XBMC bids farewell to its progenitor: the original Xbox

After seven years of development, the Xbox Media Center team says they'll no longer support the console that gave the project its name. We can't blame 'em: the writing's been on the wall for years now, and 733MHz will only carry you so far. If you can't live without your chunky horizontal monolith, don't despair -- you'll still find lingering threads of code being woven at our more coverage link, and you can always lend a hand yourself if updates aren't as quick as you'd like. Don't let that keep you from pouring out your sorrows in comments, though. We're sure Boxee, Media Portal and Plex already have a tear in their eye.

[Thanks, bgjz]

[TIMMAH Posted May 31st 2010 3:17AM]

Uh what's "XMBC"?

[cloud858rk Posted May 31st 2010 3:19AM]

@TIMMAH http://xbmc.org/about/

[Lloytron Posted May 31st 2010 3:20AM]

@TIMMAH

It says it withing the FIRST LINE of the article

[shadowfix Posted May 31st 2010 3:22AM]

@cloud858rk
Off topic much? Thats XBMC, we're talking about XMBC here! "XMBC bids farewell to its progenitor: the original Xbox"

[Joeyjoejoe Shabadoo Posted May 31st 2010 3:31AM]

@TIMMAH

x media box center

[Sonnyjimba Posted May 31st 2010 6:11AM]

@TIMMAH Google. Use it. Or alternatively read the article

[manofchao5 Posted May 31st 2010 1:32PM]

@TIMMAH
i never owned an xbox and even i knew about this
its probably the neatest software mod to a console ever considering it is its very own operating system

[cloud858rk Posted May 31st 2010 3:18AM]

God that thing is built like a tank. In a good, indestructible way.

[maribo Posted May 31st 2010 3:22AM]

I don't get this they should hav kept making games for the xbox untill they brought out the xbox that replaces the 360, like Sony did with the ps3 and the ps1 they only stopped making games when ps3 came out.
Yes I know that none of the games where quite crap and didn't sell well but at least they still looked after there original gamers

[TheGM Posted May 31st 2010 3:49AM]

@maribo
ummm...

*head explodes*

[Notme2 Posted May 31st 2010 10:11AM]

They couldn't wait to stop making xbox. Because of the millions they lost on production. The xbox division didn't make a profit until a couple of yrs into the 360 life cycle.

[MFM123 Posted May 31st 2010 11:44AM]

@Notme2

Actually it was because of a huge row with Nvidia that the original mk1 Xbox stopped so early.

Nvidia & Microsoft went to court over delivery schedules and pricing leading to Nvidia being dumped in favour of ATi in 2003 (3yrs before Xbox mk1 died).

It's also only fair to point out that the last game for it came out in late 2008, 2 yrs after it was discontinued.

I don't think anyone at Microsoft seriously expected the mk1 Xbox to make money as they were starting completely from scratch.

Besides the whole costs of everything Xbox (including the 360) last time I saw it came to around $5 billion.
Which is one single decent 1/4's net profits for Microsoft.
They could easily afford the losses.

[Special Agent Steve Posted May 31st 2010 3:25AM]

@futurerheza
I want an i7 in my next Xbox... as long as it doesn't overheat.

[thorpee Posted May 31st 2010 3:31AM]

I still got my original xbox serving media through my TV with XBMC. It's the best thing ever, rock solid. Plays anything you chuck at it as long as its not HD.

[mattblade Posted May 31st 2010 9:56AM]

@thorpee I only just got rid of mine. As a media center, it was wonderful.

[busbeepbeep Posted Jun 1st 2010 8:22AM]

@thorpee
Same here. I got a PS3 with PS3 Media Server running, but I use the Xbox for everything it can do and just use the PS3 for HD files and Netflix.

[tai376 Posted May 31st 2010 3:41AM]

RIP Path of Neo

[tiuk Posted May 31st 2010 3:59AM]

Thought my Xbox has been shelved for a couple of years now, I will admit that a small part of me died when I read this headline.

[ol1bit Posted May 31st 2010 4:00AM]

I still use XBMC! Xbox forever!

[Mik3h Posted May 31st 2010 4:01AM]

It's been an amazing run, XBMC. I still run XBMC as my main dash on my 3 original Xboxes!

Fingers crossed they will eventually start developing for the individuals for have a JTAG'd Xbox 360.

[HardcorePooka Posted May 31st 2010 4:46AM]

Sad to see official XBMC xbox development go away, but it's cool to see that at least one person is going to keep it alive. I did get a little tear in my eye when I read this. I should pull out my old Xbrick to put XBMC back on it.

[N3XuSeXe Posted May 31st 2010 6:27AM]

@futurerheza
RIP XBMC

[walter164 Posted May 31st 2010 8:06AM]

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[MDJCM Posted May 31st 2010 8:37AM]

Goodbye Xbox, you've served well! Not as a gaming console, but as the best SD media player ever.

Now running XBMC on a Mac Mini at 1080p, XBMC Lives on!

[AckbarsFist Posted May 31st 2010 10:01AM]

IMO, the original Xbox is an incredible versatile machine. I remember that a group of students got OS X and some version of Windows to boot on this thing.

[BLKMGK Posted May 31st 2010 10:12AM]

Wow, all of that about Boxee etc. and no mention that XBMC as a media center lives on? They dropped the ancient game console, they are keeping the Linux, OSX, and Windows platforms! Buy a cheap ION system and you're good to go with 1080P HD...

[dragonfli Posted May 31st 2010 11:02AM]

Then they need to rename it - it isn't Xbox Media Centre anymore, now is it?

[njthomas Posted May 31st 2010 2:01PM]

@dragonfli It WAS renamed, years ago to XBMC, a recursive name that stands for XBMC Media Center. It hasn't been called Xbox Media Center for almost half a decade.

[radarskiy Posted May 31st 2010 11:27AM]

"733MHz will only carry you so far"

It will carry you as far today as it did yesterday.

[Nogib Posted May 31st 2010 3:14PM]

@futurerheza You actually mean Mobile Celeron. :P That's what the Xbox really had. Calling it a Pentium III just made it sound more powerful.

[Gasaraki Posted Jun 1st 2010 10:55AM]

@Nogib

It was a full fledged PIII.