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Microsoft Sued Over Vista Marketing
daviddennis writes "According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a lawsuit alleges that Microsoft engaged in deceptive practices by letting PC makers promote hardware as 'Windows Vista Capable' even though they knew it could not run most of Vista's widely-promoted features. Microsoft responds by saying that the differences have been promoted with one of the most extensive marketing pushes in company history. 'In sum, Microsoft engaged in bait and switch -- assuring consumers they were purchasing Vista Capable machines when, in fact, they could obtain only a stripped-down operating system lacking the functionality and features that Microsoft advertised as Vista ... As a result, the suit said, people were buying machines that couldn't run the real Vista.'"
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Is there such a thing as a reverse class-action suit? 'Cause if they're going to sue M$ for this, then they need to include the developers of every PC game ever made!
Everyone knows that trying to play a game on the minimum hardware is an excercise in frustration and futility. You need at least the recommended specs to run the game decently in most cases.
Even more to the point, modern games turn off resource-intensive features when running on older PCs; and since much of the hype around the latest FPS is centered on the advanced (read: resource-intensive) graphics, anyone playing "Half-Quake of Doom 37" on an older PC is missing much of the advertised experience. Micro$oft is simply copying the 3D game developers' design/business model, just as they copied the 3D idea itself.
You know, now that you mention it, going after the game makers has merits.
No, I'm not saying it should run with everything _maxxed_. But I can think of games which are anywhere from completely unplayable (as in, crash), to a slideshow, to having to be downgraded to a pityful joke, on machines which meet the minimum advertised specs. Sometimes even on machines which meet the _recommended_ specs. And that I don't really find ok.
I can think of games which were launched with some advertised spec, but then some mandatory patch turned them into a graphics orgy that outright crashes the game or machine of someone who did previously meet the specs. One example is COH. When the graphics upgrade happened that put COH graphics on par with COV. I know at least one person whose (admittedly crap) laptop started to just crash to desktop when that graphics update hit. In spite of having previously been perfectly good to play COH, and still being perfectly good to play WoW. (And, you know, because it's a MMO you can't refuse to install a patch.)
I can think of games which were hyped for their supposed great graphics, except _no_ machine at the time of release could actually display the advertised graphics as more than a frame per second. (E.g., EQ2. It was launched at a time when the 9800 passed for the top end graphics card, and sorry, it wasn't anywhere near enough to play other than at a massively reduced graphics quality. And by massively reduced, I mean that even at a point blank range all detail on a piece of armour was turned into a blurred smear.) I'm sorry, I know that not all machines are created equal, but if _no_ computer exists at the time which can actually display those graphics, then don't fucking advertise it with the max quality screenshots.
Briefly, some truth in avertising would be a welcome change with the game publishers too, you know? Those specs on the box are rarely more than a joke pulled out of the ass by marketting. It has nothing to do with what computers run the game adequately, it just has to do with how big a slice of the market does the marketting department want to market to.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Exactly. The fact that Vista is ANY bigger than its predecessor tells me everything I need to know about it. Do you think Microsoft is serving customer demands when it makes each successive operating system bigger and requiring more resources? Do you think customers are demanding that a computer should slow down just because you upgraded your operating system?
I've got a brand new PC that's right in the sweet spot for Vista performance. Yet, Windows XP runs faster and better on it than Vista. So how can anyone possibly say that Vista is "better"?
The entire PC industry is so tied to Microsoft that they don't have to even pretend to make each operating system better than the one before. All they have to do is get the PC makers to sign contracts saying that they'll put Windows on all of their new computers. Then, they sell big organizations on the idea that they need the latest software, which requires the latest OS, which requires a faster computer.
Net benefit to consumers? Negative. We are the consumables.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Consiering that Vista is really based on DirectX 10 graphics, and the only card that pretends to have it (Nvidia G8800) has virtually unusable Vista drivers, can any system claim to be full Vista Ready?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Matters are further complicated by the fact that what Vista actually is, isn't what they marketed. At least not initially, when they were marketing the beta for apparent years before the actual release. WinFS? And all those other features that'd have made Vista functional? Yeah, they don't exist.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Sure, we can do that. Just as soon as we work out this whole "social interaction" thing among us humans of different temperaments, talents, and convictions.
Whether you like it or not, our legal system is a fairly good way to work out disagreements. Yes, it has it's flaws like any system. But, on the whole, it is far better than duking it out with guns, gangs, or otherwise. I would much rather hire an attorney than hire an army.
If you think America is violent NOW, imagine what it would be like without any "legal", state-recognized way to work out disagreements. Do you really want to be in a system where the biggest gun wins? You would stand absolutely no chance in a system like that.
maybe they have slightly, compare the fuel consumption of an entry level vw golf for example;
1974 golf fuel consumption
petrol (1093 cc, 750 kg) 8.5l/100km
diesel (1588 cc, 820 kg) 6.7 l/100km
2003 golf fuel consumption
petrol (1390 cc, 1164 kg) 6.8 l/100km
diesel (1588 cc, 1227 kg) 5.3 l/100km
The consumption has gone down a bit but in more than 30 years you'd expect a bit more.
The big problem is Microsoft is advertising Aero as Vista. They don't call it Aero in their ads, they say "Hey look what VISTA can do, this is pretty cool," then they show some fancy Aero glass eye candy. The logical conclusion most people would make is that what they are seeing IS Vista, therefore they would want to buy a Vista Capable computer to get all those fancy features. They do this and it isn't what they expected. Microsoft is intentionally misleading consumers.
Another big problem is that brand new computers should have absolutely no problem running a current operating system. Honestly, if you go into a store and buy a current model you should not have to worry about the responsiveness of the operating system!