I "hate" Xbox 360 because it represents Microsoft's anticompetitive plan to dominate consumer electronics. I don't hate plastic, metal and silicon, but the fact Microsoft wasted billions of dollars like no other company could is unfair because the money they used was due to the "Windows Tax" on all PCs you can buy (for example, Dell sells Linux PCs at higher prices than Windows ones even though Linux is free).

This is because Microsoft charges large computer manufacturers for every computer they sell regardless of whether it has Windows on it. All companies are subject to these monopolising deals and if a PC supplier pulled out they couldn't compete on price with other ones.

The result is that Microsoft gets guaranteed revenue from a product few would freely choose if software and hardware was compatible with all OSs and these OSs were choices given to the market. Microsoft also uses effectively government bribes in developing countries to get their software installe, and then when development reaches a certain level they cahrge full price and do anticompetitive deals with local PC suppliers. A good example of this is action is Microsoft paying countries (with e-mail evidence to prove it) to join the ISO standards board to vote "Yes" on their stupidly implemented, redundant and patent-infringing OOXML format. These countries have since disappeared from future votes, proving the sole reason they joined was because Microsoft said so.

The Xbox 360 represents the end result of this: you can dominate a market with cash alone. The Xbox 360's hardware is poorly made (hardware failures are common) and the software which started the Xbox brand's popularity was made by buying up studios with insane cash offers. The studios, by the way, were bought with the aim of damaging competitors: Halo wasa major Mac title that if a cult had arisen for it on the Mac like it had on the Xbox, Mac gaming would have been common; Rare was the only thing saving Nintendo in the N64 days and it was stolen from them when Microsoft made an insane offer to the 51% shareholder of it and Nintendo were forced to sell their 49% stake.

EDIT: Halo was not a Mac exclusive. I maintain it would have had a larger impacton Mac gaming without Microsoft's intervention.

Still agree with you. Haha. BTW, the situation with Rare was absolutely disgusting. Probably why many of the people that work for Rare left.

I agree also, its one of the reason's i refuse to own a 360... That and the horrifying hardware issues!

I also don't like EA bought out the NFL rights instead of putting the money in making a better Madden. So I don't care for Microsoft actions either.

In a competitive market, not owning a system doesn't have to mean you hate it.
I don't own a 360, but I relish the thought that MS releases something that makes me race out to buy a 360.

MS with their Xbox 360 is disrupting the Sony dominance in the console market, and that is a good thing.

Sony has always had an arrogant public attitude, which I don't like. Of course MS are as power- and moneyhungry as Sony, but their public image is more humble.

Your entire premise is unsound when applied to the console industry. The fact that MS has spent BILLIONS and only just started to show any success indicates that even they have their limits. Recently they have stopped showing any inclination to go back in the red, and for this reason they are a POSITIVE competitive force in the industry.

And that's OK, is it? Microsoft have cost consumers and governments hundreds of billions of uneccesarily spent eurodollarpounds, and since they have a better public image it's fine by you?

 After they destroyed Nintendo's GC chances and Mac gaming?

Game_boy your article is crap. Business is Business. MS will do whatever it takes to be top dog in the video game industry if that means buying off development companies from rival competitors, so be it. Bill Gates is a very good man he has given more to charity than what the entire  stingy US government have done.