Subby, I hate you. I just submitted this 5 minutes ago.

This might actually be enough to encourage me to buy a 360, so long as you don't have to pay too much extra to watch stuff.

How do you get a free account?

Free TV from an Xbox Live account.

The Xbox hooks up to a TV.

Um.

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/27/1936224

Gives details on the Gold v. Silver (free) accounts.

Yeh, with the inclusion of HD movies downloadable, this might actually make it worth the price of the box. An HD-DVD player, a video game console, and now an on-demand box. This news has to make the heads at Sony REALLY nervous at this point.

The HD movies don't seem very practical due to the download time. You can download game demos and videos right now but it can take a while. The standard hard drive is only 14GB which won't hold an HD movie.

Driedsponge: Yeh, with the inclusion of HD movies downloadable, this might actually make it worth the price of the box. An HD-DVD player, a video game console, and now an on-demand box. This news has to make the heads at Sony REALLY nervous at this point.

The XBox only has a regular DVD player as far as I know. It's limited to 8GB dual layer DVDs. Sony will have the big advantage of having a 50GB optical disk. It's not really on-demand either. It's download and watch later which isn't exactly fancy technology that Sony won't be able to easily do too.

jcaustin: The XBox only has a regular DVD player as far as I know. It's limited to 8GB dual layer DVDs.

Right now it only has a standard DVD drive. They are slated to release an HD DVD player in the near future as an "upgrade".

Personally, I won't get either of these overpriced consoles.

Cool! I can watch TV on my TV!

ccmods: Personally, I won't get either of these overpriced consoles.

I think overpriced is the last complaint anyone should have. The XBox 360 cost me $399 while a PC with the same performance numbers would have been at least two grand.

Apparently if you sell a console below what cost to make it, you've overpriced it.

And when the HD fills up? Export to PC? Delete everything you paid for? Will your purchases be saved on their servers so you can keep your HD open and only download what you've purchased when you want to watch it?

So much for the "no need for a computer" hooplah.
/waits for the torrent of replies
//cough slashy cough

Already Disturbed: And when the HD fills up? Export to PC? Delete everything you paid for? Will your purchases be saved on their servers so you can keep your HD open and only download what you've purchased when you want to watch it?

It's a two week "rental" like all the other similar services.

jcaustin
It's a two week "rental" like all the other similar services.

I was referring to the television programs.

That Zune ad up there is really bothering me >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

jcaustin: I think overpriced is the last complaint anyone should have. The XBox 360 cost me $399 while a PC with the same performance numbers would have been at least two grand.

Show me a console that can run excel/Outlook/AutoCad/Blender and I'll gladly agree with you. You want to run your pc as a gaming console? Fine. But don't try to compare dollar value. PC's may lag behind as far as value for gaming, but in overall usefulness, they are way ahead of the curve.

And what "performance numbers" are you referencing? I'd be fairly interested to see what I could put together given a specific benchmark to hit.

MWeather: Apparently if you sell a console below what cost to make it, you've overpriced it.

See above. Microsoft's operating/production costs in no way influence how much value you get out of your $400 ppc box.

ccmods: Show me a console that can run excel/Outlook/AutoCad/Blender and I'll gladly agree with you. You want to run your pc as a gaming console? Fine. But don't try to compare dollar value. PC's may lag behind as far as value for gaming, but in overall usefulness, they are way ahead of the curve.

I can get a PC capable of doing all the general purpose stuff for under $500 although I already have two laptops so I didn't need to. The consoles are clearly not overpriced no matter how you look at it. I see PC gaming as falling into obsolescence in the next five years or so. Specialized devices just do it better and keep getting cheaper.

CBS?

AWESOME!!!!!

/runs to buy one

If they can manage to deliver that content in a way that rivals the on demand services of cable providers, I can see it. Otherwise, who cares? Obviously this service is going to depend on an individuals internet connection, whereas the Cable companies provide everyone with the same tubage...

jcaustin: The consoles are clearly not overpriced no matter how you look at it. I see PC gaming as falling into obsolescence in the next five years or so. Specialized devices just do it better and keep getting cheaper.

