Xbox Profits !!!!!

How about that?  The Xbox division has finally turned a profit, after spending billions on resolving quality problems.  This is indeed a milestone worth mentioning for Microsoft, as it's taken 7 years to get here, with the original Xbox launching in 2001.

Of course, the fact that they shipped earlier than Sony, and by now have significantly cheaper manufacturing costs helps a lot toward this.

And then there was (is) Halo 3, which holds the record for the highest grossing opening day in entertainment history.  US $170 million in the first 24 hours!  I find it incredible that gaming, which is still not really considered a mainstream activity, can generate that amount of revenue.  The future is surely bright for everyone in this industry.

Bungie, makers of Halo, have parted ways with Microsoft now, but the success of the game should continue to enable Microsoft to capitalise on the Xbox platform, and of course the next-generation Xbox should be the one REALLY worth waiting for.  That is, if you take the traditional view that Microsoft doesn't get it right till the 3rd release...

Well done Microsoft!  Now let's hope the next Zune can be as successful as the 360.

BBC - iPlayer

A quick rant about iPlayer Microsoft

If you haven't used it (and you live in the UK), I suggest you check it out immediately here.  It's a great site, easy to use, VERY quick, and I would use that over the retarded inelegant SKY+ implementation any day.  The limitations of SKY+ will have to wait for a later rant.

The iPlayer streams programs / movies, so there's no download and you have pretty much instantaneous access to anything that was broadcast during the past 7 days.  This means if you missed something, forgot to set SKY+ to record it, you stupid SKY+ box just plain refused to record it, you can still watch it whenever.  Extremely useful and the wife and I often catch up on some things or sample new shows on weekend mornings before getting up.

The primary drawback of the system is that there doesn't seem to be a way for me to get the content to my television without hooking up a computer.  That just seems dumb... 

While I have Vista Ultimate running on 2 laptops which are always around, neither of these are connected to my TV.  I have an Xbox360 that we use as an extender, but that cannot stream the iPlayer streams as there's no Media Center component for it.  A quick look at the SDK, and you realise you couldn't even do it as a quick 'hosted' HTML component, as that wouldn't give you the speed, and trying to create a 'native' component will not allow you to stream these flash format files, as the 360 only streams wmv...

To me it looks like MS is missing a trick here.  Both the BBC and ITV is making all their programs for the past 7 days / month respectively available, and if I could access it natively as streams on the 360 (no long download before you start), the 360 would instantaneously become a MUCH more compelling part of most households, as it would no longer be relegated to being a 'games only' machine.  The Xbox 360 should be able to do this without acting as an extender, which would further simplify the setup in most homes.

Sure this could be implemented quite easily by some of the guys at MS, so I'm not sure what the holdup is.  perhaps they're waiting for the Silverlight release? - but I don't see that replacing the current flash implementation.

Can anyone shed light on this?

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360,Microsoft,SKY+,iPlayer

Free Game!

How about that! Microsoft is giving away a game to all XBOX Live users.

Always good in my book, though I haven't tried this title, the reviews and rankings look quite positive. I'll let you know later when I've had a chance to try it out :)

Undertow Reviews

Gaming - News - Microsoft free game giveaway 'this week' - Digital Spy

Technorati Tags: Games,Microsoft,XBOX360