMV-HD, hmmm ?)


:: STORAGE CRITICISMS
=====================

I disagree totally with you here, if you don't include a hard drve how do you expect to store downloaded content ? On itty-bitty 8mbit memory cards ? Wowee, I better go buy some shares in memory chip manufacturers before Sony start providing downloadable content for PS3.

I can't see MS comitting to either format immediately, they will no doubt want the XBOX360 to play prerecorded content too - they're pushing it as a home entertainment system after all, but until the studios decide what they are doing or PS3 starts shipping they won't commit.

Also, if the design of the drive mounting mechanism is sufficiently well thought out, it shoudl be easy for a user to upgrade the optical drive with ease, just as you can on a laptop. After all the front panel is removable. This gives MS free choice of storage techonologies for the future. Your "too big" situation can't occur if MS plans sufficiently well. The had drve on the XBOX360 is supposed to be removable too - this suggests upgradable too...


:: CELL PROCESSOR TECHNOLOGY
============================

The cell *is* power derived, however that's like saying the engine in a BMW-Mclaren F1 road car is derived from the engine in a BMW 850. Yes, they share the heritage but thats where the similarities end. Cell has the potential to be very very fast and expandable. How fast and expandable we don't know yet as it's new, unproven tochnology but results so far look "interesting" :-)


Personally I've pre-ordered 360 and will wait to see if the PS3 will be worth having too, though talking comparisons, I can't stand the PS1/2 controllers - they're far too small and fiddly. The XBOX Controller S (You know, the one that looks like a direct clone of the dreamcast one) suits me perfectly. Looking at the the PS3 concept controllers just makes me shudder !

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

Meanwhile, they created their own stuff in secret, sold it in secret, and blindsided Apple with the sucker punch of the century� selling more of an inferior product than had ever been done before. So you wo and people like you need to shut the hell up and learn your damn history!


Hey Philip,
If MS had such an ( Inferior ) product to Apple, Why is it that they have 80% of the OS Market? Especially When as you say, MS got there late, so as to ( Blind Side )them?

I will be the first to say I do NOT like MS Windows.
But I detest Apple further. And you know why?
Because I game, and that means the 3 or 4 games the Mac can play are a joke.

MS has its problems, but games are created for windows. Untill the Apple OS is the Accepted Gameing Platform, I stick with them.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

All this 'power' talk is absurd. "Oh, but this machine theoretically does .0005 more nanoflips per second! Company X is doooooomed!"

Also, when it comes to backwards compatability, Nintendo has this sealed. Not only do you get to play all your GameCube games, but you get to play just about every other awesome game we've ever released. Not even Sony can front to that.

Ultimately, I can't imagine how Microsoft or Sony can sell their beasts for anything under $399, possibly a bit more. Too rich for my blood. I might pick 'em both up at the eventual $150 price drop, but I'll have had plenty of entertaining hours with the Revolution by that time.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

1) Take a look at this link prior to declaring the PS3 the superior system. This is Microsoft's spin, but it's grounded in fact: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/617/617951p1.html

2) Optical drive - there is no pont to having one right off the bat. Few people are buying blu-ray or hd-dvd movies right now, and the extra cost will hurt 360's initial sales. Why not wait until the format wars are over, go with the winner, and then sell a 360 with that particular drive. For older unit, sell a peripheral device that costs the difference between the two units (and extra 150-200, which is how much more the advanced optical drive 360 will cost). No one loses. Some people have to have a peripheral sitting there, but all the playstation folks are used to that anyway. The first buyers get the benefit of being the first to own the system, for whatever that's worth (hey, some people paid $50-$150 to see Star Wars on the first showing when it will be running 75 times a day at every theater for the next 4 months). Microsoft's best bet is to keep cost down and try to get as many people to try out 360/xbox live games. Stick to gaming now, worry about movies of high content games when they are actually being developed, two years from now.

3) Industry analysts are guessing Sony will lose $200-400 american per unit sold. Can they bankroll the kind of losses Microsoft can given the weakened state of their non-gaming units?

4) The PS3 is going to cost an arm and a leg. The 360 just an arm. That could make a difference.

5) Xbox live's value can't be overstated.

6) I love the looks of the PS3, but didn't they bash the XBOX's size? Seems they've changed their story.

7) Yes, I'm an xbox fan. I play alomost exclusively on live these days. I don't view Microsoft as an evil company - just a very successful one. A LOT of my friends are PS2 guys (they play almost exclusively sports games) - I'd love for them to come to the 360. They all love Halo.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

Well I shouldn't be speaking but to put it simply, the Xbox 360 design is kind of stupid, campared to the PS3 design.