They are overpriced, from three perspectives. One, if you are like me and find no redeeming qualities in the PS3 or the Xbox360, it's a waste to buy one for just one game. Secondly, you are only going to see real improvement if you own an HDTV and the game is made to be hi-def. Assuming both are true it's great, but otherwise, you aren't going to notice hardly any improvement. Finally, if you consider a gaming console to be just that: a gaming console, you really have two options:

1) You are willing to pay $400 every 4 years to just play 'new' games, and -probably- have your old games not work(the 360 is getting there, but it's not there yet) or,

2) Spend some amount of money every few years to upgrade your computer(which is probably comparable, considering you don't have to have the newest of the new video card to run most games at a reasonable framerate on "medium"), as well as have the ability to play any game, new or old, and be ensured that your ability to do so will never be hampered(as long as you aren't an idiot and give yourself that issue). In addition, be able to run any application you chose, and include any multimedia feature you wish, without hacking apart your computer with a soldering iron.

PC gaming will not be going away for a long time. Using a mouse and keyboard has -just- begun to be widely used in games on consoles, and not everyone out there is going to want to pay Microsoft several thousands of dollars for a development kit for their Xbox, or use some cobbled together form of compiler.

I'm rather happy about this news. My cable quality is rubbish, downloadable HD movies/TV shows for rent is fine by me (same as picking them up at the video store) and I rarely watch things more than once anyway.

ccmods - Secondly, you are only going to see real improvement if you own an HDTV and the game is made to be hi-def.

Not true. The graphics are vastly improved over the original Xbox, whether you have that extra hi-def crispness or not.

PC gaming will not be going away for a long time.

This however is very true. By far the largest game market there is, and with MS pushing to get the Live service to PC gamers, we'll hopefully end up with a nicely integrated gaming community where there is pretty much always someone online to play against.

ccmods: PC gaming will not be going away for a long time. Using a mouse and keyboard has -just- begun to be widely used in games on consoles, and not everyone out there is going to want to pay Microsoft several thousands of dollars for a development kit for their Xbox, or use some cobbled together form of compiler.

Think what you want but I won't be putting my investment money into PC platform games. Market trends show consoles and laptops taking over and the old style box desktop PC vanishing to purely specialty markets.

jcaustin - Think what you want but I won't be putting my investment money into PC platform games.

PC platformers maybe, but WOW? Half-Life? Far Cry? Any RTS or MMORPG? The SIMs is still going strong. Laptops are getting to the point where they are totally adequate for game playing. And while the console is taking market share, there is no doubt that the PC market is still huge (roughly 4 of every 5 homes in the US has one) so IMO there is not going to be a massive decline in PC gaming in the next 5 years. Not while there is so much money to be made from it.

King Keepo: PC platformers maybe, but WOW? Half-Life? Far Cry? Any RTS or MMORPG? The SIMs is still going strong. Laptops are getting to the point where they are totally adequate for game playing.

Your use of platformers makes no sense in that context. The market data is not my opinion either. That's simply the way sales are going. Laptops are the computer platform of choice and consoles to large screen TVs and audio systems are the game platform of choice.

jcaustin: Your use of platformers makes no sense in that context. The market data is not my opinion either. That's simply the way sales are going. Laptops are the computer platform of choice and consoles to large screen TVs and audio systems are the game platform of choice.

I believe he means that it's insanely simple to make a "hop and bop" style game on a console, while MMO's and such are still the realm(and will be for a long while) of the pc.

And I'm not quite sure what market stats you are looking at, but businesses alone buy more desktop PC's a year than laptops by an extremely large margin. Laptops are simply too large of a security risk for most businesses. The home market may be turning away from desktops due to increased computing power in laptops, but I still don't see desktops fading out anytime soon. There will always be a big group of people(like myself) who would much rather build his pc for half the cost of a laptop/bigbox desktop.

You seem to quote a few things but not actually link any of these "performance numbers" or "market data". Can we actually see what you are referencing when you make these claims?

If you're not reading the financial news regularly, a couple links aren't going to bring you up to speed.

jcaustin - Your use of platformers makes no sense in that context.

