
Stupid, Stupid xBox - cek
http://ilikecode.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/stupid-stupid-xbox/
======
GuiA
_"how it is crushing its original console competitors"_

Previous gen:

> Xbox sales: 24 million

> PS2 sales: 153 million

Current gen:

> Xbox 360 sales: 76 million

> Wii sales: 100 million

> PS3 sales: 70 million

(all data from each console's respective Wikipedia)

How is it "crushing" its competitors?

Otherwise, I bought an XBox360 recently to get the Kinect for openFrameworks
hacking and played a little bit with the console. All the points in the
article regarding the UI are spot on - it is TERRIBLE to use. Nintendo's UIs
are no reference either, but at least they're functional, while Sony's XMB is
actually quite good (although the PS Vita's OS is a horrible thing to behold,
which is scary for the PS4).

~~~
sliverstorm
All the other caveats aside, I'm willing to consider those results "crushing",
particularly when it comes to Sony. Yes, Sony and Microsoft are close to
parity, but think about how quickly Microsoft _got_ to parity. This is their
second console, ever.

~~~
sjwright
The PS3 is Sony's third console, ever.

~~~
MBCook
Fourth. The PSP came out between the PS2 and PS3.

~~~
tedunangst
The PSP is a console?

~~~
sjwright
If we can include the PSP, we can include Windows too. That's a huge gaming
platform.

------
WestCoastJustin
He has a massive point -- " _Why can’t I write a game for xBox tomorrow using
$100 worth of tools and my existing Windows laptop and test it on my home xBox
or at my friends’ houses_ ".

I am wiling to guess that game development will follow the path of app stores.
Consoles like the OUYA [1] will start to take over. The cycle from development
to distribution will be cut by orders of magnitude. xBox needs to get on it
and so do the other consoles!

[1] [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-
of-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-
game-console)

~~~
ChuckMcM
This is the promise of things like the Oouya console but they have yet to be
proven commercially viable in the market.

There are some interesting forces at work here. The amount of time and effort
needed to build a truly cutting edge game console has historically been high,
further tools to get the most performance out of the hardware have required
similar investments in expensive engineering time. This combined with selling
the consoles into a very price sensitive market.

In order to recoup those costs, given the market realities, the console makers
have traditionally resorted to extracting a 'tax' out of the game developers.
On the theory that charging a few extra $ for your game to cover the cost of
the tools / access is possible, whereas trying to fund the tool development on
the back of base console sales is not possible.

Historically this has been the PC's "secret" weapon against game consoles for
a long time. The cost of building tools was offset by developer fees across a
much wider base of developers. "Free" tools were good enough if the hardware
was sufficiently over powered, and gamers would spend $3500 on a machine that
"normal" people would budget < $1000 for. That makes things flexible.

Then there are the phone games, which like PC games, have the advantage that
the phone is useful for other stuff and there are more developers trying to
write apps for it.

Ooya's promise is that the existing Android infrastructure / developers will
support tool development, and the wide variety of handsets will constrain
there efforts to work on systems that are similar to the modest abilities
(relative to all android platforms) of the Ooya console.

So to respond to the articles point, the reason you cannot write a game for
Xbox using $100 worth of tools is because if Microsoft only got $100 from
everyone writing a game for the Xbox you would not have enough money to
actually create the tools, much less support them decently. Their best effort
at this was XNA but they have since killed that due to lack of adoption, if
you are EA you can pay big bills, if you aren't, there are not enough of you
to pay any bills.

~~~
autarch
I just bought a fairly capable gaming PC for around $1,000. It's not the
absolute fastest thing but it certainly performs more than well enough for all
the indie games I've bought.

~~~
roel_v
" for all the indie games I've bought."

Those are typically not the graphics-intensive ones. I'm not sure what specs
your machine make it into a 'gaming' PC, but I have yet to see anyone in the
industry call a machine with the specs that 1000$ gets you today a 'gaming
machine'.

------
theevocater
I've been shouting this for as long as I could: Once Apple (or maybe an
Android company or even someone new) enters this market in earnest,
Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo should take watch.

Apple has the infrastructure to deliver games, has tiny/medium/large touch
devices that can connect via bluetooth in many customers hands (which already
play games), and many many game developers familiar with the platforms. Every
big studio has an iDevice team and there are hundreds of good iPhone games out
there. If Apple can position the AppleTV as a console (maybe open it up to
developers) or build something more along the lines of a traditional console,
they will crush.

You can already do cool stuff like stream the game to the TV via airplay and
use the device for a score/map screen (basically a WiiU) and it works
surprisingly well and doesn't need cords or anything.

The only other real competitor here I see is one of the bigger android vendors
like Sony or Samsung. If Sony could get the company in shape and stop
producing products that compete with each other, they have many of the same
advantages as Apple. They have android devices, experience making
console/tv/etc hardware and even own game studios. They make every kind of
electronic that goes in the tv room. But Sony has had this for years so that
seems unlikely. They have already had huge employee slashes and are
floundering.

