Myth:  Microsoft was the one that started making us pay for online gaming

-This is false.  Anybody who was around at the time knows that SegaNet (Dreamcast) charged for an online gaming subscription long before Xbox Live.  In fact, if I remember, SegaNet cost around $19 a month.  Even before them, there were paid (unlicensed) online services for Super Nes/Genesis games.

Myth:  Microsoft made it okay to launch a console with faulty hardware

-Again, not true.  The original Xbox was built like a tank.  The Xbox 360 may have the worst failure rate of all time but the PS2 also suffered so many defects that Sony was the subject of a class action lawsuit.  Sony settled.  Even before that, it was widely accepted that the PS1 was a fragile device.  Quick fixes were common, including turning the console on its side or even upside down.

Myth:  Microsoft ruined the industry with their exclusivity deals

-Before the Xbox 360, it was actually Nintendo with the NES and Super NES that wouldn't allow companies to make games for the competiton.  Companies found ways around this by releasing their games under different names.  For example, Street Fighter 2 Turbo was exclusive to the Super Nes so Capcom would release "Street Fighter 2: Special Champion Edition" for the Genesis.  Virtually the same game but a way around the exclusivity deal.  And it wasn't just Nintendo.  In a 2001 issue of EGM, Microsoft was preparing for the launch of the Xbox and was quoted saying that certain games were "Moneyhatted" to remain exclusive to the PS2 but they were able to get most of whay they wanted.

It would seem that Microsoft "throwing money" at gaming companies for exclusive content was a standard practice long before the Xbox was a threat.

Yes...Microsoft has only brought online to the console industry. Nintendo created the base fanbase and Sony increased the industry size two fold upon arrival turning gaming devices into multimedia and expanding the way people view gaming. Microsoft only joined the gaming industry because Microsoft was pushing gaming into a realm that threatened PC's. When you look at everything that matters MS is only stepping in as the pepsi to Sony's coke. If you look at the 360's sales last gen, they really on stepped on Sony's PS2 marketshare and divided it with them. If they truly progressed the industry we would have larger numbers because of it. Gaming was heading online anyway and it was a matter of time once gaming became fully computerized. Sega had been trying to achieve this for years.

That's wierd.

I remember playing online on the Dreamcast, and that was free.

Hrm.

Yes...Microsoft has only brought online to the console industry. Nintendo created the base fanbase and Sony increased the industry size two fold upon arrival turning gaming devices into multimedia and expanding the way people view gaming. Microsoft only joined the gaming industry because Sony was pushing gaming into a realm that threatened PC's. When you look at everything that matters MS is only stepping in as the pepsi to Sony's coke. If you look at the 360's sales last gen, they really on stepped on Sony's PS2 marketshare and divided it with them. If they truly progressed the industry we would have larger numbers because of it. Gaming was heading online anyway and it was a matter of time once gaming became fully computerized. Sega had been trying to achieve this for years.

Woohoo, actually at a computer now, time to dig in.

As my previous post, the subscription was paying for the actual dialup connection, a service you already pay for, with online play on ANY device.

All hardware has it's defects, DRE was a bad one but by no means as far spread as RROD, Nes consoles connector pins would wear out resulting in the entire blow the cart myth, that is something that effected ALL toploading nes, it was just a matter of how many times you changed carts.
Colecovisions were prone to blowing resistors, that was pretty widespread but you just didnt hear about these defects as much prior to the PS2 era because the internet wasn't a thing back then.

Microsoft get the stick for RROD because there were practically videos of it graphical glitching and rrod, the same day it released, while small in frequency, then, it more or less became a waiting game for how long you could own one without it dying.

However, with this point, I would rather argue that most console defects are down to the use of RoHS solder, all of the hana/ana, gou and cpu failures on the 360 were because of that, but it also had ejection errors, drive failures, disc scratching, proprietory and sinfully expensive for the size hard drives, which is a whole other angle right there.

IF anything though, Microsoft set the undesirable milestone of taking two thirds of a consoles life cycle to fix a poor thermal design.

For the last point it's not worth arguing because either side of the argument is just conjecture.

the NES (nes modem), SNES (xband, Satellaview), Megadrive (xband, genesis modem), Dreamcast (default dialup, optional LAN), Saturn (sega net adapter) and PS2 (network adapter / pcmcia) all had online play in one form or another, long before the original Xbox.

I don't know if you're supporting me or against me but I kinda agree with most of what you say.  I don't know what you pay for with SegaNet but I know it cost about $19 a month.  There was even an offer where Sega would give you a free Dreamcast as long as you agreed to sign up for SegaNet for a couple of years.  You may have been payong for dial up but Sega HAD to be making money on the deal, too.  Otherwise, wtf?

Second point im just saying is a non issue for anyone.

First point you're confused on.

Seganet was a premium dialup service that negated normal routing of dialup through multiple hops and connected you, in the shortest possible route, to segas servers, it was basically a gaming-specific dialup service, if you already had dialup, you could enter your dialup info and connect with that, at no additional charge, and if you had broadband you could buy the broadband adapter and connect it to your router.

Seganet was not a requirement for online play, it was simply an alternative to those with latency issues or people who previously had no internet solution and wanted a fixed-rate dialup service, back then $19 a month for unlimited use dialup was cheap.

Hell the dreamkey disk even had a guide on how to snag your dialup number and user/password from your PC to use on the dreamcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfCAWoNwWKk