Expanding to the above with regard to gaming:

A newer late 80s 10 Mhz PC with a huge harddrive (added on much later):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRoMkKOpSvM

VS

7 Mhz Amiga with 1985 chipset:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv184NSdO9k

Technically there was no contest, but having many companies market performing marketing vs half assed efforts from just Commodore market performance wasn't good in comparison.

I have a question on this. Given Ballmer recently derided Oracle for buying SUN, stating that MS isn't going to muddy the waters getting into hardware (ignoring the fact that strictly speaking the 360 and Zune, etc are hardware unless I'm missing something), does this post imply that, strictly speaking, MS would prefer not to be responsible for the hardware, but wants to own the software, OS, etc. for home consoles, etc?

In other words, if Sony and Nintendo said, hey MS, why don't you provide the GUI, OS, etc. and we'll use DirectX and other MS standards will you let us provide the consoles would MS prefer that?

I'm not asking out of preference, but many posters seem to be stating that MS reason's for entering was not so much for the HW as the SW aspects and that implies that MS might well prefer a monopoly on OS, etc for consoles rather than supplying the consoles themselves.

Microsoft already offered Sony the software platform of Live + Windows IIRC, Ken turned them down. Which kind looks silly now that Sony is staring massive losses in their SCE business in the face. But I think in general they would let any other console maker use their standards really. It protects their Windows business which is more important to them.

Also I heard rumours that Intel offered to build and design the hardware for the next Xbox so long as it included the Larabee GPU. So maybe that indicates something, maybe not. Oh and I think Toshiba makes the Zune, not Microsoft. Its just a rebrand really.

Thanks.  And what's with the Unreasonable?  I don't know these things and want to know more!  I have to say Sony response seems silly in some ways - surely a combination of dedicated hardware provider and dedicated OS/SW provider would make sense?  I'm a PC gamer lost in the depths of the console world and this is the first I heard MS was more protecting DirectX and other standards than wanting to get into console hardware.

BTW where is your secret read again on why next Xbox might come sooner than thought?  I was planning to give it a read.

Ta.

Its just a joke, sometimes I change the names of people I quote. Hence the Unreasonable tag! I did it to myself as well, see?

Sony was both reasonable and unreasonable. There are many reasons for or against doing what they were doing, like losing full control over part of their platform. I think Microsoft was more protecting Windows from a potential disrupter gaining ground in the living room than the Direct X standard which is a much smaller part of the whole. The dreamcast had Microsofts software inside, which enabled them to offer online before anyone else and develop their games faster, hence part of the reason why they could develop so many games so quickly.

PM sent.

Thanks, Squilliam. Don't worry, knew the name thing was a joke from the tone!

You are doing the same mistake as many developers and publishers did when they looked at PC gaming. Don't think about pirates! Most of them won't buy games, so why are you even watching them?
When EA looked at piracy and then decided to fight piracy, they added DRM real costumers didn't want, and instead of helping it probably hurt their sales. Now after failures, EA now knows what PC gaming is all about and how to be successful on it.

EA and all the other publishers are giving support to PC more than ever, while consoles are losing support: http://kotaku.com/5241554/ea-showed-more-love-to-pc-and-ds-last-year

And how about we take a look at sales why don't we... in 2007 retail sales were only 30% of PC gaming's revenue. Digital Distribution services like Steam and Gamersgate grew 100% last year, China's Online Gaming grew over 75%, etc...

There are reasons why so many analysts think there won't be more than 1 console generation after the one currently.

There are a couple of interesting posts this morning over on one of the Amiga forums in regard to this with MikeB:

t wrote:

"Misinformation and deceiving as a tactics of promotion, didn't we see that from MikeB &Co during the "A1"/amigaworld.net/nazimoderation days some years ago? Yes, history is definitely repeating itself..."

above from: http://moobunny.dreamhosters.com/cgi/mbmessage.pl/amiga/162205.shtml

XraalE wrote:

"Only a matter of time before he signs up with multiple accounts to "support" his own comments. I'm still laughing at the threads uncovered from ancient Moobunny where he was surrounded by maybe a dozen supporters. Then John marked each post with its IP and all the supporters were revealed to magically have the same IP address..."

above from: http://moobunny.dreamhosters.com/cgi/mbmessage.pl/amiga/162208.shtml

LOL!  Oh I'm sure he has a few alts on here, just isn't using them all the time yet.

So, you don't want the PS3 to share the same fate as Amiga.  So you have decided to make yourself a one man mass marketing instrument for Sony, a tireless propaganda machine.