Samsung has the same thing going on. They make everything and they have huge
android phone/tablet penetration. I could see them easily jumping in on this
and I hope they do. More competition blowing the doors of this stagnant
industry could lead to a renaissance of smaller game studios.

 __EDIT __I should add that Valve also has a chance here. There are many
rumors swarming about a valve console or something similar. They have the
distribution system and the games market experience, but have no experience
with how to make hardware. Remember the last time that happened? I believe
they called it the "red ring of death". I'm not saying valve can't pull it off
but hardware is _hard_ to get right. I look forward to what they do.

~~~
nemothekid
>If Apple can position the AppleTV as a console (maybe open it up to
developers) or build something more along the lines of a traditional console,
they will crush.

This opinion is pushed around a lot, however I cannot really see it happening,
and I doubt Apple will ever pursue such a strategy.

For Apple to enter the console market, they would have to compete with the big
boys, meaning if it can't push 100 million polygons at 1080p it will never get
great adoption (who will want develop for a console with graphics out of 2005,
and who will buy a console that doesn't have Call of Halo 7?). This means they
have to create a modern console platform AND sell it at the price of an iPad.
I'm not sure how the ghost of Jobs will take the news once he finds out Apple
is selling hardware at a loss.

Next I doubt they would have anything to gain other than "you can now play CoD
on the Apple ecosystem." They would lose money on the hardware, they wouldn't
make much on the software if App Store profits mean anything
([http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-11/tech/29964545...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-11/tech/29964545_1_app-
store-gene-munster-apple) reports they may have made ~$300 million). It just
doesn't seem like a good idea finically. As far as the game console ecosystem
goes I don't think MS/Sony/Nintendo will ever have to worry about Apple.

All in all, I am not really convinced that the App Store market will work for
any of them. I strongly believe only Valve has the resources (and direction* )
to transition into the digital delivery era, at the expense of introducing yet
another company into my living room. Still the question is how do you
effectively deliver a magic box capable of playing Call of Duty at 1080p at
the price of current consoles sustainably/profitably. Vavle's success so far
doesn't worry about hardware. Their customers are either willing to spend
$1000+ on a gaming every couple years, or just suck it up and blame Dell/HP
for why their laptop can't play CoD.

* If Sony got their shit together, you are right, I believe they would take over the living room. They almost did it with PS2, and if the PS2 had come a bit later, or the PS3 was able to sell as much they might have done it. I think Sony could have built an Apple level brand loyalty (in the sense of having a Sony Computer, Phone, Laptop, Console) and (if they got much better at software development), they could have built a Sony store to manage your content on all those devices (after all they already own most of the movies and music). In another universe Sony may have been a Google + Hardware.

~~~
natbro
I honestly don't know if Apple will enter this market, but I'm not quite as
pessimistic as you are about the profit margin as the reason not to.

I think they could build a next-generation-console-capable Apple-TV and sell
it at or below $199 while keeping their 40% margin. They would sell you each
additional wireless controller (and it would be sweetly designed, I suspect)
for the standard $79 peripheral cost.

The primary contributor to their bill-of-material cost savings vs. competitors
is that they already own and/or license at huge volume their CPU and GPU cores
and know how to fabricate them in multi-core formats with high-speed cross-
connectivity. They can also buy RAM and flash for SSD storage at better costs
than anybody else. These are the primary cost drivers (basically money flowing
to IBM, nVidia, etc for CPU/GPU and money flowing elsewhere for RAM/SSD/HDD)
for xBox, PS, Wii.

Apple would have dramatically lower overall startup costs versus the original
xBox/xBox360 and PS2/3 given they already have a toolchain and SMP operating
system with sandboxing, an App Store and its back-end, user-accounts and
payment infrastructure, and numerous other costs shared with the rest of the
Mac and iOS ecosystems.

Apple wouldn't have a lot of work to do to train developers: tell us the
screen resolution, how to interact with the controller and any other new
hardware capabilities, tell us anything special about the GPU's and let us go
to town with the existing toolchain we are using for iPhone and iPad.

So, again, I have no idea if they'll do it, I just think it would be a very
profitable business for them.

~~~
sounds
With Tim Cook's track record of world class supply chain management it will
surely be profitable for them.

When the iPod was introduced it didn't compete on tech specs with the other
music players. "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." - the famous last
words dismissing the iPod.

When the iPhone was introduced it did have innovative tech but it was
secondary to the overall experience.

I'd say when, not if, Apple really wades into the TV market, they should be
able to achieve the same kind of disruption. TV's are an obvious choice for
Apple, because the TV is one of those consumer electronic devices that occupy
a sweet spot between status symbol and the everyday always connected
lifestyle.

Thanks for the article. Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo better watch out!

~~~
nemothekid
It would be absolutely revolutionary if Apple could do it, and it almost seems
too good to be true. If that supply chain was opened to anyone else it would
be like getting the power of an xBox 360 at $99, forget the raspberry pi.

