I have owned nearly every single major gaming systems since the 80's. Its ironic that my favorite system of all time is the xbox 360 and it comes from a company who doesn't care about gaming. :)

So the fact that MikeB owns a computing company named Fun Computing, and is in talks with Sony on the possibility of puting the AmigaOS 4.x on PS3 hardware, with which would make his company quite a good profit, has nothing to do with it?

If that is the case, I pity him even more in all his stealth trolling and misinformation schemes.

How about a newer link?

http://www.edge-online.com/news/ea-pc-becoming-worlds-largest-games-platform

 why don't you take a look at sales... with the exception of exceptional games and low end games things tend to be pirated at a high rate.

Well, I'm not saying that the two are unrelated, of course; just that it's not a cause-effect relationship.  I think it's more likely that since he is an Amiga worshiper and PS3 fanboy, he would naturally try to unite his two loves if possible:  thus the talks with Sony.  I think he would be on here saying more or less the same things regardless of whether his business stood to profit from Sony's performance.  Because he's a fanboy boosting his chosen idol(s), not because he's a businessman boosting his business partner. 

All this is IMO of course, since I'm not peeking inside his mind.  In fact, I think you know more about him than I do, but I still have that opinion.

A fanboy is already likely to distort facts, spin data and sometimes outright lie in order to paint their plastic box of choice in always the best possible light.  A fanboy with a vested business interest is even MORE likely to do so and in fact will probably never do anything but.

To expand on the above, I've seen (a while back when I was in several threads with him) how he has a tendency to relate anything good to being 'like the Amiga' in some way. I really think the best explanation of that is that he has some kind of Amiga fetish, rather than trolling for profit. The PS3 connection is more arguable, but I suspect the same mentality.

That mentality: Amiga and PS3 are each some sort of heaven-sent device that is a technical masterpiece, ahead of its time, but died through no fault of its own / is being marginalized through no fault of its own. Any attack on (or criticism of) these (from a technological standpoint) will be regarded as misguided at best and, at worst, jealous hatred, because there is nothing about them that was not the best available choice.

@ Final-Fan

I understand your perspective and to a large degree you are correct. Yes, I consider the original Amiga a masterpiece of its time, it deserved mass marketing.

People were uneducated about the advantages of a 4096 color pre-emptive multi-tasking computer system with a GUI and stereo sound vs a beeping single tasking MSDOS computer systems with up to only 16 colors max at the time.

It was very handy being able to drag and drop between applications, drawing a pie chart and import this into a graphically competent word processor or spreadsheet.

It was a really fun and powerful to use system compared to single-tasking monochrome soundless Macs or beeping PCs of the 80s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMI6pRu-1A (1985 demo by Andy Warhol)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-JFJ8Hjo_g (A 3.5 inch diskette based scene demo, showing off the capabilities the 1985 OCS chipset)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4820101209424129794 (a demo of multi-tasking)

I performed my first video editing without much effort on the Amiga in the 80s, something unthinkable to perform on other systems. To me the Amiga represents an icon of far ahead for its time technology, a true marvel of its time. It took a very long time for Apple and Microsoft to mimic its standard features and still today there are aspects of the system I would like to see implemented into modern systems of today.

To quote the former Apple computer head of development from the time:

"When the Amiga came out, everyone [at Apple] was scared as hell."

Today despite some nostalgia the Amiga represents more something of an iconic nature for me. Don't underestimate what can be achieved against all odds with enough dedication and enthusiasm. Hence my avatar.

This is the reality of modern technology. The mobile is the most threatening example of multi purpose technology around and Apple know this all too well.

Look at whats happening to tvs, theyre getting built in hard drives and pvr's in addition to internet access. Look at mobile phones, internet, cameras, video, etc.

Look at all the latest downloadable everything products, cloud software, gaming, etc. Smaller laptops, your not going to need big memory if its all online for you.

All this stuff is a threat to somebody. MS along Sony or Nintendo are being threatened by this new wave of multi function everything.

Remember that Nokia is now the largest manufacturer of camera's in the world.

I believe the first sign of what is happening occurred, not when MS got into gaming but, when Apple decided to make phones. They crossed over into virgin (arguably bcoz of the lack of user friendly aps on high end mobiles) territory and have been slowly converting their ipod customers into Apple software, gaming and hardware users.

I have no conclusion but i do think all 3 console makers, along with many other companies, are going to be surprised by competition which they didn't expect.

If MS think they can control the web like they control hard drives and op software dvds, well we already know, that's quite ignorant of them.

Watch Google too, in under a decade they got mobile phones, camera's, cloud software, youtube (television basically) and many other technologies off the ground. They could easily surpass MS in another decade.