EDIT: I've been enlightened as to the fact that Peter Moore is no longer with Microsoft. How embarrassing. Hence the alteration.
I'm sorry about this, but I'm not going to put any degree of polish in this piece. This is pure rant, and is coming from a very dark place inside of me. If you feel the hate, please express so.
Is anyone else as bitter as I am about Microsoft's stifling of the Xbox 360 peripheral market? First off, their claims that the reason they don't allow many manufacturers to produce third-party peripherals is so that they can monitor quality. This is a flat-out lie; it is so they can maintain their choke-hold on the consumer, and their counterintuitive approach means that consumer's choices are severely limited. Microsoft charges exorbitant amounts for their (granted, quality) accessories; but honestly, their obstinate approach is the antithesis to Sony, who practically invite the fanbase to use their own hard drives, keyboards and mouses, etc.
Microsoft has a personal vendetta against the joy of its audience - 120 GB hard drives for $200 AUD is absolutely unacceptable. This is especially infuriating given the recent announcement of optional HDD installs - their fiendish plot to surreptitiously expand the market for their over-priced parts. Additionally, $40 AUD for a messenger pad? Seriously? When PS3 users can use keyboards? This is nothing to do with quality to control, and everything to do with market control. Don't stifle manufacturers of quality parts Microsoft - in fact, makers of the X Arcade stick recently attested to the stubbornness of MS in terms of this issue, as they have thus far been precluded from bringing their arcade sticks to the 360. This is especially infuriating for me - I was looking at investing in an arcade stick, however my only options are either importing the expensive Hori stick from Asia (because I can't find any here) or ... well... their are no alternatives. This is the height of inanity.
Creating arbitrary standards and imposing astronomical royalties is so preposterous and arrogant at a time when the company exploits consumers by charging ridiculous amounts for worthless DLC, has saturated the market with lackluster hardware that fails at an unacceptable rate, that it literally has me fuming. Microsoft - your blatant disregard for the welfare of your audience, confounded by your sheer pigheaded ignorance, has pissed me off to no end. However, my ambivalence - largely due to the awesome library of games that enthralls me daily - has prevented me from dismissing you entirely. Just know you won't get away with this forever. TAKE A STAND!
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The wireless bridge is £59.99 although you can get a third party one working and you can find them priced at like £17.
Any non-essential peripherals are disgustingly overpriced and there is no alternative for most of them. Oh and the consoles are a piece of shit. My 360 makes more distracting noise than my PC with 6 fans, including one that's around 150mm. Of course the noise is mostly the piece of crap drive whistling constantly with some games.
With the way Microsoft treats consumers, it really is a testament to how badly Sony dropped the ball with the PS3. This is likely to be my only Microsoft console as I certainly won't be handing them any money next generation.
20GB is too small (esp. considering the size of Halo 3 maps, and creators club contents...) and I wish and hope (probably in vain) that there will be someone that can open up, or make a compatible HD, toolkit, or alternate way to use a standard HD. When they allow gamers to install their own games (off disc) in the Fall update, wellll.. No HD space will be available anywhere probably. >:o(
MS is all about control. Control over your hardware, control over your software, control over your licenses. They want to own everything and let you rent it from them. Their recent tactics in the Ultra-Portable PC market are also disgusting, but as capitalists will tell you it's for everyone's benefit, because the "market will sort it out".
Well when the market is owned by one person, the only sorting to do is to count the money. Microsoft is not shedding its reputation for being a control freak monopoly that buys out or steals from the competition, even when it does manage to go mainstream.
This is my own little mini rant. Fuck you Microsoft.
Oh but I forgot, being a cunt is what the internet is for.
I agree. I will never understand people who consign themselves to the almight M$ and refuse to questions their business tactics.
Take your time coming back from those papers or you know, don't bother coming back at all.
The price of all Microsoft accessories is beyond extortionate but everyone seems to be ok paying. I never understood how Microsoft can dick over their customers so much and yet more and more people rush to defend them in some way, whether it be vocally or with their wallets.
Also, you know Peter Moore doesn't work for Microsoft anymore right?
Also, I too like Microsoft. I love their gaming consoles. They hit all the points I wanted in a console when they came out. Xbox Live is fantastic. I love the service Live on the 360 provides now. Yes, they are greedy. yes they don't allow a plethora of useless third party crap. So what.
