The remainder of these posts are "Microsoft will win, there's nothing we can do to stop them, in 10 years they will own us all" which is definitely defeatist. Most people would like to see competition and innovation in the console games market, which means we don't want to see a Microsoft monopoly in the console market as well.
I probably should've said the defeatist "Microsoft will win, they are amazing, and all your console games will belong to them" attitude, but that's kinda long.:)
Check out the Japanese numbers at www.planetxbox.com. The US numbers I can't find right now, but they're correct. I've seen sources listed in other posts on this topic.
Wow. That second to last paragraph was totally unreadable, because of one word. Let me fix it myself...
It should've been "Third party publishers only push a console from "secondary" to "primary" status. They just do good things for the industry in general, not consoles in specific."
I definitely agree with you that Nintendo would growl very loudly and chop Microsoft into small bits if they tried some sort of a takeover (one would also note that dozens of little kids would storm Redmond screaming 'leave my gameboy alone!')
EA is doing pretty well, actually. They've bought several smaller companies and have strategic alliances (subsidiary companies) all over the place. I don't think buying them out would work - you might get the company, but the company's strength is in its alliances, and those might not carry over. Wouldn't patent holders have a right to revoke a patent license agreement if a company's bought out, too?
Square is an odd horse. They're hurting for money pretty bad, but I don't think that they can be bought out all that easily - their main value is talent, and you can't buy talent with just money. If Microsoft tried to buy Square, and half of the talent jumped ship, they would've wasted quite a bit of money indeed.:)
That being said, many people do leave Square quite often - I dunno. It might not be the most wonderful place to work.
Buying companies isn't the best way to gain market share - it backfires quite often.
OK, I'll buy the GTA3 thing. I probably should've said "GTA3 wasn't intended to be a system seller" because if it had been, Sony probably would've tried to make it exclusive, and not on PC as well. But in another of my posts, I point out that the dominant console doesn't NEED system sellers (that is, games which only one console has and is a must have game) because if you have a whole slew of "must have games" on a bunch of platforms, you need to choose ONE platform to play it on, and in general, that's the dominant one.
That, I agree with to an extent. That's what Nintendo's doing. Unfortunately, we see what that's done for them. It got them to the "handhold" point you referred to, which MS can still only hope for. But it certainly isn't enough-- they've been playing second fiddle to Sony for quite some time, and will continue to do so, having squandered any advantage gained by having the dominant console twice in a row.
Microsoft doesn't even understand the mountain, which is the problem.:)
I don't think it's Nintendo's choice right now. I think Sony will stay a leader so long as it doesn't screw up. See, it's a self-supporting position: people make games for your console first, and then people buy your console because it has the better games.
Take a look at how Sony became the market leader - Nintendo screwed up. They alienated large portions of the developers because of a game format change (cart to CD), and subsequently a huge game base developed for the Sony PlayStation that didn't exist for the SNES, and when they went to the N64, the games didn't come with them. At that point, everyone knows that the PS1 is dominant, and develops for it, and boom, Sony's got a market lead.
So the only way MS is going to win here is if Sony AND Nintendo screw up, and I think I know how they're hoping to do it - online gaming (the XBox is ready for broadband already - the others need adapters). The problem is that I don't think it's going to be as huge as Microsoft thinks it will be, and even if it does, Sony (and Nintendo) can just suck it up and distribute a broadband adapter free in a game. They'd eat a huge loss, but they'd be back in the game.
That, and there's another problem with that strategy - online gaming isn't a fundamental change, not unless every game suddenly loses single-player modes, which no one in their right mind would imagine.
Nintendo already knows multiplayer gaming much better than Microsoft: the N64 was the first console with 4 standard controller ports, and 4-player games were common (and hella fun). If online gaming starts to become more and more common, you can bet that Nintendo will know first.
I think this is only true of 'true' console games, as people figure out exactly how the hardware works. The X-Box is a lot more developer friendly, but I don't think it has the headroom that the PS2 and the GC have.
Keep in mind that the PS2 is a wacky wacky platform with a tremendous amount of vector processing capability, and the GC has amazing amounts of sustained bandwidth that the X-Box doesn't have. Game developers need time to figure out how to use those two things. But the X-Box is just, well, a P3 and a GeForce 3. Nothing special. I think the reason that Halo was so good was because they already KNEW how to program for a PC - the game was supposed to GO to a PC.
We'll see. My instinct tells me X-Box games aren't going to improve a heck of a lot, and you'll see dramatic improvements from the PS2 and even more incredible improvements from the GC.
Wow, the defeatist "Microsoft will win, they are amazing!" attitude is really rampant around here for a while.
OK, first off, the numbers don't support what you're saying - they support what I'm saying. Even in the US, the GameCube is selling better than the XBox (just barely 32K/week as opposed to 28K/week). In Japan, where the GC brought Nintendo back with a vengeance, the PS2 is selling 85K/week to GC's 34K/week (and keep in mind that the GC has been out LONGER, with a weak library of games), and the XBox is churning a measly 5K/week, only barely outselling the WonderSwan Color and the ORIGINAL Game Boy, and losing to the PS1 (7K/week). Hype for the Xbox is losing ground dramatically, and Microsoft doesn't seem to be turning it around. I mean, honestly - the article was about how the X-Box is dying! The GameCube doesn't have articles like that out for it (because, um, Nintendo's doing fine?)!
Second off, Microsoft's first party titles aren't that strong. They're okay. But they still have the stigma of "they'll go to PC". Even if Halo never goes to PC, they probably cost themselves several hundred thousand sales in both Halo and XBoxen just by suggesting it might. This is dangerous. Really dangerous.
And if you think they can buy EA and Square, not likely. They're rich, but not THAT rich. I dunno, I could be wrong - a better financial analyst could step in here - but EA and Square (which have a joint venture, recall) are pretty hefty companies, especially Square in Japan. I don't think they'd be that easy to buy.
Nintendo doesn't have anything to worry about at all. They're making really huge amounts of money, the GameCube is doing extremely well in Japan, in the US, and is generating a lot of hype in Europe (spaced releases are a good thing - they maintain Internet hype). The GBA is a phenomenal success, and Nintendo is even more of a behemoth in the handheld market than Microsoft is in the OS market.
Sony doesn't have anything to worry about as well. The mindshare is still theirs - XBox can't win with a few unique titles and ports - they need almost ALL unique titles (No PC! PCs are a competitor here!), and the ports need to be far and away better than the competition, which won't happen unless Microsoft does the ports themselves (companies try to do the least amount they can to port a game).
Nintendo's fine because their first party publishers are a helluva lot more prolific and successful than Microsoft, which is hit and miss (ooh, they've produced some crap). Nintendo also has a fair library of second party publishers, which Microsoft needs badly. Third party publishers only push a console from "secondary" to "primary" status. They just do good things for the industry in general, not consoles in general.
Huge megacorporations can't just intrude on other industries this easily. It takes time, and it's highly unlikely they will dominate the industry - after all, they'd need to do something far and away BETTER than the competition, which they AREN'T doing. They're doing things arguably worse, arguably equal. And in that sort of a situation, the incumbents (Sony & Nintendo) win.
