Xbox-IPTV
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Microsoft: IPTV not a part of Xbox Live Fall Update
Turns out those images of an Xbox 360 with IPTV were legit. In a statement issued by Microsoft, the Redmond-based company acknowledged that the IPTV features "were inadvertently exposed while the customer's console was being serviced and is unrelated to the Fall Update."The IPTV features, according to the statement, are part of the Microsoft Mediaroom services and will be made available to service providers by the end of this year, adding that it will be up to them to decide when the service is deployed. We've posted Microsoft's complete statement after the break.
Rumor: 360's IPTV features spotted in dashboard
Several images of IPTV options being displayed in the Xbox 360's dashboard have made their way into the blogosphere, courtesy of our pals* at X3F. According to tipster Aaron, the console recently returned from the oft-visited Microsoft repair center, only to display several new and seemingly incomplete menu additions. Appearing under the Media and System blades, mentions of DVR storage, live television services and pause buffers all seem to imply that the Xbox 360's IPTV services are close enough for us to start using words like "impending."If these images are indeed proof of premature tweaks to the console (which still shows an older dashboard version number), one can speculate that IPTV may be introduced with this Fall's dashboard update. We've already asked Microsoft to comment, but if they treat this anything like the Arcade SKU, we can expect them to deny it until well after everybody's started watching TV on their consoles.*This status may change should those bastards fail to return our copy of American Ninja 4.%Gallery-9243%
John Romero: PC is about to make console its bitch
With the disfigured ghost of an anti-climactic game and the remnants of a self-destructive marketing campaign chasing him for the rest of his life, it's only fair that John Romero occasionally gets to look forward and into the future. In an interview with Adrenaline Vault, the Quake designer predicts that "cheap" multi-core processors will eventually steal hardcore gamers away from the "next-gen" consoles and bring them to the PC (or something "PC-like"), while the Wii's simplicity will earn it a casual gamer audience. "Next-gen console is big but its future isn't too bright with the emergence of cheap PC multi-core processors and the big change the PC industry will go through during the next 5 years to accommodate the new multi-core-centric hardware designs," says Romero. "My prediction is that the game console in the vein of the PS3 and XBOX 360 is going to either undergo a massive rethink or go away altogether." While the next five years may indeed bring enough cheap multi-core processors to blot out the sun, we submit that the PS3 and Xbox 360's intended audiences will happily play in the shade. By the time those PC parts are even considered to be cheap (try buying just a comparable multi-core chipset and a Direct X 10 graphics card for under $400 today), these consoles will likely be home to several franchises that hardcore gamers will be taxed to resist -- and the next wave of consoles won't be far off either.Romero goes on to say that "The Wii has the perfect design for a console that doesn't pretend to be a PC and is geared more toward casual gamers than hardcore gamers. The hardcore gamers are going to either be playing on their PCs or a new PC-like platform that sits in the living room but still serves the whole house over wifi, even the video signal." A PC-like platform sitting in the living room? Now that sounds a little more likely -- in fact, hasn't this convergence already begun?
Implications of IPTV-enabled Xbox 360?
You've watched or listened to the keynote, checked out the interface screenshots, watched the video, or simply heard about it through one of the 250+ news organizations that have already covered Microsoft's plans to add IPTV capability to the Xbox 360 in time for consumermas 2007. So what? What might this mean for the console wars? How will this change the game? We're not nearly as smart or creative as our collected readership (after all, Time made YOU the person of the year), so rather than rack our brains, we'll sift through yours and publish the best responses in a subsequent post. Task: in your pithy best, share how you believe that this announcement might change the console war now underway, if at all. Let's get a couple obvious ones out of the way first:
