| gergroy said: yes, I know the ps2 didn't have a hard drive, I don't think the xbox had usb ports either, but I could be wrong. That was just features that either one or both of those consoles had that the gamecube didn't. Also, while the gamecube did use a proprietary minDVD technology, it was still a lot cheaper. Not only was it cheaper to manufacture than the standard dvd drives, but it also cut out the dvd forum that would have charged a fee of 20 per unit just to have dvd technology included. Not to mention the license fees for each disc printed, etc. That dongle was Microsofts way of trying to recoup some of the cost going to the dvd forum. The dvd hardware was already included, all the stupid dongle did was unlock it and let you use a remote. |
The original xbox controller ports are usb ports they simply use a non standard connection. You can get simple usb adapter cables that allow xbox pads to be used on PC for example.
I believe the DVD movie playback licensing fee was part of the DVD dongle cost. Microsoft never paid any licensing fee on the console itself for dvd movie playback.
The gamecube, ps2 and xbox were all unique designs with both advantages and disadvantages but its clear the original xbox was easily the most powerful and had the most ambitious and impressive games. I had all three consoles at the time and it really is an easy win for the xbox. In a few small areas the gamecube did have an advantage over the xbox but these were minor. The main weakness of the ps2 was its rubbish 300mhz mips processor in many ways it was superior to gamecube. For example Gran Turismo at 1080i with 5.1 sound would be impossible on gamecube. For a start the gamecube maxed out at 480p due to a 2MB frame buffer. It only had 2 channel sound and its small 1.7GB discs didn't allow for the huge amount of data of the ps2 game. Also the ps2 had 32bit colour not 24bit like the gamecube so it could do transparency effects. Also the Gamecube had 24MB of main memory and 3MB of total video memory. It had 16MB of very slow memory for use as a drive cache and audio buffer. The ps2 had 32MB of main fast memroy and 4MB of video. Yes it didn't have the 16MB slow memory of gamecube but that was designed to make the gamecube supremely fast at loading games and levels.
Many gamecube games were cut down in detail because of main memory limitations and simply lack of storage even compared to ps2 although the comparisons with xbox were more dramatic. Many gamecube games had smaller sections of video or lower quality.
I loved the gamecube though, it was a brilliant console but to pretend it was as powerful as xbox clearly wasn't true when it had many limitations especially storage and main memory. The original xbox is more powerful than the wii on most levels. Conker's bad fur day looks absolutely incredible on xbox with amazing textures and lighting compared to wii games and it does it with 32bit colour (fantastic transparency effects) and a full 5.1 soundtrack.
