Let the Suing Begin!

[Jeff]

From the ASSEMBLER forums..

XBOX 360 design inspiration found!
Well sort of...

I work with a certain brand of computers day in day out, and it struck me the other week what the design of the 360 reminded me of.

Behold in all of it's glory, the Dell GX270:



Stick the drive on the other side, stick the power button where the Dell logo is, and change the shape of the flap (the dark grey thing with theDell logo on it) hiding the USB slots, and obviously the colour, then you have a 360!

Thank you folks, I am here all week, try the shrimp!

With a bit of flipping, and overlaying, here's a more convincing argument.

[shmagoogin77]

thats a sweet looking computer

[benheck]

Yeah right I'm sure nothing will come of this. The PS2 was very VERY similar to a late 80's early 90's ATARI Falcon class computer - much more "holy cow that's close" than this.

Look it up!

[Jeff]

I know, they were talking about it in the same thread.

But I think this is very close too.

Also got to remember, Dell can sue because its a current product, not one from 15 years before.

(PS Ben - Thanks for the interview for my assignment - my teacher hates instruction books and video game books (though he's a gamer) so I got a C on the assingmnet .)

[Unidentified Assilant]

There the exact same computers used by my school, but they are damn slow and crash a lot.

[Sparkfist]

Funny when Ben brought up the thing about the PS2 I thought he was going to compare it to the NeXt computer design. But I must say that the Falcon looks more like the PS2 (or vise versa) then the NeXt.

[Jeff]

Pics?

[benheck]

I read once that when Sony applied for the US patents (or something) for the PS2 they didn't outright stop them but the patent people were like "we've noted how the PS2 is quite similar to the Atari Falcon"

Atari used to be a REALLY sue-happy company... Had the PS2 design come out 10 years earlier, or even as the PS1, Atari probably would have sued. They sued Sega because the Genesis had a 9-pin joystick connector (like the 2600) for crying out loud!

But I don't think that model Falcon even made it out the door (Atari was the king of vaporware) The old Atari was like Apple in some ways - they came up with cool ideas only to have them stolen. Look up the Atari Portfolio sometime! (the thing John Conner hacks ATM's with in Terminator 2)

[bicostp]

And let's not forget the great King Kong/Donkey Kong incident...

Universal Studios, which made the 1929 film version of King Kong, sued Nintendo and Coleco. Although Universal's copyrights had expired a few years previous, Universal felt the game was still damaging to their movie. Maybe expecting a quick, out-of-court settlement, Universal discovered Nintendo was willing and able to go to court. Universal tried to argue its copyright was still valid. A judge dismissed this claim and noted Universal knew full well its rights had expired. The judge viewed the suit as vexatious and ruled in Nintendo's favor. The judge also awarded the video game company $1.8 million in lost sales.

Oy.

[Unidentified Assilant]

From the ASSEMBLER forums..

XBOX 360 design inspiration found!
Well sort of...

I work with a certain brand of computers day in day out, and it struck me the other week what the design of the 360 reminded me of.

Behold in all of it's glory, the Dell GX270:



Stick the drive on the other side, stick the power button where the Dell logo is, and change the shape of the flap (the dark grey thing with theDell logo on it) hiding the USB slots, and obviously the colour, then you have a 360!

Thank you folks, I am here all week, try the shrimp!

With a bit of flipping, and overlaying, here's a more convincing argument.

Actually, the Power Button isn't in the same place, it's slightly above that, thats just a decoration.

[sam]

I dno, it looks pretty much the same.... I did it myself.

[Metroid fan]

I think so too

[goodie]

This doesn't surprise me. Nearly everything Microsoft has ever made was copied off of someone else.