I agree with you - plus the fact that only the PC version of FF8 was known - the PC version FF7 was a complete shock. Incidentally, it was a helluva lot more than 6 months - it was, in fact, 9 months from US release, 18 months from Japanese release - which is the important date to consider here, as it was the first release. (Japan release of FF7 for PS1: 1/31/97, US release of FF7 for PS1: 9/3/97, US release of FF7 for PC: 6/25/98 - they released them a few months early due to 'high demand')
I think hype is more important than reality, though. Halo's been exclusive to the XBox for a while now, and it may be a while before it comes to the PC. But everyone's KNOWN it was coming to the PC for a long time now, and that's the important thing. "Yah, I can wait a few months and just play Halo on my PC" is the attitude Microsoft should've tried to avoid like the plague.
They might be able to still salvage it - there's still a bit of hype for Halo. Not much though. It'll be too much of an obvious move to increase sales for the XBox in my opinion if Microsoft orders Bungie not to make the PC version. But it might work.
No, no, no (I have to keep up the pattern of asserting that your comments are completely wrong and mine are completely right... never can have a tiny bit of truth in someone else's comments, right?).
No one KNEW that FF7 was coming out for PC when it was released - it was a shock to everyone (and it sold like junk, which is why Square abandoned the idea after FF8). GTA3 wasn't a system seller (it was a surprise). FFX isn't on PC (which was a system seller). None of the system sellers for the N64 was on PC.
Halo, from the beginning, was supposed to be on PC. Is it taking a while? Yah. But the hype has died down, a LOT. The hype has jumped to other games. You sell systems on hype. That's the idea. Microsoft isn't generating any. That's the big worry. Why didn't Halo sell over 1 million copies (1 million, by the way, is pathetic for a system seller in this day and age)? Because people knew that it was coming out on PC, and some opted to wait. Whoops. Never should've done that, Microsoft.
You don't really need to look at the PS2's system sellers - it doesn't need one nowadays. The buzz about the system is that it's the system that everyone has - like the PS1 was. This is the way things have been for a few years:
Dominant system: sells itself. Not really a worry, people buy it because they know it's the system to get, and there are enough games out that people can get whatever they want. Why doesn't it need a system seller? Because if you have a multiplatform game, people still have to choose one system. And now, the "system to buy" is a PS2. It still HAS system sellers, but it doesn't need them.
Secondary system: It needs a few games that it ALONE has for people to buy it. Given a choice, without knowing anything about the games, and forced to buy one, they'd buy the primary system. But they might by the secondary one if there's a game for it that they want, and it has a fair library of other games that they might buy. The secondary system probably won't be bought at full price (or at least, at the full price of the primary).
Exclusives are EVERYTHING for a secondary system, and you can't be a primary system without being a secondary one. PS2 started out as a secondary system and it had system sellers at the time (which I don't know of... because they didn't interest me). Now, it's the primary. What was the primary at the time when the PS2 was introduced? The PS1. Definitely. (Actually, in my mind, Sony did what most people haven't been able to do before: launched a system as a "niche" system, and just slowly migrated people from the current primary system, the PS1).
Think of it like this: Microsoft is trying to move the mountain by stretching its arms really wide and trying to lift. Every other console manufacturer knows that you have to find a handhold, and then you can try to move the mountain.
Microsoft needs to find a niche - and to do that, it needs exclusive titles.
"Publishers" means that the company in question was interested in making or had already made the game, and were looking for someone to put forth the cost of making and promoting the game. The danger to Microsoft is that the developers won't want to develop for an "Xbox-2" because they know that Microsoft will ditch it and move on without a second thought.
Could they just up and buy any well known game maker? Eh. Not really. The major players in the console field are un-buyable, even for Microsoft. They could buy the smaller ones, but smaller development houses typically make breakout games that no one suspects. To have a console seller, you need a game that everyone KNOWS will rule, and DOES rule. SSBM for GameCube, (insert huge game here for PS2), Halo for XBox. Except they're still saying Halo will come out for PC. You CAN'T say that. That's anathema to console purchasers.
The Super Nintendo outsold the Genesis. It did EXTREMELY well. The Genesis started out well, but that's because it was competing against the NES. When the SNES came out, there was a tug-of-war for a long time, but then Sega attempted to one-up the SNES with peripherals which all failed miserably.
There seems to be "regional effects" where people say "no one in my community had a SNES" and "no one in my community had a Genesis" but if you look at the sales numbers, the SNES won by a long shot. (I'm guessing you came from a Genesis community, especially with the Dreamcast fandom, though the DC was a great console)
Nintendo slipped from first place with the N64, not with the Super Nintendo.
Anyway, Sega's main problem was that they ditched consoles too quickly (as in, WELL before the console was dead). If Microsoft follows in its previous behavior (who the hell ever heard of Microsoft Windows 2.0?) they're going to have a hard time in the console market. I liked Sega. I own a Genesis, and want to pick up a Saturn and Dreamcast. But Sega had corporate problems, and I think Microsoft does too. Sony's riding strong - it could still fail, as it's never had a "push comes to shove" situation yet. Nintendo's fine - it's already had its 'push come to shove' with the N64, and it proved developer's faith correct when it didn't abandon it, constantly pushed, and really drove sales of the system with a few key games.
MS needs to stop thinking of itself as a console manufacturer and start thinking as a game manufacturer. It was kindof destined to lose at that price point, but if they really support the XBox thick and thin, and try to rally a fanbase, they could displace Sony. They will never kill Nintendo, though - it's already shown that it knows how to survive not-phenomenally-popular consoles.
Can't count Morrowind, isn't it coming out the same time to PC? Same with Halo. So now what's left? DOA3 isn't that different from DOA2 - fans don't jump on me here, I know they're different, but they're not strikingly different to the common person.
That leaves Jet Set Radio Future (I can't trust Sega that it'll remain on X-Box if it does well.. in any case, it really is a niche game), Project Gotham Racing (OK, decent, but again, I have a feeling that Microsoft will put it out on PC as well) and Rallisport Challenge (which... I think will stay on X-Box).
You should note the pattern here - the main problem is that Microsoft isn't forcing exclusives to remain exclusive. You have to - completely. Otherwise people won't buy the console - they'll just hope that it gets ported to the console they have.
I bought a PS1 because I knew FF7 was never going to come to my N64. I bought an N64 because I knew that Zelda 64 would never come to my Super Nintendo (obviously, but still, that was the implicit reason). I bought a PS2 because FFX would never come to my PS1 or N64. And I'll buy a GC because Zelda, Mario, Metroid (ooh metroid), and Eternal Darkness will never come to my PS2 (this is assuming those games don't suck. We'll see).
The online stuff is OK, but Nintendo's right to keep online gaming at a safe distance - I don't think "online games" are the future killer app. I know too many gamers who don't play MMORPGs or online FPSs. They'll have a market, but I don't think it'll dominate the scene.
But you CAN'T do that with consoles. If you make a loser, you can't ditch it and go on. If you do that, developers don't trust you, even if you are Microsoft - at least, probably. They didn't trust Sega, and for God's sake, Sega is a massive player in the arcade market, and is pretty financially solvent.
That's the key. Microsoft has to stand there with a smile on its face and say 'Xbox is doing great!' and work feverishly behind the scenes to fix the problems in Xbox2 (unique games, better controller design - minimal, but still there). Abandon the Xbox, and ooh, then they'll be really confused when their list of developers (ACTIVE developers, not people who've signed up to be developers) dwindling uncontrollably. And from that, you really can't recover.
