http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/ Engadget Comments for Report: Microsoft not down with third-party 360 wireless peripherals http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2008 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/Nov 6th 2006 8:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/
Money.]]>Nov 6th 2006 8:53AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/
Sarcasm aside, keep this post in mind when you read about their supposed new found affinity for PHP, Linux and their laughable attempt at "openness" with live.com.

Ballmer has zero interest in making paying customers happy. Microsoft's business model has been, is now and always will be to trap users into closed technologies, take their money and offer no upgrade path without paying more money - see the whole PlaysForSure / Zune mess.]]>Nov 6th 2006 9:02AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/Nov 6th 2006 9:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/
- Wireless protocol
- HDD (ps3 takes any laptop drive)
- AV Cable (ps3 uses std. HDMI cables)
- Memory card (wii/ps3 use std flash cards)

Yea, MS just giving you guys more choices... hahaaa..
]]>Nov 6th 2006 9:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/
As for the memory cards...the Xbox allows for any USB dveice to be plugged in and the media read off the device. So any digital camera, Music player, portable hard drive, USB thumb drive...can be plugged in and the media read directly off of the device. So your statement is a bit misleading...you actually get more plug and play functionality with the 360 even without the card readers.

The 360 unlike the PS3 is also Plays For Sure Compatible and will pay any WMA and WMV files over the network if you have Windows Media Player 11. It will also play WMA and WMV files off of external hard drives, USB thumb drives and Burned CD's or DVDs.

Now while WMA and WMV are proprietary formats...they cannot be categorized as closed. These formats are available to any company that wants to license them. Including many that do...such as Napster, Yahoo Music, Real Rhapsody, Wal-Mart Music, CinemaNow and the list goes on and on. Most web sites these days also use WMV format for video because of it's superior compression and very good quality at high compression. ]]>Nov 6th 2006 9:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/-------------
Of course. It still doesn't make them open.

Microsoft charges royalties for every WMA/WMV-compatible device manufactured.
Microsoft has strict licensing terms that include supporting their transfer protocol (MTP), their DRM, etc.

One company controls the licensing to the benefit of...themselves. One company changes licensing terms to suit...itself. One company turns on the lock-in to benefit...themselves, their OS, their grand plans.

This is all part of proprietary formats; closed formats. They are only open in the sense that the company licenses them to others, for the sole benefit of ... you guessed it - themselves.

Compare to FLAC http://flac.sourceforge.net and Ogg Vorbis http://www.vorbis.com, which are both not only technically superior, but open source and allow free implementations in any device, on any OS whatsoever, without royalty payments (there are no vested interests in promoting the Windows universe). Also artists/producers are free to sell/stream/whatever their content without restriction (or payment to a third party). No matter what the use.

2 systems: one is open, free. The other is closed, proprietary, with grand plans of collecting a toll on every piece of content produced with its tools in the not-too-distant.]]>Nov 6th 2006 1:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/Nov 6th 2006 10:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/
So does Sony and Nintendo, and for that matter, every company wants the money in our pockets.]]>Nov 6th 2006 10:23AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/
They meant memory cards. Some of us take our saves and travel with them to play on a friend's console. Some of us like to trash talk in person. Xbox forces you to use their memory unit to transfer saves while PS3 and Wii let you use SD or (for PS3) Memory Stick. It wouldn't be Sony unless it supported Memory Stick. I already have a 1GB SD card I bought for $30, why should I have to buy their unit?

And while WMA and WMV are far from prorietory, they are far and away from being standard. No one has held a PS3 yet to see what is actaully supported. And the 360 forces you to either use MCE to stream WMV or to burn WMV to a disc. I don't know about you, but 90% of my files are some form of Divx/Xvid or Mpeg, and converting them to play on a 360 is a hassle.

M$ having a lynch on wireless allows them to charge whatever they want for wireless because you have nowhere else to go. At least Sony is attempting something, offering open bluetooth. I'm sure after awhile some company will offer a wireless pad, and it will be awesome because the battery will be replaceable. ]]>Nov 6th 2006 10:54AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/Nov 6th 2006 11:22AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/
Didn't think so.]]>Nov 6th 2006 11:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/
I know they were hoping to make some extra money by doing this, but they are not Apple, and the 360 is not an iPod.

They need to get anyone on board that they can, and this game series is very important and popular.]]>Nov 6th 2006 11:37AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/Nov 6th 2006 12:30PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/Nov 6th 2006 1:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/Nov 6th 2006 1:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/Nov 6th 2006 2:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/
actually you can save onto a flash drive on the 360, and take your saves with you that way.]]>Nov 6th 2006 4:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/
Sure, it's not as cool as the built-in wireless of the 360 controllers, but if they're already doing it for the PS2 version it wouldn't be that difficult to do it for the 360 as well.]]>Nov 6th 2006 4:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/]]>Nov 7th 2006 3:21AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/report-microsoft-not-down-with-third-party-360-wireless-periphe/Nov 7th 2006 10:36AM