Now I am not too keen on the video games industry and an insider might have
differ, but I've tried to do my fact checking. In a way the device you
described for Apple's target specs is what Nintendo did the Wii - and were
hugely successful for. They sold 100s of millions of units, and it wasn't sold
at a loss so they minted money. However, despite their huge shipments, only
Nintendo enjoyed success. The people who bought the Wii, only bought 1 or 2
games (like WiiFit and WiiSports) and it became incredibly hard for third
parties to market big budget games to them. Effectively the 3rd party
abandoned Nintendo.

Secondly, if the system is not powerful enough, I believe gamers will reject
your platform. I believe this is more important than the "No wireless" issue
because gamers are the only ones who will spend $59.99 on a big budget game,
and as a result 3rd party companies will suffer. You can't sell Call of Duty
at 99 cents, and gamers don't want to play a Call of Duty that looks like it
was made in 2002.

So the market, I believe splits into 2 groups - 1.) Average folk, who want the
box. 2.) "Gamers", who want the software.

We can already see this today. There are Netflix Machines like the Roku (1.)
and consoles (PS3). However I believe that the the console guys
(Nintendo/Sony) will eventually win out, because they provided the hardware
(the hard part) first. Its relatively simple to get the indie devs on your
side - open up the platform. But to get the big budget guys on your side you
have to convince them that they won't waste 50 million producing the next CoD
because it will be drowned out by the likes of Angry Birds and Temple Run.

Lastly, I am not sold on the fact that Apple will be able to push the same
numbers as Sony on Apple TV without "big boy" support. If EA is not going to
support your system I don't think the Apple Box will sell as much. (the Apple
TV only sold 2.7 mill while PS3 sold 10 times as much). While Apple is known
as the company that can sell a brick to the masses, I am not sure they can
sell 25 million consoles without some big franchise names at launch.

------
tibbon
The modern round of game systems are quite flawed from a UI/UX perspective, as
the author here points out.

My Playstation 3 forces me to do various updates to watch Netflix (which is
what I use the system for 90% of the time). All of the systems ask you to
input text in a super-awkward way to setup various aspects of the system (on-
screen keyboards really suck for typing in complex WPA2 passwords).

The XBox 360 is the most annoying by far, as it _constantly_ bothers me about
signing onto Microsoft Live. There were some fraudulent transactions on my
account (which I thought was super-odd, because I use lengthy/unique passwords
on everything), which Microsoft (after a 30-day period) refunded to my bank
account. But I haven't been able to sign onto XBL since, and haven't really
bothered to call Microsoft for support. The PS3 doesn't constantly bash my
head in with sales and random junk when I just want to watch Netflix. Also,
Microsoft seems to think that UI changes every 18 months is a _great_ idea.
They don't seem to add much value.

Sadly, the Wii has been turned on maybe three times. It kinda feels like a
dinosaur at this point. I use my Raspberry Pi more these days for gaming...

~~~
sophacles
Seriously, the fact that I can't plug in an old keyboard to the PS3 for the
occasional password or search drives me nuts.

~~~
TwiztidK
Unless they've changed something you should be able to use a keyboard with the
PS3. I used to have a wireless USB keyboard/mouse that I used with my PS3 for
web browsing.

~~~
tibbon
Yea, it still works- but its clunky as my only extra USB keyboard in the house
is a huge Unicomp one.

------
mieubrisse
Though I can't speak to the internal politics of Microsoft, I can say that as
a gamer I don't remember ever getting upset at the pain points the author
listed. Granted, I'm coming from a technical background (as are most people
here), so I'm obviously not in the perspective of the small child the author
sometimes takes in the picture captions. However, I feel there's a tension
between the complexity of an application and the affordances it provides. To
use one of the author's examples, choosing where to save an update (a useful
affordance to have, I think) requires that the user suffer a bit more
complexity. In my experience, the xBox doesn't manage this complexity poorly.

That being said, the author has a strong point in regards to the indie game
market. Game development could and should be as simple as it is on Android
because the platform's support is there... it's just locked behind layers of
legal and financial obstacles. I'd love to see an xBox Live market where indie
games are strongly promoted, and I can't imagine the cost to Microsoft would
be strong enough to outweigh the revenue gains they'd make if they took a
percentage of sales.

~~~
MichaelGG
Really? Every time I try to use my Xbox, I have to deal with the idiotically
slow UI. Seriously, if I press the Xbox button, it pops up a grey rectangle,
and takes several seconds to load in details. The dashboard is cluttered with
ads (although only one tile is labeled so).

Browsing games to buy on the Xbox itself is painfully slow. Many, many,
seconds, just for simple screens to load.

This guy totally nailed the reason I don't start up my Xbox as often as I'd
like: It's annoying to get into. Once I'm in a game, it's _usually_ OK,
although the slow saving thing is jarring. But the thought of it starting up,
asking to update and reboot (usually 2 or 3 times in a row) - ah screw it.

------
Kronopath
This is a very revealing article:

\- It gives official confirmation of the (somewhat obvious) idea that the XBox
was a defensive move against general living-room entertainment boxes.

\- It shows that he has a very distorted view of the gaming landscape, if the
truly thinks that the XBox is the dominant platform, or that mobile games are
a genuine threat to console gaming (they most certainly are not).