Sigh. It's amazing how the gamer community segments in two, the "RPG lovers" and "RPG ignorers" - don't forget FFX. (Not being insulting, just amused:) )
But, anyway, that wasn't really what I wanted to mention - what I really wanted to say was that what's really important is how MS handles the loss. Do they ditch the XBox and suck the loss? (i.e., do they rush the XBox 2 to market?) Ooh, then I'll tell you, the XBox 2 will fall like a dead monkey. "It's all about the games, stupid" - right? Well, the problem is that developers don't like consoles whose producers ditch them. That's why Sega bought it - developers already didn't trust the Saturn, after the Genesis/32X/CD-ROM fiasco - when they ditched the Saturn so early, they REALLY didn't trust the Dreamcast. The fact that the Dreamcast is still doing... not so bad in the aftermarket is a sign that Sega really screwed up.
In the console market, I think sometimes you really need to lose to win. Got a dud of a system? Stick with it. People will remain loyal, people will stick, you'll build a user base, and then developers will come knocking to your door. Sony didn't ditch the PS One - my God, they took a chapter from Nintendo's book and redesigned and rereleased it, to great profit. Nintendo has NEVER abandoned a console (besides the Virtual Boy, which they supported for far longer than they should have) until the developers did.
There's the key, Microsoft. The XBox might suck. But it's your XBox. Love it, cuddle it, and support it, and then developers might trust the XBox 2.
Halo's out for PC (or at least, will be? Not sure).
Don't need to spend $350 for Halo + XBox.
Most people who would want to play Halo already have a computer easily powerful enough to play it (you could probably spend $500 and make one!). MS needs to get rid of the everpresent thought of gamers that since Microsoft makes XBox, and Windows, games that come out for XBox come out for Windows. I think in the back of most people's minds, they already think this, and so "exclusives" don't feel like exclusives. MS needs to make REAL exclusives.
Exclusive games come out nowhere else. Look at the Final Fantasy series: FF7, 8 came out on PC, but it's highly unlikely any others will. So no one considers that the FF series will show up on PC (FFXI excluded because of the online stigma it carries). If you want to play FFX, buy a PS2. That's why people buy consoles. That's why I bought my Super Nintendo back in the day. That's why I bought my N64. That's why I bought my PS1.
MS NEEDS to get rid of the idea that the exclusive games will show up ANYWHERE else. And unfortunately, their track record just isn't good at doing that.
The Dreamcast failed because 3rd party developers didn't trust that Sega would stick with the Dreamcast - they were right. Sega has a history of constantly jumping console ship, so the developers were worried about that. If you take a look at Microsoft, again, I'd imagine that most developers would opt to develop for the PS2 first, and then port it to the X-Box. And a system with tons of ports doesn't survive.
It's a bad, recurring nightmare for MS. The low barrier to entry doesn't matter if your games have no shot in hell of succeeding and doing well. So MS needs to get more consoles out there, and more "this game will show up nowhere else" idea. If they don't, give up.
And people who say "XBox 2 and 3 will rule!" - I once again repeat - developers do NOT develop for a system that the producer doesn't seem to be interested in supporting. That's what killed Sega. It'll kill MS too, if they don't wake up.
Not at all. It's just that Microsoft isn't competing with Nintendo.
How can that be, you ask? They're in the same market!
Yes, but the market is all about games, right? Whoever makes the games, gets the market. Nintendo makes games MUCH better than Microsoft, and so it can carry the GC on its own. In addition, though, GC grabbed up a couple of exclusive franchises which will also keep it floating: Resident Evil, for instance.
The main reason that X-Box and PS2 are competing is they basically have all the same games. PS2 games get ported for other systems, in general (save Sony's games, and Microsoft's games) so if you look at the reason for buying each system, you have to ignore the "common" games: doing so basically leaves you with the exclusive games, and in this category, Nintendo's fine, so it doesn't really have to worry about X-Box or PS2 (and the numbers support this - the GCN is doing really well in Japan, much better than the X-Box, and it's doing well in the US, though a little slower than the X-Box, though that'll probably pick up later in the year after E3 when the high-profile GCN games start kicking it hard) - Sony's fine, as people have more faith in the PS2 than a newcomer. That's really the kicker - Microsoft wanted to compete with Nintendo - it can't. It has to compete with Sony first, as it's catering to Sony's market, not Nintendo's - and it's not doing a good job fighting Sony.
Maybe, maybe not. Still hasn't been confirmed for X-Box or GameCube, and my guess is that Square may end up passing on the X-Box in favor of the GameCube, as while it said it was "interested" in the X-Box, it doesn't seem that thrilled about it (that and it does most of its business in Japan, which doesn't give a rat's ass about the X-Box). FFXI will probably show up on the GC, probably to people's surprise. Developers say that the GC is a breeze to work with, and Square does already have a development team (or is it an external group? I'm confused) working on GC software, so they'll probably just dump the port of FFXI in their laps.
FFXI also is not garnering that much support from the typical FF fanbase. FFXII is PS2 exclusive.
The cute thing is that Microsoft can't be the "second boy" to Sony and survive, because Nintendo's got that position solid, since it will make oodles of money from first party games. So Nintendo sticks in the game, and the remaining fight is between X-Box and PS2, and Microsoft really has been tending to get the "dregs" of PS2 games. It's got a few good ones, but a LOT of ports. Checking out xbox.ign.com, X-box exclusives number about maybe 10? Probably a few more, and here's the downfall: most of them are realllly bad. Since PS2 has a ton of games out, PS2 therefore has a LOT more exclusives, and while the percentage of "exclusive good to exclusive suck" is probably the same, the PS2's just got more.
I dunno. The console market's never been able to maintain 3 competitors: Nintendo's not going away, and I think Sony's got a nice stranglehold as well, so I think Microsoft needs to do a bit more work. It can't just put a console out there and say "hey, we're Microsoft."
Depends on who you are and what kind of games you like. I still play PlayStation games a heckuva lot more than PS2 games, mainly because I prefer RPGs, and the PS2 doesn't have a huge spread of really good RPGs (sorry, done with FFX already) and the PSOne does. Most of my friends are currently playing PSOne games rather than PS2 games, mainly becaues there's a current lull in games that we like for the PS2 (again, RPGs, mainly: Xenosaga and Kingdom Hearts I'm both looking forward to).
That and the fact that God, there are just so MANY PSOne games out there and many of them are very good (I haven't even gotten to Dragon Warrior VII yet... there's another 40 hours I need to burn). I'd be bored with an XBox or GameCube in about a week (which is why I don't own either of them. I'll buy a GameCube later, though, as I want several of the upcoming games - or at least, I most likely will). I'm really not likely to ever buy an XBox, because none of the upcoming exclusive games really drives me enough to spend $300 on a system.
OK, I think I'm going to drop whether or not businesses have the right thing - I keep trying to stress that I'm not necessarily indicating legality here, I'm trying to stress what I think is right. But I do want to stress that businesses are not people - they don't have the same legal standing as a person, and they don't have the same rights as a person - I doubt you'll argue on that point. They don't have the same legal rights, and they don't have the same fundamental rights, either.
As for the trespassing thing, it's simply not true in a business's case: they allow generic people on their property. They can't, and shouldn't, be able to choose who can and who can't be there. Country clubs, for instance, can't choose who can and who can't be there. They can restrict it to people who pay dues - well, yes - but they can't restrict who can pay dues.