Sorry, misread your earlier statement putting my investment money into PC platform games., when it meant games on a PC platform and not the run and jump (hop and bop - love it) action style games that really aren't the type of game you buy a PC for.

I still contend that PC gaming is alive and well, just currently overshadowed by the release of 2 major new consoles. There are an estimated 7 million WOW subscribers alone, roughly the same as the number of 360s out there. There is no way a market that size is going to disappear in 5 years when the laptop can be used as a decent platform as well as the home based desktop.

King Keepo: I still contend that PC gaming is alive and well, just currently overshadowed by the release of 2 major new consoles. There are an estimated 7 million WOW subscribers alone, roughly the same as the number of 360s out there. There is no way a market that size is going to disappear in 5 years when the laptop can be used as a decent platform as well as the home based desktop.


I'm interested in what's going to happen over the next five years as an investor. If some company says they're designing PC platform games only, I'm staying away from their stock. The on-line game thing has come standard to the console as of the XBox 360 and I'm sure the PS3 will do the same, so that's one of the last selling points of PC games gone.

I don't know if you have a 360, but you take it out of the box, plug it into your tv and sound system, plug in a network cable, plug the headset into the wireless controller, and it's ready to go for on-line games. Do you think people are going to prefer a far cheaper system they can sit on the couch and play on their big screen TV or spend five times as much to hunch over a desk? I'm sure not going to put my money on the second option.

jcaustin: Laptops are the computer platform of choice

Damn dude, thats pretty stupid. A PC is far superior (both in efficeny and cost effictivness) to a laptop. The most you can hope for to upgrade a laptop is to swap out it's HD, and throw in a stick of RAM. A PC you can change... everything. Vid card, controller, cooling options etc. A PC may go obsolete faster then a console, but they can be upgraded easier then your laptop.

King Keepo hit the nail on the head, PC gaming is where the money is. And while laptops do an adequate job, who wants to be adequate when you can be extraordinary.

I'll keep my PC, with my 5 HD's... my 25Gb of South Park, 30Gb of Simpson's, 8Gb of Family Guy, 95Gb of DivX movies, and my DVD-DL burner (among other things). You can stay on your laptop with its whole 60Gb HD.

And in all fairness to consoles, they get first access (usually months in advance) to state-of-the-art technology. The Cell, multiple multi-core processors, ultra speed RAM, brand new/experimental video cards.

But I can end this right now. Show me a console that can DL porn as efficiently as a PC. Since thats the biggest business out there (want numbers?) it's easily beaten out the consoles. Go back to your Dell Inspirion.

jcaustin - I'm interested in what's going to happen over the next five years as an investor. If some company says they're designing PC platform games only, I'm staying away from their stock.

Oh ok, different points of view, I'm interested as a gamer. From an investment standpoint Blizzard might have been worth it around the time they released World of Warcraft, although I don't know the numbers, and it's the only example I can think of right now. So granted there's probably less opportunity for you, but it's still there.

I do have a 360, and I also have a desktop, and I play games on both. I'd also think people are more likely to get a desktop in the house before a console, and in that case it's more likely that games will find their way onto that desktop before a console is bought. In this case I'm thinking about families, and not students or those who otherwise have a chunk of disposable income and a fair amount of time to devote.

But ultimately this doesn't help with your investments, although games companies seem a little volatile for that anyway.

I'm going to switch to Mac because I just don't PC game anymore. The kind of games I prefer are the kind I can play for 1/2 hour or a few hours, put down for 2 weeks, and pick up right from where I left off. All this online gaming bullshiat is a waste of time and money. Not to mention the obscene expense of maintaining a gaming rig. Yeah you can build a PC for $500. It won't play shiat well and you know it. Console gaming > PC gaming and it has been for a while now.

ccmods: Show me a console that can run excel/Outlook/AutoCad/Blender and I'll gladly agree with you.

PS3 /w Linux & Wine.

Ghostalker: Show me a console that can DL porn as efficiently as a PC.

PS3 /w Linux, Firefox & DownItAll

Free account, not free movies. Besides, anyone care to take a stab at how long it'll take to download a high def flick? Gah.

I'll stick with the NetFlix gods for now...