\- He singles out _Apple_ of all companies, as the biggest threat to mobile
gaming, despite the fact that Apple doesn't seem to be too interested in
anything other than simple 99¢ iOS apps, dismissing the companies like
Nintendo who, for all their recent troubles, have a long and storied history
with gaming that Microsoft can only hope to compete with.

\- He brings some good points about the interface though. But that's honestly
not the XBox's biggest problem.

~~~
jamesmiller5
"- It shows that he has a very distorted view of the gaming landscape, if the
truly thinks that the XBox is the dominant platform, or that mobile games are
a genuine threat to console gaming (they most certainly are not)."

The threat of mobile gaming on the PC/Console gaming landscape has been
recognized by some of the largest stars in the industry, eg: Gabe Newell
states Valve wants the PC in the living room but the biggest competitor is
Apple.

[1] Dice 2013 Keynote with Gabe Newell at 7:30 minutes in.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeYxKIDGh8I>

~~~
Kronopath
Pardon my skepticism.

Notice how Gabe is talking about how Apple is a threat not to consoles, but to
PCs moving into the living room (i.e. his company's plans). To people who
don't know the industry well, this might not be easily differentiable, but the
reality is that the two come from fundamentally different lineages.

The thing that sells gaming platforms is not "natural progression into the
living room", not an "upgrade cycle", not "development tools". It's the
_games_.

If Apple takes a similar approach to living-room gaming as they took to the
iPhone, with an open development platform, or an "Apple TV" that plays games,
but is not primarily focused on games, you'll see roughly the same quality of
games come out there as on the iPhone. And notice how no iPhone apps sell for
more than 99¢ these days.

Apple has no history of game development. It's not a part of their DNA. And
the gaming industry is a difficult business to succeed in. So to take any
other approach would be monumentally difficult for them.

The biggest threat to console gaming is not Apple. It's the consoles
themselves.

Consider the case of the iPhone vs. handheld consoles. The iPhone was released
in the heyday of the Nintendo DS. The DS sold like hotcakes throughout its
lifecycle, and didn't slow down at all even as the iPhone's app store exploded
onto the scene.

It was only once the 3DS came out that handeld consoles started to have
difficulties. Of course _now_ everyone starts blaming smartphones for taking
the market away from them, but look at the console: it has a lineup of games
that's mediocre at best, it focused on 3D features that nobody cares about, it
had hardware flaws like a terrible battery life, and it was very expensive at
launch. No wonder it disappointed.

If consoles end up failing, they will fail on their own merits. It won't be
because of an app store.

------
cek
I think it's funny how Nat capitalizes "xBox". The official capitalization
that was finally settled on was "Xbox". It annoys the marketing people to no
end when people capitalize it wrong.

I always thought xBox looked cooler.

~~~
mnicole
It totally does. I always thought the official was "XBOX"; "Xbox" looks like
the way someone uninformed would write it or that it was an afterthought of a
product.

~~~
jrockway
Using correct English capitalization rules makes someone "uninformed" now?

~~~
wmf
Given that it's a proper noun and the pronunciation is "X Box", I would think
the pseudo-initialism "XBox" would be more proper English.

~~~
jrockway
Given enough time, everything becomes assimilated to look "normal". Consider
the words RADAR (RAdio Detection And Ranging) and LASER (Light Amplification
by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) -- what started as initialisms became
normal words after people started using them regularly. It can presumably
happen to newer words like "Xbox" and "Gmail" too.

------
InclinedPlane
I see a couple comments here, including the highest voted top level comment,
questioning how the xbox can be "crushing" their competition given that a
straightforward reading of console sales indicates things aren't so cut and
dried.

However, the xbox is crushing its competition, in several ways, and let me
explain why a naive reading of unit sales is misleading.

Many consoles sell at a loss, especially initially, or on a very small margin,
console sales alone are meaningless. Console sales themselves just serve to
expand the player base, enabling follow on game and service sales where the
vast majority of the profit to the console maker and of course to the game
makers comes from.

Here's where things get interesting. Nintendo has always sold everything at a
profit, so they've never lost money on incremental console sales. However,
again that margin is still fairly small, what they need is game sales. And for
the Wii that's been a disaster. They sold a huge amount of consoles but a lot
of the people who own them don't play them very much, and they don't buy many
games. This is a big reason why Nintendo has stopped making a profit overall
as a company the last few quarters, which has been rather disastrous for them.

Now let's look at Sony. They started off with a crazy console design, which is
almost an experimental prototype device, this is not the sort of thing one
usually does with a console. The result was that the hardware of the console
was hugely expensive, which meant that they were losing a huge amount of money
on every console sale, about the same as the cost of a Wii. This meant that
Sony needed to have strong follow-on game sales to make up for such huge
loses. However, because the console was so difficult to develop for they
struggled with game availability for a long time. Eventually these factors
started to become less of a problem. Multi-platform game engines eventually
matured sufficiently to where it wasn't a huge problem to target PS3/360/PC
releases for most games, and that has helped PS3's game library tremendously,
in addition to a very small handful of excellent exclusive titles (such as
Little Big Planet, Heavy Rain, etc.) Also, eventually Sony managed to reduce
the hardware cost of the PS3 down to a point where they weren't bleeding money
on each sale so horrifically. However, despite all of this improvement it's
questionable whether the PS3 has made a total profit for Sony overall, and if
it has it's likely not very large. Worse yet, a lot of Sony's big efforts such
as the playstation network and the Sony Move have not taken off and not
garnered much enthusiasm in the market.

