Bonum Certa Men Certa

Epic Betrayed by Microsoft -- Claim



Summary: Epic and Microsoft as Samson and Delilah; epic failures for Yahoo! after Microsoft deal

AS we delve deeper into Xbox realities, we keep finding that everything that touches Xbox 360 gets burned (sometimes literally). FASA Interactive recently warned that Microsoft betrays partners like itself (even “destroys” them, to use the exact words) and now we find more stories like this in the news:



i. Analyst Thinks Epic Regrets Microsoft Deal

Epic is the publisher behind the smash hit Gears of War franchise. Analyst Michael Pachter has said that he believes Epic is regretting its decision to tie up exclusively with Microsoft. Pachter told GameTrailers, "I think the Epic guys can't wait until they can start doing multi-platform games."

His opinion is based on profits. Sure there are a lot of Xbox consoles on the market but Pachter figures that if the Gears of War games had been offered on the PS3 it would have sold an additional 3 to 4 million copies.


ii. Epic Regrets Microsoft Exclusivity Deal, Says Pachter

Asked if he think Gears will go multiplatform, Pachter clarified. "I don't, I think Microsoft has a contract to make sure they get that sequel," he said. "But I think Epic regrets signing that contract. You're up to 11 million PS3s in the U.S. and probably similar number in Europe, you got a 20 million addressable market with a game like Gears of War. I mean, that thing would easily sell 3 or 4 million on the PS3, that's a lot of profit. No way is it worth it."


So, there are likely to be regrets about the partnership -- even a regret which Epic is trying to deny. All those companies that lost their way after Microsoft deals are probably in denial. People love to convince themselves that they rarely made mistakes; it makes life much easier to get on with. As a side note, exclusivity deals should be considered illegal as they harm the market as a whole; they leave out externalities altogether.

As some readers may recall, Epic was turning bitter about GNU/Linux [1, 2] after those affairs with Microsoft, so this is quite relevant to us. Microsoft partnerships are consistently harmful as the corporate hijack of Yahoo! recently taught us (the European Commission can still rescue Yahoo! from Microsoft). Yahoo! had a very tough year despite or because of the Microsoft intervention. Yahoo Shopping is reportedly going into the dustbin or being outsourced. That's just the latest among other victims that include Geocities (I had a Web site there since I was 15).

Relatively quietly Yahoo has decided to outsource most of Yahoo Shopping to PriceGrabber. This is analogous to what Yahoo is doing with Microsoft-Bing in search — just not with Microsoft. Merchant listings will now come from PriceGrabber and e-commerce sellers will only be able to get into Yahoo Shopping via PriceGrabber or Yahoo Search (Bing).


To name other victims, there is of course Zimbra, which was put in the hands of former Microsoft employees whose actions speak for themselves. Whether they can put up a fight against their former employer (let alone want to) is somewhat questionable because of employee ties not just at VMware but EMC too (it virtually owns VMware). We wrote about this before [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Also see:



Microsoft Nick chooses to believe (and he is not alone [1, 2]) that former Microsoft managers will fight against a Microsoft cash cow, but we are skeptical. VMware gives APIs and SDKs [1, 2], but this is not the same as source code with the rights granted by the GPL. VMware recently removed the GPL from a SpringSource product. EMC will probably be pleased.

EMC and Microsoft



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Bloodlust and Love of Blades (Fascination With Murder) Nothing New Among Microsofters
Violence is not a joke and no group is magically entitled to make such "jokes"
Links 01/06/2025: Bird Flu, Food Price Inflation, and Growing US-China Hostilities
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2025: "Vibe Coding" Turns Out to be a Fraud and Amazon Merits Boycott, Argue Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: "Stardust" and Ideal PC Setup
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2025: Windows TCO, Openwashing, "It's FOSS" Still Promoting Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: Simplification and Networks Everywhere
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 31, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 31, 2025
Google Bribes EFF. EFF Promotes LLM Slop as 'Fair Use'. To GAFAM It's a Low-Cost Lobby Hedge.
So the bribes pay off ("slush fund") and the word spreads
Slopwatch: Fake Text and Images, Financial Bubbles, and Scams in "Intelligent" Clothing
Sometimes what they mean by "AI" is just cheap labour somewhere else, as we discussed in IRC a few hours ago
Why Microsoft is Collapsing (Similar to What's Happening at IBM), As Insiders See It
IBM seems like one heck of a mess
Reliable Computing Means Free (Libre) Computing
Sites that want to promote security ought to deal with the biggest issues
Links 31/05/2025: US Court Orders Sides With RFE/RL, War Updates From Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/05/2025: ARM Server and power_supply Subsystem
Links for the day
Links 31/05/2025: Slop Stigmatised as Disinformation, Catalyst/Driver of "Death of Communication"
Links for the day
Common Sense 101: Do Not Write Blog Posts Saying You Want to Murder Colleagues (or Yourself)
Only crazy people would think stabbings are a joke
Microsoft Bankruptcy
"Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows"
Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
Links 31/05/2025: Microsoft-Connected Builder.ai is a Fraud and US is Purging Students Based on Race/Nationality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Limmat, Doomscrollers, and Arguments Parsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025