Xbox Durango (Xbox 3) Dev-Kit on Ebay

[Friendly]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dl ... 1100568971

I have a feeling this won't last long.

[Ed Oscuro]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012- ... kit-source

vanned soon

[undamned]

Zero feedback, one sentence description, and people are bidding over $5k. Makes sense.
-ud

[Friendly]

It's at $13,000 now.
Couldn't you just legally buy one from Microsoft for less?
Surprised the auction hasn't been deleted yet.

[Ed Oscuro]

I didn't think MS was this desperate for third party support.

[Ex-Cyber]

Couldn't you just legally buy one from Microsoft for less?

Right now? I doubt it. At the very least you'd probably need to already have been a licensed 360 developer, and this early on it's entirely likely that availability is limited (either by explicit requirements or by committed launch partners getting dibs).

[trap15]

Sent the seller a request for specs:

• Intel Xeon series.
• 12G ram.
• AMD card.

Welp, welcome to PC land, consoles. :/

[moozooh]

For Xbox that's merely returning to its roots; i.e. the original Xbox and its Pentium III.

[njiska]

Sent the seller a request for specs:

• Intel Xeon series.
• 12G ram.
• AMD card.

Welp, welcome to PC land, consoles. :/

Why exactly is this a bad thing? I mean aside from the fact that Alpha kits are off the shelf hardware anyways, I don't see a big deal with an Intel proc or an AMD GPU. And this is no indication of how the actual hardware is integrated and consoles aren't in really in PC land until the parts are modular.

[trap15]

They're in PC land because they use PC hardware. Doesn't really matter if the parts are replaceable. Read my rant here: http://daifukkat.su/2012/01/pc-arcade-analysis/
It's not focused on console hardware (it's obviously focused on arcade hardware), but the same arguments still apply.

[Ex-Cyber]

This is just market realities catching up to the slow-moving console market. You pretty much can't compete with PC hardware for running games anymore, unless battery life is an issue. ARM platforms are starting to close that gap, but only starting.

[Ed Oscuro]

Sent the seller a request for specs:

• Intel Xeon series.
• 12G ram.
• AMD card.

Welp, welcome to PC land, consoles. :/

I done told ya!

Nice history of PC hardware in arcades.

ARM platforms are starting to close that gap, but only starting.

But at the same time Intel is scrambling to close the power gap with ARM. I know trap15 doesn't agree, but Intel isn't stupid, they know this could be potentially do-or-die.

There are actually some pretty reasonably performing desktop CPU parts out, although I wonder if they won't go to a mobile CPU instead. Whenever I look at desktop parts it's crazy shit like 130W TDP, maybe 95W; my old C2D E6600 was 65W.

[louisg]

Ugh, I hope consoles don't go all PC on us. I was just at an arcade in SoCal and was marveling at how shittily the PC-based ones perform. I'll admit that it might say more about what kind of programmers you get on computer vs. on console, but the difference in practice so far is pretty striking and almost always has been with few exceptions. Afterburner Climax and Street Fighter 4 seem to do fine at least, but that's two out of a sea of embarrassingly choppy games. In computer programming there seems to always be a "it runs therefore it's good enough" mentality which doesn't take into account speed, latency or fluidity. I hope companies do realize that they need more than a generic Windows programmer to handle this stuff, and are coding it to aim *at* that particular platform.

[Ed Oscuro]

lol, yes, I'm sure that is exactly what programmers with PS2 and Cell experience are hoping for. "Make this shit harder and give us less SDKs please!"

Also, they are all going to be fired and replaced by COBOL drones, duh

[Kaiser]

Seeing trap15's specs post. Good fucking riddance, current consoles are already shitty PCs with some of PC's downsides like the patching (except here it's forced). AND NOW THEY ARE gonna even more fucking shitty PCs? Guys what is the point then of having a PC and a console if the console is just a PC. What the fuck. Back to NES/SNES/PS1/PS2 I guess.

[trap15]

Guys what is the point then of having a PC and a console if the console is just a PC. What the fuck. Back to NES/SNES/PS1/PS2 I guess.

qft

edit: also, since it's a dev-kit, those specs are higher than the final will be. Usually it's half the RAM, so I'd expect 4 to 6 GB on the final.

[cools]

Chip snobbery ftw. How times have changed from the 68k, Z80 and 8086 days. The ICs used are not important, it's all about the whole system they are integrated into. A PC allows you to programming it directly, a console requires a development environment.

[Friendly]

Strange the auction wasn't cancelled; I can't see how selling this dev-kit could have been legal. Unless the seller was Microsoft, and they purpously built it with incorrect specs to throw off the competition.

The seller himself stopped the auction when the price reached ~20k, winning bid: US $20,100. I didn't even know you could stop auctions at any time and sell the item to the current highest bidder.

If they weren't so cash-strapped right now, my guess would be that Sony bought it
Jokes aside, maybe MS themselves purchased it to prevent anything from getting out (and to find out where it came from), or the whole thing was a total fake and MS knew it, so they didn't even bother, and someone else was just scammed out of $20,000 dollars.

EDIT:
Interesting tidbit: The seller said on twitter that it has a Blu Ray drive.

[Ed Oscuro]

Seeing trap15's specs post. Good fucking riddance, current consoles are already shitty PCs with some of PC's downsides like the patching (except here it's forced). AND NOW THEY ARE gonna even more fucking shitty PCs? Guys what is the point then of having a PC and a console if the console is just a PC. What the fuck. Back to NES/SNES/PS1/PS2 I guess.

