I was watching my son the other day on our XBOX 360 that's tucked nicely in our cabinet under the TV with our DVD player, digital cable box, and receiver. He was playing Halo 3, which looks great on our LCD HDTV, BTW. He'd break out once in a while and go back to the Dashboard and send a text message to a buddy then go back into the game and use the headset connected to his controller to talk about his school day with another buddy he was shooting at. It's incredible how far consoles have come from the old Atari boxes we had when we were kids. Now they're these multi-processing entertainment centers and communication devices that hook our kids up to the rest of the world.
It's also interesting how he's migrated away from our PC over to the XBOX. That could be because our PC is getting old and the 360 is actually a more powerful machine. But, still there are still things you can't do on it. That would probably be solved if it had a web browser built into it. But for some reason, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, there doesn't seem to be a web browser available for the 360. Weird. Too bad this is a closed platform that makes it really hard to get open source software, like the Webkit browser engine, ported to it.
So that got me thinking in the context of Linux. Why isn't there a Linux console? Linux is slowly getting better for the desktop and it's about to break out huge in the mobile space, wouldn't it also work well in a box I can put under my TV and use with a wireless keyboard, or game controller with a headset, or with the controllers we have for Guitar Hero and Rock Band? I don't see why not.
Googling the idea, you see the GP2X WIZ handheld I've blogged about in the past, and the sad story that was Indrema that rose with the hype of Linux in 2000 and crashed with the market realities of 2001. And yeah, Linux probably wasn't ready in 2000. But nothing seems to be happening now.
And I'm sure there are economic roadblocks to making it happen. The companies in this industry are huge and are still selling the boxes for less than it costs to build them. Having an open platform makes it pretty difficult to collect the license fees that subsidize the hardware and platform development costs. You'd need a big player with big friends, similar to one of the Linux handheld alliances, to even think of making this happen.
But if it works for handhelds, why not on the TV. At least there it would have a bigger screen...
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
There's always the PS3. You can install Fedora on it and run the normal Free/OpenSource stuff that you would normally. Users are limited by the lack of 3D X windows drivers though.
Sony seems to be intent on keeping it that way. They're probably afraid that it would take away from their other revenue streams. As you said, they're selling the boxes cheaper than production costs, so they have to make the money up elsewhere.
Making a "Linux console" will require monetary support via revenue streams other than the hardware. You'll need to sell something. Development kits, gaming network, logo/compliance verification, or just something. I don't know if this is even possible with a startup. I think only the biggest players in the gaming market could make this happen. It's going to require a lot of infrastructure and support.
The best bet may be the home theater pc market. TIVO already makes a Linux DVR Most people don't realize it and it's not as easily hackable as one would want. They do sell services for it though. By selling a DVR with the ability to add additional services, it may be easier to get people to buy.
The additional add on services could be games. The games would be the standard PC games or some other flash based system. Most DVR systems don't have the horsepower to play 3D games, but AMD's latest chipsets may be able to even the playing field. It needs to be a good DVR first though.
"Users are limited by the lack of 3D X windows drivers though. Sony seems to be intent on keeping it that way." That's not quite what I meant by open platform :)
The players definitely need have the resources to do this. I'm actually wondering if Intel would be interested. I heard they were shopping Larrabee around to Microsoft and Sony. If that doesn't happen, the could build their own and they are Linux friendly.
In Canada, the cable and satellite companies actually offer free PVR services making Tivo worthless. But you're right in that this thing would need to be the complete home entertainment solution including all sorts of multimedia along with the expected 3D gaming.
You could even do different tiers of 3D performance to control costs and offer a premium device at higher price points, just like the PC market. But keep the number of models limited so that game shops can keep their testing costs down which is making the console market such a draw.
"You could even do different tiers of 3D performance to control costs and offer a premium device at higher price points, just like the PC market. But keep the number of models limited so that game shops can keep their testing costs down which is making the console market such a draw."
AMD's newest chipsets offer a hybrid ability. The AMD780GX has an IGP with reasonable 3D performance, but it also has the ability to use another graphics card. I believe that the other card can be switched on when additional power is needed. Ideally this would power down when you don't need it, limiting that amount of energy being used.
If you consider that hypertransport gives you the ability to do ptp connections, a manufacturer could provide an expansion box that would connect to the other box via hypertransport. The second box would provide enhanced 3d capability and maybe a modular storage system.
True. AMD could use this to make a splash they need to get peoples attention again. And with ATI's expertise, they probably will always do a better job of 3D than Intel could do. And they've been getting better at Linux drivers lately too.
WOW, I just priced out a system with an HTPC case, Gigabyte AMD 780G MB, AMD X2 5000+, 2GB RAM, 160 GB HD, DVD-ROM, and a Logitech wireless controller for $350 US at newegg.com. Hell, you can upgrade to the 790GX MB for another $50 and get an apparent 33% increase in 3D performance.
Now it just needs a Linux distro like Android...
Yes they're pretty cheap right now. I've been looking to build a system for about 1.5 months now. I want to put a quad core chip in there. The Phenoms have even better VM support. The only thing stopping me is that only they only have < 2.0 GHz processor running at 65W. The others are 95W, 125W, and 140W.
I may build the machine with the 4550e or the 4850e which are 45W processors. The Phenoms should be cheaper, faster and more power efficient later.
An easy to use gnu/linux based branded/boxed HTPC is a realisable dream but to build a gaming console, the games must first be made for/ported to the gnu/linux platform.
Post a Comment