[SoccerDude28]

I guess you weren't part of the civil law suit cobra, where Microsoft has settled a multi-million law suit. For all the people who say that "they care for their customers", the lawsuit is about uncompetitive pricing of MS products. Hardly can call that caring

[insane_cobra]

I didn't say they cared about their customers (though they don't give out false promises as often as Sony does), I just said they had a sweeter public face. All of them are just greedy corporate bastards deep inside, of course.

[EvoG]

Nobody said they thought MS actually cared for their customers on an intimate and personal level, only as Cobra put it, they make it easier to 'bite the pillow' than Sony does.

Again, its about value.

Kick yo own flow...

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Mmph, I'd rather be man raped by Microsoft than be teased and lied to by Sony.











OMG, did I actually say that?

[Jatsie]

Bad Trep! No more Steve Ballmer fantasies!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

[CrimsonBlue]

I just had a thought (shock!). Microsoft's reputation was seriously stumbling, so they needed a way to rebuild it (if they ever had one). And getting into consoles really have seemed to give them some good PR, and people trust in them far more now than ever. They're also acting like they're the "good guys", but they're in reality stepping up on the whole "owning the livingroom" project.

I guess they want 2 for 1. Their whole gaming division has really helped on their reputation. It has also worked very well as a distraction from the PC market. At least how I see it.

I'm not an anti-MS fanboy, I'm just very aware of them, and on the fence. I'm the same way about Sony nowadays, but that doesn't stop me from buying both consoles. I'm looking forward to the PS3, and I doubt I can keep my fingers from it when it arrives in my town. Already have an X360 too, and planning to get a Wii.

[SoccerDude28]

If it was any other company in the world, and they were building a console to compete, I would be 100% behind them. But I have seen much corruption and manipulatiion and the worst form of capitalism and monopoly from Microsoft, with various lies and ati-healthy un-competitive behavior from them, and I just don't want them to kill any competition left in the gaming market.

The only reason why Microsoft is building quality into their console market (which I admit is the case and why I bought their console), is because of Sony's competition. If there was only MS out there, the incentive to produce at the same high quality will vanish.

[Litrick]

Originally Posted by bigjko

Litrick, I don't want to sound like I'm defending the Wii. Sure, I want a Wii more than a PS3. But the PS3 is bound to get my attention at some point. So.. this is more of an observation of your post, if you'd like.

But your summarization of the Metacritic pages is very selective. You mention that non-excluives fair worse on the Wii, yet fail to mention that Madden '07 gets a better score on the Wii, despite the poor graphics, because of the superior control scheme.

Then, there are more games, which basically just means more crappy third-party titles, on the Wii than on the PS3. Yes, it's not a big difference, but neither is the difference in amount of badly scored titles between the two.

Third, take a look at each game's individual page on Metacritics. Notice the difference in numbers of reviews on each game? Zelda (49 reviews), Resistance (37 reviews); Wii Sports (38 reviews), Tony Hawk's Project 8 (23 reviews). It's easier to keep a steady score when you're being reviewed by fewer sites/magazines.

Why am I posting this? Just to make sure that everyone understands that Metacritic scores don't mean shit. And neither does summarizing Metacritic scores, which are already a summarization of other scores..

And finally, when they say that Sony's got bad press, it doesn't mean that people hate the PS3. People love the PS3. It sold out on launch day. Resistance is awesome. There's no negative press for PS3. No more than there is for Wii, anyway. Just because Sony occasionally shits down its pants (as Nintendo has done, oh so many times) doesn't mean their console isn't drop-dead fabulous and popular.

Yep, out of the 4 non exclusive titles 1 was rated better (but only by a tiny margin) and this is purely to do with controls, which surely has to do with novelty at this point?
The other three the novelty of the controls could not make up for the shortcomings created by the slow hardware, and most reviewers were highly dissapointed the wii games look worse than original xbox titles, while the controls were iffy, and the games jerky. So one out of 4 is not really a good start.

You are right there are more games for wii, but if you look at the ammount of titless which are actually decent, there are about the same or slightly more on ps3 currrently. Quality over quantity i say. But i am not trying to bag the wii, i am just pointing out the launch titles for ps3 or not as terrible as everyone thinks, and for the systtem to be going up against 2nd generation xbox 360 titles it is actually holding its own.

As you say there is still a huge amount of people who love the playstation and will be buying, but i think articles like time magazines "from buzz to bust" saying "the launch titles are lame, anything that loses to a wii is pathetic" or whatever were the xact words, are unjustified.

[undeaf]

Originally Posted by CrimsonBlue

I just had a thought (shock!). Microsoft's reputation was seriously stumbling, so they needed a way to rebuild it (if they ever had one). And getting into consoles really have seemed to give them some good PR, and people trust in them far more now than ever.

Good PR with the average consumer? I don't think it's like that exactly, rather, with the xbox, microsoft bought themselves an army of fanboys. That's probably what enabled them to launch the zune, while almost everyone thinks the ipod is much better, they can count on the x-schmucks to flame those people and promote it at the top of their lungs, even if they don't buy it.

