bdbdbd said: @ookaze: The idea? No, it makes perfect sense: "don't buy the competitor, wait until we have it". Maybe its targeted mostly for the current 360 owners. Malstrom put my thoughts (what i've said many times before) into a better understandable form, but that's their strategy. When in PC software business, they are used to be the big guy who controls it all. When someone invents something that could compete M$, they announce they're working on it, which basically means "if you don't drop it, a cheap ripoff of it is the next Windows feature which kills your market" and who can compete that. In the console business, M$ faced two other big guys as competition, which are hard to compete just with money. Sonys strength is its large number of different electronics and retail channel, which offer synergic advantages and Nintendos is its ability to innovate and make money. Both have advantages over M$. But when we look at PC software, there's three products, that M$ haven't managed to kill, despite of trying: Google, Firefox and Realplayer. What is interesting, is that the three compete M$ in key areas around the internet, which could possibly make Windows nearly useless (in average PC users homes), only the hardware to run these programs is missing, aside from M$ dominated PC market. Now, we have Sony and Nintendo from the hardware side.

 

What you say is very interesting.

I think you'll agree with me that if the vaporware XB360 remote has the purpose you describe, that means it would be made to prevent XB360 owners from fleeing to Wii. Which makes no sense if you believe MS PR or snobcore gamers.

 

The console business shows even more proof of two things I think are facts, on which I base everyone of my predictions, and till now, I have a 90+% record of being right when it comes to predicting MS:

- MS is unable to innovate

- MS is unable to compete

MS has a monopoly in the computer OS realm, and abuses it. Also, they can then throw money at everything around this monopoly, shooting everywhere, hoping to hit some day. Basically, they have no skill and can't innovate.

That's because MS is not a technological company. Everything they do has been stolen or ripped off competitors (yes, even their Windows monopoly, which IBM entirely paid for initially, despite MS keeping every right on it, and IBM made Windows sell instead of Mac).

As MS has no skill, only their money allow them to put even some kind of competition, but when the opponent has good skills, they're just left behind. That's why every single of their foray outside PC OS is a failure.

You're wrong also on the PC software they weren't able to kill. There are at least 3: Google, Free and Open Source Software aka FOSS (Firefox is part of this, as it's Open Source, and this includes Linux) and Apple (Quicktime thanks to the iPod, and MS never could copy Quicktime to match its power, iTunes, Mac OS X, ...).

 

Nintendo is actually a very small company compared to Sony and MS. Their power is that they're very skilled in the videogame business. If not, they would have been crushed, as both Sony and MS have far more weight and capacity to support such a huge business. Basically, what happened to Sega.

I see that often, people forget how impressive it is for a small company like Nintendo to compete against two behemoth.

Simply not true. MS has amazing programmers. The reason Vista is a smoking mess is that they have nobody high up who gives a clear direction. And they have no style whatsoever.

But their networking and OS features for the 360 were lightyears ahead of PS3, I am not even talking about the sorry mess that are Wii friend codes.

Besides the basic components of the 360 are top-notch, (ok they come from AMD and IBM) It was released one year before the PS3 and the PS3 has at best a small lead in graphics. They have also the absolute lead when it comes to development tools and great relations with PC developers.

So why am I still no 360 owner?

- Microsoft has no taste ... at all. The old 360 interface looked like hell (who choose the colors?) The concave mess of the exterior looks like a cheap toy.
- Microsoft simply is no consumer electronics producer. The quality and the way the 360 was put together is appalling.
- Sony is simply the far better company when it comes to media capabilities. (BluRay)
- Sony first party developers >> MS first party . God of war 3.
- Besides the PS3 is the better package. You can change the HD, WLAN included, best BluRay player the list goes on.

That doesn't change the fact that MS put together a pretty amazing hardware and software package. If they had also excelled in style and quality it would have been a winner.

Kyros said: As MS has no skill, only their money allow them to put even some kind of competition Simply not true. MS has amazing programmers. The reason Vista is a smoking mess is that they have nobody high up who gives a clear direction. And they have no style whatsoever. But their networking and OS features for the 360 were lightyears ahead of PS3, I am not even talking about the sorry mess that are Wii friend codes. Besides the basic components of the 360 are top-notch, (ok they come from AMD and IBM) It was released one year before the PS3 and the PS3 has at best a small lead in graphics. They have also the absolute lead when it comes to development tools and great relations with PC developers. So why am I still no 360 owner? - Microsoft has no taste ... at all. The old 360 interface looked like hell (who choose the colors?) The concave mess of the exterior looks like a cheap toy. - Microsoft simply is no consumer electronics producer. The quality and the way the 360 was put together is appalling. - Sony is simply the far better company when it comes to media capabilities. (BluRay) - Sony first party developers >> MS first party . God of war 3. - Besides the PS3 is the better package. You can change the HD, WLAN included, best BluRay player the list goes on. That doesn't change the fact that MS put together a pretty amazing hardware and software package. If they had also excelled in style and quality it would have been a winner.

