Posted on February 10, 2010 |
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Computer games are a great tool to train soldiers. In fact, there are games labeled as "realistic battlefield simulators" which are almost sold exclusively to armed forces. It seems the US amy is ready to train their troops on the Xbox instead of the PC. Sadly, Microsoft did not seem to like the idea.
Microsoft has its reasons to decline the offer, and according to Roger Smith, chief technology officer for PEO STRI, the Army command responsible for purchasing training equipment, Microsoft declined because of 3 reasons. I doubt his reasons; the US Air Force bought
2200 PS3s to form a supercomputer and federal investigators use it to
crack encryption codes on child pornographers. And all that time, the no one associated the PS3 with military networks.
However, why did they choose to buy consoles? For one, they are cheap- costing only $200 compared to the $1000 on an average PC. Also, younger soldiers are more familiar with consoles. It seems like a great idea to train troops on on this, but they would need to hire someone to make their game.
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