mrstickball said: 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.

Ok, you seem to miss the point to some extent. I'll start with IE, when you buy the computer, you're not given an option whether you want IE or not, or would you want some other browser to go. If IE wouldn't be bundled, you'd see IE:s, Operas and Firefoxes on the store shelves sold separately (in this way the current situation benefits the consumer, since Opera and Firefox have to be free in order for someone to get them) and the stores could make their own bundles. Now, that basically is the reason why Opera filed their claim. You should also remember why M$ bundled IE, which was because of Netscape Navigator being more popular than IE. After IE was bundled, it killed the market for NN. Basically the same goes with WMP, it's bundled because of Real Player, the only diffence is that, M$ got sued for it (if i recall, although i can't remember the details) and did not manage to kill it, like what practically happened with Netscape. Micro$ofts position in the market is seen as monopoly, which means it pretty much controls the market, when governmental actions are needed in order to assure competition. Since you apparently didn't read the news, another issue is about their Office, from which they didn't give enough information for outside developers to make compatible software. It can be debated whether some certain program should be considered as feature of OS or independent software (especially when Linuxes include so much more packed in than Windows), but the reason for Windows pack-ins are just to limit the competition. The differece between Windows pack-ins and Mac pack-ins comes from their position in the market. Problem for open source applications is that in order to success, in the current market, they need to be compatible with Windows (at least in some ways) and when M$ sees a threat in open source, they a closed standard and build Windows compatibility to it. Just look at Direct X, M$ supported Open GL, until they saw that graphics emulation would be too easy to other platforms without making some limits. I don't personally have anything against IE or WMP being bundled, since i don't have any problem to find better programs, but what i have problem with, is that you can't even remove IE or WMP. Or Messenger for that matter. Also the problem is, that there's really no alternative for PC with Windows when you go buy one from a store. I don't want to pay 100-200 Euros extra for a computer because it comes with Vista, which i delete and change to Ubuntu ASAP. Well, the thing that there's no alternative (unless you really want to spend time looking or order a specifically assembled one) isn't M$:s fault, but i still like to rant about it. And BTW, your Wii Sports comparision was as shitty as was the car analogy. I believe you understand why.

prlatino86 said: 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?

That's just it; I don't understand why someone would hate a company as a whole. I've been accused of being an MS fanboy countless times, yet I haven't run a Windows computer in 4 years now. I don't hate Windows, I just prefer Macs, doubly so after running IT for a 25 computer company for a few years. I had enough of Windows machines by that point, especially Windows machines operated by mentally retarded chimpanzees.

It doesn't mean I hate MS because I quite like the 360. But I don't care for Windows. Just like how I like Apple's Macs but think their AppleTV is a joke (though the new one is a lot nicer) or think the iPhone's battery design is beyond stupid.

I could go on for every major company like that... What's the point of hating any company when they're that large? Because if they're that large, chances are they make at least one product that appeals to you on some level.

Hate the product, not the company. Especially a giant conglomerate.

madskillz said:  honest, why do you hate the 360? Did one bite you in a dark alley once?

 LOL!

The 360's most prominent, highest-rated, and best-selling titles are, infact, shooters, sports games, and racing/driving sims. It does not have any prominent or genre-defining games when it comes to platformers, offstyle racers, jrpg's, fighting games, action/adventure games, puzzle games, etc. Two years on the market, and not a single platformer. This is a large part of the reason as to why its sales are decent in N. America while poor in Europe and zero in Japan and why it appeals only to core and hardcore gamers while failing to appeal to casual gamers at all. It would seem that MS would have thought to do a better job of making sure these genres were covered after two years.

About IE and WMP being bundled, comparing it to Wii Sports is absurd. Wii Sports is bundled with a console that's made by Nintendo. If MS made its own PC's and bundled IE and WMP, then this wouldn't be as big an issue. However, since it is clearly being done as an anti-competitive measure, it's become a cause for concern. Same goes for Windows. If someone wants another OS such as Linux, they have to pay more money for Vista, which they aren't going to use anyway.

Lord N said: The 360's most prominent, highest-rated, and best-selling titles are, infact, shooters, sports games, and racing/driving sims. It does not have any prominent or genre-defining games when it comes to platformers, offstyle racers, jrpg's, fighting games, action/adventure games, puzzle games, etc. Two years on the market, and not a single platformer. This is a large part of the reason as to why its sales are decent in N. America while poor in Europe and zero in Japan and why it appeals only to core and hardcore gamers while failing to appeal to casual gamers at all. It would seem that MS would have thought to do a better job of making sure these genres were covered after two years.

That's not the point. Auron said all non-shooters on the 360 are subpar. There's a big difference.

And MS does have one platformer, Kameo, a mediocre game. They also have Banjo 3 coming. While that's still pretty sad by any standard, the platformer genre has been dying for years and no system has an abundance of them. Still, MS should have more than two in three years on the platform (though I may be missing something).

On that note, the PS3 still doesn't even have one true platformer. 

The idea that somehow only if MS made the PC's then their bundling would be OK is absurd.

No platformers on X360? Never played Kameo by Rare, eh?

I like how all you Xbots are defending the 360 and MS by attacking the PS3, i don't own a PS3 and don't plan on owning a PS3 until it gets better games. That said me hating MS is not going to prevent me from posting NEWS that is bad for MS. I never said that this is the end of MS but they should be reeled in to prevent all the monopolizing they are doing to the industry. This is a MS discussion forum and i am discussing NEWS about MS, i did not originally state anything false. I might have exaggerated about 360 dying in Europe but it is doing badly compared to the other two. Now explain to me why a lot of you people started attacking the PS3.

i dont think this will really hurt the xbxo brand in europe