That’s it:, the super-highly anticipated 3rd installment (but this time for Xbox 360) has an official launch date and 3 different product versions (including two special editions).
I’ve seen some video documentaries about the major baddies and the multiplayer stuff, but I haven’t personally noticed too much in terms of in-game trailers and I’ve seen comments about the graphics not really utilising the 360 that much. Perhaps the E3 conference will provide a useful update on that.
Pop over to Microsoft’s product page and you’ll see that official name for Windows Server “Longhorn” is now Windows Server 2008.
So they definately didn’t want an outdated product name, and this also allows for a later than previously announced Q4 2007 release. The previous pledge was for a new server product every four years (so 2003 to 2008 doesn’t fit that pattern) with R2 releases every two, so I wonder how far behind W2K8 R2 will be…
Of course the virtualisation component of W2K8 is already delayed to follow 180 days after server RTM, for free.
Check out the review of Beta 3 on the SuperSite.
I’ve had the 360 and PS3 since their launches and the Wii for just over a month (though it seems longer after my Zelda binge, despite it being two weeks ago).
Overall, 360 is the winner and here’s why:
For the truly serious technologist or addicted gamer, there are 3 consoles in play. For the serious gamer, there are 2 (360 and PS3).
It’s really about the experience and the gameplay – Microsoft has it hands-down on experience, and is getting their on gameplay because it’s Microsoft with a huge developer following and they’ve had a year head-start. A few more good titles and a killer Halo 3, and things could forever become Pepsi.
For the casual gamer with kids there’s the Wii – it only has 480i (in North America or 480p with component cables) and there’s no digital audio out – but the novelty is there and some games (like Zelda) have pleasant graphics once you get passed the very obvious resolution drop. Wii sports is family fun but it didn’t take long for us to realise that you can sit on the couch and just flick your wrist with far more precision (so RSI is still on the cards for some). Wii may have one of the strongest back-wards compatibility stories in terms of taking Game Cube games, controllers and memory cards. The Mii characters you can build for yourself are limited (despite the many choices) but fun for a while. The launch games are disappointing (esp Mario), however you can buy a fair amount lot of Wii equipment and games before you hit the price of a PS3 with no games.
If you are into gadgets and technology and you are choosing one then get a 360 and make sure you get the Elite (with HDMI output). If you have $2000 to spare, get all 3, accessories and a switcher, then spend another $2000 on a 47″+ LCD/Plasma screen (making sure it’s native 1080p, not 720p with 1080i support) and of course another $1000 or so on digital sound receiver with 5.1/7.1 speakers.
I’m giving Live Writer (beta) a go right now to create entries on my WordPress account.
The immediate upsides observed:
The immediate downsides observed:
It would be good if I could also directly link to the stats and comments pages or have that in the UI. I haven’t looked at the extensibility yet, but I probably will if I stay comfortable in the UI.
According to Engadget there will be some kind of Zune announcement today.
I have one. It lives in its box. I had business reasons for getting one (and the accessories) which I haven’t had time to dig into yet – the lack of an SDK plays into that.
Let’s see what happens later 🙂
UPDATE: The rumours are that a meeting occured, but nothing seems to have been announced and it’s now 20:40 in Washington… There’s a lot of rumours about a Zune 2.0 device or a flash-memory-based device. Whatever it is, it would that adding Silverlight 1.1 would be a killer move – it would mean the ability to create games and RIA (through a proper wifi connection) on the device; being able to do that on a 1.0 device would be a fantastic move but I don’t know if the processor or flash-rom size is up to it. Some kind of SDK could do a lot to rally developer support.
There’s a lot of denial both from Microsoft and others about Silverlight being a Flash-competitor.
I’ve been watching the session videos from sessions.visitmix.com in the last few days. In one of the videos they show a survey that Microsoft commissioned that very specifically asked about future usage of Silverlight vs. Flash. The presenter made various comments about Flash TCO being much higher, etc.
I think it would very naive to think that Microsoft was not targeting upcoming designers and existing designers. The fact that Expression is pushed out now with XAML support (with a 2.0 version already in preview) ahead of XAML support in Visual Studio says a lot.
In the Scott Guthrie video interview by Robert Scoble for PodTech, Scott very specifically says that there will be an ad revenue share opportunity for those using Silverlight through the currently free (with limit) and in beta Silverlight Streaming service.
Those making compelling and original casual gaming experiences may find this a great way to go.
I wonder what kind of control will be offered on the kind of advertising offered.
Scott Guthrie mentioned is his recent video interview with Robert Scoble for PodTech, that having many Silverlight opportunities, is a good problem to have.
I’d like to briefly examine whether that’s really true with a few questions:
How many really differentiatable opportunities are there really?
Are the ways to use the technology somewhat overwhelming?
With so many languages on offer, and many people still learning about WPF, there’s almost a mental breakdown with the excitement. It’s a technology without an application – without clear thinking it make be difficult to find a real value adding application, so perhaps it’s just easiest to go with something fun to begin with. I haven’t looked at the documentation yet, but I can tell you that some of the .NET 3.0 documentation had some really bad errors in it.
