Topic: Microsoft showing their true colors once again.

[Chozo Ghost]

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Originally posted by: MJRx9000
If MS were Nintendo, they'd be trying to get a GTA1 remake with exclusive content, and it would take two years to develop and just before release Rockstar would announce the "exclusive" content would go multiplatform.

Fixed.

[Deguello]

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Originally posted by: Ian Sane
MS sucks but remember that all three console makers are deep down completely dicks and that includes Nintendo.  We don't want any of them to get too powerful because all three have a history of f*cking everyone they can once they think they can get away with it.

Ian, I hate to do this, to derail the thread, but you've made a logical mobius strip here.  What're you saying here?  It's good that Nintendo screws up, because it keeps balance?  So then why do you bitch when that happens?  Are you trying to equivocate what MS is doing now to what Nintendo did 20 years ago?  I mean if I were to break into your house and steal your stuff, would that be okay because 14 years ago, you kicked a dog?  Does that make sense to you?  Are you claiming that competition and market balance stops market abuse?  There's competition now, and market balance too, and hey, look, market abuse.  I mean what're you saying here?

And, allow me to formally, logically argue a disturbing truth.

We all know you are a fan of Nintendo circa 1995, is "the good ol' days of Yoshi's Island and third parties." (Let this be statement A: Ian is a fan of Nintendo during this time period.)
We also know that period was when Nintendo was being less than welcoming to third parties and the "screwups" you talk about. (Statement B: This time period is Nintendo's "screwup" period.)
You believe that Nintendo's screwups are a good thing, because they ensure Nintendo does not get too powerful. (Statement C: Screwups are a good thing.)

If you are a fan of a A -> Then you are a fan of B (because A :: B)
If you are a Fan of B -> Then you are a fan of C.
Therefore, Through the law of Hypothetical Syllogism, If you are a fan of A -> You are a fan of C

In other words, you are a fan of Nintendo's screwups.  Enjoy!  

[Chozo Ghost]

I think Nintendo has paid their Karma debt from the NES and SNES years by now (and then some). Haven't they suffered enough? Now it is time for Sony to pay for their misdeeds over the last two generations. If MS is going to hemorrhage money all over the place in boondoggles, then maybe they'll be getting theirs from the computer market as well.

I would like to think Nintendo's slate is clean now, and hopefully they've learned their lesson and will never repeat those mistakes again.

[Adrock]

I have to hand it to Take-Two. They just got away with a major payday for what will amount to significantly less work than creating an entirely new game.

And the funniest part about this is that if Take Two really does plan to make "working with Nintendo a priority" they'll be spending some of that $50 million making games for Wii. In a way, Nintendo could potentially come out on top in this deal by doing absolutely nothing and having absolutely no involvement in it.  

[denjet78]

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Originally posted by: Adrock
I have to hand it to Take-Two. They just got away with a major payday for what will amount to significantly less work than creating an entirely new game.

And the funniest part about this is that if Take Two really does plan to make "working with Nintendo a priority" they'll be spending some of that $50 million making games for Wii. In a way, Nintendo could potentially come out on top in this deal by doing absolutely nothing and having absolutely no involvement in it.

That would be hilarious... But this still sets and incredibly bad precedent. If it ever does come down to a money war, there is absolutely no way in hell Nintendo could ever compete. What's worse is now that this deal is out there and known how will other developers react? Are we about to see a generation where developers withhold game content in order to auction it off to the highest bidder?

Considering the obscene amount of money involved in this deal I wouldn't doubt other developers taking the stance that big name games deserve a certain down payment from console makers.

This industry is about to get really, really ugly.

[SixthAngel]

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Originally posted by: denjet78

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Originally posted by: Adrock
I have to hand it to Take-Two. They just got away with a major payday for what will amount to significantly less work than creating an entirely new game.

And the funniest part about this is that if Take Two really does plan to make "working with Nintendo a priority" they'll be spending some of that $50 million making games for Wii. In a way, Nintendo could potentially come out on top in this deal by doing absolutely nothing and having absolutely no involvement in it.

That would be hilarious... But this still sets and incredibly bad precedent. If it ever does come down to a money war, there is absolutely no way in hell Nintendo could ever compete. What's worse is now that this deal is out there and known how will other developers react? Are we about to see a generation where developers withhold game content in order to auction it off to the highest bidder?

Considering the obscene amount of money involved in this deal I wouldn't doubt other developers taking the stance that big name games deserve a certain down payment from console makers.

This industry is about to get really, really ugly.

Companies can only throw out so many money hats, even ms.  They are already bleeding money and paying third parties like this simply won't get them into the profitability they finally hope to enter and have to at some point.

Doesn't anyone else see this as ms setting an awful precedent for themselves.  The next time they want to throw money at a developer for exclusiveness or more downloaded content of a big game they will remember how far ms is willing to go.  If it takes this much money to simply get extra levels imagine how much companies will charge them for full exclusiveness.  This makes me think that ms is paying a ridiculous amount of money for the few jrpgs and japanese exclusives they are getting.  These aren't just exclusive, but exclusive on a system where they are destined to fail.  Some even have high profile names involved that have to be rolling in hats of money.  They are probably bleeding more money then we ever thought and are actually hiding some of it well.