Thats right. My bad. Well, his smug sense of self-satisfaction as depicted I believe still accurately encapsulates MS, so I'll leave it as such.
MICROSOFT ARE GREEDY & LOVE MONOPOLIES!!
Also, a Call to Arms only work in Mel Gibson movies.
You don't like all the overpriced and shitty add-ons and nickel-and-dime DLC? Don't waste your money on that shit. Let me guess, you got suckered into buying one of those add-ons now you gotta cry about it to feel better.
Yes, Microsoft never fail to be greedy or love money; it's called capitalism, it's what big businesses do, but, look at the alternatives for this gen. The Wii had a horrible E3 presentation and Nintendo has said that they don't have any games for core gamers until early 2009 at the earliest. The PS3 is still a console that runs on hype. Yes, Metal Gear Solid 4 is a great game, congratulations, what is there once you finish the game?
Fucking Second that!
But go ahead and be all "waaahhh M$ wants to takes my moniez" if you want. And then spend all your money on Sony shit. Whatever.
Regardless of your stance on each of the platforms' software library, this blind devotion to defend companies simply because their goal is to "make money" seems fucking insane to me. You're talking about your own money as well.
To hide behind this banner of neo-capitalism is ridiculous. The actions of almost all companies listed are blatantly turning their back on the very principle of capitalism: fair trade through competition. There is no alternative in this case, nor is the interest of the consumer being protected; it's damn near an antitrust violation.
@SilverDragon - I'm always going to disagree with this notion that circumventing competition is something to be admired. As a consumer, I'd rather people call out this sort of BS tactic than support its shyster qualities.
My decision to "blindly" defend companies wanting to make more money is because I would like them to continue making video games. If companies could not ensure growing profits and profit margins, they would go out of business and not be able to make games that I enjoy playing. Why don't you go take some business classes before getting back to me.
And no, I don't necessarily enjoy the fact that Microsoft charges out the ass for their hardware accessories. But it's not a case of "antitrust," because Microsoft's competition in this case is Sony and Nintendo.
Do you people forget that when Sony released the 20 gig PS3 with no wireless capabilities, they charged 600 dollars for it, and in their hubris basically said "people will pay that because it's a Playstation?" Yeah, they're SO much better than Microsoft.
wait. microsoft monitoring hardware quality. microsoft and hard ware quality. quality microsoft hardware......
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
oh man that was funny.
Before you throw yourself on your sword, realize I'm not arguing that Sony is some kind of saint. Each company is doing their share of gouging.
I'm talking specifically about one point: the focus of this article. In this case, Microsoft isn't competing with other companies to make Xbox hard drives, they have legal right to prevent such a terrible thing from every happening!
I don't care what the other companies do, to defend a questionable tactic is ridiculous.
What Microsoft has done right is realize that the "product" that they have created is a high demand product which is also high quality compared to the competition. In this case I am refering to the quality of the games and the XBL network. They obviously are still selling systems and accesories so their prices are obviously still adhering to a strict supply vs. demand curve.
If their prices really were to high then we would not be buying them. There are other systems out there to buy so the XBOX and all of it's accesories do have competition. If a person doesn't like it they can trade everything in and go buy a PS3, or go buy a Wii. Hence there is competition in the "video game market" and Microsoft does not have a monopoly.
We can sit here and argue morals all day, but what we can't do is argue legality. Now me personally, I do think Microsoft is charging to much for the hardrive, so I have chosen not to buy one. If a game comes out and it needs a harddrive to run better I will buy it for my PS3, and MS loses the money. That's their loss.
I got a PS3 in Feb. and was amazed at how much freedom Sony allows on their console compared to what MS allows us to do with the 360. The one user who said Microsoft is basically allowing us to rent from them hit the nail on the head.
I love my 360, but I really hope Sony catches up to Microsoft's user base and even surpasses it. Then maybe they'll be forced to ask themselves if they could do things better.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want either to fail, but Microsoft needs to learn to appreciate its customers
In fact I might do one just now.
Let me first say that I wasn't claiming that Microsoft is a gaming monopoly, nor that their scheme of proprietary hardware was an actual antitrust violation. My focus is entirely on the premise behind the proprietary hardware - specifically hard drives - and its effect on the consumer base.
