New to the XBOX? Well, here's a FAQ to sort you out.
Q. What's the XBox?
A. The Xbox is a Game Console, much like the Playstation 2, Nintendo 64,
Dreamcast, Playstation, Atari, Amiga, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo systems. It
has, however, superior graphics capabilities, processing power, and marketing
punch (Microsoft is spending $500 Million on the marketing of the XBox).
Q. What's Microsoft?
A. Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) is a giant firm, best known for its
best-selling Windows series of Operating Systems. They were also behind
the Office series of applications, and they also have dabbled before in
the hardware market (Sidewinder joysticks, Mouses, Keyboards, etc)
Q. Does this mean the XBox is a PC?
A. Certainly not. People often confuse it with one because of its sheer
power and flexibility. The XBox has, however, been designed from start to
finish with games in mind.
Q. But Microsoft has no experience!
A. You know what I say to that? bull. Microsoft does have
experience: Think Mechwarrior, Age of Empires, Sidewinder Joysticks,
etc. etc. Besides, Sony had no experience when it made the Playstation 1....
Q. How do you spell XBox? X-Box? X Box?
A. As you may have geussed already, the official method for spelling XBox
is just that, without a space, without a hyphen. Got it?
Q. What's this talk about Windows on XBox?
A. It's true. The XBox will have an ultra compressed kernel of
Windows 2000 (not the whole thing, just 500K) on it. This does not
mean that the XBox will crash, have load times, DOS, bootscreens, etc. etc.
The XBox, in this aspect, will be just like any other console.
Q. What's so good about the Hard Disk?
A. The XBox comes bundled with a 10GB Hard Disk. This will not be used for
patches, but for saved games, and as a "scratch pad" to make games
load faster. Read this article by MSXBOX analising the usefullness of the HD: http://www.msxbox.com/hardware_php/hd.php3
Q. When's the XBox coming out? How much will it cost?
A. Microsoft announced at this year's E3 that the XBox will come out on the
8th November 2001, and will cost $299, in America. The Europe launch date is
expected to be Friday 15th of March, 2002.
Q. Will XBox support DVD?
A. Not out of the box. You'll have to buy a remote first. The remote is
expected to cost $20-30. In exchange, you get a fairly high-end DVD player.
Higher-end than the PS2, for sure: the xBox is even HDTV capable! (see the
Hardware section for more info!)
Q. Where can I pre-order the XBox?
A. I don't know about traditional retailers (I think Babages has 'em
though), but as soon as I find a reliable online source to buy the XBox from,
I'll post it here. Trust me. Meanwhile, pester them with e-mails about the
XBox: Buy.com, outpost.com,
and MySimon.com for price comparisons.
Also, you might wanna annoy: cNet.com, ZDnet.com,
and the mighty XBox.com. Cheers!
More Questions? E-mail me: Infoxbox@infoblabla.com!