Legally, you're right - to a point. As far as I can tell, the law agrees with you, but courts in general haven't - you can search on the Web and find literally hundreds of examples of people who have sued companies for being thrown out of a store for no good reason, and they win almost all the time (usually because the company settles or offers something). You can also find hundreds of examples of stories from when police were called, and they laughed in the store manager's face (in my case, when I called, the police were quite polite and said that until he DOES something - like destruction of property, etc. - they can't do anything). Now, it's possible I've got selection bias here, in that I can't find examples of the counter case because companies don't place them online, but I dunno.
You also have to be careful because in your (admittedly quite emotionally hostile at this point) arguments, you're mixing the right of someone to be in a store with the right to do anything in the store. There's a distinct difference. If someone is in the store, acting like everyone else in the store, and you say "throw that person out, because I don't want him here," then everyone else in the store should be thrown out too.
I never said you could do anything you want in places - I don't know why you keep bringing that up. In fact, I kept repeating it over and over. You can't do whatever you want. But if your only difference is looking different than someone else, then if a store treats you different, it's discrimination.
Actions you can restrict, because they impinge on other people's freedoms. Appearances, you can't (well, you can right now, but you shouldn't be able to). Yes, I'm aware there's a fine line between 'actions' and 'appearances', but that's where the careful examination should be on the restrictions, not the freedoms.
And I'm aware they're formalities. They're also insulting. More than insulting. They're a complete aberration of the society we live in.
You are not on someone 'else's' property. You are on a business's property, and a business does not have the same rights that people do.
Police don't just do what the law says - a lot of times they do what the law means. For instance, there is no way in the world that the police would remove someone from a store just because they're black - if they did, not only would the person sue the store, they'd sue the police department too (and they'd win, as well).
I'm actually talking from personal experience here, though. Police do make moral judgements - they're people. Go ask a store owner to call a cop to get some guy to leave who's not doing anything bad. The cop will come and say "I'm sorry, if he's not doing anything illegal, I can't ask him to leave."
See my other post for my opinions on dress codes. Dress codes are even worse discrimination than anything else, because it's not even done in the name of safety or security - it's just done in the name of social discrimination. The grocery store thing I've touched on about ten times already in ten different posts - health concerns are the one place where I can understand restricting civil liberties, because the public health risk is just too great.
And you're wrong about one thing - you said that "there are quite a few places that do that [disallowing customers based on appearance] and no one cares" - I do. That's one, and it's more than no one. And I think you'll find that there are a hell of a lot more people than just me who think that way.
Most small stores do ignore loss - because it's minor, and they can watch people in the store. When's the last time you saw a small store with electronic tags, or surveillance cameras? I have never seen a store like that. I know when my father owned a store, theft/loss was minor, and the easiest way to prevent it was to walk up and down the aisles asking if you could help people. It's only large stores, which are stupidly designed, don't have enough people working at them, and are therefore much more prone to theft which have to impinge on civil liberties.
Surveillance, however, is not discriminatory: not unless my EYES are discriminatory! It does NOT presume guilt, it does NOT infringe on any civil liberties at all - you're in a public place. Since someone can walk down an aisle and look at you, a camera can look at you as well. The fact that surveillance is more difficult to implement is not my problem - it is not an option to discriminate simply to save money.
The other thing I'm confused about here is how is a dress code not discrimination? It is discrimination. It's saying "I'm sorry, you don't look like I want you to look like, go away." If you think I think it's okay for restaurants to have dress codes, you're very wrong - it's insane for restaurants to be able to have dress codes, but our society still has some remnants of the nobles/peasants mindset, and so those restaurants remain. The restaurants you're thinking about are typically 'upscale' restaurants, extremely expensive, and cater to the 'upper crust' in society, right? Well, go fig, that's exactly the kind of discrimination I'm talking about.
OK. You think a dress code's okay. Then let me give you an example. A guy who doesn't make a lot of money comes into a bit of money - not a lot, but he wants to take his wife out to a very nice restaurant. Unfortunately, they only have enough money to pay for the meal at the restaurant, not enough to buy a good enough outfit to pass the restaurant's "dress code". They go there, and they're turned away because they don't meet the "dress code". This is fair? Like hell. The restaurant is saying "I'm sorry, this restaurant is only for people of 'means'." This is EXACTLY the kind of discrimination that minorities have been fighting for years. How is this any different from restaurants who used to turn away blacks? A person who's black can't become 'not black' just to enter the restaurant, and a person who's poor can't become 'not poor' just to enter the restaurant.
Anytime you say "No X allowed" without a VERY good reason (and the ONLY reason I agree with is health reasons, and even then, certain things overrule it) you're discriminating.
The first sentence in your last statement is true, though - rules about what can and cannot be done are never discriminatory if they apply to everyone. What you did not say was "rules about who can or cannot be admitted are never discriminatory if they apply to everyone" which is what we've been discussing. Actions are different than appearances.
Just as food for thought, what about the people who need to carry medical equipment around in bags? Why should they have to explain themselves to shop in certain stores? They don't have a choice about carrying the bag, but they should have a choice about whether or not to shop there, and that's the key.
Also keep in mind that a private business does not have the right to do whatever it wants. People have rights. Businesses do not have the same rights.
A person's home is not a public place, or a place of business. A store owner can actually own a business, but it's a place of business. Implicitly he's saying "when I'm open, the public is allowed to enter." He can make it a "members only" club, so long as anyone can become a member.
Prejudice is prejudice - it's a slippery slope, and it shouldn't be tolerated. Stores get privileges afforded to them by the police, government, etc. and in order to be worthy of those privileges, they have to uphold the ideals of the country they live in, which is no discrimination. When the government allows me to conduct business in my home (which, um, they don't, without a permit) then I'll allow people in.
Yes. Judging people before having any information about them is "pre-judging" - it's prejudice. Which is "worse"? I'll agree with you that racial discrimination is much worse, but it's the same thing. They're both prejudice, and to some extent, they're both wrong.
There's a fine line, and I'd much rather stay far away from that line than cross over it. Back in the 1950s, we treated blacks like second-class citizens. Now we're treating "suspect people" - people that walk, talk, and "look like" criminals - as thieves. Is this much much less severe? Yes. But only if it stays where it is is it okay (and only BARELY).
I'm not saying that carrying a bag ranks anywhere near racial discrimination. It's in the same category, though. Some discrimination has to exist for basic health reasons (smoking, no shirt no shoes no service) but beyond that, it's a curtosy to adhere to their policies, and if you don't want to, you don't have to.
OK, here's the best that can be gleaned from the actual document:
The "bug" they're talking about is a bug in the login procedure - the "cd key checking" bit doesn't make any sense, as the server doesn't do any checking. So the only thing that makes sense is they're talking about the procedure that the game uses to login to other games (remember battle.net is a passing server, that is, it doesn't actually 'serve' the games) - apparently the games screw up some portion of the login logic, and bnetd copies that as well.
Unless we're talking about a completely internal bug (which I don't see in the source...) it's gotta be a protocol bug, which would OF COURSE be copied in a clean-room reimplementation of the Battle.net protocol. In fact, if they had done a disassembly of the source, they probably would have recognized the bug and FIXED it.
Look, I tend to believe bnetd in this case - especially because, remember, innocent before proven guilty - and they say that it was done as a cleanroom implementation. Given that Blizzard has already misinterpreted legal statutes, I find it more likely that Blizzard doesn't understand what reverse engineering is. (It obviously doesn't know what "trademarks" are, or it never would've complained about the screenshots, or the 'bnetd' name!)
