The Netflix thing is a horrid example however in my opinion. I'm looking for self sacrifice, a move made on they're part that doesn't benefit them financially in the least. I used this reference in another topic, but I was skimming through my gaming magazines, and I see this add for Netflix, it features some netflix employee's "avatar", and in big text it says "Check out the new xbox experience!" Well.. that's awesome... aside from the fact that the Netflix deal has practically nothing to do with the 360 :/ It has everything to do with Gold accounts... Microsoft didn't make it for the silver accounts as well for obvious reasons. They are trying to make a profit out of it. Which one could argue "But all business do this surely!". But the thing is... they don't o.O;
Of course MS is trying to make a profit on it. Read back to my original post, if MS offered Live for free, you would not have Netflix, you wouldn't have the new Party system, the New NXE wouldn't exist, the 360 integrated dashboard as a whole might not exist, the Video Marketplace wouldn't exist; all of this was possible due to the revenues and profits earned off of Xbox Live Gold subscriptions.
Netflix didn't offer streaming out of the goodness of their heart. They did it to draw more customers into their monthly service plan. Why do you think they allow 1 DVD service without streaming for cheaper than 1 DVD with streaming? Its just like how Microsoft keeps improving Microsoft Office and adding new applications to it. They don't do it out of the goodness of their heart, they do it to improve the perceived value of the product and thus generate more sales.
Also, everything they do to make a profit isn't the prime definition of corporate greed, its the prime directive of a corporation who are beholden to their shareholders.
Ask yourself this, how happy do you think the shareholders are that MS has lost approximately 4.8 Billion USD on the Xbox brand (do not confuse E&D losses with Xbox losses please)? Do you not think that these shareholders demand MS to make a profit eventually? How do you think they will do that long term by giving aware something like NetFlix on their platform without any direct benefit to them?
You have never worked at Microsoft. Honestly speaking, every employee here has pretty much as much power as they are willing to leverage. Moreso than at most companies. I would argue even more power than at small companies I have worked for, though it can take substantially more personal time investiment to get stuff done than at small companies.
The only thing stopping most MSFT employees from delivering on their desires is the lack of thought and planning regarding them. Just like with any project in the world, you must be willing to do more than just pitch a great idea, you better be prepared to design, articulate, plan, and drive the project.
Also, while you can argue about the quality of the 360s Hardware, there is no denying that it has top quality in the Operating System. That is not just a fluke.
[quote]Fanboys are why people hate microsoft? Fanboys? Those of us who troll forums all day make up a very, and I mean VERY small population of the people that are "against windows". Sure it's easier to hate the giant and cheer for the underdog, but you can't just get that type of negative aura by an internet community. People whine and bitch about Window's performance day to day, I personally (anicdotal), haven't met a single person who has owned and experienced fully the worlds of all the major operating systems, and has hands down said "My gosh, Windows really is the best!". In fact it's quite the opposite >< Window's is amazing if you don't know that theres anything better. And that seems to be the jist of it :/ Crap, XP won't even read more than 3 gigs of ram >< How the fuch?
Umm, just for reference, XP 32-bit can read the 32-bit limit of 4GB of ram just fine. Some motherboards have a 3GB limit that you might be running into. If you need more than 4GB, you will have to move to 64-bit. Of which both XP, 2003, and Vista all support.
This is what I meant by fanboys though. How many people here read your post about the 3GB limit and took it as gospel and have already told a friend? Even though its blatently not true.
XNA and Community Games aren't pushing the gaming community? The Party System, integrated friends list, achievements, publically accessible gamertags with full details (just check peoples sigs on this forum alone), avatars usable by anyone who wants to, on and on.
While you may be too stingy to pay for Live Gold and help fund the improvements that you want to enjoy, that doesn't mean that Microsoft should just give you something for nothing. If you want to play online with your friends using the new avatars and party system, then help pay the costs for it and the development of more features you will love in the future.
While PSN Home is free, ask yourself this. If Sony knew they would be getting the revenue from Home that MSFT gets from Live, do you not think they would have put quite a bit more resources into it and had it ship ontime rather than over a year late? How much as making Home free impacted the quality, scope of features, and general usability of the product? How much will Sony continue to invest into making Home better over the next 2 - 5 years without having a revenue stream directly tied to the service?
Its easy to say that now, but there was a time when MS didn't have 90% of the market. Back then, they still charged less than their competition. Maybe there is a coralation?
If Honda was asking the same price for the Civic and Lexas asks for the RS-400, I can assure you that a lot more RS-400 cars would sell. That doesn't mean that Honda should be fair and jack up all their prices to help their competition.
