Graham - Jul 25, 2006 07:57am

Games consoles you buy the best and most recent, so you can get the latest games and the most realistic game play.

Mp3 players you buy one that holds the amount of music you want (thus the success of the shuffle, nano (because not all people want 40gigs of music with them.)), looks good and is small enough to carry.

When Apple users compare the Mac to a BMW, do you argue that the two aren’t comparable because the Mac doesn’t come with a steering wheel?  Yeesh.  I understand the differences between a game console and a music player.  Do you, on the other hand, understand that an analogy does not mean that two things are exactly alike? 

In this case, Microsoft has had great success both critically and in the market with a hardware/software device that owes little or nothing to its Windows product.  The X-box is well designed, runs great, and is very popular despite heavy competition from the Playstation products.

There is every reason to believe then that they could potentially (albeit with no guarantees) accomplish the same thing with a portable mp3 player (and none of the items you list above provide any counter-argument to this whatsoever), particularly if the same design team is responsible for its creation.

(PS what are the 12 improvements you can think of for the Mp3 player)

FM tuner
Voice recorder
Bluetooth
Wifi
Multiple user prefs
Touch screen controls
Multiple desktop music player options
Ability to delete and control songs directly in the player
Voice controls
Customizable menus
Multiple player standardized USB interface
Removable/interchangeable flash card

i canni wait for the Zune thingy to come out. ive got an ipod but its the second generation one, it would be nice to try something new, and considering its from the makers of the xbox it should be good. of course, apple are announcing something next month arent they? so maybe they’ll just ruin all the plans that micosoft have.

My point is; I doubt Microsoft will find much success/profit in their new Mp3 player. Yes they did well in a different electronics market but they wont in this one. Why; because Apple has the dominance of the market and so will require doing something extra special to make headway which I do not think they can do as new comers to the market, and because apple are working just as hard to stay ahead.

Man I like a good heated arguement… to dominate. Okay first @Beeble: I think you are raising a strong arguement but I am not sure were you stand on the iPod vs. zune issue. Second some of the features on your list are well thought out.
@graham: I see were you stand, but you are not making a good arguement. In my opinion you rely too much on the whole “xbox sucks and iPod rocks” idea. Personally I think Apple has the upper hand because, they already have a lot of influence in the record industry, nut to mention the television industry. Apple already has the influence. Microsoft however really doesn’t have that much influence in these key areas. The zune could be an okay mp3 player, but it can still fail. Lets take a look at the iRiver it is pretty good, but it still is not popular.
@haye: Your first point was a little off, he never mentioned the xbox 360. And he did have a point the xbox never really did too well. Your second one was well a misunderstanding? He was not saying that the two things were related, he was being more general. Buzz was getting at the fact that most people use windows, but that doesn’t make it good.

haye321 - Jul 27, 2006 09:05am

even the majority of people, doesn’t mean it’s actually any good

How can that be true? If the majority of people like it than Microsoft must be doing something right with it.

“Popularity” is not the same thing as “worthiness”. Just because lots of people like something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s actually any good or the best - there are many examples of this, including Windoze vs Mac OS and VHS vs Beta. There’s lot of face-value factors such as cost, style and “everyone else has it” that contribute to “popularity” and far too often these outweigh whether the product is actually any good ... not too mention that too many people these days have more money than sense and simply buy the latest toy on the block (being “first” doesn’t mean it’s any good either).

BTW, “Microsoft doing something right” is a completely impossible concept in this universe ... and to add more proof to that point (not that it’s needed) I had a long reply typed up and then hopeless Exploiter threw it’s usual tantrum and lost it all.