Slashdot Mirror
The remainder of these posts are "Microsoft will win, there's nothing we can do to stop them, in 10 years they will own us all" which is definitely defeatist. Most people would like to see competition and innovation in the console games market, which means we don't want to see a Microsoft monopoly in the console market as well.
:)
I probably should've said the defeatist "Microsoft will win, they are amazing, and all your console games will belong to them" attitude, but that's kinda long.
Check out the Japanese numbers at www.planetxbox.com. The US numbers I can't find right now, but they're correct. I've seen sources listed in other posts on this topic.
Wow. That second to last paragraph was totally unreadable, because of one word. Let me fix it myself...
It should've been "Third party publishers only push a console from "secondary" to "primary" status. They just do good things for the industry in general, not consoles in specific."
Grr.
I definitely agree with you that Nintendo would growl very loudly and chop Microsoft into small bits if they tried some sort of a takeover (one would also note that dozens of little kids would storm Redmond screaming 'leave my gameboy alone!')
:)
EA is doing pretty well, actually. They've bought several smaller companies and have strategic alliances (subsidiary companies) all over the place. I don't think buying them out would work - you might get the company, but the company's strength is in its alliances, and those might not carry over. Wouldn't patent holders have a right to revoke a patent license agreement if a company's bought out, too?
Square is an odd horse. They're hurting for money pretty bad, but I don't think that they can be bought out all that easily - their main value is talent, and you can't buy talent with just money. If Microsoft tried to buy Square, and half of the talent jumped ship, they would've wasted quite a bit of money indeed.
That being said, many people do leave Square quite often - I dunno. It might not be the most wonderful place to work.
Buying companies isn't the best way to gain market share - it backfires quite often.
OK, I'll buy the GTA3 thing. I probably should've said "GTA3 wasn't intended to be a system seller" because if it had been, Sony probably would've tried to make it exclusive, and not on PC as well. But in another of my posts, I point out that the dominant console doesn't NEED system sellers (that is, games which only one console has and is a must have game) because if you have a whole slew of "must have games" on a bunch of platforms, you need to choose ONE platform to play it on, and in general, that's the dominant one.
:)
That, I agree with to an extent. That's what Nintendo's doing. Unfortunately, we see what that's done for them. It got them to the "handhold" point you referred to, which MS can still only hope for. But it certainly isn't enough-- they've been playing second fiddle to Sony for quite some time, and will continue to do so, having squandered any advantage gained by having the dominant console twice in a row.
Microsoft doesn't even understand the mountain, which is the problem.
I don't think it's Nintendo's choice right now. I think Sony will stay a leader so long as it doesn't screw up. See, it's a self-supporting position: people make games for your console first, and then people buy your console because it has the better games.
Take a look at how Sony became the market leader - Nintendo screwed up. They alienated large portions of the developers because of a game format change (cart to CD), and subsequently a huge game base developed for the Sony PlayStation that didn't exist for the SNES, and when they went to the N64, the games didn't come with them. At that point, everyone knows that the PS1 is dominant, and develops for it, and boom, Sony's got a market lead.
So the only way MS is going to win here is if Sony AND Nintendo screw up, and I think I know how they're hoping to do it - online gaming (the XBox is ready for broadband already - the others need adapters). The problem is that I don't think it's going to be as huge as Microsoft thinks it will be, and even if it does, Sony (and Nintendo) can just suck it up and distribute a broadband adapter free in a game. They'd eat a huge loss, but they'd be back in the game.
That, and there's another problem with that strategy - online gaming isn't a fundamental change, not unless every game suddenly loses single-player modes, which no one in their right mind would imagine.
Nintendo already knows multiplayer gaming much better than Microsoft: the N64 was the first console with 4 standard controller ports, and 4-player games were common (and hella fun). If online gaming starts to become more and more common, you can bet that Nintendo will know first.
I think this is only true of 'true' console games, as people figure out exactly how the hardware works. The X-Box is a lot more developer friendly, but I don't think it has the headroom that the PS2 and the GC have.
Keep in mind that the PS2 is a wacky wacky platform with a tremendous amount of vector processing capability, and the GC has amazing amounts of sustained bandwidth that the X-Box doesn't have. Game developers need time to figure out how to use those two things. But the X-Box is just, well, a P3 and a GeForce 3. Nothing special. I think the reason that Halo was so good was because they already KNEW how to program for a PC - the game was supposed to GO to a PC.
We'll see. My instinct tells me X-Box games aren't going to improve a heck of a lot, and you'll see dramatic improvements from the PS2 and even more incredible improvements from the GC.
Wow, the defeatist "Microsoft will win, they are amazing!" attitude is really rampant around here for a while.
OK, first off, the numbers don't support what you're saying - they support what I'm saying. Even in the US, the GameCube is selling better than the XBox (just barely 32K/week as opposed to 28K/week). In Japan, where the GC brought Nintendo back with a vengeance, the PS2 is selling 85K/week to GC's 34K/week (and keep in mind that the GC has been out LONGER, with a weak library of games), and the XBox is churning a measly 5K/week, only barely outselling the WonderSwan Color and the ORIGINAL Game Boy, and losing to the PS1 (7K/week). Hype for the Xbox is losing ground dramatically, and Microsoft doesn't seem to be turning it around. I mean, honestly - the article was about how the X-Box is dying! The GameCube doesn't have articles like that out for it (because, um, Nintendo's doing fine?)!
Second off, Microsoft's first party titles aren't that strong. They're okay. But they still have the stigma of "they'll go to PC". Even if Halo never goes to PC, they probably cost themselves several hundred thousand sales in both Halo and XBoxen just by suggesting it might. This is dangerous. Really dangerous.
And if you think they can buy EA and Square, not likely. They're rich, but not THAT rich. I dunno, I could be wrong - a better financial analyst could step in here - but EA and Square (which have a joint venture, recall) are pretty hefty companies, especially Square in Japan. I don't think they'd be that easy to buy.
Nintendo doesn't have anything to worry about at all. They're making really huge amounts of money, the GameCube is doing extremely well in Japan, in the US, and is generating a lot of hype in Europe (spaced releases are a good thing - they maintain Internet hype). The GBA is a phenomenal success, and Nintendo is even more of a behemoth in the handheld market than Microsoft is in the OS market.
Sony doesn't have anything to worry about as well. The mindshare is still theirs - XBox can't win with a few unique titles and ports - they need almost ALL unique titles (No PC! PCs are a competitor here!), and the ports need to be far and away better than the competition, which won't happen unless Microsoft does the ports themselves (companies try to do the least amount they can to port a game).
Nintendo's fine because their first party publishers are a helluva lot more prolific and successful than Microsoft, which is hit and miss (ooh, they've produced some crap). Nintendo also has a fair library of second party publishers, which Microsoft needs badly. Third party publishers only push a console from "secondary" to "primary" status. They just do good things for the industry in general, not consoles in general.
Huge megacorporations can't just intrude on other industries this easily. It takes time, and it's highly unlikely they will dominate the industry - after all, they'd need to do something far and away BETTER than the competition, which they AREN'T doing. They're doing things arguably worse, arguably equal. And in that sort of a situation, the incumbents (Sony & Nintendo) win.
