I have added a new section this. Obviously it is called reviews :). I am going to attempt to review the things that I do and try here. So on with the first review.
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4/5 smileys
Microsoft has definitely come out with the best console on the market now, but I am not sure how much of it is Microsoft and how much of it is NVidia. For originality MS gets a 1 out of 5. In truth beyond the security “features” they added, such as hard drive encryption and no standard ports they have created a computer. Congrats only 25+ years too late. MS didn’t truly do any technical “innovation” which to me is just more proof that they are not a techinical company, but a marketing company with buy-out divisions. They didn’t add all the stuff that they could have into the machine in my opinion. This machine looks fairly nice and I don’t have any issue placing it in my stereo cabinet. They should have went with this to add in a mp3 playing stereo componet to it. Also since it is a computer, has a network connection and does run a version of Windows it seems it would have been quite easy for them to enable file transfer to it so that patches, updates, and addons to games could be uploaded to it. As well as files for songs that you want to played.
For thought though they get a 5 because the did the one thing that has always held computers back as truely hard core gaming consoles: Standardization. Here MS has created a badass computer that can really rock some games. So can regular computers, but what they did is they told game developers, “Make your stuff work on THIS hardware and we will make sure that the hardware works and is the same for all of the machines.” This is what made console games so much more popular than computer games for a long time. MS’s slogan “It just works” (or is that AOL) really applies here.
So lets take a look at what really makes this things rock though. Is it the memory? No it has less than most computers that you can buy now. Is it the CPU? No it actually has a P3 cpu in it. Most of the machines you buy now are P4 so that can’t be it. How about the hard drive? Well it is true that most consoles don’t have hard drives (yet), so that does make it better than all the other consoles, but still most computers have hard drives that are bigger than the one in the Xbox and faster. Video Card? Hell yeah, part of it is the fact that the buses on the mainboard are a little better optimized than normal PC buses, but in truth the thing that makes the Xbox shine is the NVidia Graphics chip. It has options and functions in it that MS hasn’t even started to delve into yet. This is what makes the Xbox better than the PS2. The PS2 is over a year old and working with some older hardware from a company that is not whole known for making badass video cards. Now the Gamecube is a little better off in that it also has a big name video card manufacturing company making its stuff. ATi makes a decent video card, but I think that Nintendo is aiming too low with its games to become a huge force again. Therefore I think NVidia should get most of the credit for the Xbox. Anyone can make a PC, but it is the work that they put into the video card that truly makes the Xbox.
All in all the Xbox is a damn nice piece of hardware. It is fun to mess with and it has some really nice games that I will review soon. Also I think because it is so much like a computer that it has some really nice potential for advancement through hacks and modifications. Hopefully some thing really cool will come out of it.