Is the technology available to even enable the opportunities?
In the interview Scott casually and repeatedly uses phrases like “we shipped”. Well actually Scott, you “announced” technologies, and you “delivered” alpha and beta bits, and you gave no timetable for for 1.1 – possibly because that would give away the launch timeframe for Visual Studio Orcas too. Even with go-live licenses, seriously stable and commercial ventures may struggle surface due to the fear on relying on Microsoft deliverables, especially up to a xmas season. So I wouldn’t call it a good problem, more of a frustrating one that makes it difficult to make business investment decisions around.
I’m saying that cool doesn’t necessarily equal good business opportunities, and even if it does, there’s an overwhelming scramble to pick a direction. Nevertheless, there are still cool things about the technology and my thoughts on the underlying Microsoft domination strategy (even if it’s a win-win for many).
The about page on the mix website stated:
Exciting new Web experiences with the still-secret “Technology X”
WPF/E and its new branding of Silverlight were announced before the conference, so this secret had to be something else. Silverlight 1.0 is what we already knew. Let’s not underestimate it though – it brings all the XAML/WPF whizzy stuff that is the Flash competitor in 1.0 – it allows a lot of Flash ActionScript type developers and other javascript fans to do cool stuff and consider Microsoft.
The technology in Silverlight 1.1 was in fact the secret (as Microsoft has confirmed) – a full .NET engine (with a subset of the 3.5 .NET framework) embedded allowing all the .NET languages (and dev tools) to run cross-platform in a browser. The dynamic language runtime part also enables 4 scriptable languages to work in there along with C# and VB.NET.
But this, I believe, is just the start of a potentially brilliant strategy for Microsoft, as I’ll now explain.
Bringing .NET (and scriptable .NET) to multiple browsers and multiple operating systems is a huge deal. It really does mean that all the investments that people have made in .NET, can be leveraged in many many ways. There’s a reason that 1.1 is 4.24MB compared to the 1.34MB for 1.0. That’s an army many times bigger than ActionScripters with Expression tools providing a way to use existing Designer talents with WPF/Silverlight. Finding ActionScripters for projects is VERY hard – you can more easily find people that can do VB.NET, C#, JavaScript, not to mention being able to use people that can do IronPython or IronRuby – that’s 6 times more languages that can be used!
Silverlight 1.1 is really the hosting of this stuff in a browser with the VC1/media decoding. So if Silverlight is thought of as a subset of .NET 3.5 in a browser that brings Microsoft technology and tools to many browser and platforms (that’s going from windows apps into cross-everything in a browser) – a bridge to other platforms if you will, what happens if you reverse that once you’ve bridged the platform/browser gap, i.e. just have a plain executable application host on a Mac, Linux, etc, even without re-inflating the framework? Now you can potentially develop on Windows in .NET to create full (rich and connected enough) applications on the Mac and Linux (once this runtime is ported to that). You can even do the development on a Mac in a text editor (including in a browser as demo’d).
Microsoft is all about selling copies of Windows (and Office). If you can’t keep Mac and Linux away, then the next best thing is to bring Windows onto Mac and Linux. However, you can’t sell a Windows licenses that way, but you can get people to use technology that easily hooks up to Windows Live or MSN services that you do get revenue from!!!
So the real technology/strategy that I see Microsoft following:
It’s bold, trojan-esque and both developers and users will lap it up.
If this isn’t the strategy, then it should be!
Silverlight WAS the whole keynote practically, and there’s been coverage of very little else (except about DLR) out of Mix. Nothing about Xbox-Windows links for Xbox Live from Robbie Bach (just a snooze-athon discussion and some iffy demos). Nothing about Live ID CardSpace cards or opening up Live ID to web site publishers like Passport.
This technology is the sleeper slow-release hit of Mix07. They didn’t even officially say this was the secret Technology X listed on the about page.
If what I’ve said is Ray Ozzie’s undeclared strategy, then he is indeed doing a fantastic job (despite his apparent lack of blogging and public comments). If it wasn’t his strategy then either he should make it the strategy or let it just fall into place as I believe it will – either way he’ll look like a genius…
We are living in a Microsoft world again…
Be sure to check out my other mix07 coverage.
For those watching Channel 9 in the last year you’ll likely be familiar with Anders Hejlsberg, the C# language guru (as well as being the nicer than pie and clever as hell Danish import) who has been seen explaining LINQ and related language technologies.
At Mix07, Jim Hugunin will most likely be receiving lots of hugs from developers for his work on, and demonstration of, the Dynamic Language Runtime – extension to the core DLR to allow for C#, VB.NET, IronPython, IronRuby, JavaScript and VBx to all work as scripting languages calling each other and running on .NET. Keep up to date with the latest DLR announcement on his blog. I’ll just forget that he’s a Python guy ;).
His collague, John Lam (Ruby guy) has a Channel 9 video about this stuff.
The two of them did a great session a Mix07 which was recorded.
Colinizer 