The point is that I can now get some use out of my PC, and not have to resort to ports by incompetent dipshits if I want to play games like Ninja Blade (distributed by Iceberg Interactive...totally unplayable unless you unplug USB devices and even then I don't know if it'd work right)

[njiska]

EDIT:
Interesting tidbit: The seller said on twitter that it has a Blu Ray drive.

Not exactly strange. There isn't another widely endorsed large storage disc format and MS wants to be an entertainment centre. They don't have much of a choice... I miss my HD DVD.

[Friendly]

I miss my HD DVD.

You bet on the wrong horse. Really makes no sense to feel nostalgic about this; it's good that for once the better format won.

[njiska]

I miss my HD DVD.

You bet on the wrong horse. Really makes no sense to feel nostalgic about this. For once, the better format won. Good for us.

The better format did not win. The incomplete standard that happened to have larger storage won. And I can feel as nostalgic as I want seeing as my HD DVD collection still outnumbers my Blu-Ray collection and is completely region free.

[Friendly]

The better format did not win.

Of course it did. It's insane to argue otherwise. At the time it won, Blu Ray offered 46GB (25GB single layer), while HD DVD had 30 (15GB single layer). More space = higher video bitrate, more space for audio.
Furthermore, Blu Ray discs feature better scratch resistance than HD DVDs. The better format won. Deal with it.

EDIT: I'd like to add that I've been using BD-Rs for data storage (mostly digital photography and videos) for a few years now, and I'm very glad that I have 46GB of space per disc. Especially 1080p video (H.264 with a nice bitrate) takes up a huge amount of space: 1GB = ~3 minutes. HTL discs have an inorganic dye, so in theory they should last longer than HD DVD-Rs, too (if stored properly).

[njiska]

The better format did not win.

Of course it did. It's insane to argue otherwise. At the time it won, Blu Ray offered 50GB, while HD DVD had 30. More space = higher video bitrate, more space for audio.
Furthermore, Blu Ray discs feature better scratch resistance then HD DVDs. The better format won. Deal with it.

Blu-Ray REQUIRES the scratch resistant layer because the data is incredibly close to the surface. It's not a "feature", it's a necessity. It also makes them impossible to resurface if they do get scratched. And they do still get scratched. Oh and let's not forget the Disc Rot on early releases. There's also the matter of HD DVD being able to be replicated on a regular manufacturing process with minimum upgrades, where as Blu-Ray required new hardware and at least for a while could only be manufactured in a few locations.

Blu-Ray does have more space, but a 3 layer 45 GB HD DVD was ready to go which would have allowed for higher bitrates. Of course, at the time most HD DVDs were encoded in VC-1 and most Blu-Rays used MPEG2, which requires a much higher bit-rate for the same quality of video produced by a smaller VC-1 or AVC encode; so that point was kind of moot.

And it's not just about space, it's about being a complete format. At the time the two were going to war, HD DVD required all players support minimum features that Blu-Ray would not require for up to two profile revisions.

And let's look at the player reqs:

Code: Select all

Item                    HD DVD                  Blu-Ray

Dolby Digital           Req                     Req
Dolby Digital Plus      Req                     Optional
Dolby True HD           Req (minimum 2 ch.)     Optional
DTS                     Req                     Req
DTS-HD High Res         Optional                Optional
DTS-HD Master Audio     Optional                Optional
LPCM                    Req                     Req

Secondary Video Decoder Req                     Profile 1.1+
Secondary Audio Decoder Req                     Profile 1.1+
Internet Connectivity   Req                     Profile 2.0

Copy Protection         AACS                    AACS, BD+, ROM-Mark
Region Coding           None                    Three Regions

Most, if not all Profile 1.0 players aside from the PS3 and the last round of releases, could not be upgraded to the 1.1 or 2.0 Profiles because they lacked the new hardware requirements.

Blu-ray was an incomplete format when it launched and would not come close to it's final state until almost two years after it's release. HD DVD was the better standard because it was a complete standard from launch, offered more than adequate storage for the content being produced at the time, was ready to go with a higher capacity disc and was region free.

This isn't about fanboyism or not "dealing with it", this is about taking an objective look at the formats. As always Blu-Ray won because of marketing, business deals and the PS3. Not objective superiority. I don't dispute that the format is superior today, now that it's been finalized and studios are using AVC, but at the time of the format war, it was behind HD DVD in a number of areas and the only advantage it had, storage, was squandered by poor mastering decisions.

[Friendly]

Size (and longevity/scratch resistance) are the only things that matter for optical storage media. A disc is merely a container.

[njiska]

Size (and longevity/scratch resistance) are the only things that matter for optical storage media. A disc is merely a container.

And with that, you further prove that you are a blind fool.

Yet again when Friendly enters the fray the discussion stops.

[Ex-Cyber]

Strange the auction wasn't cancelled; I can't see how selling this dev-kit could have been legal.

My guess is that the software component of it wasn't obvious to eBay, and they thought it was just a hardware auction. In theory it should have been pulled for violating the beta software rule.

[Friendly]

Size (and longevity/scratch resistance) are the only things that matter for optical storage media. A disc is merely a container.

And with that, you further prove that you are a blind fool.

Yet again when Friendly enters the fray the discussion stops.

[Insert witty retort I'm too lazy to come up with because it would be pretty much wasted on a person as obviously limited as you are. With your posts in the Steam-topic, the gun-topic and now this you have basically disqualified yourself.]

Have a nice day!

[louisg]

Aaaaand another thread ruined

[shmuppyLove]

Sold for $20k!