| ChronotriggerJM said: How can a company that's notorious for housing BILLIONS of spare dollars, charge you to simply play online with friends? And peer to peer no less! Silver lets you do everything but that, and it's free, they just decide to dick the customer around and charge them for having friends. How about a 20g harddrive for $100? How about a Wi-fi DONGLE (the things a real POS), for $80? Microsoft is a trash company and does so little for anyone, and people just praise them for some god awful reason. All in all, Microsoft is a company that thrives off of destroying other companies, not bringing the best for you. They're quite happy being mediocre as a company as long as no one else is around :) |
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How about the fact that Microsoft is offering a product for $200 (Arcade) that allows you to play games of the same visual quality as a $400 machine?
Yeah, Microsoft does little for anyone. That's why I'm playing more JRPGs on my X360 than any other system. Same with half of the major genres out there today. Yeah, they are so horrible their games are unversally praised by reviewers and have a better-praised library than the competition - at a lower price point than the rest.
Think about it: If MS wasn't in this game, we'd have Sony's overpriced boondoggle of a system, and Nintendo's shovelware casual-fest. Microsoft has the nice middle ground - a powerful system at a cheap price. Even if you don't like them, they still make a quality system, and are doing far more than Nintendo or Sony to woo new customers, and help the current ones.
And Microsoft is doing more to listen to consumers, as opposed to what Nintendo and Sony are doing, hardware wise.
Microsoft has:
- When attacked about the warranty/quality of the X360, they began to provide the best warranty in the history of console gaming - 3 years for major flaws. 100% free, and fast turn-around time too.
- When internet fanboys derided the Core system as a 'tard pack' due to being absolutely featureless, Microsoft threw in $50 of extras (games, memory card, wireless controller), for free. Neither Nintendo nor Sony have included anything new with their systems since launch - except for Sony cutting backwards compatability in a quest to cut costs.
- Microsoft is the only company to pass along savings to the consumer with timely price drops when hardware is updated. Sony even said lately that they won't pass along savings to consumers when they reach a milestone in manufacturing that cuts costs. Nintendo? They haven't even moved from their price (I can't argue their decision from a business standpoint, but the fact is that Microsoft is still far more interested in providing the best value for their customers).
- Microsoft is the only company attemping to involve indie developers via basic SDKs such as XNA, to give their system a more robust approach to gaming. Sony has no indie development platform, nor Nintendo. Yes, both have WiiWare/PSN games, but neither incorporate inexpensive SDKs into their design. Microsofts' does.
- Never reduced console quality from day-1...Unlike Sony. The first Xbox 360 we got was a $300 core system that came with a wired controller, power adapter, and that was about it. Now we have a $200 arcade system with 256mb of internal memory for games, wireless controller(s), 25-30% more efficent in power consumption, free games, and is online compatible from the box (whereas the Core needed a $30 memory card for it). Again, in Sony's case, they hacked off BC and offer a barebones PS3 that is a litteral skeleton of what the 60GB PS3 offered. Outside of the 20gb HDD, the Arcade is superior in features to even the Premium at launch.
And Chrono, deride MS all you want, and Windows, but there's a reason their products can be questionable. Ever notice the fact that Windows Vista is compatible with 100% of Windows 95 components? There's a reason that Microsoft is the leader in legacy code for their systems. It's a major plus, and downfall. If Microsoft didn't include legacy coding, they'd have a far better system than they do now, but you, and everyone else would still be mad because "Vista doesn't work with my program that used to run on ME".
And Chrono, have you ever been on Xbox Live, and compared it's feature set to PSN and WiiConnect? Ummm...You know, there's a pretty big difference in what's offered. I'd tend to think the $3 a month doesn't get you the same amount of quality, and content as the others do. Or maybe your not on the same planet the rest of us are.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