And then we get to the 360. This console certainly has its fair share of
problems and debacles. At launch it was definitely sold at a loss to the
company. It struggled with reliability problems and expensive warranty
extensions through many of the early hardware iterations. And sales in Japan
have always been weak. But, somehow it managed to come out ahead. The 360
never sold at as much of a loss as the PS3 and it didn't take long for them to
get to a point where they reduced hardware costs enough to make a profit on
console sales. Even with the expensive $1 billion warranty extension their
balance sheet on pure hardware alone is far, far better than Sony's, which
means that MS actually needs to sell fewer games per console to come out ahead
in total profit. As it turns out, people who own 360s are far more active
gamers than people who own other consoles. They play for more hours per month,
and they spend more money on games. Of all of the consoles currently on store
shelves, the 360 has the highest multiple of average number of follow-on game
purchases per console. But it doesn't stop there. The Kinect add-on has been
one of the most popular consumer electronics devices in history. Also, whereas
every major competing online multiplayer service is offered for free (Steam,
Origin, PSN), Microsoft's Xbox Live Gold service costs money. On its own it
has subscription volume and costs similar to the most successful MMOs in
existence (such as WoW). That's a testament to the sheer volume of people who
think that Microsoft's service offering is valuable enough to pay cold hard
cash for, but it also, of course, goes straight to Microsoft's bottom line, to
the tune of around a billion dollars per year. And because it's a digital
service the development costs are fairly low. But wait, there's more. In
addition to game sales, xbox players are also more likely to purchase DLC
packs and other digital content such as xbox live arcade games. Again the
incremental costs on these digital goods are fairly low so Microsoft (and the
game publishers) make a much higher margin on them.

What does this all mean? Several things. First, in total Microsoft has been
far better at consistently extracting significant profits from the gaming
market over the lifetime of the current console generation. Second, Microsoft
has far more momentum in terms of game sales and customer loyalty and
enthusiasm than the other console players. Third, Microsoft is making far more
headway than other console makers in earning revenue from digital goods and
services, where the profit margins are the highest. Fourth, many game makers
find that they make a lot more money from the xbox versions of their products,
which helps ensure that exclusive games that aren't on the xbox are a rarity.

And this is precisely why this year we will see all 3 companies release new
consoles, and why Nintendo has already done so. Because without a significant
disruption in the status quo the result is that the xbox will continue to
outpace everyone else, and continue to gobble up more and more market share
and gaming revenue. Nintendo is trying to give themselves a chance to stay
relevant. And Sony is trying to put themselves on a new footing. And Microsoft
is trying to hold onto what they have or extend their lead.

Note that I intentionally left out a lot of complicating elements such as
competition from PC and mobile/tablet gaming, introduction of new console
makers, etc. That may play a role in the future but it hasn't played a
significant role in the fight between the different home consoles so far.

~~~
pandaman
I am just curious - where are you getting the console costs from? From what I
know this information is highly sensitive and even most insiders don't have an
access.

Also, what scale do you use to compare costs? From the fact that you call
Kinect (sold ~18M [1]) "one of the most popular consumer electronic devices in
history" and Move (sold ~15M[2]) "has not taken off" it appears that either
you are using some kind of highly non-linear measure or are better informed
than almost everybody else.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinect#cite_note-18-million-1>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS3_Move#cite_note-15_million-4>

~~~
riffraff
I have no idea on the concrete numbers, but the two sources you cite appear to
be separated by almost one year (jan/2012 for the Kinect and nov/2012 for the
Move one)

~~~
pandaman
Indeed, the sales figures are not synchronous. This is why I asked if GP has
some special data, because the publically available one does not confirm
his/her assertions.

------
tobyjsullivan
The segment about terrible error messages really resonated with me. I was
actually just thinking yesterday about how, after so many years, Windows
errors on personal/home computers still tell you to talk to your "system
administrator". Microsoft has never understood the basics of the personal
market. Bad UX is in their blood.

------
grannyg00se
"...experiencing your competitor’s stumbling failure (yes, Sony, Nintendo –
you are, I’m afraid, stumbling failures)."

Can someone explain how Sony and Nintendo are stumbling failures in the
console market? How extreme their failure must be, to feel comfortable stating
it as a common fact requiring no explanation! I must be way out of touch.

~~~
natbro
See InclinePlane's comment, above -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5210998>. (s)he said it better than I was
trying to.

------
nthitz
My Xbox is the only product/service I use where I feel that I am directly
interacting with Microsoft. For me, the Xbox is the last area where Microsoft
is relavent.

