As far as Windows 7 is concerned, I'm glad they finally made a decent operating system. I don't think if it was for the competition from Apple, Google, and the Linux providers, they wouldn't have done it. Other companies were ready to take their market share when Vista wasn't exactly the best OS out there. Using Windows 7, and it's finally what Windows should have been the whole time.

For Xbox - Not so much. The main thing I'm glad they did was get Sony back on their toes again when they got lazy at launch of the PS3. I don't think we would have had a great first party from Sony this gen. I don't care for Halo or Gears too much, and as a jRPG fan - I feel a bit screwed over. I bought the thing to play some exclusive jRPGs, which in the end didn't turn out to be exclusive. Their main 2nd party appears to have been dropped from their roster when Cry On was cancelled. I was really looking forward to that game. Right now, the Xbox 360 seems to be the system that my PS3 and PC can do everything.

No matter how arrogant Sony was at the beginning by what PR people said, knowingly putting a defective product and deciding to fix it later is not exactly cool with me.

While M$ is not a perfect company. not by a long shot. They definatly have my respect and business. Their products (while not always the most reliable (think Vista and RROD) they are well supported and are easy to use. Their other products such as the 360 as a whole and windows 7 (yes it is amazing) and Microsoft Office are great. Overall M$ will continue to earn my money if they continue to release great products with great games and support behind them

No they don't have my respect. They may have done some things that I like (namely the Age of Empires series, Office and some of their OS') but on the whole many of their business practices are illegal and anti-competitive and when they get called up on it they just drag out the legal proceedings until the other company goes bust. When they do finally get punished, the punishment is barely a dent in their mass fortunes. They abuse their monopoly position in every way they can and they ARE a monopoly (>50% market share = monopoly).

Solely in terms of gaming I find it shocking that they've managed to convince millions to pay ridiculous amounts for heavily overpriced accesseries, pay a subscription to PLAY online when in the past and present it's free, released shoddy hardware with only a 3 month warranty and then convinced everyone that they're benevolent when they extended the warranty to 3 yrs due to potential legal action and finally getting rid of top developers that have been sucessfully making games for the company for many years. As much as I enjoy the games published by Microsoft, I'm shocked so many 360 gamers have convinced themselves that these are good things. MS must be laughing at the customers all the way to the bank whilst singing "Thank You Halo!".

Oh, and I don't realy respect Sony or Nintendo either, but I think MS as a company are the least deserving of my respect.

I respect good games. Microsoft screwed me over too much so w/e. Thanks for the red ring, bad service getting a console that kept freezing so had to send it in a 2nd time, HD-Player died(my problem but still)charging me for updates and gold membership. Thanks for "trying" to kill PC gaming, but never will. You gave me Halo 3 and Gears of War 2 as exclusives, that's about it.

Thanks for Windows 7 it's awesome.

i really don't understand what you mean. judging by your profile pic and system of choice, i probably made you mad which was not my intention. just stating my opinion

By large population, he means Sony fanboys. Don't mind him though. You're free to state your opinion.

If Microsoft were an Iranian company from the beginning they never would have had any market share in most Western nations for security reasons in the first place.  And because of that they never would have gotten as large as the Microsoft of reality.  This fantasy Iranian Microsoft would hardly be worth bombing.

Microsoft has a long history now.  They are a huge company.  Can someone list a bunch of instances where they acted in a way that is distasteful to most?  Of course.  To say "many if not most of their business decisions" related to their growth as a firm were illegal is pretty silly in regard to the "most" jab.  We are talking about, at a minimum many thousands of decisions over the years. and "most" were probably illegal?  Please.

The reality is Microsoft became what it is today via a large number of factors.  Some of which include both hard work and luck.  Some of which include them being ruthless businessmen (using the term very loosely) at other times.  Its easy to hate #1, its even easier to gloss over the fact that a lot of large corporations do the same or worse all the time.  Anyone that thinks Steve Jobs is any less ruthless than Steve Ballmer is probably fooling themselves.

What I find more disturbing though is the complacency of the average consumer, both home and corporate.  I agree that Microsoft have slowed technological advance, but where are the masses demanding something truly better?  IT Managers get Exchange because its "safe" as a corporate decision.  The same with Office and Windows.  Sad to say, it takes real balls to wave Sun's whitepaper about switching your firm to open source Open Office. 

yeah they have earned my respect

Yeah, they have done a lot this gen to make me really like their console.

I really didn't like the Xbox and I wasn't even sold on the 360 until about a year after it released.

But:

• By far the best online experience, so much so that I don't even mind paying for it and I'm pretty cheap
• Achievements were a fantastic idea and still remain my favorite achievement type thing to this day
• Leaderboards
• The way everything is just integrated
• Improved their controller very much
• While the RRoD sucks, they have taken great responsibility for it.
• Great game library
• I love XBLA
• Even though I don't buy console for things besides games, they've worked hard to make me want to use that other stuff

They have mine for providing me a computer (even though they're crap compared to macs). But as a gaming company, no. Why would I support a company that forsaked the original xbox and rushed the xbox 360 with bad hardware for the sake gaining market share?

I have no problem with the xbox brand. But I have a problem with their sheer arrogance in this generation.