On 5/5/05, Andrew Lentvorski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > As for xbox, that's probably one of the few smart moves Microsoft > made recently. Consoles have a built-in 3 year upgrade cycle. > That's *much* better than Windows.
Perhaps. But one of the effects that Windows seems to be aiming at is to make that upgrade cycle go away. Not only is the Xbox OS be upgradable, but they're building the Xboxes on standard PC hardware, meaning it will be upgradable too. You can swap out hard drives or add networking capability or install a spiffy Bluetooth card or some such. And even if they're trying their hardest to make it so all that upgrading is done on Microsoft's terms, instead of the willy-nilly anarchic tinkering that happens with conventional PCs, it still means the game console is becoming just another PC. They (surely) want third parties to be able to market their Xbox add-ons to work with other home entertainment gadgets, and that means some kind of physical infrastructure for that, and that means people don't have to rush out and buy the Xbox 2 or the Xbox 3 or whatever. Which doesn't mean that Microsoft's move was bad, necessarily. Better to pulverize a business model than to let someone else reap its benefits, ja? -todd -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
