I cant wait for all the "online haters" who dissed xbox live and ps2 to no end for years, suddenly will be stand and say "Hey playing online is great!";) sigh.. well good for them.
Why people tend to whine so much about people being jerks over the internet or xbox live? In case you havent noticed nobody forces you to play with a jerk, if you dont like the way someone is playing LEAVE the room! if you are hosting warn the user once then KICK him out. Why is it that everyone thinks they are going to solve this problem by whining or inventing silly rules? it doesnt! 80% of the time a jerk just stops acting like one when he gets kicks out, or finds himself playing alone.
Anyway you will be glad to hear that contrary to popular belief most of the people youll find online are not jerks, I mean seriously you dont expend $200 on a console $50 in a live service and then pay broadband just to call everyone names and being an ass. Most of the people are pretty dedicated (hardcore) so do expect to be beaten (and insulted since thats part of the alpha male thingie) until you achieve at least half their status.
If you are being offended by someone (at a reasonable level) just insult him back or better yet practice and BEAT him, I mean is just a game, why cant you drop a good comeback, oneliner to someone from time to time? I mean who are you? mother theresa? why are you playing a game about blasting people each other to bits then ?
It just adds to using your buddy list wisely and finding good people( even good clans/team) to play with. whinning doesnt solve anything. (and to keep insulkts to a minimum make sure you practice before going live!)
Have fun!
A lot of people confuse "preproduction" with "coming soon!" release, do you remember the metroid movie? the halo movie, the simpsons movie? all those movies have been greenlighted one way or another, even some directors have thrown their card in the hat, but the chance for seeing those films dome is actually rather slim. First of all theres a ton of projects ahead of them (important projects btw) second the "game to movie" thing is beginning to smell bad to hollywood producers.
It turns out video game fans are much harder to please than expected (duh! big surprise considering the media stereo types them as horny,drunk teenagers going "xtreme!" all the time) and other than them people is not that interested in seing videogame adaptations, On top of that we have to remember the abysmal "Uwe Bowell" phenomenon, people may have laughed in their movies on how bad they are, but producers ending up losing money over them probably werent too amused. Actually Blood rayne is probably stucked in distribution hell due to that.
Also condidering how the "Doomed movie" is turning out, we are probably off that way.
Oh and in case you were wondering, the reason why you find recent releases in "warez" is because sometimes there are people "groups" who upload this files to the web and then brag about it and/or use that as credit to get other files. They are not necesarily teenagers or even "haxors". Just people who have access to those files for whatever reason most of the time they are beta testers, co-developers, store employees or reviewers, but of course no one can prove that. So is easier to blame "those damned haxor kids!"
"Anyone who has a computer connected to the internet and enough knowledge to setup "emule" a browser (for checking warez sites) or a bit torrent client." Thank you for reading!
Seriously why the media people even tries to "stereo type" gamers, pirates and even computer users? when are they going to realize ANYONE can be in that demographic? all you need is the rigth tools and the most basic knowledge and you are in. You learned to play halo or mario dash with your kids and you do it each week, well you are a gamer! (casual at least) You regularly download and share software through "emule" or "kazaa" you are a software pirate! har har!
It has nothing to do with age or even personality.
Im glad you consider yourself the center of the universe and all, but have you thought that for this to be considered an actual "trend" you would have to have spoken with at least one hundred thousand people just to cover 10% of the worldwide MMORPG population? (which reaches more than one million users?)
Also.. if anything the number of sales for WOW show say the "trend" is for casual gamers to get INTO mmorpgs not out.
I RTFA and I have to say the article itself is a piece of crap (specially the one about the PSP) extremely biased comments (against it) with little to no info on what was really shown. (Apparently 1up has problems with fanboys posting news)
Anyway I would advice you to look for the info elsewhere as the report is not worth the bytes it wasted on the hdd.
My own comment about the PSP I think the PSP is a great device, but is just too freaking expensive, for the same price you can get any console which has twice the uses and 10 times the library game size! at the time is just a "deluxe" gaming device. And until that changes I dont think the public or the developers will accept it truly. However I definetily dont think it will go under there are good games for it coming (not mentioned in the biased article) and considering its price it has had good sales. (hint to sony: "price drop before xmas")
And about the ps3, is too damn early to tell, but if they can get killzone 2 and unreal working as shown in e3, the hell with everything! Im buying one regardless of stupid articles and/or fanboys.
