Microsoft moves into chip world with Xbox

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re: Makes Sense?

>Microsoft wants to be more active in CPU development so they can lock the system down, so that it won't be hacked and used as a node in a Linux Cluster.

It's a game console. If anyone is still burning hours trying to make the XBox part of a Linux cluster they need to stop. Go to Fry's, buy a load of PC components on sale that are cheaper than the XBox and don't require any extra efforts to install Linux and go to town.

>Sounds kind of self defeating if you ask me.

Not at all... even if MS makes the XBox hardware profitable, that's not where their money is going to come from in this venture. The money is in the games. Allowing the XBox to be open to Linux installs doesn't help that front at all.

>They want to prevent their XBoxes from being hacked

Duh... not many companies actually like the idea of their products being hacked.

>so they can't have more than one use which in turn drops sales of the product

It's a game machine. That's all they want it to be.

>hence the much more open archtecture of Sony

So because Sony released an extremely limited Linux kit for the PS2, that makes it open? Let's see, a typical PS2 isn't 'open' in the sense you're talking about. The hardware architecture, even in the Linux outfitted PS2s, is anything but 'open'... in fact, it's pretty friggin' proprietary. A PS2 without the pricey Linux add-on kit isn't 'open' to installing any flavor of Linux. Just exactly how is this architecture you speak of 'open?'

>will probably be more widely used and therefore become the defacto standard in cheap cluster node additions

Again, IT'S A GAME CONSOLE! You can build a much more powerful nodes using off-the-shelf components from electronics retailers for less money than you can get out of using PS2s or even XBOXes. That wasn't always the case, but it definitely is today. For the price of a standard PS2 or XBOX you can easily put together a 2-2.5 GHz box with 256MB RAM, ethernet, and a small hard drive. All that without the hassle of trying install Linux on a console that has some method to attempt to prevent it. If you added the price of the Linux kit and network adapter you'd need on the PS2 to make a node, you can make that custom-built node even better. If you don't want the hassle of building your own box you can even buy a bargain-basement Linux box from Walmart for $199 that will serve as a much node than either a PS2 or XBox.

Beyond all that, I seriously doubt the unimagineably low numbers of PS2s or XBoxes that would ever be purchased for the intent of using them as Linux nodes would have any dent in the overall number Sony and Microsoft are moving.

Posted by: JakAttak   Posted on: 11/10/03 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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