Gates talks Xbox 360, new controller pics

Written by Wil Harris

May 4, 2005 | 09:16

Tags: #360 #bill #controller #gates #media-center

Xbox 2 news is hitting the web left, right and centre this week, with Bill Gates seemingly giving an interview to anyone with a notebook, and his art department seemingly leaking images like the Titanic.

First up, the juice: Team Xbox has a picture of the new Xbox 360 controller. It's only a prototype (we can tell by the fact it's corded, rather than cordless) but it shows the new layout. It looks to us like a cross between the Xbox Controller S pad and the old silver MS Sidewinder PC pad. The buttons are now in a star formation and the black and white buttons appear to have been dropped in favour of dual shoulder buttons, a la PlayStation 2.

Talking at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, Billy G said that anyone at home with Media Center Edition of XP would understand the Xbox 360 -

"If you're used to that menu, when you use Xenon you'll see a menu a lot like that, that lets you get photos, TV, music and all those different things."

This appears to confirm to us what we've suspected all along, that Media Center is really just a teaser for the multimedia capability of next generation consoles, which will take convergence further than we've ever seen it.

With that said, Bill talks about a Media Center PC being the 'hub' of your home entertainment system, with Xbox 360 connecting to that. Bill says that:

"It won’t be a Media Center PC, so there’s some things you won’t be able to do. You’ll be able to do a lot of media things including storing music, playing music, connect up your player. There’s an overall media vision, and we certainly see households that just have Xenons in them, and we see households that have normal PCs and Xenons, and we see households that have media center PCs and Xenons. We’re going to make all those do what you’d expect."

On a related note, look for an article on Media Center on bit-tech very soon.

Bill also talks to populuar Blog Engadget in this article, where he covers why the Xbox 360 is being launched on MTV, the inclusion of a hard drive (or otherwise) and some other fantastic topics. It's a fascinating read, and something of a rare insight into the man and the company.

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