Off topic: seriously guys this thread is being modded by every fanboy in slashdot! Just check the mods on the poor guy who dare mentioned the x360 -2 flamebait, -1 troll and -1 overrated, overrated ? the guy had -1!
Well.. I agree I actually posted more or less the same in another thread. but MMORPGs are coming to live until the x360 ships starting with FF11 and the Marvel based one.
Lets face it the xbox as we know it is basically dead, one more year of life and thats it. No one is crazy enough to release a mmorpg for it considering that. sad but true.
Maybe you are right, but maybe you are just on denial. That was a press announcement, they Cant LIE in those because they would lose their credibility to the media and thats BAD. If it were going to come out for revolution and they didnt want people to know they would have said something vague as "Coming for some next generation consoles" or along those lines. If they excluded Revolution, then is not coming on revolution, at least not at this time.
Actually the main difference between Marvel/DC is that DC goes for the Superman / Batman superhuman "god like" type characters who deal with problems in a way everyone would like to. While marvel goes for the "spiderman, xmen" type characters who are super powered but at the same time human with common life problems. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. Imo Marvel is more ripe for an rpg than DC due to this.
No really, if theres one thing missing in Xbox live, is rpgs, not just mmorpgs but rpgs in general. Halo 2 is cool, but the medium is ripe for that type of game, mechassault 2 tried and mostly failed. Fable didnt even tried. gauntlet is coming but it focuses on action more than rpging.
Anyway if you consider the other mmorpg for x360 is ff online, that means they've covered the fantasy, anime and comic fans (missign the sci fi fans though) thats quite a big part of the gaming spectrum actually. and they managed to do it without saturating the market. (I wouldnt mind at all if they ported WOW though)
Yeah I know Coh is out there. But there doesnt seem to be any chance for it to be ported to consoles, so for those who dont have a PC or cant use their PC to play mmorpgs, these are great news.
Let me see, this happens America Aka JesusLand, The country that voted "twice" for a guy with an IQ of 80 who sent their sons (not HIS sons though) to a bloody war in the middle of the fucking desert to the wrong country (according Michael Moore at least) and allowed terrorism to their doorsteps in the process, instead of voting for a guy who didnt opossed to gay marriage.
Hmm.. Id say Rockstar is pretty much screwed.
Rockstar just move to Canada and get over with it, next time you wont have to lock the sex game.;)
p.s. Whats this fixation with politicians and GTA anyway? havent they noticed god of war has twice the blood, none of the choice to be bad or not and a completely unlocked sex game? or what about the sex scenes in fable? the guy game (which are real girls btw) or playboy mansion? those arent locked either.
Or if you want to go there, what about the nude patches for DOAVB or Tomb raider?
A report by GCAdvanced indicates that this year it is a 4-day feature at Nintendo Insider. The developer roundtable is already up. It talks about not only the GBA, DS, and PSP, but the Gizmondo, N-Gage, and mobile phone gaming. GCAdvanced also reports there is an interview with Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan.
I'll answer: There's no money in it. MS failed Japanese buyers by not garnering the support of Japanese devs and pubs. Japanese buyers didn't buy Xbox as a result.
Thank you! there! we can summarize all this conversation to that.
Given that it's summer, a hi-mag magnifying glass should burn that straw man up just nicely.
Im not sure what does that mean, but I dont really want to know.
Btw: Contrary to popular belief, disagring and arguing doesnt mean trolling.;)
Wow, thanks I didnt knew that, thats the best answer Ive gotten here.;)
Still there are some key areas where MS apparently didnt considered the Japanese the most obvious of them is size, MS promised the x360 would be smaller, since Japanese want their consoles to be easily portable, they didnt comply with that (although the ps3 isnt so small either). Lets wait and see...
Er.. I never said Anime wasnt "IN" America, it has always been "IN" I guess, but there was a time in which Anime and Japanese Games were extremely "IN" it started with the NES (Mario, SF2, FF, Chrono trigger) and became a phenomenon by the time the Playstation 1 hit (FF7, Tekken, Xenogears, SF Alpha, Guilty gear, etc) I remember playing and talking with people all day about Anime style games available.
I love Anime!;) but you have to admit Anime games are not so "IN" anymore. GTA and Halo and MGS (which is still kind of anime styled) took that place.
