The Shrine

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.fool.com/news/mft/2003/mft03 ... ce2=y">I'm kidding.</a>

MS makes a financial comeback with Xbox! They are now making $4 billon a month in profits alone! In other news, pigs are now migrating with Geese and disrupting airport radar.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I love when Xbox owners tell me how much better their system is, even Gabe and Tycho have jumped on the Bandwagon. I just smile and nod, comforted in the fact my preferred platform will have support in years to come.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Ya know, saying "I like this system for these reasons" is not saying how much better it is, and that's all I've seen them do.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It would be worse if they just kept the price up and didn't make any attempts to market. That would scare away third party developers.

Sega themselves made a good decision releasing the Dreamcast early, the bad decision they made was choosing a 1GB CD as their medium, especially when their development partners were into the CD burner industry. Sega sold systems, but not games. You know there's something wrong when you have 8 million base units on the market and your flagship title sells under 100K, then being re-released on a console with 5 million units installed and it quickly sells a million.

Nintendo, I don't exactly know what did it, but in March they had 58% of the videogame market, third party software is even selling a lot better. Nintendo has the opposite philosophy of microsoft, make production as cheap as hell. Even though Sony is doing a lot better overall in the market share, Nintendo is still almost always the most profitable company in the Industry, one of the most profitable and fastest growing companies in Japan. Of course, Nintendo usually has more than one system on the market at a time, and their own games almost always sell over a million.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Oh come on, for a long period all they talked about were their Halo nights, MechAssault and how they were going over to Microsoft all the time.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>lol... oh well.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>One, they've criticized X-box and Halo a lot. Two, talking about those things still doesn't mean they're trying to show which console is better.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Comic Sans MS"; text-align: left; '>That's because those games are fun to play. Whatever one has to say about the eggsbox, you've got to admit they've got some damned good games in their library and some pretty cool ideas about online gaming.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>A few good games, you mean. Gimme a GameCube over an Xbox. Wait....I got one already. =8^)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The only things they've criticized were the Controllers, and the obsurd size of the Xbox. They only speak ill of the single player in Halo. And by giving Anything space to something on their site, they are in fact promoting it.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The only things they've criticized were the Controllers, and the absurd size of the Xbox.  They only speak ill of the single player in Halo.  And by giving Anything space to something on their site, they are in fact promoting it.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>True, true, true and true. And how is this them claiming that the X-box is better than other consoles?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Hardware spece. Granted, it is better. BUT.....game wise - Both PS2 and GC are better than Xbox's.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Comic Sans MS"; text-align: left; '>True, but it's not like good games aren't still being pumped out for every console. And while some consoles have more good games than others, the most important thing is, does it have the games *I* want?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Comic Sans MS"; text-align: left; '>We're talking about the same Gabe and Tycho that also pimped the Dreamcast, SNK, PS2, and PC, right? They're giving all the games equal time, it's just that the eggs box is the current "in" console. It's a phase, nothing good or bad about it.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>If by "pimped" you mean "talked about games they like," then yes.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Actuallly you and I are both right, they never claimed the Xbox was better, but they did go heavily ProX for awhile. My point is that when you have the influence PA does, that's a huge endorsement.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Influence on only a small portion of the nerd (ie. hardcore) gaming population. That's what, 0.5% of gamers, maybe</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>PA is published in the 'Official PSM' they reach a rather large audience, not just the hardcore. That's why I found it amusing that they were espousing the greatness of games on the Xbox when they are published in OPM.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Um, exactly.</div>