Microsoft CEO Candidate Considering Selling Xbox Brand, Killing Bing

[drakorex]

But... I LOVE Bing;_;

 

[soliunasm]

I'll go Bing the answer to this right now. Oh wait... Nobody actually ever says that. Just like those horrible Surface tablets nobody buys. You could kill Bing and nobody would even notice.

Now Xbox, it would seem poised to finally be profitable assuming they haven't alienated everybody by now.

The only good things Bing has done is have a nice looking front page and let you preview a video when you roll over it in the 'Video' tab. Otherwise, it's not as accurate as Google, gives much more repeats, and isn't as convenient as Google either.

 

[Satangel]

Disney actually sounds like a legit buyer, if this comes through. I didn't know Xbox was doing so bad, bit sad really. I like Xbox a lot, and still remember when they entered the console market. They did a good job IMHO, not bigger than PS but a really strong contender.

 

[chartube12]

I only have more games for the xb360 because they came out first with an affordable price before Sony.

 

[Bladexdsl]

Disney actually sounds like a legit buyer, if this comes through.

coming next christmas.....THE MICKEY BOX!

 

[beta4attack]

Bing? What's that? Let me Google it...

 

[GameWinner]

http://fusible.com/2013/11/disney-r...-domain-name-through-brand-protection-agency/
Lol

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Kind of ironic, since Microsoft did try at one point to buy Nintendo.
One happy day, Balmer decided to buy Nintendo, so he just strolled inside NoA's building, who told him to go to Japan and do the negotiations there, which they did for a certain period of time. Well, those are the facts. However... Rumor has it that, Yamauchi told / said / did something highly unusual and awesome at the same time that made Balmer and his crew go out of Nintendo's Japanese HQ with a puzzled expression, never to come back again.
Oh, and when they bought Rare, one of Microsoft managers saw a Donkey Kong poster in the building and thought they own the IP for it.

Actually, Microsoft bought Rare with the understanding that Donkey Kong would come with it. It wasn't until they bought Rare that they asked "Where the hell is our Donkey Kong?" and Rare said "we don't own it, Nintendo does".

So Microsoft punished them sumsabitches by making them work on the avatar system and shitty kinect games.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I actually kinda like Bing. Mainly for two reasons.

First off, Google Images consistently fucks up on my computer. Like images won't load correctly or sometimes not at all. So I swap over to Bing Images and it doesn't have these issues. I also find Bing Images has better search parameters. Like if I want a wallpaper-eligible image there's a "wallpaper" parameter in Bing Images.

Second off, there's Bing Rewards which y'know aren't super amazing but it's free shit for searching things. How can you go wrong?

 

[zachtheninja]

Hmm... might be interesting to see who picks up the xbox brand if this went through.
Or would microsoft spin the xbox brand off into it's own company?

I agree that bing has vastly improved over the years. It's actually a decent service now.

 

[The Milkman]

They could easily kill Steam. But no they decide to support Xbox

When it started, totally.

Now, they would have to work a lot harder, and personally I would rather not play on a online service by Microsoft.

I mean the OS itself, imagine if they made and advertised a Windows edition specially for gaming, built with several management tools, drivers and some sort of integrated Kinect. Everything your Xbox did, was updated and built into Windows, without the need of Third-party applications. They would be diving into pools of cash from licencing alone.

 

[Maxternal]

Kind of ironic, since Microsoft did try at one point to buy Nintendo.
One happy day, Balmer decided to buy Nintendo, so he just strolled inside NoA's building, who told him to go to Japan and do the negotiations there, which they did for a certain period of time. Well, those are the facts. However... Rumor has it that, Yamauchi told / said / did something highly unusual and awesome at the same time that made Balmer and his crew go out of Nintendo's Japanese HQ with a puzzled expression, never to come back again.
Oh, and when they bought Rare, one of Microsoft managers saw a Donkey Kong poster in the building and thought they own the IP for it.

