How Microsoft attempted to make the Xbox 360 dashboard load faster

Re:How Microsoft attempted to make the Xbox 360 dashboard lo... by Kukumber on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @03:11PM (#34330787)

What i find fascinating is it got released as is: slow

Then you have Sony who managed to make a whole media center + web browser into a tiny portable resource constrained device, aka the PSP

Maybe that's why Microsoft could never make a PSP or a Nintendo handheld type console, lack of people who REALLY care about things

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Re:How Microsoft attempted to make the Xbox 360 dashboard lo... by tenebrisalietum on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @03:35PM (#34331087)

You probably didn't have speedier options in 2005 that wouldn't make the system much more expensive. Also with the console being a loss leader and profit expected to come from game licensing, it was judged to be worthwhile at the time.

> Maybe that's why Microsoft could never make a PSP or a Nintendo handheld type console

I'm fuzzy on the history but I do believe online play was embraced by Microsoft far before Sony or the others. Am I right? Anyway, that required home Internet. Sony/Nintendo had their popular portable systems - designed for offline play. In 2005 that type of Internet-reliant online gaming wasn't going to work too well on a portable device with 2005-era wifi and 2G expensive cellular plans in the fashion that Sony or Nintendo would envision.

Also in 2005 Microsoft's mobile plans were all-in on Windows CE. Because their strategy at time was Windows everywhere...why? fundamentally Microsoft was at that time primarily software licensing company that would rather sit and collect license royalties and let other companies develop the low-margin hardware side. Could you imagine a clunky Xbox Portable Zune CE, being really some rebranded Toshiba or Sharp device that was something else in Japan?

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Re:How Microsoft attempted to make the Xbox 360 dashboard lo... by Kukumber on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @04:00PM (#34331411)

> You probably didn't have speedier options in 2005 that wouldn't make the system much more expensive

PSP was released in 2005, it was sold for just $250, 9 months before the XBOX 360

iPod nano, sleek and fast UI, released in 2005 too

Why is that a thing to always find excuses for Microsoft? acknowledge the issues, and work on them, it's getting tiring

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Re:How Microsoft attempted to make the Xbox 360 dashboard lo... by cnasc on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @04:00PM (#34331413)

> I'm fuzzy on the history but I do believe online play was embraced by Microsoft far before Sony or the others.

XBox had online play by default, Sony and Nintendo required you to buy a peripheral. As a footnote, I think the Dreamcast (1998) was probably the first console that came with a modem by default, and an optional broadband adapter.

> Sony/Nintendo had their popular portable systems - designed for offline play.

PSP had wifi built-in.

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Re:How Microsoft attempted to make the Xbox 360 dashboard lo... by Kipters on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @05:40PM (#34332549)

The PSP screen was 480x272 pixel, the Xbox 360 was a 720p/1080p machine, assets alone would have been significantly bigger than the PSP's, which is more burden on the NAND and on the CPU for decompression

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Re:How Microsoft attempted to make the Xbox 360 dashboard lo... by maxsilver on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @08:38PM (#34333967)

But also, the Xbox 360 had faster hardware than a PSP. Xbox 360 can handle multi-layered audio+video assets rendered in realtime at 60fps - even the prior generation Xbox console could handle it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvcxnTM-hfw as one of many examples

The Xbox dashboard is slow because of Microsoft's business goals for it, not because the Xbox 360 hardware or software struggles with HD-sized JPEGs or whatever.

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