| Monday, December 24, 2001 |
23:06 - It's an Xbox Kind of Christmas
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Okay, so there's been some pressure for me to explain my position of not speaking to-- or at least avoiding-- people who buy Xboxes. Since this could pretty easily be construed as the action of a zealot throwing a tantrum, I figure it's a pretty good idea to present my reasoning.
It's pretty simple: If you buy an Xbox, you are making a tacit statement about how you feel about Microsoft and their ethics and business practices. You're saying that you approve of what they've done. Ethical standards like those I have no time for.
One person has posited that this is like one die-hard Amiga user excommunicating another one who switches to a Windows PC. I don't think this is at all the case. It's one thing to come to the heavy-hearted conclusion that in order to get any useful work done, you have to get modern equipment. While I might suggest an operating system other than Windows to switch to, it can't be denied that Windows is how work tends to get done these days, and using it doesn't necessarily imply anything about the ethics of the user. Blaming someone for the unfortunate necessities of modern life that happen to clash with one's ideals is bad form. Much as I admire the tenacity of Amiga users, clasping their nine-year-old machines to their chests in dimly lit basements and and muttering darkly... there comes a time when you just have to admit defeat and pick another battle.
But it's quite another thing to buy an Xbox. It's a console game system. This is probably the purest form of decadent consumerist indulgence I can think of short of a Fabergé egg. Nobody needs a game console. And while people do need computers, for most people there isn't a valid alternative to Windows. There are indeed alternatives to the Xbox. Very good ones. It's not like the PS2 or GameCube are being completely shunned by the press or the gaming punditry. Each system has its advantages, including the Xbox-- but the Xbox doesn't hold many cards when it comes to interoperability, stability, industry support, number of available games, or the ethics of the company that makes it. Nobody who is buying an Xbox is doing it because they've sorrowfully concluded that there is simply no other option for their poor, deprived, bump-map-starved selves than to fork over the money, flagellating themselves all the way and weeping bitterly.
The way I see it, there are only three reasons a person would buy an Xbox:
- He genuinely wants the Xbox's superior graphics capabilities, and its other drawbacks-- small number of titles, either released or planned, crashy hardware, or the fact that it's Microsoft-- don't bother him.
- He knows that Microsoft takes a $150 loss on the sales of individual consoles, and he's buying one simply to pillage it for parts, run NetBSD on it, or smash it with an axe.
- He's making a statement: that he supports Microsoft and its business practices. And he wants to back up that support with a $300 credit card charge.
The only people buying into (1) seem to be the gaming magazines, and while I think (2) is a great show of idealism, I don't think we'll be seeing a lot of that either-- especially in today's economic climate. So all I can conclude is that the majority of Xbox sales are the result of (3). And these are the people that I want nothing to do with.
Let's be clear about something. When you buy something in a free and competitive market, you're voting with your dollars. You're telling the company you're buying from that you're willing to commit the above-noted amount of money toward the support of that company's policies as well as toward getting its product. If you buy Halo, you're saying the following: "Sixty of my dollars say that I approve of the fact that Bungie, faced with a dump-truck full of money and a grinning Microsoft exec with a pen and contract, pulled back from its imminent multi-platform release of Halo two years ago in order to retool it exclusively-- or at least primarily-- for the Xbox, and thereby deprive the gaming community (particularly the Mac gaming community) of one of their most steadfastly innovative developer forces, instead putting all that innovation into creating a new game system for Microsoft." I wish they'd put statements like that right above the signature line on credit card approval slips. I know it'd change my mind.
Running Windows-- even Windows XP-- has a place in business and leisure. Sometimes it's the only valid option. Sometimes an upgrade is the only way to get work done. In those cases, giving money to a convicted criminal monopolist like Microsoft is just the price we pay as a society for not pressing home the conviction right when we had them on the ropes. We let 'em go scot free, and so now we have only ourselves to blame for the hotel-sized Windows XP banners draped down the sides of buildings and the chilling new sound of Madonna's "Ray of Light".
But to buy an Xbox is to wrap yourself up in Microsoft's flag and say "To hell with morals! All I want is the biggest, baddest game system money can buy-- and if that money goes to tell Microsoft how much I appreciate everything they're doing, so much the better!" And the case is even more damning against those hypocrites who lambast Microsoft at every turn, refuse to use any Microsoft software, champion Linux, post on Slashdot, and spout idealistic rhetoric from every balcony-- but who can't redline their cars fast enough to get to Fry's to fling their $300 over the counter the instant the Xbox is available.
The only upside to this is that finally the shopping season is over, so maybe now the depressingly huge Xbox banners will come down. No, fat chance of that.
Merry %^$$# Christmas. And if Santa brings you an Xbox, I hope you choke on it.
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