Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Running for our lives through the ducks in heat with our eyes closed... worship the comic. Don't say we didn't warn you.

We're gonna talk about the X-Box today, people. We're gonna argue about how closely it conforms to the PC paradigm, how well the PC itself will survive in a world with the PS2 and X-Box, and how evil Microsoft may or may not be.

But first, there's a few burning question on my mind: If I bash Microsoft on a Windows system, does that mean Microsoft knows I'm bashing them? Can they see me through the glass screen I stare into all day? If I burn paper offerings of money in front of my computer, will they be converted to real dollars in Redmond, Washington, and thus appease the Gates god, causing me to be safe from all manner of glitches and crashes? Oh vengeful Bill, tell me who to smite and they shall be smoten!

Ahem... anyway, on with the show.

This is true, but somewhat irrelevant. Consoles are indeed designed to do one thing, the SNES was supposed to be a bad ass sprite-pusher, while the PS2 is designed to spew out an ungodly number of polygons per second. In the past, if a new type of application came along that did different kinds of calculations than a console was designed for (pushing polys on the SNES) there was nothing that could be done. Theoretically, this could also be the case with the PS2 and X-Box, and it's entirely possible that there'll soon be some great new computationally intensive idea that the PS2 just can't hack because it's not a general processing unit. If we have a repeat of 1993, when somebody comes out with this thing called "Mosaic", you'll probably want a PC and not a PS2 to run it on.

However, even though the PS2 is more a scalpel than a swiss army knife, it's still such a powerful system that it can easily do all the current general things someone might use a PC for - word processing, web surfing, email, spreadsheets. It's like hooking your car engine up to a lawnmower, it's not what the engine was designed for, but it's certainly up to the task. And the PS2 looks way cooler than an iMac, so it's got my vote right there.

No, but I've got a million of 'em! *rimshot*

Yeah, I don't get it either. Just walk away...

Ian asks, and I obey. While I can't be as convincingly wishy-washy as Gates is in marketing mode, X-Box does have some strong points, as follows:

• It's releasing at least 6 months after Dolphin, and a solid year and a half after the PS2. This is a huge lead time to develop some very impressive technology, and while some would argue that the PS2 is already approaching graphical perfection, I think the X-Box could be the difference between "almost photorealistic" and "really photorealistic."
• It's got Microsoft behind it. Microsoft is never my choice if I want something done perfectly, but they always manage to do enough of a semi-competent job to stay afloat in an area, if not take it over outright. (Web browsers, operating systems in both home and office, productivity applications, web content, and PC games... little of it is really top notch, but it's all out there and not doing badly.)
• Microsoft also knows how to market, to both end users and developers. Getting both to buy into the X-Box will be key, but I think they can pull it off.
• There's some argument over to what extent Microsoft will leverage what they have for the PC, as far as software and existing business setups. But if they do manage to use anything they've got for the PC, that's probably a bonus.

So there you have it. While I don't like the idea of Microsoft in the console world, and probably won't buy the X-Box myself, they've got potential to be a major player. Deal with it, folks.

While I too remember the Bloom County strip of which you speak, I believe Breathed still thinks the Boss is pretty cool. Witness the similarity between the covers of Springsteen's live 3 CD set and "Billy and the Boingers Bootleg". Berke Breathed rocks, btw, he went to school here in Austin and was arrested twice for keeping a live alligator in his bathtub. You just gotta admire that.

Anyway, moving on to topics that people who don't remember the 80's can still enjoy, I can certainly respect listening to video game music instead of Pop Song of the Month #183. Morons follow the charts, the rest of us have these things called "character" and "personal taste", and listen to what we like accordingly.

I tend to see nostalgia as the driving force behind most video game music. I thought FF8's OST was good enough to warrant importing from Japan for a relatively hefty sum of money, and even though I don't listen to it all that much anymore, I'm not sorry I did. But I'd be lying if I said the evocative pull of the music wasn't the reason why I appreciate a good chunk of it. The Extreme is a good song, but if I hadn't fought the final boss while listening to it I don't think I'd enjoy it near as much. Other, non-RPG playing people I've loaned the soundtrack to tend not to care for it, even when they have a significantly stronger taste for classical music than I do, which supports my theory.

The good news (or bad, depending on your point of view) is that music seems to be getting better (or at least more accessible) as games become more mainstream. Chrono Cross is easily good enough for me or anyone else to enjoy, even when they haven't played the game. With the heavy duty sound processing most consoles have today and the huge storage space post-CD games have, we should still see much more game music that can't be told apart from live performance. Even if most of it's still pop crap, there should be one or two gems forthcoming. Can't wait.

No, but here's a secret. If you assemble any given month's DA columns together and place them side by side, they'll form a two dimensional matrix of letters and replies. The patterns of tan, white, black and red will either form a picture of a character from an upcoming Square game, or represent a binary code naming the hidden web page where Hironobu Sakaguchi has outlined the plot for the next 5 Final Fantasies. Try it and see!

Extra buttons and upgrades aside, I just don't find the PC as comfortable a place for playing games as I do the TV. I'm not sure why, since for a time I sat in the same place to use either one and my computer monitor was actually bigger than my television. It may actually have something to do with ease of use - plug in a cart or CD, press the button, and you're there, on a console. None of the hassle of logging on to the system, selecting what game you want to play, and making sure that no other program is running that will interfere with the game. Anybody else have opinions on the matter?

I assume you're referring to the "Release Now, Patch Later" model, and from what I've read, the hard drive is quite roomy at 8 gigs, plenty of room for several good sized (~50 meg) patches.

If what you say is correct, tho, I'm a little disappointed. While I'm a die hard console gamer, there are a lot of PC games I've wished I could play, PC interface and all, such as Starcraft and Half-Life. I reject the notion that these games need to be watered down for me to enjoy them, and I think Microsoft is making things much harder for developers by not having a PC/X-Box transparent development environment. At the very least, being able to port directly on to the X-Box would mean tiny homebrew projects would have a remote chance of seeing their game on a console system, if the game was really good enough. And none of the Net Yaroze "inside 2 megs of RAM" limitations either.

I don't think any sane person actually believes the PS2 could successfully be adapted as a missile system, or that if it could be, any paltry restrictions on it would stop it from leaving the country. This looks to be a bit of preening to me - Japan saying, "look, we're such technological badasses that even our video games are potentially dangerous." The US did the same thing with the G4 Macintosh, and in both cases the manufacturers played the hell out of it in the media.

Closing Comments:

That was better than squishing frogs with a sledgehammer, but not as good as squishing copies of Superman 64 with a sledgehammer. If you've got any feedback on PCs vs consoles or game music, let's hear it. Catch you tomorrow.

-Chris Jones, who thinks "X-Box" should have a better name