I agree with you - plus the fact that only the PC version of FF8 was known - the PC version FF7 was a complete shock. Incidentally, it was a helluva lot more than 6 months - it was, in fact, 9 months from US release, 18 months from Japanese release - which is the important date to consider here, as it was the first release. (Japan release of FF7 for PS1: 1/31/97, US release of FF7 for PS1: 9/3/97, US release of FF7 for PC: 6/25/98 - they released them a few months early due to 'high demand')
I think hype is more important than reality, though. Halo's been exclusive to the XBox for a while now, and it may be a while before it comes to the PC. But everyone's KNOWN it was coming to the PC for a long time now, and that's the important thing. "Yah, I can wait a few months and just play Halo on my PC" is the attitude Microsoft should've tried to avoid like the plague.
They might be able to still salvage it - there's still a bit of hype for Halo. Not much though. It'll be too much of an obvious move to increase sales for the XBox in my opinion if Microsoft orders Bungie not to make the PC version. But it might work.
I think this is the first time I've ever seen anyone just completely agree with me on Slashdot.
:)
Now I'm worried I'm being trolled.
(+1 bonus retracted because I know this is offtopic).
No, no, no (I have to keep up the pattern of asserting that your comments are completely wrong and mine are completely right... never can have a tiny bit of truth in someone else's comments, right?).
No one KNEW that FF7 was coming out for PC when it was released - it was a shock to everyone (and it sold like junk, which is why Square abandoned the idea after FF8). GTA3 wasn't a system seller (it was a surprise). FFX isn't on PC (which was a system seller). None of the system sellers for the N64 was on PC.
Halo, from the beginning, was supposed to be on PC. Is it taking a while? Yah. But the hype has died down, a LOT. The hype has jumped to other games. You sell systems on hype. That's the idea. Microsoft isn't generating any. That's the big worry. Why didn't Halo sell over 1 million copies (1 million, by the way, is pathetic for a system seller in this day and age)? Because people knew that it was coming out on PC, and some opted to wait. Whoops. Never should've done that, Microsoft.
You don't really need to look at the PS2's system sellers - it doesn't need one nowadays. The buzz about the system is that it's the system that everyone has - like the PS1 was. This is the way things have been for a few years:
Dominant system: sells itself. Not really a worry, people buy it because they know it's the system to get, and there are enough games out that people can get whatever they want. Why doesn't it need a system seller? Because if you have a multiplatform game, people still have to choose one system. And now, the "system to buy" is a PS2. It still HAS system sellers, but it doesn't need them.
Secondary system: It needs a few games that it ALONE has for people to buy it. Given a choice, without knowing anything about the games, and forced to buy one, they'd buy the primary system. But they might by the secondary one if there's a game for it that they want, and it has a fair library of other games that they might buy. The secondary system probably won't be bought at full price (or at least, at the full price of the primary).
Exclusives are EVERYTHING for a secondary system, and you can't be a primary system without being a secondary one. PS2 started out as a secondary system and it had system sellers at the time (which I don't know of... because they didn't interest me). Now, it's the primary. What was the primary at the time when the PS2 was introduced? The PS1. Definitely. (Actually, in my mind, Sony did what most people haven't been able to do before: launched a system as a "niche" system, and just slowly migrated people from the current primary system, the PS1).
Think of it like this: Microsoft is trying to move the mountain by stretching its arms really wide and trying to lift. Every other console manufacturer knows that you have to find a handhold, and then you can try to move the mountain.
Microsoft needs to find a niche - and to do that, it needs exclusive titles.
"Publishers" means that the company in question was interested in making or had already made the game, and were looking for someone to put forth the cost of making and promoting the game. The danger to Microsoft is that the developers won't want to develop for an "Xbox-2" because they know that Microsoft will ditch it and move on without a second thought.
Could they just up and buy any well known game maker? Eh. Not really. The major players in the console field are un-buyable, even for Microsoft. They could buy the smaller ones, but smaller development houses typically make breakout games that no one suspects. To have a console seller, you need a game that everyone KNOWS will rule, and DOES rule. SSBM for GameCube, (insert huge game here for PS2), Halo for XBox. Except they're still saying Halo will come out for PC. You CAN'T say that. That's anathema to console purchasers.
The Super Nintendo outsold the Genesis. It did EXTREMELY well. The Genesis started out well, but that's because it was competing against the NES. When the SNES came out, there was a tug-of-war for a long time, but then Sega attempted to one-up the SNES with peripherals which all failed miserably.
There seems to be "regional effects" where people say "no one in my community had a SNES" and "no one in my community had a Genesis" but if you look at the sales numbers, the SNES won by a long shot.
(I'm guessing you came from a Genesis community, especially with the Dreamcast fandom, though the DC was a great console)
Nintendo slipped from first place with the N64, not with the Super Nintendo.
Anyway, Sega's main problem was that they ditched consoles too quickly (as in, WELL before the console was dead). If Microsoft follows in its previous behavior (who the hell ever heard of Microsoft Windows 2.0?) they're going to have a hard time in the console market. I liked Sega. I own a Genesis, and want to pick up a Saturn and Dreamcast. But Sega had corporate problems, and I think Microsoft does too. Sony's riding strong - it could still fail, as it's never had a "push comes to shove" situation yet. Nintendo's fine - it's already had its 'push come to shove' with the N64, and it proved developer's faith correct when it didn't abandon it, constantly pushed, and really drove sales of the system with a few key games.
MS needs to stop thinking of itself as a console manufacturer and start thinking as a game manufacturer. It was kindof destined to lose at that price point, but if they really support the XBox thick and thin, and try to rally a fanbase, they could displace Sony. They will never kill Nintendo, though - it's already shown that it knows how to survive not-phenomenally-popular consoles.
Can't count Morrowind, isn't it coming out the same time to PC? Same with Halo. So now what's left? DOA3 isn't that different from DOA2 - fans don't jump on me here, I know they're different, but they're not strikingly different to the common person.
That leaves Jet Set Radio Future (I can't trust Sega that it'll remain on X-Box if it does well.. in any case, it really is a niche game), Project Gotham Racing (OK, decent, but again, I have a feeling that Microsoft will put it out on PC as well) and Rallisport Challenge (which... I think will stay on X-Box).
You should note the pattern here - the main problem is that Microsoft isn't forcing exclusives to remain exclusive. You have to - completely. Otherwise people won't buy the console - they'll just hope that it gets ported to the console they have.
I bought a PS1 because I knew FF7 was never going to come to my N64. I bought an N64 because I knew that Zelda 64 would never come to my Super Nintendo (obviously, but still, that was the implicit reason). I bought a PS2 because FFX would never come to my PS1 or N64. And I'll buy a GC because Zelda, Mario, Metroid (ooh metroid), and Eternal Darkness will never come to my PS2 (this is assuming those games don't suck. We'll see).
The online stuff is OK, but Nintendo's right to keep online gaming at a safe distance - I don't think "online games" are the future killer app. I know too many gamers who don't play MMORPGs or online FPSs. They'll have a market, but I don't think it'll dominate the scene.
But you CAN'T do that with consoles. If you make a loser, you can't ditch it and go on. If you do that, developers don't trust you, even if you are Microsoft - at least, probably. They didn't trust Sega, and for God's sake, Sega is a massive player in the arcade market, and is pretty financially solvent.
That's the key. Microsoft has to stand there with a smile on its face and say 'Xbox is doing great!' and work feverishly behind the scenes to fix the problems in Xbox2 (unique games, better controller design - minimal, but still there). Abandon the Xbox, and ooh, then they'll be really confused when their list of developers (ACTIVE developers, not people who've signed up to be developers) dwindling uncontrollably. And from that, you really can't recover.
