Comments on: The End of the Road for XBox, Zune, No New Products

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:41:08 +0000

Didn't they just buy those products? "Usually Microsoft doesn't develop products, we buy products. It's not a bad product, but bits and pieces are missing."

--Arno Edelmann, Microsoft's European business security product manager

By: David Gerard

David Gerard — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:36:10 +0000

The Zune had okay hardware too, for the price (modulo that date bug in the reference Freescale code). But then they tied it to the worst firmware and worst software in the world.

If they’d made it the slightest bit openable they’d have had the Linux nerds lining up to buy it and put Rockbox on it. But nooo, control above all else e.g. actual sales.

Microsoft: snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Oh well. I use a Microsoft Natural Keyboard at work. I love it. The perfect keyboard for anyone who types properly. Except the bit where they put the 6 on the wrong side of the split. WHAT.

By: mpz

mpz — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:19:41 +0000

Well the 360 is somewhat of a success, although the cost is way too much. Remember though, playstation 2 is still the most played machine in the usa (minutes/day), so they’re probably thinking along those lines (actually they obviously are – right from the start they always wanted to have a playstation 2). And with xbox they have the added revenue of online membership – although the ps2 was probably already a gold-mine by this time in its life.

So I guess it will be spun as ‘we’ll stick with the xbox360 (like we didn’t with the xbox)’, and keep some people happy and excited. But I imagine enough people will see that their so-called ‘investment’ in xbox stuff is a dead-end. It’s getting a bit long in the tooth anyway.

People – particularly gadget-geeks are a little irrational like that. If they think there’s nothing coming after, they might get upset and jump ship, even though it wont make much practical difference to them.

I do feel sorry for any layman who bought a zune without researching them though – but can’t be too many of those. I don’t feel sorry for anyone who did though! A shit-brown box knobbled with crappy software?

Both show the culture of MS though – we can muscle into any market with money alone – buying media talking heads, buying developers, buying exclusives, etc. With the Xbox they just kept trying for longer, and hence had more success.

By: David Gerard

David Gerard — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:50:25 +0000

It’s somewhat a pity they fouled up so badly with the Xbox 360 – if they hadn’t cut corners in the manufacturing, it would probably have survived, and it’s famously a really rather good gaming box … when it doesn’t red-ring.

No-one, of course, will miss the Zune. Except satire writers.