------
OmarIsmail
I don't know if people on HN are following the rumors related to the next-gen
consoles, but it looks like MS is going to be addressing at least one of these
issues: UI fluidity. If the rumors are accurate, then MS has a multi-pronged
approach to making the UI a lot more fluid. While the 360 reserved 32MB of RAM
for the OS, rumors suggest that MS is reserving 3GB (out of a total of 8GB).

Furthermore, MS is apparently using a hardware-based display plane system
where there are 4 independent display buffers that can be refreshed/displayed
at different resolutions and framerates. 3 of the display planes are for the
game to use (one for the HUD, 1 for foreground, 1 background) and 1 plane
dedicated to the OS.

I do 110% agree with the author that having a more app-store like ecosystem
would be absolutely huge, and if MS were to properly implement, would let them
compete vs Apple.

If I had the money I'd buy both MS and Apple stock, because one of them is in
the best position to win the living room in the next 5 years.

~~~
revscat
The arguments he is making are about UX, not UI fluidity.

~~~
MBCook
Unfortunately, I'd say that the UX has actually _deteriorated_ in the years
I've owned an XBox. As they've tried to push more and more non-game content,
access the games has gotten worse.

The other things, like the settings screens, are just as bad as ever.

I wouldn't award Sony's crossbar interface any points either. After a few
years (on two systems), I've learned where to go hunt for the 2 or 3 things I
usually use... but that's not a complement.

The Wii, despite being sluggish, at least had a UI that made it very quick to
launch games. I haven't used a Wii U so I don't know if it's any better. Based
on my 3DS, I highly doubt it's objectively "good".

------
sounds
Since it isn't clear in the article, ilikecode.wordpress.com is Nat Brown:
<http://kotaku.com/164683/a-brief-history-of-the-xbox>

He's commenting on this thread too as natbro.

------
pkmays
Developing for the console seems really harsh.

Somewhat related, an indie company managed to get a fighting game out on PSN
and XBLA. It just got an update on PS3, but it can't get updated for Xbox
because the patch is bigger than 4MB. [1]

Keep in mind, these are free updates that fix bugs and stability issues, not
paid DLC. Even so, patching is really, really expensive. [2]

[1] [http://shoryuken.com/2013/01/08/skullgirls-xbox-360-patch-
de...](http://shoryuken.com/2013/01/08/skullgirls-xbox-360-patch-delayed-due-
to-size-limitations-four-to-five-dlc-characters-originally-planned/)

[2] [http://kotaku.com/5884842/wait-it-costs-40000-to-patch-a-
con...](http://kotaku.com/5884842/wait-it-costs-40000-to-patch-a-console-game)

------
jpxxx
The console industry used to sell high-end wedding cakes. Now they sell
wedding cakes, some sheet cakes, and occasionally a pre-boxed slice if there
are leftovers. These are your only options for snacking in the living room.
You order a wedding cake, go pick it up in a few days, and hope it tastes
good.

They are about to find out what happens when piping hot cookies are hand-
delivered in 30 seconds or less to the living room, for free.

The only thing Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have going for them right now is
that the iPhone and iPad are drawing away virtually all of Apple's not-
inconsiderable attention.

Here's how it will work: Apple will release a $99 controller. It'll look like
a SNES controller mated with an iPhone 3GS: 4" standard-resolution multitouch
screen, D-pad, four buttons, two shoulder buttons, and a Lightning port.
(Inside is NOBODY CARES. gyro, bluetooth, Wifi, iOS SOC, battery.) And,
naturally, it will be the least embarrassing looking item in your living room.

You'll take it out of the box, type in your Wifi password, log in to iCloud,
and THAT IS IT.

The Apple TV (of which there are millions already installed) leaps into
action. All the plumbing is silently set up, the App Store icon appears, a
free showpiece game immediately offers to install itself, and Apple connects a
half billion users to the television overnight.

Most of the Wii U's best controller ideas are co-opted, the overall controller
complexity is a scant third of anyone else's, it retains all the power of
touch controls, it requires no complicated setup whatsoever, all the game
state is cloud-backed, dozens of touch-resistant game genres suddenly find a
home in the lowest-walled garden of any shipping console, customers can add
more controllers if desired, and the whole panoply of mobile software can
infiltrate the last screen standing.

The Apple TV is a freaking trojan horse, if Apple wants it to be. Nobody else
has the UX to stave them off, or the ability to hit the price points Apple
can, or their sheer distribution power, or their sheer brand power, or
anything.

Free cookies. Not nut-and-raisin filled wedding cakes. Which one is your kid
going to reach for?

~~~
adventured
None of that is going to happen.

Apple is horrific at the gaming business, and that isn't going to change any
time soon. Why? Because it's not a priority, and isn't going to be any time
soon.

The substantial infrastructure pieces that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have
built up in gaming - Apple has none of that, and it isn't going to magically
appear. Apple would have to make gaming a top priority, and they will never do
that.

~~~
jpxxx
How are they horrific at the gaming business when they're moving billions of
games a year? And what infrastructure pieces are they missing?

