Auron said: I hate MS and therefore 360 by default and the fact it has nothing besides shooters(yes it has some other games i know but they are all subpar and its best games are shooters) which i prefer on PC.

2 of the best selling PS3 games are shooters, and 4 of the most hyped PS3 games of 2008 are shooters as well, not to mention many of the most heavily hyped PS3 titles of last year were shooters.

I honestly cant see how you can pull the "all shooter sports and racing game" card when thats more or less all the PS3 has at this point... unless you count subpar card games, a couple uninspired jrpgs and a really short GOW nock-off.

Auron said: Well MS lost a legal battle not long ago for making it hard for developers to use windows and for forcing media player on users. The XB brand is dying in Europe outside the UK. and now this: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/01/14/ms.eu.ap/index.html

The EU has many double standards, like anti-dumping laws, although many of the EU countries dump product in other regions of the world. EU likes to put trade barriers in place to stop many non EU companies from having a fair go. Some people kid themself when they say MS does nothing right. If they did everything wrong they would be out of business.

I doubt (as a UK resident) that anything to do with MS outside of games will massively impact 360.

The console has made some ground for MS outside US but I would say that overall it hasn't made up as much ground as they would have hoped.

Clearly the Wii caught and passed the console in less than 12 months in 'Others' (I think there's no point in including Japan in the equation as its so drasticly low in 360 sales) and the PS3 is fast catching up too.

This doesn't surprise me as I've posted elsehwhere and is more a reflection of 'Others' market vs 360 offering' than anything specifically wrong about the 360 (with exception of RROD).

This doesn't mean MS is 'in trouble, doomed, etc'. It means that, if trends continue, they will have made overall strong gain in market from Xbox but that their gains are not uniform - i.e. they have made vey good gains in US with only moderate gains (vs competition) outside US.

I supose (for those to whom such things matter) it does raise the prospect that non-US territories success would enable PS3 to outsell 360 globally while remaining behind 360 in US.

Off topic for consoles but on topic for the posted link - this is not a surprise. I think (and I'm not saying Europe is superior, only different) that in Europe the dominance of MS is seen as generally a bad thing and that few European companies are normally allowed to gain such marketshare.

I don't think there is any doubt MS is using its position to its advantage, and many (not all) European countries have restrictions on how far you can take such practices and MS is going to feel their brunt.

As before they'll be fined and they'll pay. It costs them but as they are US company its not like Europe can force (as they could for European company) MS to split up into a number of seperate divisions - although I suppose it could try and force changes to its organization in Europe, although I think that would be unlikely response.

Why is it that MS/XB have supposedly all had horrid news as of late, by all the anti-MS people out there - yet the X360 is selling well ahead of itself in the same timeframe last year?

Just a bit of food for thought.

I think it's great Microsoft bundle IE and WMP. Without IE how are you going to download firefox or opera? WMP is the best media player there is. While it may be slightly less compatible than VLC it's media library schools everything in existance. Why don't apple ever get in trouble for including Safari or Quicktime? That's right, because they aren't good enough for people to care. Microsoft should not be punished for making good software!

I was wondering since yesterday, when someone will post this. Good to see my wait is over.

Nidan said: Auron said: Well MS lost a legal battle not long ago for making it hard for developers to use windows and for forcing media player on users. The XB brand is dying in Europe outside the UK. and now this: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/01/14/ms.eu.ap/index.html The EU has many double standards, like anti-dumping laws, although many of the EU countries dump product in other regions of the world. EU likes to put trade barriers in place to stop many non EU companies from having a fair go. Some people kid themself when they say MS does nothing right. If they did everything wrong they would be out of business.

The trade barriers are nothing new, everyone does them. If you want to look trade barriers, look at India. I can't think of any country or trade federation, that doesn't have trade barriers for outsiders. It's a bad thing that there can't be trade barriers inside EU. I agree on the double standards, the new directive for chemicals is the best example. You can't use certain chemicals in product manufacturing process inside EU, but you can sell products, manufactured outside EU, in which manufacturing process the banned chemicals have been used.

@MrStickball
I dont think people realize for the past decade, Microsoft has ALWAYS had horrid news and bad press involving lawsuits, shoddy products and even anti-trust issues. People have been predicting the death of Microsoft, of Windows, and IE and every other Microsoft product for years. If i felt like it, i can pull up similar cases and articles of the EU doing this for the past few years, its pretty much a case of "Same Shit, different month"

And even with all that, somehow Microsoft is still one of the biggest and richest companies in the Tech World. Shit, you know the company has to make money when the owner is 2nd richest man in the world (used to be first not too long ago)

By the way, what the hell does this article have to do with Xbox?

Also, whats the reason for you "hating" a company? did they like come to your house and steal your lunch money or something? Are you a Linux user and mad that game developers spend all their time coding games for PC instead of your OS of choice? Are you a Mac user that thinks Vista stole a ton of ideas of Mac OS X?

I really hope Europe smacks M$ around. The open source community will definitely flourish if this goes through and M$ wont be able to do anything about it. FireFox will take over the internet ^.^

ion-storm said: I think it's great Microsoft bundle IE and WMP. Without IE how are you going to download firefox or opera? WMP is the best media player there is. While it may be slightly less compatible than VLC it's media library schools everything in existance. Why don't apple ever get in trouble for including Safari or Quicktime? That's right, because they aren't good enough for people to care. Microsoft should not be punished for making good software!

 MS is actually known for making shoddy software, but do to marketing and other methods, they maintain the market share.  Though personally i do have to agree, i do like WMP, though it is a little bloated of a program. 

Reason Apple doesnt get into trouble for it is because your are buying a system made by apple, the entire computer is essentially made by Apple (or partners, such as Intel)  but in essence, Apple puts the computers together, hardware and software. 

Microsoft, on the other hand, is purely software (besides making interface devices like mouses and keyboard), they dont deal with hardware at all.  And since most computers come preinstalled with this, competitors have problems getting in there, as most consumers tend to stick with what software is given.  

This would be like if every car brand made comes with a Panasonic CD player instead of no CD player or a factory stock crap CD player.  How easy would it be then for like a company like Pioneer to make it in the market, if every car comes out already pre installed with your competitors product?  Thats a little bit of an analogy of why people tend to have a problem with Microsoft, though it surely doesnt explain everything, like why thats the case and how Microsoft does it.   

 

prl -

But to be fair, if it's their product, they can bundle whatever the heck they feel like with it.

Nintendo does the same thing with the Wii and Wii Sports - they bundle a mini-game. It makes it harder for other non-Nintendo minigame compilations to do well since one is bundled already.

Yet I don't see anyone drawing those type of comparisons. I wonder why? Too hyprocritical.

In order to make in the marketplace, you need a superior product. The reason many Open Source things don't make it to MS-levels of succuess isn't because of MS, but because they actually......Have to work for what they get. You can't tie Microsoft's hands behind it's back, and neuter their own product.

The car analogy is bad - what would you rather have as an average consumer - A CD player, or none at all? The majority of consumers don't care. If Microsoft is giving IE and MWP for free, why wouldn't the average joe not enjoy it? Not everyone in the world is tech savy enough to go find Firefox, Linux, RealMedia Player, or whatever kind of other service products they want/need. Thats why Wal-Mart and General Retail stores are so big - you can get everything you want at once, due to convienience.

People, expecially Europeans make too much of a deal of IE being bundled with an OS. If you care so much, get Linux and Firefox or Opera. End of story.