An Xbox in every home?

[jetset]

What's wrong with the XBox's controller??????

[chrisbid]

its too thick and the button placements are poor. Even the "improved" S controller suffers from these problems (the white/black button placement on the S is horrible)

[raindog]

Microsoft certainly does have a shot at becoming the [videogame, set top box, personal video recorder] market leader, it does have to do with the X-Box, and it would absolutely not be possible without their PC software monopoly.

 

Tivo, the closest thing to a newcomer in any of those businesses, has been on shaky ground for the last few years because they'd lose $3 million here, $2 million there..... Microsoft lost $350 MILLION on the X-Box over the Christmas shopping season in 2002, i.e. the strongest period of the year for videogame sales. If they weren't making the tremendous profits they were in their operating system and "knowledge worker" (MS Office) divisions, the X-Box would simply have sunk them. It is a textbook example of how to use one monopoly to fund a venture into another market, and it's only legal until you actually do significant damage to your competition. (In this case that would be Nintendo, since Sony has other fish to fry.)

 

They don't dare push the X-Box too hard in Japan because if they did, and were successful, they know that both Sony and Nintendo would be able to carry off a successful lawsuit against them. Selling a product at a loss in order to kill off a country's native competitors is called "dumping" and is against every trade agreement in the world. The Tramiels briefly entertained filing such a suit against Sega and Nintendo before throwing in the towel with the Lynx and Jaguar, as I recall.

 

Truth be told, Microsoft's own 10-Q and 10-K filings may be damning enough combined with the (toothless, but still in effect) second antitrust judgment against them that if the X-Box even achieved a majority share in the US, they'd be open to a third antitrust action.

 

I actually suspect that when they were making deals with Sega back when the Dreamcast came out (all these games were going to be developed using Windows CE, Sega games were getting produced for Windows, etc.) they were actually trying to do what they'd done with IBM and the PC back in 1981, except this time they picked the wrong horse and decided to start over with their own, namely the x86.

 

For a slice of life in Microsoft's books, see http://www.itworld.com/App/4201/030203xbox...es/pfindex.html - or the previous quarter at http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/hn/x...out.xml?s=IDGNS where it was much the same story.

[Paralistalon]

Microsoft can buy as many game developers as they want, but they can never buy Nintendo.

 

If they one day DID buy all the game developers, then I'd be like "Okay I don't have to worry about missing out on a game because it's on another system." Plus, they would all have online capabilities. On the downside, my head would explode because there would be too many games and not enough money or time.

 

It's not the XBox I don't like, it's the XBox's software. Software MAKES a console, especially in today's world where hardware specs are no longer an issue.

 

[edit]

The deal with Halo was that you could play with 16 players... SIMELTANEOUSLY!!

 

To defend Bill Gates a little, I hear that he has donated tons of money to aid charities and build schools.

[Mustangarrett]

I believe him and his wife still hold the record