media center. i don't understand why it is still around. the xbox UI is vastly superior these days. why not just port that over to pc's? replace all the xbox specific references with games for windows branding... keep the zune, last.fm, netflix, twitter, facebook apps. kill the media center extender app on xbox. throw in the same dvr recording features and bam you have two interfaces on two different devices and the customer doesnt have to learn two ui's. on the go and want to turn a hotel or friennds tv into an entertainment center fast? hook up your laptop via hdmi and enjoy your content. build some cheap extenders and strip out the gaming specific hardware and gaming specific functionality in the software. ms redundance is stupid. zune/wmp/wmc/xbox 360 dashboard
i see how you can send facebook contcats messages... but i thought you were supposed to be able to facebook chat with contacts logged into facebook straight from windows live... anyone know how this is done?
@McDuckScrooged i'm not MS i don't know what is said behind closed doors for a target market. the point is this. the 'most loyal' 360 fans are guys who play shooters and we have built xbox a strong base... but that base will only carry MS so far. in the 90's MS had the vision that every desk in the world will have a PC on it. mission accomplished. xbox is their play to get every tv in the world to have an xbox (aka PC) hooked up to it. they will never achieve anything like that as long as they are targeting the current loyal 360 owner. sure MS wants current 360 owners to buy kinect but want they want even more is mom and dad and 7 year old billy and janey to all use the xbox not just moddy teenager mike. cause as long as moody teenage mike is the only one using the xbox to go shoot and kill things the rest of the family is not going to use it as the "primary" living room box. MS wants to eventually eliminate cable boxes and dvd players and all the extra boxes and they want the only box under a tv to be the 360... they WILL NOT achieve that by targeting current "loyal" 360 users.
that being said i too wish kinect had more in depth hardcore games. but like i said. i think it is lacking those for two reasons. one MS made a choice to not have any hardcore games to position kinects image at launch as family friendly. the second reason is this is a launch catalog. remember what we got when the 360 first came out? a bad perfect dark game. kameo. and an old port (call of duty 2) so lets settle down everyone the point is it still shows promise. and everyone who likes move better... it is always an option for MS in a year or two to come out with a xbox wand that adds a trigger and a joystiq so everyone can play the shooters they want with kinect
did anyone ever think that microsoft has gone out of its way to make everyone on this site NOT its target audience? the most attractive games to anyone above age 7 are the ubisoft fitness 'game' and the harmonix dance game. MS doesnt care if anybody that already owns an xbox (aka 14 to 30 year old guys) buy this. they know they can sell you xboxs already. they are trying to reach a completely different audience. IF MS was interested in selling this to the average engadget or joystiq reader they WOULD have made Halo or Geers or Fable work with kinect in SOME way. The fact is they are intentionally not going after the kinds of people who play those games.
AND... microsoft embarks down the same path they did with windows moible... except they have more than just one competitor (palm) like they did in the pocket pc days and that competition is on top of their game. welcome to 5 years of partners reskinning Windows CE 7. different interfaces no ebook or app compatibility. i have always been the person that wants a tablet... but affter trying to click a settings check box on an HP desktop touchsmart for 60 secs (after just installing win 7 and being very impressed by the touch experience on the desktop level) then giving up and grabbing the mouse i know all too well that windows (until entirely reskinned like windows mobile 6.5 has been) wont be worth a damn as a touch OS. and guess what microsoft by the time windows 7 sp3 or windows 8 is out with that reskinning you might have well just been your mobile OS on there. how does ms have such brilliant ideas about connecting devices and are then so frustratingly stupid when it comes to actually executing. when they say shit like this it makes me want th throw my zune in the trash... cause im tired of waiting for MS to make the right move 5 years after their competition does.
wow... im not a big ballmer hater at all... i dont think he is great BUT i dont think he is sinking MS that is unless ballmer lets j allard go CAUSE as far as i can tell he is the only person at MS that REALLY gets the consumer market... the impact wont be felt now... the impact will be felt a few years from now
adresses and phone numbers throughout the OS are hyperlinked so that you dont have to copy and paste.
lack of copy and paste still sucks... but there are design choices present to make it less critical. i would still like to see it in future releases.