Im not sure If Mario and Pokemon can be called "anime" there has been some discussion in the past about that.
Ok now Im confused. First you said they went to see Pearl Harbor and now you are saying they want quality? ??
Ok so you didnt liked halo, congratulations, what about the millions of people who bought it in America and Europe and play it online almost every day?
Why did the Japanese bought GTA? because is an American game that plays Exclusively in a Japanese console? (at least for a few months)
What about phantom dust? thats a succesful Japanese exclusive xbox game that made fans buy one to play it, and it was published by MS produced by a Japanese company, how come there arent more games like that?
Also you cleverly avoided to answer why Japanese companies dont support xbox.
Look I dont want to state Japan is being racist, but they are clearly being protectionist, Japan dominated the console/videogames market for ages, now the Americans are developing their own consoles and even beating them in some areas (online play per example) is no wonder why they are avoiding it like the pest. (300 Xbox sold in a month? come on xbox is not THAT bad, thats less sales than the ngage!)
I see you've taken that personally. Looks like I hit the mark.
Oh come on! I was just saying your theory doesnt hold water. Is childish to denote those who oppose it, but ok have it your way. It doesnt make your point any less or more valid.
btw:Why dont you try to keep your posts a bit smaller? you could have edited all that to: "I dont like xboxes therefore millions of Japanese share my opinion and dont buy them. It doesnt matter if thats the only market in the whole world where the xbox is dead last Is just that all the people in the world are stupid, me and Japanese are not." nice theory there.
Your theory (which is what it is after all) seems interesting except for a detail, if western is so "IN" then shouldnt they be interested in western games as well?
I mean, when anime was completely "IN" America, anime games were also "IN". Suddenly Japanese can handle 2 hours of Pearl Harbor (dear god their resistence for crap is amazing) but they cant play halo ( a space soldier fighting aliens? there must be at least a 100 animes/manga with the same theme) or a Fighting/Volleyball game with girls showing cleavage? (I mean seriously THEY invented that genere)
Anyway if you look at it from a pretty strict point of view, the reason why there arent enough Japanese related games for the xbox is because there arent Japanese developers for the Xbox in the first place, so Why the japanese dont want to develop games for it? since a western console is so "IN" according your theory?
Also the xbox is technically speaking just like and in some details even better than Japanese consoles. So no, technology is not an issue. (and in case you were wondering yes there is xbox live and DSL in Japan)
Sorry but your theory doesnt hold water at all.
Guess what? people who believe the Japanese are a bit protectionist may not be idiots after all.
Seriously guys, why do tou even try to name the xbox here in slashdot? are you fond of answers such as "xbox suck$! instead lets propose nintendo as a new religion!" or "fps are the the same since doom"? most of the people here use linux and/or are over 30, they hate MS with the passion of a thousand tortured souls.
Anyway, yes it did came as a surprise, not this article, but the lack of asian oriented games for x360 out of the bunch of fps titles and heavily american based games (such as madden) only 3 or 4 seem to care about that market. FF online, the new rpg by the creators of FF, shenmue some number (which wasnt even shown) and 99 knights. Not enough to warrant the attention. It seems to me MS is not that interested in that market anymore.
The anandtech article aparently is talking about the developers kit which (According gamespot) is not as fast as the "final" ps3 (or xbox 360 for that matter).
Who to believe? well at this point, you can believe anything you want. The coin is still in the air. Although considering the actual prototypes shown (not CGI or demos) Im going to take a wild guess and think they are just going to be as twice as poweful as modern consoles not 10 times as hyped.
I know a lot of people feel is time to crack open the champagne, but heres the problem, if Ballmer said "MSN is the best search engine, IE is on top.NET rocks, SQL too!" then maybe we could open that champagne since that would mean they are blind to their problems. But the detail is.. they are not. and when MS says, "hmm.. you are beating us so we are out to get you." it cant be taken lightly. Last time they said that they buried Netscape to the ground by giving away IE for free. Im not sure what would be their aproach, but I bet it will be something particularly nasty.
Slashdot Mirror
I cant wait for all the "online haters" who dissed xbox live and ps2 to no end for years, suddenly will be stand and say "Hey playing online is great!" ;) sigh.. well good for them.