[Shecky]

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Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix
::shakes head in disgust:: You guys sound like whiney babies in regards to MS. It seems whenever a company gets big everyone hates them, but whatever, I find Vista to be a solid Operating system and respect MS for not only their products but their employee culture.

Curious... how many operating systems have you actively tried?

[Ceric]

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Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix
::shakes head in disgust:: You guys sound like whiney babies in regards to MS. It seems whenever a company gets big everyone hates them, but whatever, I find Vista to be a solid Operating system and respect MS for not only their products but their employee culture.

I love you.

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Originally posted by: ShyGuy
I've been battling Microsoft since the OS/2 wars.

NEVAH FOGHAT

Yeah that was sort of wrong.

Shecky: Before you ask, I'm going to count the four major revisions of windows (3.x,9X,NT,Vista), so there is 4, can I count DOS?  That makes 5, are we doing Linux by Distro or just Linux and are we separating variations like BSD and OSX?  Lets assume yes.  Thats another 3 there so we are up to 8.  BeOS, 9.  Now I want to try Plan9, the IBM OS which for the life of me I can't think of its name, and I haven't used Solaris enough to count.  Also the OS that Tandy's use to run on, 10.  Mac Classic, 11.  I think that would be it.  So there 11 Operating systems.  Out of those my favorites so far are Vista and Linux.  Though I may enjoy a well setup Linux box I'm not to big into the setup part and like.

Edit:  Actually are we counting the Server OS's seperately?  If that they case then add another 1 for Server 2003 and variations so that make 12. (Server 2003 SBS, Regular, and Embedded.)

[ShyGuy]

Mac Classic is an OS confirmed.

Tandy's ran on DOS. Deskmate was a GUI.

[Ian Sane]

"You believe that Nintendo's screwups are a good thing, because they ensure Nintendo does not get too powerful."

I don't think their screwups are a good thing.  I like them the most of the three console makers so I want them to do the best.  But I think it's good that there is some parity.  I like SNES Nintendo the best and the 16 bit era was when the competition was the closest.  As a result Sega and Nintendo kept each other on their toes and everyone benefited regardless of what console they owned.  This is preferable to pretty much every other generation where one console maker dominated and unless you owned that console your options were very limited.  Ninendo as number one with a strong competitor keeping them from abusing their power is good.  Nintendo in last place where literally a month can go by with no new games released at all is bad.  And the parity doesn't have to come from Nintendo screwing up.  I prefer it if they and their top competitor get where they are by being competent instead of just screwing up less than the other guy.

Look at it like sports.  Do I want my team to have a winning record, consistently make the playoffs and win some championships?  Yes.  Do I want them to be so dominant that they sign all the good players in the league so that every game is a boring squash while at the same time jacking up the price for tickets, blacking out home games that don't sell out and moving half of their season to PPV?  No.

[Ceric]

Ok then I'm down to 11.  On the Mac Classic one, I just can't think of the name of it.  This was back in the early 90's for that one.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix
::shakes head in disgust:: You guys sound like whiney babies in regards to MS. It seems whenever a company gets big everyone hates them, but whatever, I find Vista to be a solid Operating system and respect MS for not only their products but their employee culture.

Yes, Vista is so solid that MS is doing people a favor by forcing them to use it.

[oohhboy]

50 Million for "Content", sounds like MS got ripped off again. Nintendo took them to the cleaners with Rare now this? Is Sony going to rip them off too?

Spending 50 Million on content maybe "impressive" and all hardcore and all. But seriously, there are so many better ways to spend that same money to maximize a lot more returns. This is so stupid, it barely makes any sense. There as to be some hidden agenda, something else that money to paying for as on face value, this is incredibly shallow thinking.

If MS became the dominating force in game, I would rather go out and work than game. Go get really fit or something.

Mac classic is just MacOS X.X.X. Early 90's means MacOS 6/7. Later came 8 and 9. 8 was a real dog, it blew chunks. MacOS X is another story. I am on a year 2000 machine (It probably older since I did get it second hand) at 450Mhz and it still runs great. There is a slight speed hit from 9.x.x. to X, but it works out to only about 10% at most, but I get back a lot more in return. The thing is solid as a rock.

Vista does have that 3D sliding window thing, but I got exposé. I am function key away from seeing all windows or the desktop and it doesn't require DX10 stuff.

[Ceric]

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Originally posted by: Smash_Brother

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Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix
::shakes head in disgust:: You guys sound like whiney babies in regards to MS. It seems whenever a company gets big everyone hates them, but whatever, I find Vista to be a solid Operating system and respect MS for not only their products but their employee culture.

Yes, Vista is so solid that MS is doing people a favor by forcing them to use it.

