[citation][nom]upgrade_1977[/nom]These are just some idea's I think microsoft would benefit from. 1. Add start button back to windows 8, add settings to default it to standard desktop windows mode, and call it windows 9, release "now", to win back loyal customers. (stop trying to be an apple clone)2. Don't call windows RT, windows 8 rt, just call it windows RT, to much confusion3. Create a true, windows 8 pro phone, powered by intel.4. Add hybrid graphics chips to the surface tablets, to allow gaming on them. 5. Start supporting cross platform gaming between XBOX 720 and PC6. Start advertising PC gaming, and create commercials showing the benefits of having graphics cards in PC's7. Add default streaming functionality for gaming on all windows device's, so that you can use your tablet or phone to play games that are streaming of your home PC, and that would also allow to use tablet of phone as secondary input device's for gaming on MMO's or other games.8. Create a microsoft operating system, just for gaming, that way, if you want to build a PC just for gaming, you can have an operating system with built in copy protection, automatically updated drivers, don't have to worry about software conflicts, shutting stuff down for better performance, ect. ect. ect. Can always use dual boot to boot back into windows and still be able to game on windows. 9. Create an XBOX PCI card that you can pop into a PC, and Play xbox games, and vice versa, make the xbox upgradable, so you can play PC games on it also. 10. Talk with valve and merge Steam with xbox live and merge it as a default app on windows 9, again, make PC and xbox cross platform. 11. Create cloud computing (not cloud storage) into the next windows 9 or whatever, that way, if your at home working on ur tablet, and ur PC is on, it can use idle CPU and GPU processes from other computing device's. Ex. If you have a PC at home, ur apps on ur tablet will run faster, or your xbox 720 can run faster when linked to ur PC. I thought that was the original idea behind cloud computing anyways. 12. Create a microsoft store, and don't just sell microsoft products, sell all computer stuff that supports windows products, set up PC gaming machines, tablets, ect. sell nvidia, intel, amd, aftermarket products, ect. Have them setup so you can actually try them. Work together with other companies to advertise and sell stuff. (I work in a pawnshop, and I am tired of explaining to customers what a graphics card is, when that should be public knowledge, and all computers should come with a decent graphics gpu, even if your not a gamer). Advertise the importance of all these things through the microsoft store, and on television. Just some idea's.[/citation]
1. That doesn't seem like a bad idea. Although I have no problem with installing a start menu myself for Windows 8 should I want it, having that option built-in would have undoubtedly stymied the hate a lot.
2. I agree that the nomenclature for Windows RT should be different to emphasize to the masses that it is not compatible with Windows on the x86 systems.
3. I don't see why using an Intel CPU would make a phone more professional.
4. I'm not sure of the usefulness for that on a Surface Pro.
7,11. Except for the input sentence, these seem a little too much to ask for with current networking limitations and other limitations.
12: That seems like a bit of a stretch too, but the reasoning is sound.
5,6,8,9,10 (tl;dr warning for people who don't care for a very long rant about consoles).
If I had a say in the matter for Xbox, I'd do it like this:
Have the Xbox be a new PC form factor. It would only use a given graphics architecture and CPU architecture (granted tweaking over time, process shrinks, and such would be done to improve performance over time with total backwards compatibility) along with a highly streamlined OS and such so that game optimizations can be done to an extreme like they are on current consoles, but it'd be using PC architectures for the hardware such as GCN for the GPU and Ivy Bridge for the CPU or whatever. Merging PC and console markets properly could easily be one of the most "wow" things for MS to have done in a long time and could help MS a lot in many ways. For example, MS wouldn't have to go through the trouble of getting their processor custom-designed and much more.
Make an upgrade-friendly console has often been criticized, but it can be done. It would need to be doable in an extremely convenient way so that it wouldn't be any hassle for the average Joe. The components would all need to be easily replaceable without a screw driver and there would need to be no effort involved beyond removing an old component and installing a new one. For example, all components such as memory, CPU, graphics, etc. could be on extension cards that can be slid out of the slots in the motherboard with ease and installing a new component would need to be as simple as pulling out the old one and putting in the new one. There couldn't be any difficulty in getting things to work. All hardware could have a little flash chip with proper drivers built into the component's extension board so as to eliminate the mess that is drivers for desktops and laptops. If the drivers are already on the hardware and all the OS has to do to find them is copy them from a flash chip on the new component, upgrades are as easy as sliding a component out and sliding a new one in. Upgrading the system could be pretty much hassle-free and idiot-proof.
Storage would need to be both practical and affordable. The storage would need to not have ridiculous prices like storage intended for the consoles often has and like the above components, it would need to be as easy as sliding in the storage drive, but a storage drive should also to be hot-plug compatible. SATA is a natively hot-plug-capable interface (I'm not sure about first generation SATA, but I know that second and third generation SATA support hot-plug capability), so that wouldn't be a problem.
Like the current consoles, games would need to work hassle free. There can't be any compatibility/driver/whatever issues. With the CPU/GPU architectures and more standardized, that shouldn't be any more difficult than it is on the current consoles. Standardized architectures and such would mean that improvements in performance would need to be done through improving features, increasing core count, increasing memory bandwidth, etc. Architectural improvements that don't hinder compatibility can also be done. This really isn't a difficult thing to do if you look back on architectures and notice how often they are in use in for a long time. For example, from 2003's Athlon 64 up until Bulldozer, AMD's CPUs used pretty much the same basic architecture and Intel hasn't done many major changes to their architecture since Core 2 came out.
