Vista Success! 40-Million Sold!

[MacMan]

Vista sold more than 40-million copies and Gates is hailing this as a greater success than for any previous Window version?

But Vista success, exactly what does this mean? That they are gaining market share or something?

I think NOT! Vista whole success is, in reality, nothing more than FORCE CONVERSION of the already converted. Vista isn't causing millions of people to switch from either OSX or Linux. If Vista never came out, those 40-million sales simply would have been another 40-million XP sales. There are no real gains in Window's market share, just a shuffling of their existing market, from one product to another.

Vista is being forced down people's throats and is not selling because people are bending over backward to get their eager little hands on it. Its the opposite, as many, in fact, too many articles have already pointed out, Vista is being compared, more and more, to Window's ME. Why, Vista is so much in demand, by the public, that Dell and a few others felt compelled to reinstall Window's XP on some of their machines. No wonder Microsoft is killing XP sooner than later... its slowing down Vista's adoption!

Mr. Gates alluded to their competitors, trying to make it seem that Vista's 40-million sales were due to popular demand and its superiority to OSX and, or, Linux offerings. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The mere fact that he alluded to OSX was because Microsoft fears it and the 9,000 former Window users who, each day, are switching to OSX! Also, Mr. Gates statements and the issuing of legal patent threats and FUD against Linux are even more proof of that.

Vista sales are just that, real sales, but not sales based on what Microsoft would have us believe, market share gains due to Vista's popularity and superiority. Its nothing more than a musical game of chairs, or should I say old and new OS"s?

If one wanted to, they could easily spin it the other way and say that its not so much a massive sale or increase in Vista, but, rather a massive and whopping drop in sales of Windows XP!

In the end, the truth is that Linux and OSX are both slowly increasing in market share and both at the expense of Microsoft's Windows and Microsoft both knows and fears this.

And, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[NicePants42]

I agree with you on this one.

However, I'm a PC gamer, and as such I will probably move to Vista once the good DX10 games start hitting the shelves.

Most of the negative articles I've read about Vista use product drivers as the cornerstone of their argument - which is a legitimate complaint, but not one that Microsoft is solely responsible for. If a certain company doesn't want to write Vista drivers for an aging product, they don't have to, and that isn't M$'s problem.

The only other complaint that I recall involves DX9 game performance vs. XP, where a number of articles have pointed out that many games will run better on XP (for now).

I'm sure that there are other legitimate complaints, and I'll be the first to admit that I've only paid close attention to problems involving gaming, but I'm sure I'd have come across some news if there were a significant stability bug or some other crippling 'feature'. People aren't having their systems crash, they're just being annoyed by high system requirements and that permit/deny security thingy.

I think that if peripheral vendors (or GPU makers) had bothered to make drivers for the new OS, there'd be about 90% fewer complaints.

 

[Rob Williams]

I agree with you to an extent Nate, but I think that people are using the "developers are too lazy for better drivers" excuse more than is needed.

Take a look at the fact that Microsoft's own developers are way late in releasing Halo 2 for Vista. Is this because they had last minute features to add? No. For one, it's a port, not an entirely new game. Therefore, it should be far easier to bring it over to the PC since they just need to worry about compatibility. Two, it's been in the works for over a year now, and was supposed to be released in late 2006.

If MS' own developers can't push out their OWN game for Vista on time, then it's no wonder we are seeing such horrible driver support. That's the way I gather it anyway.

As for MacMan, I agree. If Vista was not included on every PC sold, it would be nowhere near 40 million. It's a sad situation, because people are being forced to use a buggy OS. XP has it's problems also, but doesn't come close to the vast amount of issues Vista has given people in the short time it's been available.

 

[NicePants42]

Point well taken. I just enjoy playing devil's advocate with MacMan.

I personally haven't even touched a machine with Vista on it, much less installed it on my own rig - mainly due to the articles that MacMan is talking about. Maybe if I'd installed Vista, I'd be more bitter toward M$, but as it is I'm pretty happy with XP 64bit, and from some of the DX10 demos I've seen, Vista is gonna' be the only game in town when it comes to PC gaming - once developers start getting familiar with it's more advanced features.

 

[Matt Serrano]

If MS' own developers can't push out their OWN game for Vista on time, then it's no wonder we are seeing such horrible driver support. That's the way I gather it anyway.

It's not like Microsoft is using the same group of developers to port Halo 2 over. In actuality, Microsoft used a port-house to finally bring the first Halo to the PC side (Gearbox software). I haven't really stayed up to date with Halo 2 (and let's face it, who can blame me? ), but I wouldn't surprised if it were the case this time around.

 

[ROFLCOPTERNICK]

Vista Not So Good

People got systems with Vista for a few reasons:

1. They HEARD good things about it.

2. It LOOKS cool.

3. Its the NEW thing.

4. They were FORCED to when buying a new computer.

Im stickin with my lovely XP PRO

 

[moon111]

I personally don't know anyone who's bought Vista as an upgrade yet.

I love playing computer games, but find myself behind the 8 ball everytime. Just can't afford to keep upgrading to do so. So what do I actually use my computer for? Browse the web using Firefox and run OpenOffice. Hmmm... I don't even think I need XP never mind Vista. I'm eager to see how much Dell's with Ubuntu are going to be.