Linux is free for all intents and purposes. You can't get cheaper than that. Maybe, if someone could devise a proper model for charging for Linux and was able to reinvest the funds back into Linux development you would have a product that could compete with Microsoft and would also likely still cost less than Windows. But so far the services models have generally failed. Even IBM primarily utilize Linux as a foot in the door to sell more expensive propriatry products with service agreements.
Fact is, MS has smart business here. I don't argue that MaxOSX is a better OS for a lot of people. But Microsoft hits a sweet spot in price vs quality vs features that 90% of the market wants. Just like Guild Wars hits a sweet spot for a lot of gamers who want their MMO fix, but for those who want more, they are more than happy to pay for World of Warcraft. Should we be arguing for WoW to be free monthly as you want to play online with your friends playing WoW but can't because you don't want to pay for the service?
Yep I know.
Google Apps, MySQL, OpenOffice, GMail, etc... There are competitors for pretty much everything Microsoft makes, from an individual component of Office like Outlook and OneNote, to more complicated applications and services infrastructures like Microsoft Content Management Server and Zune.
While in your case you might view them as having a more robust experience, even if they do, that doesn't mean that they offer everything that I need or that 99% of Microsoft's clients need.
Sure iTunes offers a more robust experience than Zune in a lot of ways, but I want a music subscription service, hence I use Zune. No OpenSource platform offers that (legally).
Sure OpenOffice offers a lot of what Microsoft Office has, but it doesn't have proper project managment integration. They don't even have something like Microsoft Project.
Sure open source offers stuff like Open Workbench for Project Management, but seriously try to use it in a full production environment where you have to track over 2000 work items in a 6 - 12 month schedule and ensure that your schedule is properly normalized, running on time, within budget, and is flexible. Next, have all the work items properly propogate back into a database that tracks them and that individual team members can sign off using. Lets not forget being able to build legable and usable charts/graphs/etc off the schedules to help you disseminate results and data to project stakeholders. Good luck with that.
Now, try using open source software for a mission critical project where any delays could cost you your job and have it run into an issue. Hope someone else will fix it for you? Learn how to program to fix it yourself? Not going to happen reliably or quickly enough for most schedules.
Using Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Oracle, etc... you have someone that you can call and usually get it fixed. Funny thing, when you pay for a product or service, you tend to assistance.
Remember, everything has its place, open source included.
Back onto the original topic at hand. I would not say in general that MS is better than Sony. What I would say is that MS has been making a lot better business decisions this generation than Sony. MS has also been providing much better service to their customers this generation than Sony.
Its not always the big things. A lot of times its the little things. Like the fact that my HDTV only does 480p and 1080i. I can play all Xbox360 games in 1080i, but only a few PS3 games. A friend mostly plays games on his monitor in his room, he can now play in 16x10 resolution so it fits in his screen correctly, play all games in 16x10 at that.
A while back Microsoft asked for the community to submit requests for things they would like improved in the Xbox360. If people go back and look, a significant amount of the requests (other than the ones to not charge anymore) were actually fulfilled with the NXE.
When was the last time Sony did something like that with the PlayStation brand?
What has Microsoft overpromised and underdelivered on with the Xbox360. While I would gladdly argue Live Arcade, overall I can't think of anything specific that they promised back in 2005 and didn't deliver. If anything they have delivered a lot more.
Sony on the otherhand promised an in-game dash, except not exactly. They promised custom soundtracks, except not exactly all games. They promised voice chat in games, except not exactly all games. They promised trophies, except few games have supported them to date. They promised internet access back on the PS2, except they never delivered. They promised IM access, yet still have not delivered on the PS3 (unless you boot Linux on it). They promised 100% TPM certified back compat on the PS3 with PS2 games, yet they ripped it out of all current systems.
This is why people are even questioning if MS is better than Sony this generation. Last generation, people would have laughed this off and mocked the person who even considered. This generation, people are seriously asking and being taken seriously.
You can argue about MS and Windows quality. I would honestly agree that if MS had released Vista as a new OS without any Microsoft or Windows branding, it would have bombed completely.
Likewise, if Sony had released the PS3 without any Sony or PlayStation branding, it would have been lucky to have beaten the 3DO in lifetime sales.
I don't think MS is better company than Sony, or a worse one. They are both corporations out for our money. Microsoft has just managed to do a much better job this generation and it has been mostly by fulfilling customer desires.
For that matter, Nintendo has frankly kicked both of them to the curb.
