I bought an xbox over the PS2, not because of the better games, but because of Xbox Media Centre . It's a totally amazing program.

I already have a Divx dvd player but that has a lot of compatibility limitations. With Xbox Media Centre, you can play just about everything and anything you download on your xbox and the quality is great.

That was a huge selling point to me.

Now since i have bought by xbox i have bought many original games, sure there are some that i have rented and copied over to the HD but the ones i play most i have bought. mod edit. -namja

MS wouldn't have got my business if it wasn't for the media player.

Now of course i understand the need to tighten things up to crack down on piracy but i hope for Xbox 2, Microsoft takes heed of the versatility of Xbox media player and the many other third party programs available for the xbox and incorporates them with updatable flexibility into the Xbox2

I can't imagine Microsoft top brass NOT being impressed with the aftermarket development of software and applications that has been carried out by programmers from around the world, there is some hugely impressive stuff

What is this and how do we get it?

If its something that requires a modded Xbox don't expect Microsoft to support it or be happy about it.

http://www.xbox-scene.com/

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php

http://www.xboxmediacenter.de/

The word is - MS is dropping the hard drive for xbox2. They really haven't decided yet is the official word from my insider pal. I hope they put one in though - especially considering that the PS3 will have one and is rumored to possibly be set up to record tivo (much like the PSX) among other things. Sony is gonna go for multifunction and versatile next gen. Xbox would be foolish to drop features.

The Xbox will definatly have some large storage capacity, but it may not be a Hard Drive.

MS themselves developed X-Box Media Center Extender as a connection between the X-Box and a PC with Windows XP Media Center Edition. They dropped the ball big time on that one since I'd love to be able to use my media on my television, but I'm not spending $1,500+ on a brand new Media Center PC. They should have made it compatible with other versions of XP.

Totally useless to me, I play games on my consoles and don't need them to do anything else. I've never got into mp3s, downloading movies, pirating games etc. mod edit. -namja

If I like something I'll shell out the money for it. If it's not good enough to buy, it's not good enough to waste my time on. I have very limited free time as is, no way I'm wasting time on mediocre entertainment when I can't even keep up on the great stuff out there.

MP3's I would get into when they make a high capacity player that doesn't cost a ton and it safe to use during phycial activity (which HD players aren't as they can skip and get messed up). But I'd still have no use for them in my HT as I'd rather listen to cds.

i agree

MS screwed up big time. I am looking at buying another XBox to mod, or building a semi-HTPC. I will probably build a new machine and use most of my old one for the media center - I only want to use it for MP3s (ripping and burning mixed cds for the cars) digital pics, and surfing the web, and perhaps in the future using it for the HT DVD player. If I could do all of this on my XBox w/o modding it I would be extremely happy, but alas they dropped the ball.

REVIEW of things NOT allowed here:

Any discussion of pirating games.
Calling a console "totally useless" or the likes.

Closing thread.

namja
Moderator, DVD Talk Forums