GPU-rich devices installed and networked, check. Friends lists, check. Local
multiplayer, check. Networked multiplayer, check. Distribution, check.
Billing, check. In-app billing, check. DRM, check. Ad story, check. Developer
program, check.

All they need is a controller if they want the living room.

------
manicdee
Why can't you write software tomorrow and have it available to xBox customers
the next day? Why can't that other malware author have his Trojan ready to
install on millions of xBoxes?

If you are going to sell to console users you have to accept that the platform
will live or die based on how easy it is for consumers to use, and how safe
they feel using it. The platform will need developers, but it doesn't have to
cater to their every whim to survive.

Developers are only important as far as providing reliable and trustworthy
applications is concerned. The gatekeeper of the market needs to ensure that
software sold through their market doesn't hurt their customers.

Believing that making life easy for all developers (altruistic and malicious
alike) is The One True Way to platform popularity is placing far to much
emphasis on the small group of people responsible for supply, and nowhere near
enough emphasis on the customers.

Follow the money, take care of the people supplying it. If some developers get
upset along the way because the world doesn't work the way they want, just
shrug and carry on.

I would have no trust for a market that would let me publish the software I
write. I write crap :(

~~~
natbro
ha! i guess i write mostly crap software, too :) i really wasn't trying to
imply that you should simply open up the market to self-publishing with no
restrictions or oversight. that would screw the customers and therefore the
brand very quickly. we did this poorly at microsoft with windows in the early
days, and they are still doing it. it's tragic how easily malware still
spreads on windows. it's amazing to me that android has so much malware, that
google didn't think through security and sandboxing well enough. or
revocations, etc. if i were to make a recommendation for xBox development, it
would be to build a developer program where I could develop on my console and
a few other (100?) consoles (so i could test), akin to how we can do iOS
development, and apps would have to be submitted to a store and approved with
a little less weird oversight than Apple uses, but quite a bit more oversight
than Google or Microsoft uses, to make sure they aren't doing something evil
or stupid or aren't malware. it's not so much a belief that making life easier
for developers is the most important thing as it is the belief that a free
market will allow customers to get great apps and will prevent artificial
barriers in distribution and promotion from blocking innovation. customers
will spend money where there is innovation.

------
d23
For the love of all that is holy, please make the font darker.

~~~
natbro
(sorry that is a lame font, let me find the knob on that gizmo)

------
mkent
Having recently fired it up again the xbox experience (outside of xbla)
remains decidedly old school:

\- You still need the correct dvd inserted to play.

\- You can't turn the xbox off and expect it to save your progress.

\- Some games are tightly integrated with xbox live, good luck not paying for
it.

\- It takes forever between the xbox boot time, initial game load time,
copyright notices, in game menus, and save game load time to actually _start_
enjoying a game.

\- Installing games to the hard drive for a slight load time bump is very,
very slow.

Since picking one up I've been really spoiled by the ipad mini. Just pick it
up and play, don't sweat the details.

------
Benferhat
I hate the Xbox 360 because they make it so hard to stream video to it. What
the hell, Microsoft? The PS3 is a great DLNA renderer right out of the box.

------
ern
To add to OP's usability gripes, as a new Xbox owner (bought it over
Christmas) with a grand total of 4 bundled games and a Kinect:

Kinect menu interaction needs to be improved. Kinect Adventures has it right
for its age group, showing a full mirror image of the user on its menus, but
Kinect Sports is a mess of deeply nested menus, which my 4 year old, who has
been able to navigate an iPad since age 2, can't get right yet. Dance Central
uses an un-intuitive swipe from right-to-left, that took a while for me to
figure out. I suppose controllerless UX is still in its infancy, but still...

Then we get to the sign in system: the sign-in, sign-out is very confusing,
and in Kinect Sports, almost useless - I never know who the second player is
going to be. I also have a very weak mental model of how Kinect ID facial
recognition works -at what point are you signed into a game?

I still don't really understand XBox Live vs XBox Live Gold. Why should I
subscribe for utility apps I already have, or to use a clunky web browser?

Oh yes, and no NTFS support, on a Microsoft platform.

~~~
VLM
Ern I believe we purchased the same xbox package deal for christmas. My pet
peeve WRT kinect is the agony I feel when I have to wave like a lunatic 25
times for 2-3 minutes to navigate a simple menu of songs when there's a
perfectly good hand controller that could have done what I want in seconds.

One undiscussed economic effect is free trial/demo games and their impact on
the market. Before I tried the demos with the kids, I'm planning on getting
kinectimals and not getting minecraft... after the demos its intensely the
other way around.

------
WestCoastJustin
After letting the article percolate for a bit. Just think about what the
industry will look like in 10 years.

\- internet game distribution is going to change content delivery just like it
changed VHF/DVD rental stores. The game stores will be gone, walmart will not
display/sell them.

\- those who can provide a pipeline like netflix for games are going to
destroy the current establishment. It will likely be worse than what netflix
did, simply because the development of games is easy compared it TV/Movies.

\- the idea of xbox, playstation, wii might be gone. There might be a generic
console with an online pipeline connected to it. Or maybe you will have a
xbox, playstation, wii portal that will connect you to the pipeline just like
what netflix does for movies?

Maybe I'm just talking out my ass but it looks like things are going to
massively change.