Why people tend to whine so much about people being jerks over the internet or xbox live? In case you havent noticed nobody forces you to play with a jerk, if you dont like the way someone is playing LEAVE the room! if you are hosting warn the user once then KICK him out. Why is it that everyone thinks they are going to solve this problem by whining or inventing silly rules? it doesnt! 80% of the time a jerk just stops acting like one when he gets kicks out, or finds himself playing alone. Anyway you will be glad to hear that contrary to popular belief most of the people youll find online are not jerks, I mean seriously you dont expend $200 on a console $50 in a live service and then pay broadband just to call everyone names and being an ass. Most of the people are pretty dedicated (hardcore) so do expect to be beaten (and insulted since thats part of the alpha male thingie) until you achieve at least half their status. If you are being offended by someone (at a reasonable level) just insult him back or better yet practice and BEAT him, I mean is just a game, why cant you drop a good comeback, oneliner to someone from time to time? I mean who are you? mother theresa? why are you playing a game about blasting people each other to bits then ? It just adds to using your buddy list wisely and finding good people( even good clans/team) to play with. whinning doesnt solve anything. (and to keep insulkts to a minimum make sure you practice before going live!) Have fun!
but am i the only one *completely* let down by the trailer?
No, I feel so let down I even did a comic and a mini review about it.
http://www.conxdesigns.com/blog/index.php?id=20
A lot of people confuse "preproduction" with "coming soon!" release, do you remember the metroid movie? the halo movie, the simpsons movie? all those movies have been greenlighted one way or another, even some directors have thrown their card in the hat, but the chance for seeing those films dome is actually rather slim. First of all theres a ton of projects ahead of them (important projects btw) second the "game to movie" thing is beginning to smell bad to hollywood producers.
It turns out video game fans are much harder to please than expected (duh! big surprise considering the media stereo types them as horny,drunk teenagers going "xtreme!" all the time) and other than them people is not that interested in seing videogame adaptations, On top of that we have to remember the abysmal "Uwe Bowell" phenomenon, people may have laughed in their movies on how bad they are, but producers ending up losing money over them probably werent too amused. Actually Blood rayne is probably stucked in distribution hell due to that.
Also condidering how the "Doomed movie" is turning out, we are probably off that way.
Oh and in case you were wondering, the reason why you find recent releases in "warez" is because sometimes there are people "groups" who upload this files to the web and then brag about it and/or use that as credit to get other files. They are not necesarily teenagers or even "haxors". Just people who have access to those files for whatever reason most of the time they are beta testers, co-developers, store employees or reviewers, but of course no one can prove that. So is easier to blame "those damned haxor kids!"
"Anyone who has a computer connected to the internet and enough knowledge to setup "emule" a browser (for checking warez sites) or a bit torrent client." Thank you for reading!
Seriously why the media people even tries to "stereo type" gamers, pirates and even computer users? when are they going to realize ANYONE can be in that demographic? all you need is the rigth tools and the most basic knowledge and you are in. You learned to play halo or mario dash with your kids and you do it each week, well you are a gamer! (casual at least) You regularly download and share software through "emule" or "kazaa" you are a software pirate! har har!
It has nothing to do with age or even personality.
waste of time article.
Why is this modded off topic? is a comic strip with Jack Thompson on it!
http://www.conxdesigns.com/
My comments here:
My comic on the whole subject
Im glad you consider yourself the center of the universe and all, but have you thought that for this to be considered an actual "trend" you would have to have spoken with at least one hundred thousand people just to cover 10% of the worldwide MMORPG population? (which reaches more than one million users?)
.. if anything the number of sales for WOW show say the "trend" is for casual gamers to get INTO mmorpgs not out.
Also
How can this become an article is slashdot?
I RTFA and I have to say the article itself is a piece of crap (specially the one about the PSP) extremely biased comments (against it) with little to no info on what was really shown. (Apparently 1up has problems with fanboys posting news)
Anyway I would advice you to look for the info elsewhere as the report is not worth the bytes it wasted on the hdd.
My own comment about the PSP I think the PSP is a great device, but is just too freaking expensive, for the same price you can get any console which has twice the uses and 10 times the library game size! at the time is just a "deluxe" gaming device. And until that changes I dont think the public or the developers will accept it truly. However I definetily dont think it will go under there are good games for it coming (not mentioned in the biased article) and considering its price it has had good sales. (hint to sony: "price drop before xmas")
And about the ps3, is too damn early to tell, but if they can get killzone 2 and unreal working as shown in e3, the hell with everything! Im buying one regardless of stupid articles and/or fanboys.
