If it all sounds like the virtual-meets-real Metaverse that Neal Stephenson described in his sci-fi novel Snow Crash , it should. Allard is a Stephenson buff, and he requires his crew to read Snow Crash.
With Xbox , Allard is bringing the Metaverse to the masses. Microsoft has been hammering away at this vision for more than three years - Allard's team started working on the sequel almost as soon as the original Xbox hit retail shelves in They've needed every minute of those three years to educate third-party developers on how they can take advantage of Xbox 's capabilities.
The new product represents a broad rethinking of the console's design and technological innards. Where the original Xbox looks like a bulging land mine of black plastic, the silver and white Xbox seems inspired by Apple designer Jonathan Ive. Under the hood, Xbox is completely reimagined. This time, Microsoft aimed higher. Xbox will have a trio of 3.
Microsoft has also improved its ability to lure game developers to dream up exclusive games - a huge advantage when it comes to selling consoles. Meanwhile, Sony is floundering. At the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco earlier this year, attendees grumbled that Sony hadn't sent out enough PlayStation 3 developer kits, the guidelines that game creators need so they can tailor their products to a particular console.
Developers typically make do with an month cycle, so Sony can still have PS3 ready for the holiday season. But that time frame will become a lot tighter if gamers and developers start expecting games to appear lifelike on hi-def displays. Sony is also facing turmoil at the top. And a few weeks later, a California appellate judge upheld an earlier verdict that Sony's vibrating PS2 controllers infringed on another company's patents.
So while the sales scoreboard tells one story - 80 million PS2s sold, versus 20 million Xboxes - momentum seems to be shifting. The decision to cut short Xbox's life cycle could turn out to be as deft a bit of steering as Allard's display of extreme mountain biking. Allard landed his first job at Microsoft in , after scoring moxie points for showing up as the lone Caucasian at an MIT minority job fair.
But he never thought of himself as a lowly Microserf. In January , Allard, then 25, banged out a memo titled "Windows: The Next Killer Application on the Internet," in which he coined the infamous embrace and extend mantra.
Bill Gates pored over Allard's brash memo during Think Week, his semiannual one-man retreat at a secret cabin in the Washington hinterlands, and during the next year Gates formulated the Netscape-crushing strategy outlined in his own paper, "The Internet Tidal Wave.
Allard is not exactly your typical Microsoft employee. Spend a bit of time with the man and you begin to see him as a wag on the loose inside the Microsoft campus, saying and doing his own thing regardless of whether it jibes with corporate strategy.
He uses an Apple PowerBook, fires off rambling, profanity-laced emails to his superiors, and has a knack for, well, thinking different. He also has the respect of Gates and Ballmer. To help put the finishing touches on the Amico game console, Intellivision Entertainment -- a separate entity than Mattel that owns the Intellivision brand -- has hired J.
The upcoming Intellivision Amico is designed to provide simple and family-friendly entertainment. It comes with two wireless controllers with built-in touchscreens and motion tracking, and includes six simple games pre-loaded. Latest comments. Sign in to contribute Email address Password Sign in Need an account? When Bryan Lee stepped down from his post as Zune Executive in charge of business development, Allard took over as the new executive.
Allard will remain a direct advisor to Steve Ballmer. Microsoft Wiki Explore. Windows families. Windows Windows 10 Windows 8. Windows CE Windows Embedded.
0コメント