(If anything, you could say I was arguing the morality of the legal stance in restricting competition on an accessory - but there's more realistic and tangible issues that take precedence over that.)
Software libraries aside, this is about proprietary hard drives.
Clearly it's legal, but does that make it ethical or something we should support?
Microsoft uses a proprietary device made only by themselves. Anyone wanting to upgrade has only one set of option and one set of pricetags.
Sony, the Xbox 360's competition, is allowing a standardized form factor for their hard drives. Anyone wanting to upgrade can do so using a wide array of different devices by different companies.
Microsoft states that they do this so (A) that they can monitor quality to benefit customers, and you state that their stance on hard drives is (B) adhering to a strict supply vs. demand curve, and
A - We (as consumers) are unable to immediately see the results of higher quality products because no other devices with which we can compare can legally exist.
Considering the extreme similarity to the core functionality and components, we can infer that the proprietary devices are in an identical category to traditional hard drives - the only difference being the form factor's connectivity.
When compared to easily obtainable, competitively priced hard drives, the propriety drives offer no tangible benefits to consumers. Both types offer the same functionality, but Microsoft charges exorbitant prices for their product.
B - The demand for their games and core hardware surely exists, and (for the sake of this arguement, even though I disagree) they are conforming to the supply vs. demand principle for the most part.
The hard drives specifically, though, are overwhelmingly considered to be priced too high. If this thread is any indication, more people are refusing to pay the current prices.
I propose that their system of proprietary hard drives neither benefits customers, ensures higher quality, nor conforms to a logical price point.
Because of this, I find their business stance questionable.
(I really suggest everyone rereads jimzzor's post.)
If we stick completely to the hard drive argument, then I honestly don't have much to argue and defend Microsoft with. Their reasoning for why they use a proprietary hard drive are very week, considering they do not offer any proof as to why their hard drives are higher quality then consumer hard drives. I completely agree with this point you made.
I also completely agree that they are charging extremely high prices for their hard drives. The going rate right now for hard drives is about $1 per 5Gb. Microsoft is charging around $1 per 1Gb, so about 5x the consumer rate. I refuse to believe the quality they are providing is worth 5x the price.
The Wireless adapter is about 4x the price of the 3rd party equivalent too.
Yes I'm aware of this. Thanks for your support in these comments; Dtoid people can be pretty mean for no good reason. I wonder if these guys are the same people that make Xbox Live such a pain?
To all: Its just a fucking blog. You are the one who chose to read it. I didn't force it upon you. There is a distinction between trying to make a profit and clearly screwing over your loyal consumers - well, judging by some of these comments, I guess you will continue to do so because they are so complacent in giving you money. Not a peep from the sheep..
What I AM trying to say is that if you don't like it, then keep on enjoying your PS3, but trying to organize the interwebs into some kind of boycott is silly. There are obviously plenty of people out there willing to pay. (As for myself, I bought the 360 Elite bundle, and I feel like I got a pretty good value seeing as it came with two games at the time I bought it.) I did wind up buying a wireless adapter but I guess since I'm not pinching pennies to try and afford gaming accessories I'm not crying about it.
And my bad, the 20 gig launch ps3 w/o wireless was 500 dollars, which was still 100 dollars more than the 20 gig 360 without offering significantly more (at the time).
As for the hard drive, I will never spend the outragious amounts of money that MS is charging for one. I really do want to upgrade, but for me it's just not worth it. I really doubt it ever will be.
What I do hate is people "demonizing" Microsoft. They do have some shaddy business practices, but for the most part I do not think they are a horrible company. I feel though that you are attempting to demonize Microsoft, and that I have a problem with.
The truth is all 3 major hardware companies out there have their faults right now. They are all screwing up in one way or another and it honestly just sucks. What one company does right, another does wrong, and so on and so on and so on. I just wish they would all get together and get it right for once. Is that to much to ask?
you can use a USB keyboard w/ ur 360 btw.
as for the stick, yea that's a shame for u Aus. You can still make your own stick & it will be even better than anything you can buy. check out http://forums.shoryuken.com in their Tech Talk forum. lots of FAQ & How To's etc.. All you need is some basic woodworking skills for the base, a wired 360 controller, a stick & buttons & wires, and basic soldering ability.