Oh, that's right, both Microsoft and NoA are in Redwood *checks Google maps* and just about a mile apart

*realizes about 5 minutes later the slight irony that Bing also has maps that he DIDN'T use to look this up*



EDIT : I hope when Bing is shut down, that they have the URL just automatically forward to Google. It'd make it so much easier with all the Windows crap that defaults to Bing.

 

[DSGamer64]

I'll go Bing the answer to this right now. Oh wait... Nobody actually ever says that. Just like those horrible Surface tablets nobody buys. You could kill Bing and nobody would even notice.

Now Xbox, it would seem poised to finally be profitable assuming they haven't alienated everybody by now.

Surface wasn't terrible, just overpriced and lacking in software support for the RT version. I think if Microsoft had released bothn versions as x86 or at least made both run on ARM or Tegra types of hardware, it's would have been more successful.

 

[FAST6191]

Surface wasn't terrible, just overpriced and lacking in software support for the RT version. I think if Microsoft had released bothn versions as x86 or at least made both run on ARM or Tegra types of hardware, it's would have been more successful.

Are you not still left with the problem of decades of X86 software not being compiled or otherwise available for ARM?

 

[mysticwaterfall]

Surface wasn't terrible, just overpriced and lacking in software support for the RT version. I think if Microsoft had released bothn versions as x86 or at least made both run on ARM or Tegra types of hardware, it's would have been more successful.

Agreed, but as it is now its a failure as a tablet. Far more useful and cheaper tablets out there. People don't want just a laptop with a touchscreen.

 

[Walker D]

Actually, Microsoft bought Rare with the understanding that Donkey Kong would come with it. It wasn't until they bought Rare that they asked "Where the hell is our Donkey Kong?" and Rare said "we don't own it, Nintendo does".

So Microsoft punished them sumsabitches by making them work on the avatar system and shitty kinect games.

You know that this story is actually a internal joke between old Rare employees that was made on a blog, right?

 

[The Milkman]

Agreed, but as it is now its a failure as a tablet. Far more useful and cheaper tablets out there. People don't want just a laptop with a touchscreen.

People do want a tablet that can run computer programs. The Surface isn't (primarily) pushed as an entertainment center like the iPad or Samsung/Nexus tablets. It pushed as a small portable workstation that runs a familiar OS with familiar programs that integrates seamlessly with your desktop/laptop/work computer.

Surfaces aren't the best option, but Windows 8 tablets are hardly a failure as they are simply something you won't see your buddies talking about or a guy on the street using.

If they were failing, I highly doubt we would see these things coming out the wazoo or Intel rebuilding an entire line of processors just to better suit them.

 

[mysticwaterfall]

The concept is good, the execution is bad. You cant just throw stuff on a touchscreen and call it good. People expect different things from tablets then they do laptops. Microsoft doesn't understand that on either the laptop or tablet side, so you get an interface that's really not well suited to either.

 

[tbgtbg]

People are just pissy about the whole Star Wars episode 7 thing. Franchise has been butchered enough to make it kid friendly (Jar Jar Binks, 'nuff said).

Star Wars has always been kid friendly, with the possible (ironically enough) exception of episode 3 (the only one rated PG13 instead of PG).

 

[Blaze163]

Star Wars has always been kid friendly, with the possible (ironically enough) exception of episode 3 (the only one rated PG13 instead of PG).

True, but you gotta admit it got a lot more kiddy in the prequel trilogy. Han Solo was funny for everyone, he wasn't some pratfalling goof like Jar Jar. The prequels didn't quite have the same universality that the originals did in terms of humour reaching a wider audience. Which is ironic when you consider the prequels deal with the darker issues in the grand scheme of things (mother's death, slavery, forbidden love, child massacres, etc) and yet they got lumped with the almost cartoon-like humour of Jar Jar. Sure, the original trilogy had goofy moments too, but it seemed a lot more balanced to me.