So, new hardware would need 100% compatibility with old games and new games would need 100% compatibility with old hardware, granted they would be made to take advantage of the new hardware and tone things down for the old hardware. More to the point of convenience, although games would offer manual control of settings, due to the need of new games being able to run on the older hardware and required convenience of a console, each game would need ideal specs to default to for given hardware combinations to give a proper experience. Things such as resolution and some features such as AA would need to be able to be done more or less independently of the game's control, IE older games would still need to support higher levels of current features for the time than hardware of the time supported to give people some reason to upgrade hardware even if they don't want many new games. Such forward-looking is one of the most important aspects of anything in technology and is also one of the most overlooked by companies in their products and is not something that could be tolerated if such a project as this ecosystem is to succeed. With consoles being very upgrade-friendly, games might stagnate much less in intensity increase between console refresh cycles (each refresh cycle from then on could mark when the architectures and such are given a total redesign for modernization). Porting could be much more effective at this point.
It wouldn't be perfect simply because a few concepts of consoles and PCs contradict each other, but it could at least bridge them. A console being a form-factor and derivative of PC but with most of the concepts of a console in practice could easily provide an ecosystem of as of yet unparalleled proportion in many ways.
Even more, it could theoretically replace desktops for most people. If the OS is merely an extremely stream-lined version of Windows, having a desktop environment that can run things like .Net and such when not gaming would allow it to run normal Windows software without issues for the most part. Basically, you could *boot* up most of what makes Windows Windows under the hood to run regular Windows applications without needing to have all of that bloat running when you aren't using it, IE when playing the Xbox games and other Xbox applications.
This could even go as far as having the Xbox be an Intel/Nvidia system whilst the Playstation is an AMD/AMD system or something like that with competing hardware ecosystems, but similar software ecosystems (IE both can run the streamlined version of Windows even if with different GUIs and such). Having competition between companies that is more *beneath the hood* could let both console gaming ecosystems thrive together without either in a monopolistic situation and without every company trying to do everything differently, causing inconvenience in many ways (such as the sad state of porting between and from consoles). Having them more or less unified under Windows (or Linux, it doesn't really matter so long as it's either both platforms have the same OS, or each platform's OS at least shares standards for compatibility) like the laptop/desktop world would increase convenience for everyone. For example, if both are using the same APIs and such, it would mean that developers would have it easier making games for both platforms and greater diversity in some other areas such as input devices and much more can be had. Basically, some of the modern PC's greatest advantages in standardization are realized.
As mentioned earlier, forward-looking would need to be a central focus of this. The upgrade-friendly concepts are a big part of this, but aren't everything. For example, connectivity such as USB ports, SATA, and more could all be found in a south bridge-like component on an extension card of its own so that connectivity can be upgraded. To save space, this extension card could also be where the storage drive gets slid into since it shouldn't need a lot of space on its own. The BIOS and the core OS could be more or less merged into a single entity for simplicity's sake. System/graphics memory, the CPU, and the GPU could all be part of a single extension card for further simplicity along with other advantages. Merging the system memory and graphics memory into a single high-performance pool all directly on the extension card's board for a more integrated system along with an APU to further that goal of integration compared to separate CPU/GPU chips could help alleviate common issues with both consoles and desktop/laptop systems. For example, the issue of memory bandwidth with APUs could be solved without needing separate CPU/GPU components such as discrete cards, then causing issues such as high latency between the CPU and GPU as well as redundantly having more memory chips in the system than are necessary.
The extension cards for the system could be an APU/memory card, a connectivity/main storage card, and another for the networking/wireless connectivity (Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.). I'd probably also place audio in the APU/memory card because HDMI audio would already rely on the graphics portion, so it would be simpler for any other audio connectivity to be included with that as well.
This could even go as far as having a laptop form factor (lets say with three screen size choices: 14 inch, 15.6 inch, and 17.3 inch) with most of the same concepts, but with a more mobile approach. They can still even be made in an upgrade-friendly way if desired. It wouldn't necessarily be as easy to implement given space constraints, but it could be done.
Pricing would need to be modest on the systems and on upgrades. Storage drives would need to be regular 2.5" HDDs or SSDs (I'm thinking hybrid drives would probably work great, especially since caching could be controlled to cache what needs to be cached for a given game or application for optimal performance or even better, having them be regular HDDs and the SSD cache could be integrated into the chipset on the storage extension card), allowing not only compact form factors with decent capacity drives, but also the advantages of an already established storage drive form factor standard such as compatibility with preexisting hard drives and between these systems and preexisting computers as far as storage goes.
Along with modest hardware pricing, software (IE game) pricing would need to be modest. Steam and such game/software platforms could easily be supported along with various Xbox/PS-specific titles for each hardware platform.
To summarize a little, you'd pretty much be merging the best aspects/concepts of the Windows/x86 Linux desktop/laptop platforms and the best aspects/concepts of modern gaming/general entertainment consoles. These devices could replace many lower end to mid-ranged desktops and laptops with all of the convenience of a console and advantages of a desktop/laptop with ease. These *console* ecosystems would only get more and more rich as time went on and the sheer integration/simplicity of the systems along with strict quality control could really spark a new*wow* factor for MS (and if playing along, Sony and such too, even to the point of much of the industry getting *revolutionized*). That would be something to get more excited about.
Would anyone care to share some constructive criticism and/or other ideas?
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