Sigh. It's amazing how the gamer community segments in two, the "RPG lovers" and "RPG ignorers" - don't forget FFX. (Not being insulting, just amused :) )
But, anyway, that wasn't really what I wanted to mention - what I really wanted to say was that what's really important is how MS handles the loss. Do they ditch the XBox and suck the loss? (i.e., do they rush the XBox 2 to market?) Ooh, then I'll tell you, the XBox 2 will fall like a dead monkey. "It's all about the games, stupid" - right? Well, the problem is that developers don't like consoles whose producers ditch them. That's why Sega bought it - developers already didn't trust the Saturn, after the Genesis/32X/CD-ROM fiasco - when they ditched the Saturn so early, they REALLY didn't trust the Dreamcast. The fact that the Dreamcast is still doing... not so bad in the aftermarket is a sign that Sega really screwed up.
In the console market, I think sometimes you really need to lose to win. Got a dud of a system? Stick with it. People will remain loyal, people will stick, you'll build a user base, and then developers will come knocking to your door. Sony didn't ditch the PS One - my God, they took a chapter from Nintendo's book and redesigned and rereleased it, to great profit. Nintendo has NEVER abandoned a console (besides the Virtual Boy, which they supported for far longer than they should have) until the developers did.
There's the key, Microsoft. The XBox might suck. But it's your XBox. Love it, cuddle it, and support it, and then developers might trust the XBox 2.
Halo's out for PC (or at least, will be? Not sure).
Don't need to spend $350 for Halo + XBox.
Most people who would want to play Halo already have a computer easily powerful enough to play it (you could probably spend $500 and make one!). MS needs to get rid of the everpresent thought of gamers that since Microsoft makes XBox, and Windows, games that come out for XBox come out for Windows. I think in the back of most people's minds, they already think this, and so "exclusives" don't feel like exclusives. MS needs to make REAL exclusives.
Exclusive games come out nowhere else. Look at the Final Fantasy series: FF7, 8 came out on PC, but it's highly unlikely any others will. So no one considers that the FF series will show up on PC (FFXI excluded because of the online stigma it carries). If you want to play FFX, buy a PS2. That's why people buy consoles. That's why I bought my Super Nintendo back in the day. That's why I bought my N64. That's why I bought my PS1.
MS NEEDS to get rid of the idea that the exclusive games will show up ANYWHERE else. And unfortunately, their track record just isn't good at doing that.
The Dreamcast failed because 3rd party developers didn't trust that Sega would stick with the Dreamcast - they were right. Sega has a history of constantly jumping console ship, so the developers were worried about that. If you take a look at Microsoft, again, I'd imagine that most developers would opt to develop for the PS2 first, and then port it to the X-Box. And a system with tons of ports doesn't survive.
It's a bad, recurring nightmare for MS. The low barrier to entry doesn't matter if your games have no shot in hell of succeeding and doing well. So MS needs to get more consoles out there, and more "this game will show up nowhere else" idea. If they don't, give up.
And people who say "XBox 2 and 3 will rule!" - I once again repeat - developers do NOT develop for a system that the producer doesn't seem to be interested in supporting. That's what killed Sega. It'll kill MS too, if they don't wake up.
Not at all. It's just that Microsoft isn't competing with Nintendo.
How can that be, you ask? They're in the same market!
Yes, but the market is all about games, right? Whoever makes the games, gets the market. Nintendo makes games MUCH better than Microsoft, and so it can carry the GC on its own. In addition, though, GC grabbed up a couple of exclusive franchises which will also keep it floating: Resident Evil, for instance.
The main reason that X-Box and PS2 are competing is they basically have all the same games. PS2 games get ported for other systems, in general (save Sony's games, and Microsoft's games) so if you look at the reason for buying each system, you have to ignore the "common" games: doing so basically leaves you with the exclusive games, and in this category, Nintendo's fine, so it doesn't really have to worry about X-Box or PS2 (and the numbers support this - the GCN is doing really well in Japan, much better than the X-Box, and it's doing well in the US, though a little slower than the X-Box, though that'll probably pick up later in the year after E3 when the high-profile GCN games start kicking it hard) - Sony's fine, as people have more faith in the PS2 than a newcomer. That's really the kicker - Microsoft wanted to compete with Nintendo - it can't. It has to compete with Sony first, as it's catering to Sony's market, not Nintendo's - and it's not doing a good job fighting Sony.
Maybe, maybe not. Still hasn't been confirmed for X-Box or GameCube, and my guess is that Square may end up passing on the X-Box in favor of the GameCube, as while it said it was "interested" in the X-Box, it doesn't seem that thrilled about it (that and it does most of its business in Japan, which doesn't give a rat's ass about the X-Box). FFXI will probably show up on the GC, probably to people's surprise. Developers say that the GC is a breeze to work with, and Square does already have a development team (or is it an external group? I'm confused) working on GC software, so they'll probably just dump the port of FFXI in their laps.
FFXI also is not garnering that much support from the typical FF fanbase. FFXII is PS2 exclusive.
The cute thing is that Microsoft can't be the "second boy" to Sony and survive, because Nintendo's got that position solid, since it will make oodles of money from first party games. So Nintendo sticks in the game, and the remaining fight is between X-Box and PS2, and Microsoft really has been tending to get the "dregs" of PS2 games. It's got a few good ones, but a LOT of ports. Checking out xbox.ign.com, X-box exclusives number about maybe 10? Probably a few more, and here's the downfall: most of them are realllly bad. Since PS2 has a ton of games out, PS2 therefore has a LOT more exclusives, and while the percentage of "exclusive good to exclusive suck" is probably the same, the PS2's just got more.
I dunno. The console market's never been able to maintain 3 competitors: Nintendo's not going away, and I think Sony's got a nice stranglehold as well, so I think Microsoft needs to do a bit more work. It can't just put a console out there and say "hey, we're Microsoft."
Depends on who you are and what kind of games you like. I still play PlayStation games a heckuva lot more than PS2 games, mainly because I prefer RPGs, and the PS2 doesn't have a huge spread of really good RPGs (sorry, done with FFX already) and the PSOne does. Most of my friends are currently playing PSOne games rather than PS2 games, mainly becaues there's a current lull in games that we like for the PS2 (again, RPGs, mainly: Xenosaga and Kingdom Hearts I'm both looking forward to).
That and the fact that God, there are just so MANY PSOne games out there and many of them are very good (I haven't even gotten to Dragon Warrior VII yet... there's another 40 hours I need to burn). I'd be bored with an XBox or GameCube in about a week (which is why I don't own either of them. I'll buy a GameCube later, though, as I want several of the upcoming games - or at least, I most likely will). I'm really not likely to ever buy an XBox, because none of the upcoming exclusive games really drives me enough to spend $300 on a system.
OK, I think I'm going to drop whether or not businesses have the right thing - I keep trying to stress that I'm not necessarily indicating legality here, I'm trying to stress what I think is right. But I do want to stress that businesses are not people - they don't have the same legal standing as a person, and they don't have the same rights as a person - I doubt you'll argue on that point. They don't have the same legal rights, and they don't have the same fundamental rights, either.
As for the trespassing thing, it's simply not true in a business's case: they allow generic people on their property. They can't, and shouldn't, be able to choose who can and who can't be there. Country clubs, for instance, can't choose who can and who can't be there. They can restrict it to people who pay dues - well, yes - but they can't restrict who can pay dues.