The new xbox controler is a copy of the old S with the black and white buttons turned into triggers (personaly I don't like many triggers cuz they kind of confuse me, just two for each "main brain processed fingers" is better but I like the new design.

The new PS3 controler is a joke, "hey batman, someone stole your batmerangue... oh wait, its just another PS3 controler." The old one was icredible, why did they change it so much (microsoft only changed theirs a little).

The Xbox 360 suports 4 wireless controlers, the PS3 7, why do you need seven controlers? 6 or 8 ok but 7?

The Xbox 360 specs are sort of as strong as the PS3 ones, the 3 cores will probably outpower Cell (although Cell will probably be the future). ATI is beter then nVidia, specially in performance, and having unified shaders is a very good thing, gives programers more freedom, and it doesn't compromise power.
Same for the Ram, the xbox has shared 512 and the ps3 separate 256. Again shared means more freedom as a game might use very little normal Ram and use like 400 mb for video processing (the max they can achieve is 256 with the PS3)
In the end the PS3 will probably be more powerfull but also more expensive and harder to program.

Now before you start saying i'm not a programer well i'm not one but i know how to do it (i've written simple games but games notheless) and the new microsoft xna will solve a lot of programing issues and i've also heard it will be possible to program in C# for the new xbox (I hope so but i'm not gona discuss why C# is better the C++ here, to put it simple C++ is Better than C but its weaker).

Coming first to the market is a good and a bad thing, but microsof is probably doing something very "nauty", showing their specs so that Sony would be scared and show of really better and more expensive ones, while in the end microsoft is increasing the xbox 360 power until release and sony has nothing else to give.

Halo 3 will ship together with the PS3, evil bill gates, evil... (why didn't he just make the xbox 360 come exatly at the same time as the PS3?)

Raul is Gay - you don't know him but you have to know this in order to survive in this god forsaken world...

The Xbox 360 presentation was crapy but the PS3 showed pre-rendered videos (sad isn't it).

Gears of War is really really good (not pre-rendered but looks almost has good as killzone 2). Also I look forward To blowing up the environment in gears of war, hope ps3 games have something like this to.

I'm not a microsoft/xbox fan.
I prefer xbox but hate microsoft .
Direct X is better than Open GL
XNA will revolutionise game development.
Managed Direct X might come to Xbox 360 (wich is much easier to program with than normal direct x and even more easy than open gl)

Xbox Live...Case closed...

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

I have personally looked into all the aspects of all the consoles and I am a software developer, so I do know some other aspects of each console.

For ease, I will ignore the Nintendo Revolution for now. They need to release some more information about their console before I can comment on it�

First off, both systems will be awesome and blow the minds off gamers and game developers. Although I personally prefer the XBOX 360�s look, I know many people prefer the PS3.

An interesting side note: (From what I have read�)The PS2 did well in Japan and the asian countries because it was small. Not to be stereotypical, but asians love small-type gadgets and they live in smaller housing. It will be interesting to see how the some-what smaller XBOX 360 performs here against the noticably larger PS3.

I think that the PS3 specs are somewhat overblown. Remember that before the PS2 came out, Sony promised that it would be able to render Toy Story in real time. Also, even thought the Cell processor may have 1.8TF of streaming floating point calculations, most games don�t benefit from it. (Please forgive my numbers if they are off, but they should be somewhat close.) 87.5 percent of the Cell processor is dedicated to streaming floating point calculations. When you anylize the best games today, you notice that only about 10-15% of the game time is floating point calculation, while only about half of that is streaming floating point.

Also, it is foolish to use blue laser technologies for this generation of gaming. The most requested thing from developers for the next versions of consoles were quicker disc seek times and faster reading. By using new blue laser technologies, you instantly loose the seek time performance because the disc size is so big. Also, if it gets any bit damaged (much easier on a higher density disc), the read errors increase and then you lose performance. Lastly, the third major request from game developers was a lower price. By using a (now unfinished) blue laser technology, you can instantly add about $100 to the price (remember how much DVD drives cost when they came out). XBOX 1 games used dual layer DVDs, but 90% of the games would fit on a single layer disc, so there isn�t much need for more storage.

