i was rushing to write it to post it because i had to leave to go to work so i am sorry ... but it a good article of history and info that brought microsoft to the gaming fold

I watched part 1. It looks more like a how explanation than a why explanation. But even then you can see glimpses of the thinking that PS2 appeared to be somewhat of an existential threat, whether merely percieved or real it doesn't matter, it was part of the thinking and strategic rationale from the beginning. What prodded (at least in part) the mind of the guy to originally conceive of the Xbox was the suggestion that PS2 might threaten the PC, however far fetched that really is as a thought or claim. See in particular the segment from 4:14-4:39.

You're missing the point. It was just a bunch of dudes with the idea to make a console because thats what they wanted to do. There was no ccorporate pannel deciding they want to go after Sony...

um k ?

Because controlling the living room is potentially very lucrative?

To cock block Sony?

To piss off Shio?

so they could gain a monopoly on the video games market.

despite their advantages, Sony and Ninendo will stop them every single time.

1. to make teabagging fun

2. to annoy $ony

3. to annoy $ony fans

oh and what did bill gates to IBM ????? can't believe that myth is still around after 35 years.... get your facts straight people....

IBM and microsoft use to work together under contract... then MS bought the right to a os clone from another company... IBM went their way with their own soft and copyright and failed terribly on their own.... nothing has ever been stolen, no copyrights has ever been infringed.... it's just IBM that did probably one of the biggest mistake in the blue chip industry on their own and people hold a grudge for that because as the leading computer brand back then it had important repercussion in the business for IBM and its customers.... that's it... nothing more

now i'm not defending MS policies and else as i'm a gnu/linux user myself and an open source, open content supporter.... but it's disinformation such as that, that is rotting the industry... it's like the supposed quality and open mindedness of apple.... in my book they are even worst than MS.... they blatantly copied the UNIX architecture put it in a proprietary format and pushed it on their over priced machine... so yeah quality and design might be present but at what direct cost without even talking about indirect cost and long run implication especially with cloud computing and web apps...

the real reason MS did a console is not hard to understand.... once upon a time PCs where in the office daddy was owning it and the familly was doing some stuff on it sometimes and you were fine with that... then Charlie the big brother started to play and geek around on the web so he needed one too with graphic stuff that cost a lot but still he was saving the cash for it and daddy was helping for christmas because he cas tired of having his son on the office PC all the time with viruses and sys error blue screen every 10 min....

then something happened flat screens where cheap DVD became a standard and PS arrived.... at the same time stuff like MP3 appeared CD burners where cheap and packed in every PC... and the internet exploded.... hack hack hack was charlies new pass time...

now you have MS that sees that... their is a shift of multimedia to the living room happening (sony a hardware specialist is all over it) and at the same time PCs multimedia possibilities are exploding but copyright issues and protection are a nightmare inefficient and cost/benefit is really bad.... on top of that kattie the little sis is using the PC now she spends 3 hours a day chatting with cindy she saw 6 hours today in class but still has stuff to tell her checks her facebook 30 times a min etc.... oh and now mummy is ebaying looking for recipes online everyday...

XBox and PS are now more or designed to be more than consoles they r multimedia boxes like desktops use to be and now laptops.... they are relatively cheap for the hardware... they are simple to use for most sentient beings.... that way daddy still has his desktop in his office (or he got a new laptop) probably got 2 laptops for charlie and kattie but a netbook for kattie she doesn't need anything else and something a little better mommy maybe too... but all together they use or will be using the XB or PS in the future to do most of the music listening film watching/renting, social networking and gaming all that while bringing back the family together instead of having each of them in their room on the expensive desktop that you have to change or upgrade every 3 years max.... at the same time MS secures an "emerging" market, had more control over piracy and banks on royalties way more from dev than they use to on PC...

um k?