Hey! Its a iconic! Its shows how much M$ money propeled them into the gaming market!
When Sony released the PSX, no one believed it would be the success it was. Even Sony was surprised. MS wasnt interested in the console market, it had the PCs locked down with its monopoly.
Then it came the PS2. It destroyed Sega, Nintendo had no chance. Its was looking like Sony may have a chance to put that wanna be media box in most househoods in the world.
That made M$ be preocupied. It would become the media centre MS wanted the PC to be. It was robbing the games from the PCs (M$ main console!!!). It was time! To take the battle to Sony, and make a better, more powerfull and big console of its time!
We received the Xbox, a PC turned into video game console. An atempt to poster, even deny, Sony's rule of the enterteinment room of US homes. It failed. It costed Billions to M$, but something was achieved (!!!): they created a fan base. One of ex Sega fans (speculating...) that wouldnt buy Sony or Nintendo because of past fanboys biases and hatred for the company that put Sega out of its misery.
When Sony's domination was complete, they killed the Xbox, rushed into the next gen with a faulty/horrible designed Xbox360, wishing to offset teh much anticipated PS3. It worked. Well, it worked well enough.
M$ is simbolic because MS's $ is what kept them into the gaming market after the huge losses of the original Xbox. MS's $ is what let X360 come first into the next gen. MS's $ is what brough so many exclusives into it. MS's $ is what let them sell so cheap around the world.
So M$ is fair.
PS - wrote this because its fun...and Im bored. A try to use this thing ($) as less as possible.
