Image via WikipediaWhy did I choose "w---"? I started thinking about this. And then I realized that it was true!
Windows has set back the computing in the world by over a decade!
While the computing market is driven by multiple forces, gaming is primarily a force that makes people upgrade. Think about it; have you ever heard someone say, "I need to upgrade my computer so I can run the latest version of PowerPoint!", or was it usually they wanted to upgrade so they could run a new game?
Gaming as a force has driven computing for a long time. However, not so much recently. Here's why... Microsoft happened; specifically, XBox happened. Gaming used to be the sole providence of the PC market. There were a few consoles available, but few offered a gaming experience that could rival PC. Knowing that gaming was driving the market, Microsoft wanted a piece of the pie and stepped in with a console called XBox. They were expensive too (you could sink as much into a new XBox which only ran games as you could into a new PC which had no limits as to what you could run), but since Microsoft started massively producing new video games, they released them initially ONLY for their system. PC gamers had to wait, and this draw slowly pulled them to using consoles as well for gaming.
Now let's take a look at the XBox itself. The latest version of the XBox, 360, has massive problems. Massive? 54% failure rate massive! Compare that to the 10.6% failure rate on the PS3 and a 6.8% failure rate on the Wii, and already Microsoft's gaming console starts sounding like a bad idea.
Okay, so maybe you've never had any problems. I have occasionally met people who say that to me. I can almost guarantee you though, that if you've never had any problems, then the people who were directly in front and behind you in the electronics checkout line have had problems. My brother is a die-hard XBox gamer. He's been through 7 XBox 360 warranty returns in the past 2 years!!
Now, let's take a look inside the XBox. The XBox360 uses a Xenon processor to power its gaming. This is triple-core processor, designed in the year 2002, capable of speeds up totalling 3Ghz.
When the XBox 360's 90nm "Waternoose" Xenon processor was released in 2005, it was already 3 years out of date. Just a year later, processors in PC's had already shifted to smaller and faster technology, like Pentium 4, Pentium D, and AMD's Phenom processor. These new PC chipsets were more than capable of running anything XBox could throw at them.
So, if these amazing technologies were released so many years ago, why haven't we seen another radical shift in the computer market to even faster processors? Simply put, demand. There is no demand. The International Roadmap for Technology Semiconductors shows that there is a trend of 70% scaling every 2–3 years. We've seen this trend played out over and over again. But everyone is busy playing on the nearly decade old architecture of the XBox. The new games on the market are being designed for the XBox. Why upgrade your PC to the newest thing if the older thing satisfies you?
So, even though PC's are far superior to XBox, Microsoft is stagnating computer advancement by holding the market forces behind with it's out-of-date technology. So, yes... I'm sticking with my "w---".
"Windows has set back the computing industry by at least 10 years. Bill Gates should be drawn, quartered, hung, shot, poisoned, disembowelled, and then REALLY hurt."