 

    When I think of Microsoft I think of a hapless IT guy.  They look through a catalogue, can pick out the specs and know exactly what they want....but when it comes time to implement they get lost and fast.  You see it in their OSes when they have these grand ambitious ideas but never can quite make it come together (Vista for instance) and in their 360 when they put all these "killer specs" together into a machine that overheats so often it fails nearly half the time.  They wouldn't know cool if it smacked them in the face.

 

   If you want pure comedy you should call the 360 help line.  I had to because they kept billing me for a gold live membership well after I canceled it and its like some kind of SNL parody of a mountain dew commercial.  Some guy yelling about extreme this and awesome that, its unintentionally hilarious like most of the things Microsoft does.  John Hodgemen (PC from the I'm a Mac I'm a PC commercials) really is the perfect actor to represent Microsoft, those commercials are biting satire at its finest.  The latest one where he is posing as a pizza box to try and get college students to like him is classic 360 marketing to me.

Kyros said: As MS has no skill, only their money allow them to put even some kind of competition Simply not true. MS has amazing programmers. The reason Vista is a smoking mess is that they have nobody high up who gives a clear direction. And they have no style whatsoever. But their networking and OS features for the 360 were lightyears ahead of PS3, I am not even talking about the sorry mess that are Wii friend codes. Besides the basic components of the 360 are top-notch, (ok they come from AMD and IBM) It was released one year before the PS3 and the PS3 has at best a small lead in graphics. They have also the absolute lead when it comes to development tools and great relations with PC developers. So why am I still no 360 owner? - Microsoft has no taste ... at all. The old 360 interface looked like hell (who choose the colors?) The concave mess of the exterior looks like a cheap toy. - Microsoft simply is no consumer electronics producer. The quality and the way the 360 was put together is appalling. - Sony is simply the far better company when it comes to media capabilities. (BluRay) - Sony first party developers >> MS first party . God of war 3. - Besides the PS3 is the better package. You can change the HD, WLAN included, best BluRay player the list goes on. That doesn't change the fact that MS put together a pretty amazing hardware and software package. If they had also excelled in style and quality it would have been a winner.

 

Sorry but you didn't disprove any of my point. You cite the reason Vista is a mess, but I'm talking about the reason Vista even exists. Vista, like Windows XP, is an assembly of (inferior) ripoffs from other OS, the most known being Apple OS. Apple OS have been ripped off since the very first Windows anyway.

XB360 networking and OS features sure enough are not lightyears ahead of anything, they're not even advanced or the best ones. They try to expand on Sega's original designs, that's all. Wii friends code are not a mess either. All of these are lies spread by MS shills and viral marketers, and you bought into them, I'm not.

Notice that Wii friend codes seems like a big problem that is constantly brought back to our memory, but it never was a problem on DS.

You never once heard about all the problems of XB360 IHM, the worst one being how slow it is. You never hear about all the problems it has, so that it sounds god like IHM if you'd believe forums.

Understanding why all of this happens is left as an exercise to the reader.

The hardware architecture is very bad too. The Wii is far more advanced than its competitors hardware-wise.

Surely you won't understand why though.

The only thing MS has very good in its console, is the middleware, based on its *gasp* OS expertise. Notice everything MS succeeds in revolves around its OS monopoly. Direct X is what they have experience with, and is the sole reason PC devs say it's easier to dev for. That's because that's the only thing they know how to program for, as Direct X is ubiquitous in PC games.

that would piss off a lot of their fans

They have been much better and are still better than the PS3.
Instant Messaging,
friend lists,
trophies,
ingame friend communication,

Microsoft provided lots of features that were normal in the PC world but were not provided by PS3 and Wii. Nobody cares about Sega's design. The only important thing is what the competition DOES. And here Microsoft had a huge headstart compared to Sony and Nintendo although Sony has closed the gap.




Its a ridiculous concept that needs to be changed. All whitewashing doesn't help there.




