Lindows CEO fronts $200k for Linux on xbox

[Matt Alexander]

On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, shadow wrote:

> Blowing the XBox off the market is what this competition will do.
> Microsoft is loosing upwards of $150.00 on each XBox sold.  They're
> trying to recoup the costs with royalties from game sales.  If you buy
> an XBox below manufacturing costs solely to run Linux and not buying any
> games, Microsoft looses money.  Last summer the XBox division lost
> $177mil on sales of $505mil.  Even Microsoft cannot sustain losses like
> that for more than a few years.  Microsoft will either:  1.  Attempt to
> strengthen XBox's DRM (which will fail repeatedly).  2.  Withdraw from
> the market (unlikely) or  3.  Change the design of the XBox to be more
> like the GameCube and PS2 (by which time the next generation of consoles
> will be available.)  Just my $0.02US.

An interesting side-effect of Microsoft's XBox push, is that it hurts
computer game sales.  Computer games are pretty much the only software
category that encourages people to upgrade to new hardware anymore.  If
people don't buy new computers, then Microsoft doesn't sell new copies of
Windows.  Why buy computer games anymore if the games are just as good on
a cheap console with a better controller?  Obviously there are games that
are better suited to a computer, but most games run perfectly well on a
console.  I'm assuming that Microsoft is aware of the situation and
figured it'd be better to fight Sony in the console market because of the
potential for the Playstation to make the home computer irrelevent for
most people (with the addition of a keyboard/mouse for web and email).
Also, if they could get users to subscribe to a monthly online gaming
service, then that would be a steady revenue stream.
In addition, it makes the argument that "Linux sucks because it doesn't
run the latest games" less important.
~M