Both systems are not dirrectly compairable because of the new technology (Cell vs 3 Core PPC, ATI vs nVIDIA), so lets try to assume that they are about equal. The reason that XBOX 360 games will look great in the future will be because of their new (patented) �Procedural Synthesis� technology. Basically, this makes games look much better and much quicker to develop by using code instead of art. I will quickly try to describe it here, but there is a full article on it here(http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-1.ars?97898). Lets say you were trying to make a great looking forest. In cheap games, developers make one tree and copy it a hundred times to make a forest. In good games, developers hire an army of computer artists to hand make trees to put in the forest. In the XBOX 360 world, you make code to generate the tree and the XBOX 360 will automatically create each tree differently. This saves memmory space because all the trees� vertex points don�t need to be saved, making the game render faster and look better with less memmory needed.

Lets also use �Procedural Synthesis� for another problem. I know you have seen games where something is suppost to be circular, but instead it is a polygon. This is because the computer artist is not able to make a circle because all objects are made with triangles. Also, the artist needs to think about how long it takes to render a good circle. Well with a fake-circle (polygon based) there is much memmory taken up by storing each triangle�s vertexes on the circle. In XBOX 360, an artist is able to create a �circle� without having to worry about performance because the XBOX 360 will intelligently render the circle to the best it can without lag. This produces a better looking circle with faster performance because very little memmory needs to be used to define the circle.

Also, regular gamers don�t really care to the specific performance specs of the system, it is the games and accessories. At E3, Sony said that their PS3 was running on stage at full performance, so don�t expect the games/technical previews to look much better. On the other hand, the XBOX 360 hardware was only working 25-40%, so expect big jumps in performance and graphics by launch. I think that the technical topics of the systems are too overblown and what will ultimately determine the success of the platform will be the games. With Microsoft taking a lead with �Procedural Synthesis�, more games will be developed quicker with better graphics. Software is a major topic that isn�t being discussed and since I am from a developer�s point of view, I can safely say that XBOX 360 should provide ample competition to PS3.

Now, for my market analysis, I believe that the XBOX 360 will tie or overtake the PS3. Remember that system performance is not a major factor in market share, so I am looking at the business decisions for my analysis. When the XBOX 360 is released, people will be so amazed that they�ll buy the system. Being first is a great advantage. Also, XBOX 360 (from my knowledge) should be less in cost than PS3. People expect PS3 to be between $400-500. It shouldn�t be the normal $40%, because Sony said at their E3 launch that it would be more than the usual amount. Microsoft promised developers to be around $40% at launch, so it should be in ballpark. (I think it would be funny if they sold XBOX 360 at a price of $360) Lastly, since the Dev-Kits for XBOX 360 have been out for a much longer time, there should be many more games for 360 at launch than PS3. Microsoft said 25-40 games would be released at launch with another 180 games already in development for release in 2006.

If I might say one last thing� If you would ask any gamer if they would like backwards compatibility, they�d say yes. But seriously, how many PS1 games did you play on PS2? Most people would say not very many. If they did play any PS1 games, it would only be the best ones. XBOX 360 will be backwards compatible for all popular games, so this shouldn�t be an issue.

Just for your knowledge, I have not altered any of the information and I am only giving my best professional opinion with the most accepted facts about the consoles. In the end, all gamers have benefited from the competition from Microsoft and Sony.

Thanks for reading! I would love to hear your comments ([e-mail]).

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

Kyle Egbert - Please, please, please stop being so logical! You're going to make all the Sony fanboys cry!

It's astounding to me the level of homo-console loyalty these guys show. They are not gamers, they are fanboys.

If Sony has done anything right its marketing to this type of shushy-brained consumer. Sony killed the Dreamcast the same way. I think (hope) Microsoft has the resources and talent to put up a good fight in the states at least. A good example: XBox live is better than anything I have seen Sony preview/pre-render for online gaming. Sony Online Adapter, HDD add-on and PSX all failed big time. These guys are impervious to competition.

I'm just excited that there are going to be 3 new great systems coming out in the next year (hopefully!).

Fanboys wake up --> healthy competition keeps quality and progress up -up -up!

And for all the socialist crybabies complaining that Steve Balmer only wants to make MS some $$$ - Duh!

What, it's only okay for Sony clean up in this industry that brought in more revenue than the motion picture industry last year?

I'm buying all 3 systems.
www.lowdown411.com

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

i'm amazed that you ms koolaid drinkers who insist that the sony fans shouldn't believe every line of hype sony spews forth, proceed right on to believing everything ballmer (who has proven repeatedly in the past he is a moron and a dong) and ms pr say.

and all these arguments for ms not putting in a nextgen optical drive are sound ones... but certainly not ones that truly support innovation and creativity. innovation means forging ahead, even if it means breaking a few things. innovation doesn't mean 'let's wait and see what happens before we do anything'.

ms doesn't understand innovation. they sure as hell don't know it like sony, nintendo and apple do, no matter how many of their own fanboys want to stomp their feet and insist they do.

also, to whoever thought ballmer admitting they won't beat sony in japan was a sign of him knowing his shit, get smarter than that, will you? anybody could've told you that. that's a given. ballmer doesn't even play games, he admits. why the hell is he even talking about the 360??? i believe him when he says he wants to sell more units than the next guy. that's probably the only shred of honesty you got out of him for this interview.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

So does this artical mean there Maybe be two Xbox360's? Heres my concerns.


