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Microsoft Kicks Playstation2 out of CeBit.
dnaumov writes "According to this article on ZDNET, Microsoft complained to the show organizers, Hannover Messe AG, that Sony was breaching show rules by letting people play on Sony PlayStation 2 game consoles. While Sony has been letting people play their consoles at CeBIT for the past 3 years, that didn't really bother anyone. However, MS seemed to not like the fact and filled a complaint. What makes this even more funny is that Microsoft officials denied that the company had complained to the Messe. but the show organizers confirmed that Richard Roy, vice president, corporate strategy, had complained. This effectively forced PS2 out of the show and Sony started packing their bags on Sunday. Microsoft was also displaying their XBOX console at the show."
I read a comment on the page of the article that was insightful and I felt I should share it. The individual who wrote it is clearly not the most well-written guy in the world, but I think you get his point.
The sand-kicking six year olds at it again. And, don't give me any of that "rules are rules" crap, cuz that don't fly when you are talking about the convicted monopolist turned snitch. I can just see the tattle-tail doing trying to imitate the fake teary eyed look of Ballmer during his latest deposition. What do they teach first at the Redmond campus, foot-stomping or lying???
Sure, we do participate in a lot of Microsoft bashing here at Slashdot -- I'll admit that. But for Christ's sake, they deserve it.
Linux -- Because You're Too Good For Those Other Crappy Kernels.
So now we are mad at Microsoft for following the rules? (That is, not letting people play games?) I'm just making sure -- sometimes it's confusing to keep up with.
-- Hobbits suck!
I could have sworn that people were playing the xbox at CeBIT... should have taken a picture. And why would CeBIT care? That's the point of the show, to demo your products! Hell, I should file a complaint that MS had the Compaq ipaqs all on display and people were using them. How is this any different?
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
I would hypothesize that MS having Employees demonstrate the consoles instead of having visitors play them made the difference. Employees playing the games is the same as making a presentation.
If that's the case, MS COULD have been in the right. "Well, if people are busy playing games, they're not paying attention to the exhibitors" -- that could be why that rule would be there in the first place.
Talk about bad sportsmanship though. Even if MS had good intentions (ha!) there's no way anybody's going to say 'Go MS!'
BTW, just because I'm playing Devil's Advocate here doesn't mean you have the right to come in, misinterpret me, and then tell me I'm an idiot. I've had enough of that over the last week. I don't support what MS did so don't twist what I said into saying I do.
"Derp de derp."
- As an industry trade show, gaming breaks the perception of a "corporate" and "professional" atmosphere. It's not an arcade.
- Without controls (e.g., time limits), there can be no assurance of fair access to all. MS's stance is that it's more fair to deny public access to all
- Comparative disadvantage. As the new player, a gamer is going to compare an XBox to his/her prior experience with other consoles. This invariably leads to comments like, "this controller feels
...; it's not as responsive as...; the games are better on ...."
That said, another reason is that you don't want someone to expose a bug in your software that causes your console box to die horribly on the big screen... Hence, you use employees who know what features to show and what to avoid demonstrating.The other question is why a trade show wouldn't let companies offer hands-on demos at their's booths.
Anyone know a logical reason for a rule like that?
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
But did they "pick up their toys and go home"? If so, how many of their toys?
They packed up their consoles. I imagine they were forced to (see below). I also imagine they left their other products. "Sony Ericsson['s] stand
Note also that Microsoft didn't just snitch; they had some kind of approval/veto power. Microsoft may have had the power to force all the Playstations out of the show.
I look forward to further coverage.
(I found a German article; the Google translation included, "CeBIT nomenclature over contents of the fair in principle neither entertainment electronics nor plays may be pointed. Microsoft presents its play console "Xbox" behind glass." Try searching for "Udo Freialdenhofen," some Sony media relations person.)
And why might Microsoft be extra offended? Maybe because of this (cached link): "Those of you in Germany can see the [Playstation 2] linux kit in action at CEBIT in Hanover this week, from 13-20th March. We're on the Sony stand in hall 2, C02." They didn't just toss a competing game console; they got a bunch of Linux machines thrown out of the show!
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Oh wake up! the point of the story is that MS COMPLAINED, DENIED IT WAS THEM AND WERE THEN BUSTED. MS is a company run by cunts with a corporate philosophy of fucking the entire world in the ass at every opportunity, and for no reason other than the acquisition of power (they don't seem to care about money - they certainly don't pay any of their profits out as dividends to their OWNERS). It's quite clear that MS should be CLOSED. Not restricted, restrained or restructured, just CLOSED. Ballmer should probably be locked up and fucked to death by his fellow inmates, Gates should walk the Earth and apologise to every single human in turn for stealing their money.
That was classic intercourse!
Sony has plenty of dirty tricks up their collective sleeve, as well.
For example, at this same show (CeBit), they were running a large screen demo of one of their Clie handhelds, showing how it could play fullscreen video, etc. They even had a little camera set up and pointed at a real Clie, giving the indication that what was on the big screen was being taken directly from the screen on the handheld.
Turns out, the big screen image didn't have anything to do with a real Clie screen. It was all faked.