Last I checked I could still get XP and 2000 for that matter.  Also if you happen to know someone who has an MSDN membership you can easily get every version from 95 to Vista 64 with the Itanium and weirder variations.  Lets face it 4 years from know I'm fairly sure Apple would have dropped full support for 10.4.  Thats just how software is.  It doesn't make fiscal sense to support everything forever.

Anyway, *waves hands*, 50 Million may seem like a rip off but its a marketing tactic that has been going on for a long time.  Sort of like how Toy'R'Us always seems to get a special version of x toy, like the Super Princess Peach pink Wiimote gloves.

Also thanks oohhboy.  My memory is not what it should be.

[UltimatePartyBear]

The real story isn't quite as stupid-sounding.  This money is an advance payment.  It comes out of the revenue Take-Two would normally expect to get from sales of the downloadable content.  It's still an oversized moneyhat, but it's not as if Microsoft doesn't expect to get the money back at all.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"I am function key away from seeing all windows or the desktop and it doesn't require DX10 stuff."

``Window Key + D`` does the trick just fine.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: Ceric
Last I checked I could still get XP and 2000 for that matter.  Also if you happen to know someone who has an MSDN membership you can easily get every version from 95 to Vista 64 with the Itanium and weirder variations.  Lets face it 4 years from know I'm fairly sure Apple would have dropped full support for 10.4.  Thats just how software is.  It doesn't make fiscal sense to support everything forever.

I'm not talking about "supporting everything forever", though the G4 I have running OS 10.3 still works just fine years later on the precipice of 10.5.

I'm talking about pushing their games out for DirectX10 when there's no logical reason to do so, from the standpoint of a developer or a consumer. Next comes the new MS office which won't support XP anymore.

Vista is a bloated, memory-sucking resource hog, designed to look as much like OSX as possible, just without the stability or security.

[denjet78]

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Originally posted by: SixthAngel
Companies can only throw out so many money hats, even ms.  They are already bleeding money and paying third parties like this simply won't get them into the profitability they finally hope to enter and have to at some point.

Considering MS has been bleeding money for... what's it been 6, 7 years now and that hasn't slowed them one bit I don't think we've hit anywhere near the bottom of the money hat barrel for them.

I think MS is terrified that Sony is going to get a big enough foothold in the living room that they're going to end up relegated to a nitch high tech market. I'm pretty sure they'd do anything in order to keep that from happening, even if they have to nearly destroy themselves in the process.

They blew something like 5 or 6 BILLION just to edge out Nintendo last generation and then still came back for more. They're in this for the hard fight no matter how much it costs them.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

That's fine.

They're a fine melting pot of embarrassment.

[Smash_Brother]

I think they've said that, if Sony withdrew from the market, they would too.

After all, the Xbox project has done nothing but cost them piles of money. Why would they stick with it if they had no competition to fear?

[Ceric]

lol, S_B.  Anyway if you want to complain about DX10 then you need to complain about every console change through history.  How dare they make me upgrade to play Elebits, I should be able to play it on my Gamecube.  In the end though the market that really cares about DX10 are your cutting edge machine type people anyway.  Not everything can be back ported hence why we get new OS's.  I really doubt that anything prior to 10.5 will be able to be retrofitted with Shado... I mean Time Machine is it, or ZFS (Which I hear is really excellent.  I'm hoping to have a chance to play with a Raid unit that has it one there).  Its how things technology evolves.  Innovate, standardize, or die.

[denjet78]

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Originally posted by: PartyBear
The real story isn't quite as stupid-sounding.  This money is an advance payment.  It comes out of the revenue Take-Two would normally expect to get from sales of the downloadable content.  It's still an oversized moneyhat, but it's not as if Microsoft doesn't expect to get the money back at all.

Actually, that article makes it sound even worse.

Comparing it to a publishing advance it beyond idiotic. No publisher in the world would give a writer that size of an advance unless they were absolutely certain that they were going to be making that money back a hundred fold. And what's worse is that this content won't even be available to half their existing market.

[couchmonkey]

Well, the possibility that MS gets some money back if the downloads don't meet expectations makes it a safe deal financially, but it's still pretty cutthroat.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: Ceric How dare they make me upgrade to play Elebits, I should be able to play it on my Gamecube.

Except that Elebits is on the Wii because it could not be done with standard GC technology: the Wiimote was necessary for the premise of the game to work.

Console manufacturers do everything they can to attempt to justify their next round of upgrades. Sony and MS both rant about how the new graphical prowess allows them to have bigger, more epic games with more effects and better AI, hence at least making an argument for upgrading. Nintendo has, obviously, the most compelling argument of all.

There is no compelling, functional reason to adopt Vista, and the PC community has seen a wide-scale outcry stating just that. It uses more resources and answers no problems with the current OS issues, but none of that will stop MS from standardizing it by literally forcing people to adopt it through making office and other key apps Vista-only.

[Chozo Ghost]

The Xbox (and its sequel, the 360) are Bill Gates' answer to the Spruce Goose.

He didn't want to be outdone by Howard Hughes as the most eccentric billionaire funding an enormous boondoggle.