Are there going to be multiple configurations for the box? Will there be version with a built in TV Tuner and an expanded hard drive?

[laughing] We love the one configuration we�ve announced and we�re creative guys and I think you�re creative guys and so the notion that there might some day be other configuration is eminently possible. It�s a little bit like the discussion about HD DVD type storage. Will we have it? Sure. It�s not like by the next generation there won�t be a way to get massive storage on an Xbox. You�ll get it. And there will be other configurations that come to market. When and how and exactly which ones� when there�s news I�m sure we�ll be happy to trumpet those. Right now we love our one configuration that we got in market for this Holiday.

So just one configuration is targeted for the Holiday release?

Yeah, given that we know we�re going to have to hustle to produce all that people are going to want, that kind of keeps life a lot simpler for the retailers. If you said, �Look we�re coming to market with three configurations, and we were in short supply, and we got the wrong mix of configurations,� it would just compound all the problems. We�re really quite excited about the proposition for having just the one configuration in market particularly for this holiday.
So there�s a possibility of an Xbox 360 Mark II coming along?

I won�t hypothesize on how we get there. I just think it�s just wrong-minded to think that somehow we�d go a whole generation without this. We�re not going to be sitting here five years saying, �Oh jeez, we don�t have HD DVD-type storage.� But we�re going to out perform Sony in a lot of things. We�re faster on integer than they are, they�re faster on floating point than we are. To sit there and just take a look and say �Well, they�re just faster�� Well, we�ve got three cores, they�ve got one core. Actually, we were pleasantly surprised by what they announced. They�re later, and yet we think we�re going to outperform them on a bunch of stuff. We think we�ve got better balanced system performance than they do. Now, when you�re the second guy of course you�re going to be faster. We sit there and say �There are some things [on the PS3] that are faster� [whispers] but there are some things we�re faster on, too.�

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

I think it's all a bunch of donkey's bollocks. MS have proven something crutial with their operating systems -- programmers working for MS aren't good at making things backward compatible! MS is no #1 for bundling (untested) buggy features* into products.

I won't be surprised if the next version of LIVE won't contain a "xbox 360 update" thingie, much like windows update for Windows. We'll see the first emergence of the console virus/trojan/spyware whathaveyou, while MS keeps bundling more buggy features* to battle them -- I'll be laughing when xbox 360 owners will be looking at ways to format their 360s.

The xbox 360 isn't just a "console" for MS, it's a part of a bigger plan to make Windows an esstential part of entertainment insdustry (get it into the living room, "even your granny can do things with it") aka world domination in all human related activities. MS cares only for software, because it's cheaper and less riskier, than say -- releasing expensive hardware and being forced to sell a lot of units. MS has done this before (and failed) with Window CE dev environment on the Dreamcast. Sensible developers opt for speed they chose not to use crappy Windows CE in their Dreamcast games.

MS's XNA sdk is supposed to aid developers in creating multi-platform games. "Let's face it", XNA is just DirectX with loads of features* taken off. The sole reason why DirectX existed for the Windows was because, Windows, the way it was built and designed, is fscking retardily slow when it comes drawing something on the screen. Window's was also a bitch when it came to any hardware-accelerated feature capitalization. Microsoft, now, is trying to pimp* their XNA to game developers in an attempt to ease portability for games to the xbox.

If Bill Gates & Steven Ballmer weren't such money driven pigs, maybe they might actually produce a real console for the gaming demographic and not a Windows Media Center PC/Console type-thing in disguise.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

@Kyle Egbert, good job on the post. As a developer myself, I share some of your opinions.

But truely, I don't see the point in arguging which is better. Can't you guys just wait for both of them to be released and then choose a side instead of arguing between an apple and a orange? It's also pointless to compare a product to the company that makes it -- just because a company might have done something wrong in the past, doesn't mean that their product won't be successful.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 12:15AM]

I think the IPTV portion of the discussion is really interesting. Microsoft, or any Xbox application developer, could instantly turn millions of Xbox owners into a new video distribution channel.

http://www.gahtan.com/techlawblog/2005/12/08/xbox-360-bell-canada-and-video-delivery-through-the-internet/