Off topic: seriously guys this thread is being modded by every fanboy in slashdot! Just check the mods on the poor guy who dare mentioned the x360 -2 flamebait, -1 troll and -1 overrated, overrated ? the guy had -1!
Well.. I agree I actually posted more or less the same in another thread. but MMORPGs are coming to live until the x360 ships starting with FF11 and the Marvel based one.
Lets face it the xbox as we know it is basically dead, one more year of life and thats it. No one is crazy enough to release a mmorpg for it considering that. sad but true.
Maybe you are right, but maybe you are just on denial. That was a press announcement, they Cant LIE in those because they would lose their credibility to the media and thats BAD. If it were going to come out for revolution and they didnt want people to know they would have said something vague as "Coming for some next generation consoles" or along those lines. If they excluded Revolution, then is not coming on revolution, at least not at this time.
Actually the main difference between Marvel/DC is that DC goes for the Superman / Batman superhuman "god like" type characters who deal with problems in a way everyone would like to. While marvel goes for the "spiderman, xmen" type characters who are super powered but at the same time human with common life problems. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. Imo Marvel is more ripe for an rpg than DC due to this.
No really, if theres one thing missing in Xbox live, is rpgs, not just mmorpgs but rpgs in general. Halo 2 is cool, but the medium is ripe for that type of game, mechassault 2 tried and mostly failed. Fable didnt even tried. gauntlet is coming but it focuses on action more than rpging.
Anyway if you consider the other mmorpg for x360 is ff online, that means they've covered the fantasy, anime and comic fans (missign the sci fi fans though) thats quite a big part of the gaming spectrum actually. and they managed to do it without saturating the market. (I wouldnt mind at all if they ported WOW though)
Yeah I know Coh is out there. But there doesnt seem to be any chance for it to be ported to consoles, so for those who dont have a PC or cant use their PC to play mmorpgs, these are great news.
Let me see, this happens America Aka JesusLand, The country that voted "twice" for a guy with an IQ of 80 who sent their sons (not HIS sons though) to a bloody war in the middle of the fucking desert to the wrong country (according Michael Moore at least) and allowed terrorism to their doorsteps in the process, instead of voting for a guy who didnt opossed to gay marriage.
;)
Hmm.. Id say Rockstar is pretty much screwed.
Rockstar just move to Canada and get over with it, next time you wont have to lock the sex game.
p.s. Whats this fixation with politicians and GTA anyway? havent they noticed god of war has twice the blood, none of the choice to be bad or not and a completely unlocked sex game? or what about the sex scenes in fable? the guy game (which are real girls btw) or playboy mansion? those arent locked either.
Or if you want to go there, what about the nude patches for DOAVB or Tomb raider?
A report by GCAdvanced indicates that this year it is a 4-day feature at Nintendo Insider. The developer roundtable is already up. It talks about not only the GBA, DS, and PSP, but the Gizmondo, N-Gage, and mobile phone gaming. GCAdvanced also reports there is an interview with Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan.
Yeah, that sounds totally unbiased to me.
I'll answer: There's no money in it. MS failed Japanese buyers by not garnering the support of Japanese devs and pubs. Japanese buyers didn't buy Xbox as a result.
Thank you! there! we can summarize all this conversation to that.
Given that it's summer, a hi-mag magnifying glass should burn that straw man up just nicely.
Im not sure what does that mean, but I dont really want to know.
Btw: Contrary to popular belief, disagring and arguing doesnt mean trolling.
Wow, thanks I didnt knew that, thats the best answer Ive gotten here. ;)
Still there are some key areas where MS apparently didnt considered the Japanese the most obvious of them is size, MS promised the x360 would be smaller, since Japanese want their consoles to be easily portable, they didnt comply with that (although the ps3 isnt so small either). Lets wait and see...
Er.. I never said Anime wasnt "IN" America, it has always been "IN" I guess, but there was a time in which Anime and Japanese Games were extremely "IN" it started with the NES (Mario, SF2, FF, Chrono trigger) and became a phenomenon by the time the Playstation 1 hit (FF7, Tekken, Xenogears, SF Alpha, Guilty gear, etc) I remember playing and talking with people all day about Anime style games available.
