Which company is more evil? Sony or Microsoft?

[Saint Marcus]

You know the last two are redundant, no?

No, and your PS2 comparison doesn't add up

Windows sucks. Windows is overpriced. But you still HAVE to buy it since there is no real alternative (don't get me started on linux please).

You may think the PS2 is crap and overpriced. But even if it was so, you don't have to buy it. There is good competition out there, which isn't the case with windows.

Can you draw any parallels, genius?

just did. yours don't add up.

[Carver]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus

Windows sucks. Windows is overpriced.

Yeah, everything should just use DOS.



(oh, that was MS too)

[Tuberski]

But MS-DOS worked well.

Besides there were other DOS programs available.

[Saint Marcus]

DRDOS wasn't MS.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
No, and your PS2 comparison doesn't add up

Windows sucks. Windows is overpriced. But you still HAVE to buy it since there is no real alternative (don't get me started on linux please).

PS2 sucks. PS2 is overpriced. But you still HAVE to buy it since there is no real alternative (don't get me started on Xbox please -- it doesn't have FFX and GTA3 and GT3). At least that's what you said in the console thread, you wouldn't get the other consoles because they don't have some games you want.

This is exactly the same thing.

You may think the PS2 is crap and overpriced. But even if it was so, you don't have to buy it.

Same with Windows.

There is good competition out there, which isn't the case with windows.

What's wrong with Mac OS X?
Linux?
BSD?

There are plenty of alternatives, but you don't consider them viable because you can't get the same software selection as Windows, right?

Isn't that your entire argument on why PS2 is better, buddy?

DRDOS wasn't MS.

PS2 isn't Sony. Toshiba makes the Emotion Engine, Rambus makes the RAM. The only part of the PS2 that Sony made is the Graphics Synthesizer chip, which is argually one of the worst pieces of hardware ever conceived for 3D gaming.

[Saint Marcus]

This is exactly the same thing.

ok Asher, what ever you say.

[JohnIII]

Asher, you have to buy Windows and Office to be able to interface with most business networks. There are no business reasons, outside the 'industry', for buying a PS2.

[Saint Marcus]

EXACTLY

[Asher]

StarOffice/OpenOffice is compatible with Office file formats.

And that's not the thing that makes them inherently evil, either. That just means they have a monopoly (which in and of itself does not make someone illegal, only if they abuse it). And I think both MS *and* Sony need to work on this.

You also need a PS2 to interface with "most games" still.

[Asher]

Sony is Evil.
The Sony Corporation is evil for what they're doing to our movies. It used to be that theaters were independent -- when a crappy movie came out, they just wouldn't show it. Extra incentive for production companies to produce better movies. Furthermore, different theaters could show different types of movies -- some would play to a more intellectual audience, others to families, etc.

Not anymore. Now that Sony owns movie studios, movie theaters, and advertising venues, they can produce movies, tell the public about them, and show them all over the country. The perfect definition of a vertical monopoly.

Sony owns Columbia Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, parts of Jim Henson Productions, Phoenix Pictures, Columbia-Tri Star Home Video (so they can sell them to you after they leave the theaters), Sonly Theaters, Loews Theaters, IMAX, Magic Johnson Theaters, and Metreon Theaters. And that's why movie tickets are all the same price no matter where you go.

Sony is also partly responsible for the increasing levels of standardization of popular music. They own Sony Music, Tri-Star Music, Columbia Records, Epic Records, Harmony Records, Dance Pool, Relatively Entertainment, Arc of Light, Sony Broadway, SEON, Vivarte, and half of Columbia House. All this exists to take away your choices and funnel your money into their pockets.

And as a member of the RIAA, they use anticompetitive practices to limit the music available to you.

And they spy on activists who are concerned with their environmental policy.

And to make sure you go see their movies even they're crappy, they invent imaginary critics to review their movies.

And also:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/22910.html

Sony's case against Bleem followed a parallel action targeting Connectix, which launched a PlayStation emulator of its own earlier in the year, for the Macintosh. Unlike the Connectix case, however, Bleem won the support of the court, beating a temporary injunction against sales of its emulator and later defeating Sony's demand to ban the sale of the emulator permanently.

Sony's failures in court went to its head, Bleem later alleged in a countersuit of its own. The emulation company claimed that the Japanese giant's US operation had initiated a dirty tricks policy which, in part, involved attempting to have Bleem thrown out of the May 1999 E3 show, one of the world's largest games industry shindigs.

[Ned]

Saint Marcus, You have me convinced that both Sony and Microsoft are evil. Their leaders are like Senator Palpatine, menacing manipulators of the Dark Side. They have to be stopped!

Their repeated crimes against humanity and the Force have to be avenged by representatives of the brutalized consuming masses and the last remnants of their rebel competition. I recommend their immediate arrest and transportation to the Hague for trial in the new International Criminal Court, Judge Yassar Arafat, retired Palestinian freedom-fighter, presiding.

[Saint Marcus]

StarOffice/OpenOffice is compatible with Office file formats.

Star Office is beta, is it not?

You also need a PS2 to interface with "most games" still.

no you don't. most (top) ps2 games will also appear on other consoles, or on the PC.

And that's not the thing that makes them inherently evil, either. That just means they have a monopoly (which in and of itself does not make someone illegal, only if they abuse it). And I think both MS *and* Sony need to work on this.

There in lies the problem. MS has a monopoly and abuses it (hence the anti-trust cases). Sony doesn't have a monopoly to abuse, so it's actions are therefor do less harm (it's easier to ruin and control a market if you have a monopoly like MS, and unlike Sony).



Ned: I don't recal either Sony or MS invading Vietnam or Afghanistan. And since they haven't, as of yet, commited any crimes against humanity they can't be put on trial before the ICC. They can, and are, however on trial in various courts worldwide.

And Arafat is more likely to one day appear before a judge, instead of become one himself.

[Ned]

Ah, but Saint Marcus, Sony and Microsoft have "invaded" the market and imposed unfair retraints on entertainment and computer software that deny the MTV generation their full and unfettered enjoyment of those most basic of human rights: computerize games, the Internet, and music on a CD. These evil capitalist oppressors are more guilty of causing human suffering to American and European youth than Osama bin Laden will ever be. If these are not international crimes of the most grevious and heinous kind, then no crime should ever be brought before the new court.

[Saint Marcus]

[Asher]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
There in lies the problem. MS has a monopoly and abuses it (hence the anti-trust cases). Sony doesn't have a monopoly to abuse, so it's actions are therefor do less harm (it's easier to ruin and control a market if you have a monopoly like MS, and unlike Sony).

Sony does have an effective monopoly on the entertainment industry.
Take a look at all of the companies that are owned by Sony and keep operating under different names.

The only reason you seem to think they're not as evil is because Sony doesn't change the company's names after they're acquired, while MS just assimilates them under the Microsoft name. Very few people understand just how much of the entertainment industry is controlled by Sony with an iron fist.

The reason why there is no anti-trust trial for Sony is because the Japanese government has little to no rules about competing with foreign businesses, and in fact encourages ruthless competition as such.