I never demonize an entire company because of one person.  Everyone will live better by it.

Same can be said for most companies then. 

Exactly.

So, was it not true that the 360 had a "fake" cheaper price? You either had to replace standard batteries over and over or get a play and charge kit. You had to get XBL to play online. HDDs became a necessity and 20GB just weren't cutting the mustard, so you needed bigger ones....but they were proprietary and cost $100+ instead of a replaceable SATA for less than half the cost for the same amount of storage. I paid $400 for a PS3 in 2007. If you got a 360 at the same time, you paid, bare minimum, $300 for the core model, $100 for the HDD, $50 for XBL, either an uncountable amount of money (not because it was astronomically high, but there's no solid figure on it) on batteries or $30 for the play and charge kit, and if your router was in a different side of the house, you needed wireless to get online, and that peripheral cost $100. So the "real" entry price for a 360 was at least $400 at the minimum for just a Core and an HDD and one set of batteries worth of playing. But up to $480 to actually enjoy the console and as high as $580 if your Xbox wasn't close enough to your router and you needed to use WiFi.

Is it not true that the 360 was able to be cheap (other than literally being cheap, hence why the hardware failures were so prevalent) because it didn't standardize HDDs and have a next-gen media interface, which is now standard across the board?

Is it not true that MSs 1st party support has been pretty paltry throught that generation? Other than Gears, Halo, Fable, and Forza, what else was notable? The last 3 years have been a majority of Kinect games.

Is it not true that MS spent more on ads instead of building studios? Moreover, is it not true that they spent a crap ton of money focusing on getting multiplatform content on the console for a short period of time instead of making fully exclusive IPs? Was it really that important to throw millions of dollars at Activision to get a "Jump In" at the end of a CoD commercial, only to get a few percent higher sales overall? Was it really so important to give Take Two $50M to make people think 360 was the "home" of GTA4, when PS3 got the content anyway and GTAIV sold essentially the same on both consoles? Did MS not just axe a new IP in order to rehash Gears...by an untested studio?

And is it not true that they rushed the console to the market in order to beat Sony out the gate, ignoring the need to do final QA testing on the system in order to get a few million in consumer's hands first....resulting in one of the largest, if not *the* largest, hardware failures of all time?

Preying on reader's ignorance? What could the readers of this article look up to "debunk" many or all of these points? The post may seem "angry" or "bitter", but each point was valid

The Xbox 360 was like Spirit Airlines (maybe you've heard of them): they're advertised as the "cheapest way to fly" because you only "pay for what you need". In this case, flying from Point A to Point B (popping a disc into the tray and playing a game). But if you need to have some bags brought onto the flight, they charge you crazy fees for it. If you want a seat that's not necessarily 1st class, but better than the crappy ones in the back of the plane, you pay a fee. They only go to a select few destinations, and if you have a layover instead of a direct flight, the price skyrockets. They just nickel and dime you repeatedly. All of this is comparable to XBL, HDDs, batteries, etc. for 360. If you just wanted a better experience with no hiccups, why not just fly Delta or Southwest (get a PS3, or PS4 now)? Their tickets may be a little higher, but in the end, everything is cheaper than what you get from Spirit, to get an enjoyable flight experience.

I know that. And I am saying trying to rank them is an exercise in futility. Especially with a list as laughable as the one he gave. Again, whoever you put #1, just understand that if #2 and #3 could be as successful at it as #1, they'd do it in a heartbeat. The list:

Paying for online. Not only was MS not the first or only gaming company to do this, but Sony has followed suit. I don't even know if Nintendo has ever done this. SEGA charged as well.

DRM. Uh, Sony? Hello. Also, PSN Pass. Nintendo appears to get out clean again here. This of course is just console gaming. The PC side is ripe with DRM.

Making money on accessories. Like every single company ever. Such a stupid point.

Faulty hardware. I would put this into the bad business category, but idk if I would call it capitalizing on ignorant consumers. Also, again, Sony. And maybe Nintendo isn't as bad as we thought? Never had an issue with reliability from them.

Paying for exclusive content. This is totally not capitalizing on any gamer, but it is funny because he doesn't care when Sony does it.

The last two are not even worth pointing out why they are wrong. To summarize, companies enjoy making money. What some are saying is basically "yeah well ur company tries to make more money than mine!!1" LOL. Carry on though, I'm out.

... like I said.... different extents.

no-one is saying company a did activity x but company b didnt do it. Some do worse than others so and the criticism is shared on the same scale.

Sony also got criticised for the PSN pass, as did EA and every other company who had it. YLOD was also criticised, but RROD was criticised more because it was a worse situation.

Paying for exclusive content is the same... MS does it waaaay too often. Doing it once in a while to bring value to their customer base is fine, but Its almost as if they enjoy pissing off customers on their competitors system.

Anyway, contrary to the belief, a lot of sony exclusives are only because MS pushed away developers like Heavy rain was offered to MS/xbox, but they didnt agree with the child kidnapping in the story, and a lot of indie games exclusive to PS4 are because of MS's parity clause which means if a game launched on another console before XB one, they have to go through them on a case by case basis.... yet some people believe this has no impact on gamers.

When a company does something stupid, its easy saying 10 other companies do it too, but as a fan, there comes a point where you have to raise your voice for the benefit of the future of the products you like.

Sony had to go through a shitstorm with the PS3 to get the PS4 to be how it is, and I hope XB1 will be for MS what the PS3 was for Sony.... something they can learn from.

Come on man, they're both corporate pigs.  Now who's ignorant?! 

Everything you said was fine imo, but the last paragraph was unnecessary. Was an entertaining read. 

Either people don't mind idolizing products from corporate pics, or you are implying that most people who read your comment are ignorant.

What I don't get is the reason these companies, Microsoft and Sony, should be attributed the quality of corporate pigs. Are you specifically referring to the extremely rich and powerful members of their respective boards? Like individually these men and ladies are pigs? Or the average person there is a pig? Or that there is an evil, money grobbler behind the scenes gorging on the gullible nature of the simpletons? Aren't there men and women accross the spectrum of employment in those companies that have an actual passion for what they do and also attempt to implement their visions? I mean, not so bad people that now have to contend for being part of the "worst company of the year" again.

LOL, I think you are over analyzing it .  I just meant both companies are looking to get max profit for minimum product.  They all are, and its the smart thing to do.