Jenova_Six
The reason they left was so that MS'd look bad. And that's what happened. Slashdot, obviously biased against MS, posts an article saying 'MS kicks Sony out of CeBit', even though that isn't even close to what happened.
Complain about MS's business practices all you want, Sony certainly could have stood a little taller in this case.
Id really like to know what brought this to MS's attention. It's puzzling that MS would have one of it's own doors closed (i.e. letting people play XBOX's...) in order to stop Sony. I haven't ruled out that MS was just being a bastard, but you got to wonder what precipitated the complaint.
"Derp de derp."
A few years back, while bleem! was still a company making a Playstation(tm) emulator, Sony attempted to get bleem! thrown out of the E3 exhibition (held in California). This was contrary to a court order that bleem! acquired stating that they were allowed to present.
Unfortunately, my old, senile, brain can not remember the details of this incident (and I would prefer not to have large companies coming after me), but perhaps one of the younger people still in the emulation scene can recall the details.
FWIW, the Microsoft (softimage) booth at SIGGRAPH had their power cut once because they violated sound level restrictions. Probably because a competitor complained...
That's funny. In my school system, it was against the rules to bring a gun. Who'd've thought it wasn't an important thing....
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
...Unless, of course, they realized that this situation would be to their advantage - It might cover, say, a tendancy for the Xbox to break down, or maybe some complaints about their controllers? I mean, it's kind of hard to rig things when you give the people the controllers, isen't it? - And, of course, I'm sure that MS wasen't demoing buggy prerelease games, or anything else to try and make it look like the PS2 isen't stomping all over the Xbox in the 'Total games released' catagory, and they COULD have just handed the controllers over to the audience like Sony was doing... But it was against show policy! Sure! Yeah.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/new _media/newsid_1879000/1879078.stm
Microsoft's Xbox launched across Europe last week where it will compete with the hugely popular PlayStation 2 console from Sony.
The spokeswoman added: "Both companies were showing their machines but Microsoft followed the rules and did not have any games to play on it, while Sony did. CeBIT is not for playing games."
She said CeBIT asked Sony to switch the games off but instead the company removed all of its consoles from the fair.
But boy, it sure is fun to bash M$...
Please don't allow me to assist in the well-documented transition of Slashdot from a technical site to a political forum, but I can't resist in this situation.
Sony broke the rules. Sony let gamers play the games on the systems they sell during a trade show. Sony gets kicked out of the game. Microsoft broke the rules. Microsoft was found guilty of illegal bundling, hiding api's, and setting monopolistic terms to computer vendors in 94, 99, and 2001. Microsoft gets kicked out of the game.
Sounds fair.
Yes, Sony is a huge corporation that has attempted to leverage its presence (though not dominance) in consumer electronics to sell standards like the memory stick and DVD's. Yes, Sony is known to try and muscle competitors. However, something is inherintly wrong when a competitor can have you kicked out of a trade show because you let people have fun with your toys. I would think the director of the convention would have the power to make an exception on the grounds that the rule is unnecessary in this situation, and give Sony the year to plan a show without user interaction. Furthermore, it is in the show organizer's best financial interest if the customers participating in the show have a good time, and the only thing at a convention more enjoyable than free gaming is free gaming schwag.
The only group who benefits from this action is Microsoft (who, of course, lied about it afterwards to introduce doubt). The only reason Microsoft would act in this way is if they didn't want to compete. Is this sounding familiar?
Up until this point the X-box was starting to sound tempting so long as they could correct durability issues. With this action, Microsoft has reaffirmed once again why it is our moral imperitive to not give money to assholes... they just become more powerful assholes across more markets.
The ______ Agenda
The rules are simple, Microsoft is a monopoply protected by the stongest military in the world. No foreign country will question anything any American monopoly says or does these days as long as we have a court appointed administration preparing for a nuclear attack and advertising a growing "hit list".
"Rules" suddenly being enforced after a couple of years of "Past Practice" (being accepted) is only a way to benefit certain individuals, in this case Microsoft. If these rules were going to be enforced this year, they should have made special note of it before the show, rather than last minute decisions.
Sony did the right thing, they took the high road, "past practice" of being accepted in other shows gives them the right to expect it to be accepted in this show.
Microsoft was worried about something else, not protecting the rules. Perhaps Microsoft was more worried about the exciting demos of Linux running on the PS2. Sony had linux running many demos to show the power of the PS2 with linux.
>>>please remove "nospam" from email address
About a month and a half ago i read in the swedish magazine (Computer Sweden) about microsoft using similar tactics when handling a release party (it must have been about Windows XP or .NET) in the fashionable Berns Salonger in the central of Stockholm.
The funny part is that swedish IBM rented the more hip anexe club in the park in fron of Berns and put up a veritable Unix/IBM/Linux/Geek-party; huge signs and all.
The swedish mocrosoft representatives did not like this at all and called upon the owners of Berns to muscle IBM out of the place - forcing them to remove all flashing logos and stuff.
Too bad since the IMB party seem to have been the more fun - at least acording to the reporter.
/largo