;) but you have to admit Anime games are not so "IN" anymore. GTA and Halo and MGS (which is still kind of anime styled) took that place.
I love Anime!
Im not sure If Mario and Pokemon can be called "anime" there has been some discussion in the past about that.
Ok now Im confused. First you said they went to see Pearl Harbor and now you are saying they want quality? ??
Ok so you didnt liked halo, congratulations, what about the millions of people who bought it in America and Europe and play it online almost every day?
Why did the Japanese bought GTA? because is an American game that plays Exclusively in a Japanese console? (at least for a few months)
What about phantom dust? thats a succesful Japanese exclusive xbox game that made fans buy one to play it, and it was published by MS produced by a Japanese company, how come there arent more games like that?
Also you cleverly avoided to answer why Japanese companies dont support xbox.
Look I dont want to state Japan is being racist, but they are clearly being protectionist, Japan dominated the console/videogames market for ages, now the Americans are developing their own consoles and even beating them in some areas (online play per example) is no wonder why they are avoiding it like the pest. (300 Xbox sold in a month? come on xbox is not THAT bad, thats less sales than the ngage!)
I see you've taken that personally. Looks like I hit the mark.
Oh come on! I was just saying your theory doesnt hold water. Is childish to denote those who oppose it, but ok have it your way. It doesnt make your point any less or more valid.
btw:Why dont you try to keep your posts a bit smaller? you could have edited all that to:
"I dont like xboxes therefore millions of Japanese share my opinion and dont buy them. It doesnt matter if thats the only market in the whole world where the xbox is dead last Is just that all the people in the world are stupid, me and Japanese are not." nice theory there.
Your theory (which is what it is after all) seems interesting except for a detail, if western is so "IN" then shouldnt they be interested in western games as well?
I mean, when anime was completely "IN" America, anime games were also "IN". Suddenly Japanese can handle 2 hours of Pearl Harbor (dear god their resistence for crap is amazing) but they cant play halo ( a space soldier fighting aliens? there must be at least a 100 animes/manga with the same theme) or a Fighting/Volleyball game with girls showing cleavage? (I mean seriously THEY invented that genere)
Anyway if you look at it from a pretty strict point of view, the reason why there arent enough Japanese related games for the xbox is because there arent Japanese developers for the Xbox in the first place, so Why the japanese dont want to develop games for it? since a western console is so "IN" according your theory?
Also the xbox is technically speaking just like and in some details even better than Japanese consoles. So no, technology is not an issue. (and in case you were wondering yes there is xbox live and DSL in Japan)
Sorry but your theory doesnt hold water at all.
Guess what? people who believe the Japanese are a bit protectionist may not be idiots after all.
Seriously guys, why do tou even try to name the xbox here in slashdot? are you fond of answers such as "xbox suck$! instead lets propose nintendo as a new religion!" or "fps are the the same since doom"? most of the people here use linux and/or are over 30, they hate MS with the passion of a thousand tortured souls.
Anyway, yes it did came as a surprise, not this article, but the lack of asian oriented games for x360 out of the bunch of fps titles and heavily american based games (such as madden) only 3 or 4 seem to care about that market. FF online, the new rpg by the creators of FF, shenmue some number (which wasnt even shown) and 99 knights. Not enough to warrant the attention. It seems to me MS is not that interested in that market anymore.
Gamespot recently released an article explaining exactly the opposite.
0 31.html
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/22/news_6128
The anandtech article aparently is talking about the developers kit which (According gamespot) is not as fast as the "final" ps3 (or xbox 360 for that matter).
Who to believe? well at this point, you can believe anything you want. The coin is still in the air. Although considering the actual prototypes shown (not CGI or demos) Im going to take a wild guess and think they are just going to be as twice as poweful as modern consoles not 10 times as hyped.
I know a lot of people feel is time to crack open the champagne, but heres the problem, if Ballmer said "MSN is the best search engine, IE is on top .NET rocks, SQL too!" then maybe we could open that champagne since that would mean they are blind to their problems. But the detail is .. they are not. and when MS says, "hmm.. you are beating us so we are out to get you." it cant be taken lightly. Last time they said that they buried Netscape to the ground by giving away IE for free. Im not sure what would be their aproach, but I bet it will be something particularly nasty.