Legally, you're right - to a point. As far as I can tell, the law agrees with you, but courts in general haven't - you can search on the Web and find literally hundreds of examples of people who have sued companies for being thrown out of a store for no good reason, and they win almost all the time (usually because the company settles or offers something). You can also find hundreds of examples of stories from when police were called, and they laughed in the store manager's face (in my case, when I called, the police were quite polite and said that until he DOES something - like destruction of property, etc. - they can't do anything). Now, it's possible I've got selection bias here, in that I can't find examples of the counter case because companies don't place them online, but I dunno.
You also have to be careful because in your (admittedly quite emotionally hostile at this point) arguments, you're mixing the right of someone to be in a store with the right to do anything in the store. There's a distinct difference. If someone is in the store, acting like everyone else in the store, and you say "throw that person out, because I don't want him here," then everyone else in the store should be thrown out too.
I never said you could do anything you want in places - I don't know why you keep bringing that up. In fact, I kept repeating it over and over. You can't do whatever you want. But if your only difference is looking different than someone else, then if a store treats you different, it's discrimination.
Actions you can restrict, because they impinge on other people's freedoms. Appearances, you can't (well, you can right now, but you shouldn't be able to). Yes, I'm aware there's a fine line between 'actions' and 'appearances', but that's where the careful examination should be on the restrictions, not the freedoms.
And I'm aware they're formalities. They're also insulting. More than insulting. They're a complete aberration of the society we live in.
You are not on someone 'else's' property. You are on a business's property, and a business does not have the same rights that people do.
Police don't just do what the law says - a lot of times they do what the law means. For instance, there is no way in the world that the police would remove someone from a store just because they're black - if they did, not only would the person sue the store, they'd sue the police department too (and they'd win, as well).
I'm actually talking from personal experience here, though. Police do make moral judgements - they're people. Go ask a store owner to call a cop to get some guy to leave who's not doing anything bad. The cop will come and say "I'm sorry, if he's not doing anything illegal, I can't ask him to leave."
See my other post for my opinions on dress codes. Dress codes are even worse discrimination than anything else, because it's not even done in the name of safety or security - it's just done in the name of social discrimination. The grocery store thing I've touched on about ten times already in ten different posts - health concerns are the one place where I can understand restricting civil liberties, because the public health risk is just too great.
And you're wrong about one thing - you said that "there are quite a few places that do that [disallowing customers based on appearance] and no one cares" - I do. That's one, and it's more than no one. And I think you'll find that there are a hell of a lot more people than just me who think that way.
Most small stores do ignore loss - because it's minor, and they can watch people in the store. When's the last time you saw a small store with electronic tags, or surveillance cameras? I have never seen a store like that. I know when my father owned a store, theft/loss was minor, and the easiest way to prevent it was to walk up and down the aisles asking if you could help people. It's only large stores, which are stupidly designed, don't have enough people working at them, and are therefore much more prone to theft which have to impinge on civil liberties.
Surveillance, however, is not discriminatory: not unless my EYES are discriminatory! It does NOT presume guilt, it does NOT infringe on any civil liberties at all - you're in a public place. Since someone can walk down an aisle and look at you, a camera can look at you as well. The fact that surveillance is more difficult to implement is not my problem - it is not an option to discriminate simply to save money.
The other thing I'm confused about here is how is a dress code not discrimination? It is discrimination. It's saying "I'm sorry, you don't look like I want you to look like, go away." If you think I think it's okay for restaurants to have dress codes, you're very wrong - it's insane for restaurants to be able to have dress codes, but our society still has some remnants of the nobles/peasants mindset, and so those restaurants remain. The restaurants you're thinking about are typically 'upscale' restaurants, extremely expensive, and cater to the 'upper crust' in society, right? Well, go fig, that's exactly the kind of discrimination I'm talking about.
OK. You think a dress code's okay. Then let me give you an example. A guy who doesn't make a lot of money comes into a bit of money - not a lot, but he wants to take his wife out to a very nice restaurant. Unfortunately, they only have enough money to pay for the meal at the restaurant, not enough to buy a good enough outfit to pass the restaurant's "dress code". They go there, and they're turned away because they don't meet the "dress code". This is fair? Like hell. The restaurant is saying "I'm sorry, this restaurant is only for people of 'means'." This is EXACTLY the kind of discrimination that minorities have been fighting for years. How is this any different from restaurants who used to turn away blacks? A person who's black can't become 'not black' just to enter the restaurant, and a person who's poor can't become 'not poor' just to enter the restaurant.
Anytime you say "No X allowed" without a VERY good reason (and the ONLY reason I agree with is health reasons, and even then, certain things overrule it) you're discriminating.
The first sentence in your last statement is true, though - rules about what can and cannot be done are never discriminatory if they apply to everyone. What you did not say was "rules about who can or cannot be admitted are never discriminatory if they apply to everyone" which is what we've been discussing. Actions are different than appearances.
Just as food for thought, what about the people who need to carry medical equipment around in bags? Why should they have to explain themselves to shop in certain stores? They don't have a choice about carrying the bag, but they should have a choice about whether or not to shop there, and that's the key.
Also keep in mind that a private business does not have the right to do whatever it wants. People have rights. Businesses do not have the same rights.
A person's home is not a public place, or a place of business. A store owner can actually own a business, but it's a place of business. Implicitly he's saying "when I'm open, the public is allowed to enter." He can make it a "members only" club, so long as anyone can become a member.
Prejudice is prejudice - it's a slippery slope, and it shouldn't be tolerated. Stores get privileges afforded to them by the police, government, etc. and in order to be worthy of those privileges, they have to uphold the ideals of the country they live in, which is no discrimination. When the government allows me to conduct business in my home (which, um, they don't, without a permit) then I'll allow people in.
Yes. Judging people before having any information about them is "pre-judging" - it's prejudice. Which is "worse"? I'll agree with you that racial discrimination is much worse, but it's the same thing. They're both prejudice, and to some extent, they're both wrong.
There's a fine line, and I'd much rather stay far away from that line than cross over it. Back in the 1950s, we treated blacks like second-class citizens. Now we're treating "suspect people" - people that walk, talk, and "look like" criminals - as thieves. Is this much much less severe? Yes. But only if it stays where it is is it okay (and only BARELY).
I'm not saying that carrying a bag ranks anywhere near racial discrimination. It's in the same category, though. Some discrimination has to exist for basic health reasons (smoking, no shirt no shoes no service) but beyond that, it's a curtosy to adhere to their policies, and if you don't want to, you don't have to.
OK, here's the best that can be gleaned from the actual document:
The "bug" they're talking about is a bug in the login procedure - the "cd key checking" bit doesn't make any sense, as the server doesn't do any checking. So the only thing that makes sense is they're talking about the procedure that the game uses to login to other games (remember battle.net is a passing server, that is, it doesn't actually 'serve' the games) - apparently the games screw up some portion of the login logic, and bnetd copies that as well.
Unless we're talking about a completely internal bug (which I don't see in the source...) it's gotta be a protocol bug, which would OF COURSE be copied in a clean-room reimplementation of the Battle.net protocol. In fact, if they had done a disassembly of the source, they probably would have recognized the bug and FIXED it.
Look, I tend to believe bnetd in this case - especially because, remember, innocent before proven guilty - and they say that it was done as a cleanroom implementation. Given that Blizzard has already misinterpreted legal statutes, I find it more likely that Blizzard doesn't understand what reverse engineering is. (It obviously doesn't know what "trademarks" are, or it never would've complained about the screenshots, or the 'bnetd' name!)