I would say that is very true. With one major exception, Billionaires with political connections (lobbies, bribes) do not, but some Millionaires, like Madoff, (read less money, less power) do.

The problem with those who ran MS, was during the Antitrust law, they corrupted the political races with campaign contribuations, and other lobbies. Looking at the last really big case of the Sherman Anti-Trust laws, was AT&T, which did get broken up. MS was friends with the incoming Bush Administration, which it had helped, and therefore, did not get busted up. M$ corrupted the system of the republic, others had done so before, but perhaps not on the same scale as Gates and his followers. And they continue to do so, withoug being taken to trial for it.

Also they continue to produce xbox360 that are most likely still defective by design, without being held as of yet, accountable. True, they have been sued, but lets see what happens, if anything.

The Sherman Anti-Trust laws were originally made to prevent unhealthy monopoly like companies gaining power over part of the economy. Since M$ beat the system, and did not get broken up, no major corporation has been broken up here that I know of. The problem of this is, that now the taxpayers have to support corporations, banks, insurance companies, auto makers, airlines, and who knows what next, because our bought and pay for politicians, have decided that these are “too big to fail.”

On another note, with Novell and MS, there are some deadlines coming up, that may hurt them. One is the end of the deal between MS and Novell, which did put some money in Novell’s pocket. With Novell being run badly, and losing even more money, will MS dig deeper and come up with more money to bail Novell out? I think not.

Another deadline is the end of life for XP in 2014, which is about the same for Vista, oddly enough. MS does not realize that its users still reject the newer offerings, and has failed marketing 101. That is give them what they want.

The other deadline for MS Xbox360 users, is 3 years after they buy it for the RROD/E74 overheating Warranty. MS is going rip a lot of users off if they do not extend the warranty past the 3 years.

MS budgeted 1.25 billion for replacements of RROD units.

That’s when Robbie Bach got caught inside-trading. He was never taken to trial for it. Rich important people never go to prison, just hungry shoplifters.

Quote from the link appears to be the Ballmer one:

“Today, there are over 39 million Xbox 360s around the world. And more than 500 million games. The console has generated $20 billion in total game revenue.”

The 39 million I would guess includes those stuffed in the channel, those sold, and those replaced under warranty, is my guess. When you have people that have gone though more than 8 of them, makes you wonder exactly how many xbox360′s there are out there still functioning, and for how long after the 3 year warranty period ends.

Since Ballmer is known to greatly extend and extinquish (but not embrace the truth) the facts, I would question the 20 billion in revenue figure as well. But maybe he is embracing fuzzy new math and counting more than just games here. Maybe he is adding in the sales of the consoles too, and even counting all those “RROD/E74 replacements” under warranty as sales and revenue too? Just like MS used to count sales of XP when downgraded from Vista sales, as Vista sales, to make MS look better. But lets for the sake of argument give Ballmer the the benefit of the doubt, and go with the bogus $20 billion figure. Let see, that net revenue, not profit. What is the profit? About a big mark up for the retail stores, so MS take reduced to half or less, down to 10 billion, now about 6 billion for development, but wait, what about cost? It must cost something to actually make the defective xbox360 product, ship it, box and label it? It is well known that both MS and Sony sell their consoles below cost and try to make money on the games. Yes the games, cost less to box, ship, label, but there is some cost to develop as well.

MS budgeted 1.25 billion for replacements of RROD units. Guessing that will be nowhere near enough. I don’t see anywhere that Xbox360 has been a profitable product. Revenue (20 billion dollar figure) does not equal profit, and Ballmer is just trying to spread more lies.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/01/10/japanese-hardware-sales-dec-28-jan-3-year-of-the-dog-editi/

Well in that respect it isn’t really 7th – handhelds aren’t the same market, particularly when they’re counting each iteration of DS separately. That really makes it ‘only’ a three – out of four. They’re pretty much in the same sad position they’ve always been, although they’re finally ‘outselling’ PS2.

Still, the figures for the USA *were* ok, but we know they count their wholesale sales, so I guess they `stuffed the channel’ like they did with their ’10 million in the first year’ figure, but it’s not like they can force retailers to stockpile more from year to year though. And given much of the coverage and buzz in the USA, they do seem to still be selling there. A large chunk might just be replacements for people’s ‘investment in games’ though.

Anecdotally … I only personally know 1 person who has an xbox 360 and m$ gave that to one of their friends, and they live in the USA. 4 people I know around here have a wii – one has kids, one has a ‘usb loader’, one has kids and a ‘usb loader’, and one is a nintendo nut (yet barely uses it). At least 9, including me, have a ps3, 6 of which are pre-slim models – and I think everyone uses them for watching (non-disc) movies as much as playing games. Average age about 35, and 4 never had a console before (at least not ps2-era machines).

I just can’t fathom why anyone would buy such an unreliable piece of junk like an xbox 360 in the first place – and my anecdotal evidence suggests nobody would, at least it validates my world view on that one. Although M$ seems to be pretty good at training people to accept sub-par products, and still come back for more.

Wii’s are not that cheap either, when you add on the (for now?) 3-part controllers, and other expensive add-ons.

I didn’t follow as closely this year as last year, but Wii sold out first before Christmas followed by PS3 which has only a few examples left locally. Xboxes are still stacked by the full palette.