[CrimsonBlue]

Originally Posted by SoccerDude28

If it was any other company in the world, and they were building a console to compete, I would be 100% behind them. But I have seen much corruption and manipulatiion and the worst form of capitalism and monopoly from Microsoft, with various lies and ati-healthy un-competitive behavior from them, and I just don't want them to kill any competition left in the gaming market.

The only reason why Microsoft is building quality into their console market (which I admit is the case and why I bought their console), is because of Sony's competition. If there was only MS out there, the incentive to produce at the same high quality will vanish.

I also have a feeling they're buying their way into companies to make sure there are less exclusives for the PS3. But instead of making the games exclusive to their console, they make sure it comes out on both, which again hides the fact that they've paid a lot of dough to make that happen and don't make them look as bad. VF5 has just been confirmed to come out on the Xbox 360 a couple of months (or weeks, memory fails me) after the PS3 version comes out. And there's a rumour that MGS4 might come to the X360 too. Of course, I think they should've used the money on supporting fabulous developers like the company that makes/made the Oddworld series, not to mention Double Fine. They should've made sure they were Xbox exclusives, but cut the bond with both of these companies.

[undeaf]

Originally Posted by MdaG

The only gripe I have with Sony is that they seem like an evil company which would like nothing more than to rule the world and step on the inhabitants...

Originally Posted by CrimsonBlue

Sounds like Microsoft for 20 years.

There's a huge difference between the two, sony is basically just a regular company, they produce all sorts of ordinairy things, things which are made by many other companies, they compete on many level playing fields. Microsoft is not like that at all, they stick to a limited number of markets which they have a stranglehold over or at least have a fairly good chance of one day getting a stranglehold over. They almost act not like a corporation but more like a goverment.

[CrimsonBlue]

Originally Posted by undeaf

There's a huge difference between the two, sony is basically just a regular company, they produce all sorts of ordinairy things, things which are made by many other companies, they compete on many level playing fields. Microsoft is not like that at all, they stick to a limited number of markets which they have a stranglehold over or at least have a fairly good chance of one day getting a stranglehold over. They almost act not like a corporation but more like a goverment.

I assume you don't think this puts Microsoft in a better light than Sony?

[undeaf]

Like a dictatorial government.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by SoccerDude28

If it was any other company in the world, and they were building a console to compete, I would be 100% behind them. But I have seen much corruption and manipulatiion and the worst form of capitalism and monopoly from Microsoft, with various lies and ati-healthy un-competitive behavior from them, and I just don't want them to kill any competition left in the gaming market.

The only reason why Microsoft is building quality into their console market (which I admit is the case and why I bought their console), is because of Sony's competition. If there was only MS out there, the incentive to produce at the same high quality will vanish.

I agree, having Microsoft singlehandedly rule the gaming world wouldn't be good for anyone, just as it wouldn't be good if Sony or Nintendo did the same thing (imagine if we didn't have an alternative to buying a PS3, with all those price-inflating features Sony assures us we need).

But I don't think Microsoft is into annihilating all their competition in this sector (which they could've easily done already, given their cash reserves), I believe they've been burned once and learned their lesson, at least to some extent. They need competition to keep the eyes of the Antitrust Division off of them. Remember how they helped Apple pull themselves out of the gutter with that financial injection of, what was it, 150 million dollars? They didn't do it out of love, they did it out of necessity. If Sony or Nintendo are to go down, I bet we'd see a similar partnership emerge.

[Solid Snake]

Competition is always good.

[Spiwak]

Originally Posted by SoccerDude28

The only reason why Microsoft is building quality into their console market (which I admit is the case and why I bought their console), is because of Sony's competition. If there was only MS out there, the incentive to produce at the same high quality will vanish.

Duh. That's why any company makes anything of good quality in a capitalist economy. You think Nintendo is going out of their way to bring some innovation into their games (i.e., make them different from Sony's or Microsoft's) just for the fun of it?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Yes, Spiwak. How is what Microsoft doing any different from what ANY OTHER corporation is doing to compete and survive in their given market? Soccsie, you seem to be merely taking pot shots here.

[SoccerDude28]

Originally Posted by Spiwak

Duh. That's why any company makes anything of good quality in a capitalist economy. You think Nintendo is going out of their way to bring some innovation into their games (i.e., make them different from Sony's or Microsoft's) just for the fun of it?

Which is exactly why it is retarded to want Sony out of the console race. That's what all these MS cheerleaders are asking for.

[SoccerDude28]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Yes, Spiwak. How is what Microsoft doing any different from what ANY OTHER corporation is doing to compete and survive in their given market? Soccsie, you seem to be merely taking pot shots here.

Sony doesn't have the same history of un-competitive behavior that Microsoft has. They are not a monopoly in any single domain as Microsoft. Microsoft is infamous for sneaking into a new market with their infinite supply of money, killing the competition, and then monopolizing the market and moving on to the next. Like the scourge in Warcraft. The government really needs to divide this company up for any software company in the future to stand a chance.

Edit: (from wikipedia)
Microsoft has been convicted of monopolistic business practices — the U.S. Justice Department, among others, has sued Microsoft for antitrust violations and software bundling.[18] The slogan "embrace, extend, and extinguish" is often used to describe Microsoft's strategy for entering product categories involving widely-used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.[19]