at the end of the day (same as all those people who went for the iphone_ pros outway the cons. solid browsing (from mobile browser of choice), xbox, zune, office, amazing social networking integration, slick (useful) UI and app integration has me sold
this is a very stupid mistake for MS to make (considering the iphone situation) none of us have used the UI so its hard to say exactly how terrible and life ending this will be. as far as competition goes i do not see this being as big a deal as the tech community will make it out to be. the fact that multiple hardware as well as multiple carriers will be launching these phones at a range of device price points and a wide variety of service plan options already (almost) guarantees this platform a substantial marketshare. the average consumer will not walk into the store play with a device and ask if it can copy and paste. they will play with the ui and look at the camera quality and slider keyboards and what not and say i want this phone for whatever reason
Windows Phone 7 in-depth preview
Jul 19th 2010 1:07AM (Engadget)Entelligence: Five gadgets that could have and should have done better
Jul 18th 2010 6:19PM (Engadget)Windows Live Essentials beta is ready for your downloading delight
Jun 24th 2010 7:02PM (Engadget)Kinect Adventures preview unearths our frightening lack of coordination
Jun 15th 2010 6:44PM (Engadget)i'm not MS i don't know what is said behind closed doors for a target market. the point is this. the 'most loyal' 360 fans are guys who play shooters and we have built xbox a strong base... but that base will only carry MS so far. in the 90's MS had the vision that every desk in the world will have a PC on it. mission accomplished. xbox is their play to get every tv in the world to have an xbox (aka PC) hooked up to it. they will never achieve anything like that as long as they are targeting the current loyal 360 owner. sure MS wants current 360 owners to buy kinect but want they want even more is mom and dad and 7 year old billy and janey to all use the xbox not just moddy teenager mike. cause as long as moody teenage mike is the only one using the xbox to go shoot and kill things the rest of the family is not going to use it as the "primary" living room box. MS wants to eventually eliminate cable boxes and dvd players and all the extra boxes and they want the only box under a tv to be the 360... they WILL NOT achieve that by targeting current "loyal" 360 users.
that being said i too wish kinect had more in depth hardcore games. but like i said. i think it is lacking those for two reasons. one MS made a choice to not have any hardcore games to position kinects image at launch as family friendly. the second reason is this is a launch catalog. remember what we got when the 360 first came out? a bad perfect dark game. kameo. and an old port (call of duty 2) so lets settle down everyone the point is it still shows promise. and everyone who likes move better... it is always an option for MS in a year or two to come out with a xbox wand that adds a trigger and a joystiq so everyone can play the shooters they want with kinect
Kinect Adventures preview unearths our frightening lack of coordination
Jun 15th 2010 7:04AM (Engadget)Palm Pixi Plus now available on AT&T
Jun 6th 2010 7:53PM (Engadget)Microsoft: Windows Phone 7 not planned to hit tablets, Courier was always a concept
Jun 2nd 2010 7:09AM (Engadget)J Allard leaving Microsoft over Courier axing?
May 21st 2010 7:09PM (Engadget)Windows Phone 7 Series won't have copy and paste
Mar 16th 2010 6:24PM (Engadget)adresses and phone numbers throughout the OS are hyperlinked so that you dont have to copy and paste.
lack of copy and paste still sucks... but there are design choices present to make it less critical. i would still like to see it in future releases.
at the end of the day (same as all those people who went for the iphone_ pros outway the cons. solid browsing (from mobile browser of choice), xbox, zune, office, amazing social networking integration, slick (useful) UI and app integration has me sold
Windows Phone 7 Series won't have copy and paste
Mar 16th 2010 6:16PM (Engadget)this is a very stupid mistake for MS to make (considering the iphone situation) none of us have used the UI so its hard to say exactly how terrible and life ending this will be. as far as competition goes i do not see this being as big a deal as the tech community will make it out to be. the fact that multiple hardware as well as multiple carriers will be launching these phones at a range of device price points and a wide variety of service plan options already (almost) guarantees this platform a substantial marketshare. the average consumer will not walk into the store play with a device and ask if it can copy and paste. they will play with the ui and look at the camera quality and slider keyboards and what not and say i want this phone for whatever reason