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Bill Gates on the Xbox 2
At keynote address of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Bill Gates chose not to talk about the Xbox 2...at all. However, he did an interview with CNET the night before where he did mention some things about the Xbox 2. The interview can be found in full (very long) here.
The gist of the Xbox 2 part of the interview is that it will basically be a Windows Media Center that looks like a Xbox. This isn't all that unexpected as at the CES address, Bill Gates did mention that the Xbox will be able to be a satellite media center. And the very same concepts have been mentioned before numerous times.
But now we have official confirmation: "We didn't do Xbox just to do a video game; we did it to be part of our vision of the digital lifestyle," Gates told CNET News. "In the first generation, we had one simple goal, which was to establish credibility as a great video game platform. We've done that."
Gates claims that gaming will indeed get better, though by his own words that means "high-definition graphics" and not better games or a wider selection of games. Later, Gates said "For the games alone you'd say wow, but the concept of bringing in your music, your media, connecting to the PC, connecting Xbox Live to Messenger makes it a very big deal."
In regards to the Nintendo DS and PSP, Gates said: "We are not in the handheld space. We watch the intense competition of Sony, Nintendo, Nokia - whoever comes along with interest...The fact that Sony's a little distracted with PSP may let us do all the better in the next generation."
So basically Microsoft thinks that they have achieved enough in the console games sector. They now intend to move the Xbox brand beyond gaming and into music, movies, messenging, making toast, etc. Some questions we are all wondering about though include: what will all of this cost? Couldn't I just do all that with a Windows Media Center PC or even a regular PC? What about us gamers who just want to play games because we already own devices (remember those things...stereos, vcrs, dvd players, etc.) that do all the other functions?
Microsoft's intention to take over our entire lives with their technology is fairly daunting. Add in the DRM functions that will prevent us from utilizing a fair amount of our media (or possibly having an Xbox 2 that reports "criminals" to the authorities with its enhanced connectivity?) and it really doesn't sound all that enticing. Still, we'll have the latest on everything Xbox 2 when it is available.
Source: CNET.com
The gist of the Xbox 2 part of the interview is that it will basically be a Windows Media Center that looks like a Xbox. This isn't all that unexpected as at the CES address, Bill Gates did mention that the Xbox will be able to be a satellite media center. And the very same concepts have been mentioned before numerous times.
But now we have official confirmation: "We didn't do Xbox just to do a video game; we did it to be part of our vision of the digital lifestyle," Gates told CNET News. "In the first generation, we had one simple goal, which was to establish credibility as a great video game platform. We've done that."
Gates claims that gaming will indeed get better, though by his own words that means "high-definition graphics" and not better games or a wider selection of games. Later, Gates said "For the games alone you'd say wow, but the concept of bringing in your music, your media, connecting to the PC, connecting Xbox Live to Messenger makes it a very big deal."
In regards to the Nintendo DS and PSP, Gates said: "We are not in the handheld space. We watch the intense competition of Sony, Nintendo, Nokia - whoever comes along with interest...The fact that Sony's a little distracted with PSP may let us do all the better in the next generation."
So basically Microsoft thinks that they have achieved enough in the console games sector. They now intend to move the Xbox brand beyond gaming and into music, movies, messenging, making toast, etc. Some questions we are all wondering about though include: what will all of this cost? Couldn't I just do all that with a Windows Media Center PC or even a regular PC? What about us gamers who just want to play games because we already own devices (remember those things...stereos, vcrs, dvd players, etc.) that do all the other functions?
Microsoft's intention to take over our entire lives with their technology is fairly daunting. Add in the DRM functions that will prevent us from utilizing a fair amount of our media (or possibly having an Xbox 2 that reports "criminals" to the authorities with its enhanced connectivity?) and it really doesn't sound all that enticing. Still, we'll have the latest on everything Xbox 2 when it is available.
Source: CNET.com