[face]

An Xbox 360 has a 3.2GHz Xenon (three cores) and 512Mbs of ram [1]. Saying that it has the power of a supercomputer is a bit of a stretch (by about three orders of magnitude, #500 on the top500 list has five thousand cores [2]).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360

[2] http://www.top500.org

* edit: formatting

[points]

You don't find it absolutely bizarre that it doesn't even have a web browser? Even when a tiny DSi has a very capable browser, smart phones have browsers. And a big gaming console from a supposed software company doesn't even have a web browser?

[gboyer]

I guess it's a little strange that they haven't tried to put IE on the Xbox--but I'm glad they haven't. The whole reason I have a game console is to have an appliance that is dedicated to video games. I have plenty of other devices that provide a superior browsing experience.

[points]

I agree with you - I wouldn't use a webbrowser on a games console. But the population disagrees - they do :/

[potatolicious]

I'm an avid gamer and own both the PS3 and Xbox. I've used the PS3 browser, it's an unmitigated disaster of poor functionality and even poorer usability.

The Wii browser, having used that also, is pretty much the same, plus muscle pain.

I know a lot of gamers and have yet to meet a single person who uses the browsers with any sort of regularity. In fact, the only instances where people use browsers on consoles nowadays are when the game brings it up by itself (DLC purchases, news updates, etc), and even then it's always more painful to use than a native menu would've been.

You need to cite your sources, because from where I stand - which is that of an avid gamer heavily involved in the gaming community, I simply do not see any significant usage of console browsers at all.

> "Even when a tiny DSi has a very capable browser, smart phones have browsers. And a big gaming console from a supposed software company doesn't even have a web browser?"

The major obstacle with browsers is not platform hardware, it's usability. Smartphones and the DSi have browsers because the web is (as we discovered with the iPhone) very easy to navigate with a touch device, particularly a finger-driven touch device.

It is significantly less awesome when it's driven with a joystick. In fact, the experience is downright terrible. Implementing a browser on a console with joystick (or Wiimote) controls is a waste of time and energy, and can only serve to tarnish your brand as your users struggle with why the hell you implemented such a dumb thing.

[jerhinesmith]

I'm sorry, but source? Stats? Anything other than anecdote to back that up?

I tried to find some information, but the best I could do was from an article written in 2009 (http://www.next-gen.biz/news/ps3%E2%80%99s-web-browser-usage...):

"The PS3's browser has a 0.04 share of the 'internet market', a miniscule proportion when compared to, say, the PC's 88.7 percent majority, yet it's a figure which sits comfortably ahead of the Wii's 0.01 percent."

Granted, those numbers are horribly out of date, but it would seem to indicate that the population (at large) does agree.

[face]

I agree with the rest of your point entirely.

[rbanffy]

You forgot to count the GPU. A modern GPU can pump numbers much faster than the fastest general-purpose CPU.

[sanderjd]

It certainly doesn't have the power of a modern supercomputer, but it surpasses everything on Wikipedia's supercomputer timeline until about halfway down (using the admittedly poor comparison of GHz - GFLOPS). From that point of view, I think "power of a supercomputer" is fairly reasonable.