If MS doesn't come 1st next gen or the gen after , should they pull out ?

[Alby_da_Wolf]

Bitmap Frogs said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

I numbered your points to answer them

1. Not an office PC substitute, but if they are fitted with the HW necessary to the purpose, they could become media centre PC, and maybe appeal more people that for this kind of use desire a thing more immediate than a PC. About Nintendo: first, they don't want the Wii becomes a complicated object, this makes perfectly sense, but in its current configuration Wii couldn't do it anyway. In future, a Wii2 with the necessary HW features could offer media centre PC functions without becoming a PC, but obviously Nintendo won't let MS know until it's time to prepare the launch. And nothing prevents a media centre consoles from offering some office PC features realized in a way suitable to home users and without becoming a dreadfully complicated PC.

2. Office PC's are quite safe, but MS would like for itself also the "media hub" market. And such a market made independent from MS SW and formats would weaken Windows-Office dominance, people would start getting used to something different. A moderately successful console can reach in 3 years as many people as Linux reached in more than 15 years.

3. This is all true, but you perfectly know that MS likes to combine with profit the consolidation of its power whenever it has the opportunity.

4. I didn't mention Linux on PS3, but even a perfect distro wouldn't save PS3 from its lack of RAM, that would make some typical Windows PC tasks very uncomfortable. PS3 "weakness" saving Windows is both weakness in sales and in HW specs, so Windows is safe from it due to at least two independent but concurring reasons.

5. Maybe I wrote a phrase not clear enough, but I'm not contradicting myself: I wrote that XB720 being successful means that what's stolen from Windows goes to MS anyway, so it's good for MS (and even better, as MS sells online services and gets royalties on games, as you rightly stressed). What's not good for MS are users stolen from Windows and going to MS' competitors. But as you write, right now consoles aren't stealing from Windows yet, but amongst a lot of concurring reason for this, there are two facts, current gen consoles haven't the HW necessary to replace PC's and  moreover their producers gave them up until now an even large, but tightly focused set of functions.

But the undeniable fact that right now even the most powerful consoles fall short of becoming a viable media centre PC substitute, doesn't mean that this possibility is ruled out for future consoles. We simply can't have rock-steady certainties about these issues, as Nintendo showed us that the unpredictable can happen.

 

1.- You still don't address the fact as a console's possiblities grow so they grow in complexity and tend to experiment market rejection. I make a strong claim simplicity is the key for consoles. I say Wii vs PS360 is living proof of that. Wii2 could have the hardware to be a media center, but Iwata won't allow that - because it's not good for console business. They didn't even bother to allow DVD movies on the Wii. Really, read some interviews. 

2.- The thing is, Microsoft would make more money if media-hub activities moved onto consoles. On a PC, they get the license on the box and that's it. On console DD they get a cut of every purchase made by the consumer. It's in Microsoft's interests that media-hub functions move over to consoles and the proof is in the pudding: they don't talk jack n squat about DD on the PC, everytime they mention "movies" they follow with "on your 360".

3.- Yeah, but consolidating consoles back on PC's would mean leaving the door wide open for anyone to seize the now-vacant console market, if I read your statement correctly.

4.- You need more than being able to boot Linux to push it as a serious computing platform. Sony has delivered 0 value on that front which is a clear signal even they know there's no future there. Geeks love it, the other 99% ignores it. Macs run a unix-like OS with a crapload of added value on top of it - where's Sony's? It's the same reason Maemo is stagnant while iPhone OS thrives - At this point of the game, just having a bootable OS doesn't work on its own. This ain't the early 80's anymore.

5.- You still think it's a matter of hardware prowess when it's about a whole different issue - what attracts people to computers, repels people from consoles. Additionally by definition consoles will always be behind computers in raw power and if what will signal the dawn of the computer-console will be power equivalence, it'll never come.

Don't think I think I know how to overcome the obstacles you are listing, I simply think I can't really exclude some manufacturers could find a way. And I agree with you that given the indefeasible requirements of console users, simplicity is of the essence. About HW features, it's a matter of fact that for some tasks you have to satisfy minimum HW requirements, either if you choose a simple or complicated way to perform them, but this doesn't mean I think there must be a race to the most powerful components like in gaming PC's, usually the only strong requirement to comfortably perform these tasks is to have enough RAM. And obviously, for most PC tasks, storage. Just in case you thought it, I don't attribute thaumaturgical effects to "teh powah of teh almighty Cell", I think indeed that for a lot of tasks they should have chosen an implementation with one or two less SPE's and one more PPE.

About point 3. Well, I was thinking about MS wishing to become the strongest console manufacturer not only for the pure profit, but to tie users even more to the MS world. This shouldn't be accomplished strictly tying the console to the PC, it  could backfire, as you observe, MS will be more subtle, the ties would be realized in a non-coercitive way making people develop habits through default file formats, protocols, "family feeling" of applications, offering easy tools to integrate MS consoles, Windows PC's and appliances in a domestic LAN if desired by the users (but not making them by any means feel forced to do it) ,  etc, and through MS online services. EDIT: And obiously DirectX, using it on both PC and consoles not only saves MS money, it makes developers happy saving them money too on multiplatform titles and increases MS' power, being another tie to it. Using OpenGL on both would give the same economies and even more for developers, but it wouldn't increase MS' power.