[360] MS buys Skype for 8 Billion

[EmpireWF]

They might be looking to do something with their windows mobile platform as well as it is far behind Google(Android) and Apple(Iphone/iOS).

:yep: Think that's a big part of it, definitely.

 

[BrntO4Life]

If Google had gotten their hands on Skype, it would have been crazy.

They already have video chat connected to Gmail chat, but if the Skype protocol was added to their network, I could have done all of my Skype'ing from my Gmail account, similar to how I use AIM inside of Gchat.

Would have been nice to have.

 

[SethMode]

Why? It's pigeonholed itself into nothing but an exercise peripheral. How is that a good thing? It is somehow worse than the Wii, which most of us will admit that it collects dust a majority of the time. But at least the Wii still has plenty of actual fucking games to play.

I don't understand the correlation. I'm not interested in either my Wii (paperweight) or getting a Kinect, but obviously the Kinect is doing pretty well and people that I know that have it just play regular games on their 360 or PS3 and use the Kinect for parties or exercise stuff. I don't see why that's such a bad thing for MS. Clearly the Kinect isn't for you (I'm guessing that you still have one though), but it IS for some people. What makes it different from the Wii is that people have a system attached to it that they can play games all that they want. I guess I don't see the reason to trash on the Kinect here, for just focusing on one particular market.

 

[Twigg4075]

I don't understand the correlation. I'm not interested in either my Wii (paperweight) or getting a Kinect, but obviously the Kinect is doing pretty well and people that I know that have it just play regular games on their 360 or PS3 and use the Kinect for parties or exercise stuff. I don't see why that's such a bad thing for MS. Clearly the Kinect isn't for you (I'm guessing that you still have one though), but it IS for some people. What makes it different from the Wii is that people have a system attached to it that they can play games all that they want. I guess I don't see the reason to trash on the Kinect here, for just focusing on one particular market.

Oh, I know it's not bad for MS. They are making money hand over fist on teh thing. But that's just it, the whole thing was just a marketing firms wet dream. They somehow convinced every soccer mom in the world that they needed one of these things. And now that it's in their homes the money has already been spent.

My biggest issue with it is that MS puts all this marketing behind the thing they doesn't support it themselves. It's been out for six months and they haven't created a single game for it since launch. And there isn't any sign of them doing any in the near future. It's like they got their money for it and said "Fuck it, we got what we wanted. Now let's see if third parties will keep it afloat." they haven't even released any updates to make the god awful dashboard navigation, or video chat, work any better that it has pretty much since launch.

The same pretty much goes for the Move. I can't remember the last first party game that came out for it and I know Sorcery keeps getting delayed. But at least they continue to support the real games with its compatibility, like SOCOM and Killzone.

It just pisses me off every time I see a Kinect commercial and it shows people playing their fucking launch games. Don't even get me started on the unbelievable amount of room you need to play the thing.

Ultimately, the more propular and the better this thing sells, the worse it is for gaming in general. Instead of a company like Ubisoft focusing it's resources on a a game like Ghost Recon, they instead focus on Dance Central 2 because it's the new hotness. It's like how the wave of the future is going to be more and more DLC and digital add on services like what Activision plans to do with CoD, because people have shown with their wallets that they have no qualms dropping $15 for a couple of maps (granted the last map pack seems to have a lot more value than previous entries) And if you as a gamer think that's a good thing, I don't know what to say to you.

 

[BrntO4Life]

Oh, I know it's not bad for MS. They are making money hand over fist on teh thing. But that's just it, the whole thing was just a marketing firms wet dream. They somehow convinced every soccer mom in the world that they needed one of these things. And now that it's in their homes the money has already been spent.

My biggest issue with it is that MS puts all this marketing behind the thing they doesn't support it themselves. It's been out for six months and they haven't created a single game for it since launch. And there isn't any sign of them doing any in the near future. It's like they got their money for it and said "Fuck it, we got what we wanted. Now let's see if third parties will keep it afloat." they haven't even released any updates to make the god awful dashboard navigation, or video chat, work any better that it has pretty much since launch.

The same pretty much goes for the Move. I can't remember the last first party game that came out for it and I know Sorcery keeps getting delayed. But at least they continue to support the real games with its compatibility, like SOCOM and Killzone.

It just pisses me off every time I see a Kinect commercial and it shows people playing their fucking launch games. Don't even get me started on the unbelievable amount of room you need to play the thing.

I'd say at least wait until after E3 to judge Kinect further. They may be holding out all of their information until then.

 

[Twigg4075]

I'd say at least wait until after E3 to judge Kinect further. They may be holding out all of their information until then.

You may be right. But I can't honestly think of any way that they can implement a "real" game utilizing that thing. Every shooter, racer, action game requires some sort of controller interface or tactile feedback of some sort.

 

[BrntO4Life]

You may be right. But I can't honestly thing of any way that they can implement a "real" game utilizing that thing. Every shooter, racer, action game requires some sort of controller interface or tactile feedback of some sort.

I agree, but I've also seen crazier things happen in life. Shit, a good on-rails shooter for the hardcore crowd would be cool (the rumored Gears Kinect game).

 

[Twigg4075]

I agree, but I've also seen crazier things happen in life. Shit, a good on-rails shooter for the hardcore crowd would be cool (the rumored Gears Kinect game).

Well, I know Child of Eden (I think that's what it's called) is coming but I think it's also coming to Move so that doesn't really count.

 

[BrntO4Life]

Well, I know Child of Eden (I think that's what it's called) is coming but I think it's also coming to Move so that doesn't really count.

It can also be played with a controller.

 

[Twigg4075]

It can also be played with a controller.

Exactly. Yet another reason it doesn't count.