Vista has sold 100s of millions of copies...  and it sucks (in a should be better way, it is mostly better than XP for me)... but it is not a failure.

Thanks.  We can agree sometimes, I guess.

@montrealsoon

How about these reasons for starters: Releasing it next year would be a 4 year life (less than Xbox), there are HUGE exclusives and multiplats next year announced, and at the current rate, the 360 could triple Xbox LTD? sigh...

and zune, that devices gets dead pixels like an it was gunned... and still didn't capture any significant market share.

and windows mobile that holds not more than 5% smartphone market share worldwide, with symbian kicking in butt with 70% nokia with 50% of it alone.

What about Vista? Are you implying it's a failure? Last time I checked it sold 180 million licenses.

Why such a downer on the XBox 360? If you look at the way the 3 console manufacturers strategies are playing out, I think you could pick holes in all of them. Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing. I think Microsoft have done a very good job overall. Their online system is comprehensive and intuitive and I don't mind paying for the good service that it provides. Their one failing was reliability; but here they've bitten the bullet, extended the guarantee and addressed the design fault. The system architecture seems to be well balanced and easy to develop on. The games library on the 360 is, in my opinion and for my preferences, second to none. Yes there are some exclusives on other systems that I would like to try but I'm still happy with my purchase and wouldn't trade.

If a critical article was written about the other two systems wouldn't it raise concerns about Nintendo's failure to attract good 3rd party software, too much casual software, dearth of software for 'hardcore' gamers, lack of future proof design and poor (when compared to the 360's) online system. The PS3 on the other hand may have been better designed than the 360 in terms of producing a reliable machine from launch, but it appears to be less than the sum of it's parts and handicapped by some of the technology chosen (lack of graphics memory and compulsory install on the hd for some games). In terms of hardware it certainly does not live up to the early promises made by Sony and they are gradually reducing functionality to reduce their overheads. The machine was too radical, forcing it to be delayed and making it too expensive for the average consumer. The end result is that the PS3 doesn't have the number of exclusives it should have because it was late to the party and Microsoft has positioned itself in the software market to make a number of these exclusives multi-platform. As for Sony's online experience, it's still very much a work in progress and it falls short of the experience offered on the 360. Ok it's free, but isn't a premium service worth a few bucks a month? It all seems to be 'jam tomorrow' with Sony. I wish I had a penny for every time I read 'Sony domination begins next year' or 'just wait until Home is released'. Me, I don't need to wait because I have the 360.

To sum up, every console has it's failings so let's not focus on just one of them.

Your thought is accurate, well written, and most of all, true.  Hence the reason it will be ignored by most people here.  Your analysis is based on the big picture.  Most other peoples' analysis is based on July 08 NPD numbers.

Vista is not selling anywhere near as well as it should. Businesses are wary of adopting it. I have yet to try it so I cannot say whether it is a quality product or not, but there were articles claiming that Vista's adoption rate would surpass XP's adoption rate, that is clearly not the case. And I own a Zune(won it on Live Search Club) and I happen to think it is a very quality product. Lasts a whole day of work and holds a ton of music. The radio player is nice and the Zune software works without a hitch for me. I have several podcasts downloading automatically(Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me being one of them).

its a great product, at least NOW it is. For a long time it simply was just too buggy. Now, with the hundreds of new updates, it works like an OS should.

New versions of Windows have never been immediately adopted by businesses.  Nobody wanted XP when it first came out either.

I have Vista SP1 on both my gaming rig and my laptop now.  I can't imagine going back to XP.  The video card drivers were garbage for the first few months, but Nvidia and ATI both got their act together.  With SP1 there are still very minute performance differences between XP and Vista, but nothing you would notice unless you were benchmarking.  For networking, I think Vista is second to none as far as ease of use.  I'm doing things with my home network now that I was never able to figure out on XP.

I still wouldn't classify Vista as a failure and don't even know why you brought it up in the first place. It may not be a smashing success but it's a long way from failure.