Halo 2 for Vista

[Tan]

Everyone her that uses it loves it. Why does MS care if gamers buy it?

It's all about linking everything together, all devices, services, games. etc. and OS's are Microsoft's strong suit and solid base to build that foundation. There's a book called Xbox Uncloaked that came out a few years ago that explained it. Microsoft mainly got into the gaming console race because they knew Sony was trying to bring services normally found on PC's into the console market such as web-surfing, IM'ing shopping and such which is a direct threat to PC's. They first tried to build on their relationship with Sega but Sega wasn't interested so they went it alone. They were thinking long term here so they knew 6-7 years ago that  whatever the second machine they made would be, it would be an extension of both the PC world and that of living room entertainment.

Of course here we are years later and they were right on the ball, set top TV web boxes, DVR's, handheld media players, shopping on the Wii and getting weather and news, linux on the PS2 and PS3. So building Vista around the philosophy that they could bridge the gap between devices with it was one thing, they still needed gamer's with 360's to want it so here we are with Halo 2 on vista.

After that comes Forza which will use phones/zune's 360's and PC's for customizable cars and tweaking and be able to swap data between all of them and then Shadowrun which is the first ground up game to use 360/PC connectivity as was intended.

So of course a gamer with devices that are linked in such a fashion will most likely buy Microsoft branded apps, and games which in turn will be Microsoft OS specific, and in turn keeps Microsoft's most important cash maker Windows on top of things because the PC remains the middleman between all these devices.

[Tynstar]

I am the only one that doesn't give a rats ass about all that shit?

[Tan]

I am the only one that doesn't give a rats ass about all that shit?

 

I couldn't care less for all that crap either, custom soundtracks for 360 games streamed from my PC's HDD is as far as I go. My TV works great and my stereo sounds awesome my DVD's look great and my PC surfs the net very fast and easily. I already have a mp3 player and if I had the time to watch a video on a handheld or tweak my suspension on my phone I'd rather do it on my comfy couch at home where I can test it.

And on top of that there's nothing wrong with Windows XP for what I use it for, compatibility issues a new OS brings will take years to sort out as they always do and I have no interest in finding what hardware/software I can no longer use. Other than that I enjoy Linux more anyway. 

[Tynstar]

I have never done a custom sound track on my Xbox or the 360. I have a stereo in my game room I use that. Hell I have used custom sound tracks since the Genesis days.

[phoenix1967]

Custom tracks is a sweet feature. I copied a bunch of DVD songs onto my xbox1 and use it for racing games. Led Zeppelin's Rock 'n' Roll is a sweet song to race to!

I agree that a lot of users won't care about he Xbox Live Anywhere promotion. But I think that if they're going after new users who may only want 1 of the devices, but still be able to connect with others on XBL, then they're succeeding in their plan.

If you have a 360, but don't care about your OS, you can still play others that have a Vista OS on XBL, and vice versa if you have Vista but no 360. And you can bet they're going to try to make Zune compatible as well. Essentially, you only need to own 1 device in order to be compatible with 3 over XBL. Very smart marketing, and with only moderate risk.

Halo 2 is basically just a good game to pilot the program and gain information on what works and what doesn't...before they bring Halo 3 on board.

[Tan]

I have never done a custom sound track on my Xbox or the 360. I have a stereo in my game room I use that. Hell I have used custom sound tracks since the Genesis days.

Well it's the same idea except you don't need to rip mp3's to the 360's HDD and you can change the songs, adjust the volume of them and have the play controls using the 360 controller without having to fiddle with a cd remote. I've got half a dozen remotes as it is it's nice to not have to use 1 or 2 of them. That and the 360 reads the id3 tags so the songs can be sorted by genre or artist/album.

[Tynstar]

I have never done a custom sound track on my Xbox or the 360. I have a stereo in my game room I use that. Hell I have used custom sound tracks since the Genesis days.

Well it's the same idea except you don't need to rip mp3's to the 360's HDD and you can change the songs, adjust the volume of them and have the play controls using the 360 controller without having to fiddle with a cd remote. I've got half a dozen remotes as it is it's nice to not have to use 1 or 2 of them. That and the 360 reads the id3 tags so the songs can be sorted by genre or artist/album.

Maybe one day i will check it out. To bad all my ripped CD's are on my PC at work not home.

[Cobra]

I have never done a custom sound track on my Xbox or the 360. I have a stereo in my game room I use that. Hell I have used custom sound tracks since the Genesis days.

Funny you should say that, as using a Action Reply was able to actually remix, rearrange music in games back then since it was all just data on the carts. It was interesting playing the games through again to hear how different later songs would be.

Then on the Mega-CD I use to swap the CD over and there you go, true custom sound tracks 
Just remember to change the CD back over before the end of the level.