XBOX 360 is on the cover of Time Magazine

[Hetz]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1061433,00.html

Nice one for Microsoft!

Here is an interesting quote:

(Note to the hard-core faithful: the next version of Halo will not, repeat not, be ready in time for the launch of Xbox 360. It will be part of the all-important second wave next spring. "It's perfect," Gates says, radiant with bloodlust. "The day Sony launches [the new PlayStation], and they walk right into Halo 3." Microsoft is expected to announce that Xbox 360 will play Halo 2 and other Xbox games.

Smart move. I really think Sony is making a big mistake launching after the XBOX 360.

[whiteboyskim]

It'd be funny if Sony countered with the first next-gen GTA title at that time and pwned Microsoft though.

[Kevin Grey]

Its funny that Bill Gates says what most have expected MS to do all along, launch Halo 3 alongsidide PS3 while Peter Moore had this say in an article on 1Up:

Moore simply says, "The worst thing we could do is say we must ship Halo 3 when the PS3 ships."

"Halo 3 will ship when Halo 3 is of a magnitude of quality that the Halo nation will not string us up from the flagpole outside," he continues. "It's bigger than simply being a blunt instrument to take on PS3. Say the PS3 launch is in November, then you say Halo 3 is coming in the spring of 2007? Here's what it's like: people will wait."

[disarm]

It'd be funny if Sony countered with the first next-gen GTA title at that time and pwned Microsoft though.

does anyone know just how much longer sony has the first-release rights to the GTA series?  i would think that contract could be running out at some point in the relatively near future...

[Kevin Grey]

It'd be funny if Sony countered with the first next-gen GTA title at that time and pwned Microsoft though.

does anyone know just how much longer sony has the first-release rights to the GTA series?  i would think that contract could be running out at some point in the relatively near future...

We should get an answer this week most likely.  The terms of exclusivity were never announced but it has long been speculated that Sony allowed Take Two to release the Xbox versions of GTA games in return for extending timed exclusivity into next generation.  That's just speculation though.  GTA may not be exclusive at all next gen- they might go for multi-platform simulataneous release.  There's even a possibility that MS could have got exclusivity.

We should hear about this at E3 hopefully.  Don't expect to see a game though- Take Two typically doesn't show off a GTA until just a few months before release and most expect next-gen GTA to be Fall 2006 at the earliest.

[whiteboyskim]

Its funny that Bill Gates says what most have expected MS to do all along, launch Halo 3 alongsidide PS3 while Peter Moore had this say in an article on 1Up:

Moore simply says, "The worst thing we could do is say we must ship Halo 3 when the PS3 ships."

"Halo 3 will ship when Halo 3 is of a magnitude of quality that the Halo nation will not string us up from the flagpole outside," he continues. "It's bigger than simply being a blunt instrument to take on PS3. Say the PS3 launch is in November, then you say Halo 3 is coming in the spring of 2007? Here's what it's like: people will wait."

Well, it can't suck any worse than Halo 2 did. I'm done with that series, man. Halo is simply ass, pure and simple. The first one is great up to the first encounter with the Flood in the swamp, then is just boring until that final mission. Halo 2 is flat-out awful start to finish. I might play it when it's available for rental, but Bungie's since lost me as a full-price paying customer.

Not really a huge loss to Microsoft, I'm just saying I think the games suck.

[Kevin Grey]

Just finished reading the article.  I find it surprising that Gates was so up front about MS's notion of taking over the home entertainment center.  MS really downplayed it with the original Xbox and it being all about the games so I was surprised to see him so bluntly say:

Games are just the condiment. This is the main course, and it's what Gates is really after. Games just get you in the door. "You can't just sell it as a convergence device," Gates says. "You gotta get in there because certain members of the family [I.e., teenage boys] think it's a must-have type thing. But the way to cement it is as a family experience. And the way that it really makes sense for Microsoft, and we justify this sort of circuitous route that we went down, is because of how it fits in the living room."

Gates is anxious that the extent of his ambitions not be overstated: "Think of it as not taking over the digital ecosystem but being a prime player in that digital ecosystem." Duly noted. But the question remains: Is Microsoft about to do in the living room with the Xbox 360 what it did in the office with Windows? Will it create a technology so well positioned and well marketed and so devilishly useful that it becomes the de facto standard and creates an insanely profitable quasi-monopoly around itself? As music and movies become more and more digital, the entertainment business is transforming into a software business, and somebody has to build the master platform on which all that software runs, and the hardware through which it flows. Turn to page 13 in your "Book of Xenon," please: "As the world's software leader, Microsoft is among the best suited to enable and capitalize this transformation. This is our opportunity to lose."

[CeeKay]

Halo 3 and PS3 on the same day?  if that happened I'd hate to be an employee at a place that sells both.

[Dimmona]

Just to let you know how serious Gate's ambitions about the next Xbox are - so the president of my company (this guy) paid a visit to my group's software meeting last week.  During a Q&A session, he related a story about how he and Gates had lunch earlier in the week and ended up getting in a big argument about the future of computing.  Jacobs was arguing that the cellphone (and other mobile devices) will eventually take over the functionality of the traditional home computer, while Gates' position was that set top boxes/home entertainment boxes (i.e. the Xbox) will eventually take over as the central computer for most people.

If this is really what Gates wants the Xbox to end up being, here's hoping that they actually give us a web browser/email out of the box....

[Belgedin]

Well, it can't suck any worse than Halo 2 did. I'm done with that series, man. Halo is simply ass, pure and simple. The first one is great up to the first encounter with the Flood in the swamp, then is just boring until that final mission. Halo 2 is flat-out awful start to finish. I might play it when it's available for rental, but Bungie's since lost me as a full-price paying customer.

Amen to that. Microsoft is gonna have to do better than Halo 3 to get into my pocket. Mistwalker (it is Mistwalker right?) is the only thing keeping me even remotely interested in the 360.

[Purge]

It'd be funny if Sony countered with the first next-gen GTA title at that time and pwned Microsoft though.

The Rockstar GTA exclusivity contract was supposed to end at the beginning of 2006, no? I think it's more likely to count on new Sony exclusives from 1st and 2nd party publishers.

They want money; XBOX360 is likely a place to make money. <shrug> I'll end up owning both, but I love my Live.