XBox Live Network

The New York Times covers Microsoft's planned XBox Live network, a subscription-based online service for the XBox. Microsoft's "we control everything" approach will probably impact the number of games available, but the article notes that the service will include voice-over-ip, which might be a selling point.

Comments

Re:Microsoft Bashing

[malfunct]

When was the last time an MS employee put a gun to your head and made you lay out cash to buy windows?

If anything forces you to buy an MS product its the extreme value of having a single ubiquitous computing solution that is fairly easy for anyone to use. MS has hit the nail on the head in a number of ways. The software does the job, is available everywhere, and you can bet that if you want to get something done an MS tool will do it.

I don't know if this is a good world or a bad one but I am tired of saying that you are "forced" to use an MS product. You could take the plunge if you wanted (and many have) and leave the world of MS. Unfortunately you are going to have more trouble convincing other people to do the same until all of the same benifits of using MS products manifest themselves. The hard one to reach is market saturation but I wish you luck. I frankly don't care who writes "the OS" so long as it does what I want when I want and where I want. And I don't want to have to learn 30 billion different variations, I want one solution that is everywhere. Windows more or less solves that problem for me and every time I look at it, its not really that expensive (hell you buy a computer and they give it to you). When MS products fail to do the job I need done I'll drop them like a hot potato, but until then they work. Its MY choice though, and I'm not forced in any way though I am compelled to use it which is a different story all together.