Hats off to Microsoft
Last night I had a few spare minutes so I was messing about with a Xbox360. You know how it is you keeping plugging stuff in trying to find out what would work and what device will eventually crash the machine.
Well, keyboard fine (really handy for setting up the console), digital camera working great, next storage devices; looking good but what about an iPod.
Plug in and to my surprise it works, not only that but it has full playlist support! You have to download a small file from the Xbox Live Market place called; Optional iPod Support which is around 170kb to play the iTunes AAC files but apart from that pretty damn neat. Now to some this might not appear to be too great just yet but let me fill you in. I’m a Mac user, I own a Mac formatted iPod, meaning Microsoft have included the ability to read HFS+ format drives. This is a clever little trick and could it be the first signs of the giant realising that FAT and NTFS are not the only file systems in the world or are they just accepting that every man and his dog own an iPod and they better cash in on it?
3% is still a lot!
During the first week of launch experts estimate that between 300,000 and 400,000 Xbox 360’s were sold in the US. This is nearly their planned 3 month target in a week.
But is has not been all clear sailing for Microsoft, there have been various reports of overheating power supplies, random crashes and games freezing and even dvd’s being ripped by the laser mountings of the drive. Microsoft have had to admit there could be a problem and so annouced that yes there is a fault but only 3% of machines are to blame.
Yes every new product will have some teething problems and yes the second shipment will always be better, they will fix this and tweek that. According to M$ this percentage is still below the consumer average, nice one. I’m spending £300 on the latest console and it trashes my game disc, it’s ok. It catches fire and trashes my house, once again it’s ok as it’s below the consumer average.
Since when did around 10,000 defective machines become an acceptable amount? Find me a 360 owner that would agree when they have to wait a month to get a replacement.
When I buy a car I don’t expect the brakes to fail and be told ‘well you see you were only in the 1.456% of owners that did experience this problem but it’s ok now as you are dead!’
Ok bit extreme that one but how you accept the fact that what you buy could well be in a defective group. All seems like a disposable society to me.
360 or just 180?
2nd December marks the European launch of the Xbox360.
Have you got yours?
My answer; No.
But then did I pre-order? No. Did I sit there months ago getting all worked up over the machine; No. Have I spent the last few months getting in a worse state as the hype builds; No. Was the last few weeks spent checking my online pre-order trying to work out if I would recieve the console today; No. Am I worried; well yes a bit.
I’m a massive gadget freek and love all things to do with this kind of stuff so yes deep down I do wish I was at home playing PGR3 instead of writing this during my lunch break, who won’t be. But I’m also not going to buy into the hype and marketing politics of these machines. People all around are pulling there hair out, worrying that they will not get a console. On the radio this morning was a bloke who pre-ordered a 360 in September for his 5 year old son and is now told it will be Feburary before he get’s one. First off why are you buying a £300 console for a 5 year old, second it’s because of people phoning up and claiming this it sends another 6 people out to pre-order, just in case. Second case subject came in the form of a delivery driver today, he had pre-ordered 3 consoles for his son, now as he won’t get one for Christmas he has sent his wife out to find one; good luck love! So that’s 3 pre-ordered and one from the shop; 4, but really you only want one, no wonder there are not enough to go round.
Now to the really strange part, Lucy is Christmas shopping today and phoned me up and asked, do you want a 360, there are quite a few of the core systems out here, shall I pick one up?
Why are there so many of these left? Ok no hard drive, no wireless controller and no media remote. Sorry can you not buy these seperately?
The hard drive is nice but I can’t organise my iTunes collection, I’m not going to worry about burning it all to a XBox as well, save games yes but just pick up the hard drive at the same time.
Do you really need a wireless controller now, what this morning you woke up and wires are just so yesterday?
Media remote, well whats the point if you did not pick up that hard drive?
People stop running round screaming and acting like headless chickens, you can get that 360 your after or better yet lets all get together and play a quick round of Cluedo.
360 might not mean backwards
on the usual trail through a week’s worth of rss feeds and inbox fluff I found this interesting article about the backwards compatiblity of the [[Xbox360]].
You know what that sort of policy just does not sound like [[Microsoft]]’s way at all, sorry I did have my fingers crossed there for a bit.
Can I have….Pleeeeeease…
is going to be the cry all over the land soon.
play.com have put the [[Xbox360]] on pre-order already along with a load of games and tasty little extras. Whilst I have to admit I though the price was going to be a bit higher I still think I can hold off on the purchase and wait for sales to settle.
What am I thinking, it is only a preliminary release date and it is the end of November! How about we just sit and wait and see what happens, please reframe from getting too excited, well ok just a little bit.