OMG you shouldn't smoke what you are smoking. The only thing advanced in the Wii is the motion controlling. The rest is years behind the competition. (Doesn't seem to hurt it though)




Eh yes, if OpenGl wouldn't suck so much compared to DirectX features and tooling, more people might use that. But I am sorry to say DirectX is the much better programming environment for 3D games. You should perhaps accept that Microsoft can do things very well. They have some of the brightest and best programmers. They just have a stupid leadership.

Exactly what I'm saying. None of these features are making the XB360 sell like hot cake, so they are pretty badly implemented features at best, gimmicks unrelated to games at worst. So none of them are light years ahead of anything.

Before having headstart in gimmicks, better have headstart in your core market, or else, it gives the impression that you have no direction, no idea on how to expand your core market.

Very convincing explanation. Let hear mine: it's a perfectly sound concept that doesn't need to be changed as the console is still selling faster than those that don't have these friend codes. All whitewashing doesn't help here.

Again, nearly everything in the Wii is more advanced than what is in the competitors consoles. And again, I didn't expect someone like you to understand that. It's obvious, but some engineering knowledge is necessary for it to become even more obvious.

Lots of ignorant people didn't understand either why the iPod Nano was so much more advanced (and sold for more money while having less value in their eyes) than the iPod classic. This comparison is actually rather accurate, as the iPod classic uses harddrives and is more the niche product now, while the Nano uses Flash memory and is the mainstream one.

You should read what I wrote again. I acknowledge they have experience in this field and so have good programming tools.

And OpenGL is not the same thing as Direct X, like not at all. OpenGL would be more like Direct 3D. Direct X is far more than that. And obviously, more people use OpenGL, as DirectX is pretty much relegated to gaming on MS platforms.

OpenGL is used in your epic movies computer effects or computer animated, in CAD, and all other kind of high end apps.

Perhaps that's because Direct X is not available on Linux.

But most importantly, OpenGL is still used in most consoles, which is why MS had to try and stop that market from eating at its Direct X market share.

halogamer1989 said: Well prices do change opinion and this plus the $199 thing will sway a lot of Christmas shopping parents. Wii would have to reduce to maybe $150 to counter--they can't do that.

I don't think they'll have to do it, but in fact they could and they only place it would hurt them at all would be because of the unfavorable exchange rate here. Also if someone wants to get into a spitting match, Nintendo probably has more cash on hand that they could actually spend. Microsoft may have more money but it has stockholders that are already getting very restless and will not look favorably on sinking any large sum of money into the Xbox at this point.

Then, of course, I hope they jumped an entire generation because they will very soon have to compete with Motion Plus. The company that makes the electronics has said that it is not exclusively for Nintendo, but that they are not in negotiations with anybody else.

I'm not losing any sleep over it for sure.

 

@oozkaze you do know IBM designed most of the boards and chips for all 3 consoles right... the did the work for the cpu gpu and board for N, at ms they did the cpu and most of the board, same for sony. cant argue with you too much about the OS. though apples current os is bassicaly NeXTstep with major revisions, though that was steve jobs company (all praise jobs)

segas os on the reamcast that was MS or dont you remember that, it was MS first attempt to slow sony down.. and if it was not for EA and the exclusion of dvd i think it would have worked.

I actually enjoyed the 360s first interface, thought it was the most clever os implementation they had done, and you could change the colors out of the box dont sell them short becuase you hate a company. friend codes suck. why did the ds not need them? because you were far more likely to use the wireless as a lan set up than wan.

as for a head start in the core gaming market, the controlers have been great (I am a big fan of the duke fits my hands great) the 360 controler felt small at first but button placement was better, online was there from day one, and games have been there constantly what more do you want?

as for opengl/directx... i do enjoy opengl more

@oozakaze, you also really dont understand why the nano is more than the classic, marketing, flash does not cost significantly more than hds if you do not try and match them gig per gig, the classic would still cost more if not for the touches exsistance its in marketing.

next i expect you to tell me that the intel switch was made to keep up with speed of intel computers and not to incress market share (which it has done). powerpc will always be more efficent and faster at lower clock speeds (something intel has actually been pushing recently with tech to imulate power arch)

wii is no more advanced than my original mac mini, and the mini could probably run all the games if i someone would make a emulator for it. as for motion controls... disapointing, though i hold out hope this add on will make it better, gave my wii to my grandparents they seem to enjoy it for wii sports./

the wii is just another way at looking at things, though i do not agree with it. i applaud N for trying it, but it is no technical marval. its yesterdays tech in well marketed and good industrial design