~~~
natbro
The dawning horror for the console vendors is that the change is already
happening around them and on every iPhone, iPad, Samsung, Android, etc device.
These already have digital-only distribution. These already have very high-
quality GPU's that push almost as many triangles as an xBox 360 or PS3, and
are on a faster product-iteration-cycle. Some of these - iPad3 and Samsung
Galaxy Tab's - already have higher-resolution screens than your 60" HDTV and
many people are using them more hours per day and spending more dollars per
device than they ever did on consoles. Yikes, if I were still in the console
biz, I would push like hell to move a little faster than updating hardware
every 7-8 years and doing poorly with software.

~~~
Goronmon
_The dawning horror for the console vendors is that the change is already
happening around them and on every iPhone, iPad, Samsung, Android, etc device.
These already have digital-only distribution. These already have very high-
quality GPU's that push almost as many triangles as an xBox 360 or PS3, and
are on a faster product-iteration-cycle. Some of these - iPad3 and Samsung
Galaxy Tab's - already have higher-resolution screens than your 60" HDTV and
many people are using them more hours per day_

You could argue a very similar point by replacing mobile devices with PC in
your argument. But I console vendors don't look in horror in the PC market.

You are also missing a fairly big aspect of a game console, the games
themselves.

 _many people are using them more hours per day and spending more dollars per
device than they ever did on consoles_

Do you have a reference for this? Sounds interesting, but I haven't seen the
comparison before.

------
sunjain
Game consoles are irrelevant from point of view of gaining/retaining big chunk
of consumer market. There is a reason why Apple avoided this market (instead
of focussing on music, then phone and of course tablet), while Microsoft was
busy competing with Sonys and Ninentendos in early formative years of Xbox. In
less than five years, this whole game console thing will be a feature in
TV/tablet etc.

------
ChrisNorstrom
_I have heard people still there arguing that the transition of the brand from
hardcore gamers to casual users and tv-uses was an intentional and crafted
success. It was not. It was an accident_

Oh common man, YES it was intentional. MS worked its ass off on transitioning
to casual users. Changing the ENTIRE UI, the addition of Avatars (MS's version
of Nintendo's Miis), the advertising and marketing.

~~~
natbro
i'm honestly not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. if you are: heh, good
one. if you're not: there's nothing wrong with putting some of your wood
behind encouraging casual gaming and expanding your market, but putting ALL of
your wood behind it? what else did they get accomplished in this time period?
not enough other things if you take a look at how many people and how much
money was being spent on R&D in that division.

------
hoodoof
This article is spot on. Why are indie developers not racing to develop apps
for Xbox? Xbox should treat all apps, games, music, radio stations as equal,
be they from indie developers, microsoft or from big name publishers. Provide
a seamless tile space navigable via touchscreen.

Oh, no wait, Apple is doing this already, and when it comes to the TV, we'll
stop wishing Xbox could do it.

------
endlessvoid94
I've also been yelling this to my friends for some time. I actually can't
figure out why Apple hasn't yet released an Apple TV with a more powerful
graphics and some active cooling, plus a controller.

Allow iOS games and you have a serious, serious competition crushing game
platform with a TON of existing games and content. Instantly.

~~~
joezydeco
No storage. Where is the AppleTV supposed to keep the gigabytes needed to run
some of these titles? Is it going to stream off the cloud every time you run
it?

~~~
natbro
yes, it would have to be a new Apple-TV with at least some more local storage.
the current models have 8GB, I think. tweaking that up to 128GB or 256GB would
open up a lot of possibilities without making a $199 price-point impossible.
but hey, what do i know.

------
teamonkey
It seems obvious to me that the next Xbox will support small developers via
some form of the Windows App Store. No point having a unified App Store if
that wasn't to be the case. I feel there's a strong chance that many existing
apps will Just Work on the next Xbox.

------
fmischel
I think it's interesting that to note that the article stated a 60% YOY
decline even though their stock price hasn't reflected this. For the past
three years the stock has stayed relatively within the same levels. But
nonetheless a very interesting post.

------
gfodor
Mark my words in 5 years time it will be Valve and Apple in the living room.
Sony, MS, and yes, for real this time, Nintendo are done. The wave has crested
and basically Samsung and Google are the only other companies who are trying
to ride it.

------
hoodoof
Does Steve Ballmer ever read articles like this?

------
recoiledsnake
Apple isn't making much money at all with the 30% cut of app sales. Their
margins are huge on the iDevices. Since XBox is sold near cost, the move to
99c games and apps will just increase the costs needed to approve games while
providing little profit or benefit to MS. Increasing the cost of hardware is
another option but that's not easy either. Staying at the niche of high end
games and including lots of media content is probably the better option.

~~~
geon
> the move to 99c games and apps

Steam has plenty of games in the 5, 10 and 20 $ price range.

