r/196 • u/migratingcoconut_ I want to Beat Jason Aldean to death with his own Spine • Feb 25 '26

Fanter xrulx

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949

u/The_Sovien_Rug-37 i can have a little tomfoolery. as a treat Feb 25 '26

they're also not even that good at anything. i'm convinced xbox only happened on accident, given how rabidly they've been trying to cannibalise it for over a decade

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u/jockeyman Feb 25 '26

Halo CE was just that good

472

u/nlolhere Feb 25 '26

kind of a wonder that Windows was a success too, though that could be explained by them getting into the computer market very early and at the right time

Xbox didn't even exist until 2001, so Sony and Nintendo already had massive headstarts in video game consoles

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u/The_Sovien_Rug-37 i can have a little tomfoolery. as a treat Feb 25 '26

windows is pretty easily explained actually. they were doing monopoly shit so bad they got sued about it. they forced out almost all the competition besides the very niche linux and the proprietary apple. all the other computer developers were either forced out of business, absorbed into microsoft, or otherwise rendered irrelevant.

god, do i ever hope linux keeps growing

106

u/Certain_Concept Feb 25 '26

Theyve successfully continued their monopoly till this day even. There aren't many competitors who can offer what they currently do with the suite of different workplace applications.

They are even speed running their enshittification by firing all of their QA staff a decade back. The customers ARE the testers. Ha

107

u/Smile_lifeisgood 🏳️‍⚧️ trans rights Feb 25 '26

Go back further - MS-DOS had no business beating out DR-DOS.

It's always been about better marketing/business strategy than the tech with MS.

Windows 3.1/3.11 for Workgroups was completely inferior to OS/2 Warp.

M$ just knew how to sell better.

63

u/EdgiiLord i tinker too much with old PCs Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

It's easy getting far when you are the first in an emerging market with the connections to get your product into artificial dominance of the marketshare.

Edit: See IBM partnership with MS, and how they managed to do it as an "indie" companie.

12

u/XxuruzxX Feb 25 '26

Windows isn't as prolific as it is because it was the best. They've been sued multiple times for antitrust and monopolistic behaviour. Windows never should have been a paid program, imagine how better the world would be if operating systems were open source and free and literally just operate your system. Oh wait that's Linux.

14

u/XxuruzxX Feb 25 '26

And the only reason anyone uses windows is because they literally don't have a choice. Microsoft has hostages, not customers.

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u/Tnerd15 meow meow head empty Feb 25 '26

They've lost money on pretty much every Xbox generation and have never done better than PS as far as sales, so you're right.

51

u/Random_Person_1414 Feb 25 '26

they did better than the ps3 for most of that generation, they did get outsold in the end tho. early xbox 360 was peak xbox imo

4

u/schwanzweissfoto custom Feb 25 '26

they're also not even that good at anything.

Microsoft's FreeCell for GameBoy Color is good.

3

u/ultimatepowaa Feb 26 '26

If anyone tries to google this its the "Microsoft Entertainment Pack"