Steve Jobs Raged Over Bungie Acquisition

[Fearzone]

This is a little surprising, I mean, otherwise Apple seemed to always overlook computers potential for entertainment--it seemed that way until the iPod anyway. There never seemed to be any thought whatsoever on he Mac's potential as a game machine, except for maybe "Puzzle." Anyway I had switched over to Windows by the time this would have happened. Obviously this was a VERY good business decision from MS, and probably too little too late from Apple.

 

[The Cheezy One]

Give me a break. Last I checked, a poor person screwing up one day couldn't bring down a multimillion dollar empire, leaving thousands without Jobs (heh, get it? Jobs?). I could imagine being rich would be incredibly stressful, at least so long as you still in the business.

Rich and retired? No arguments.

But do you think that steve jobs still does stuff in his company? Maybe he comes up with an idea, but by the time it goes through all the layers of management, its been declared infeasible and scrapped. He has people to run the business for him, he is just a figurehead like royalty or the president.

 

[cefm]

Did Ballmer tea-bag the corpse of Mac gaming?

 

[Erana]

To be honest, he was right to be annoyed, but if he cared that much, why didn't he buy them?

This. This is enough to explain the topic.

Well, would you be happy if a big company that owned the platform took over every good-looking game studio? I mean, Microsoft's the reason pretty much all of the Halo games have been so rushed.
What I want to know is what Bungie would have been like if it was independent of Microsoft.

Give me a break. Last I checked, a poor person screwing up one day couldn't bring down a multimillion dollar empire, leaving thousands without Jobs (heh, get it? Jobs?). I could imagine being rich would be incredibly stressful, at least so long as you still in the business.

Rich and retired? No arguments.

But do you think that steve jobs still does stuff in his company? Maybe he comes up with an idea, but by the time it goes through all the layers of management, its been declared infeasible and scrapped. He has people to run the business for him, he is just a figurehead like royalty or the president.

You'd be suprised how involved he is in the design of the products. He's mostly about aesthetics and the smooth operation of the product, but he really does define the Mac-iness of an Apple product.

 

[Mcface]

It worked out. Microsoft got to make some games, and Mac gets to sell to hipsters who are used to paying for overpriced junk from all of their time spent in coffee shops.

 

[cobrausn]

Give me a break. Last I checked, a poor person screwing up one day couldn't bring down a multimillion dollar empire, leaving thousands without Jobs (heh, get it? Jobs?). I could imagine being rich would be incredibly stressful, at least so long as you still in the business.

Rich and retired? No arguments.

But do you think that steve jobs still does stuff in his company? Maybe he comes up with an idea, but by the time it goes through all the layers of management, its been declared infeasible and scrapped. He has people to run the business for him, he is just a figurehead like royalty or the president.

Yeah, but your earlier qualifier was just 'Rich', not 'Rich and just a Figurehead', which I lump in with 'Rich and Retired'. Also, back in the 90s, his company was not nearly as successful, and the decisions he was making then had huge impact.

I feel no need to bash the rich. I hope to one day be rich.

Also, president > figurehead. Figureheads can't use executive orders. Most of the time I wish the president couldn't either.

 

[HBaskerville]

So 9 years ago Steve Jobs was upset about a competitor. Good thing we are on top of the new cycle. Maybe next we'll get an update on why the Titanic is late pulling into port?

 

[Arec Balrin]

Well this explains why the first Halo was ok as it started out development as PC-native, then got worse and worse after it became console-native.

It's just more evidence to support the master-race's argument.

 

[Erana]

It worked out. Microsoft got to make some games, and Mac gets to sell to hipsters who are used to paying for overpriced junk from all of their time spent in coffee shops.

Yeah, you've really got me down pat. I'm such a hipster, and I pay $12 for a latte. Yeah, I'm going to go drive my iCar to the coffee shop right now and go hip the place up like crazy. I'll bring my Macbook and totally not run almost all PC games through Wine, and then I'll go rub my iPod all over my face for good measure.
Because that's TOTALLY what Mac users do.

 

[Mcface]

It worked out. Microsoft got to make some games, and Mac gets to sell to hipsters who are used to paying for overpriced junk from all of their time spent in coffee shops.

Yeah, you've really got me down pat. I'm such a hipster, and I pay $12 for a latte. Yeah, I'm going to go drive my iCar to the coffee shop right now and go hip the place up like crazy. I'll bring my Macbook and totally not run almost all PC games through Wine, and then I'll go rub my iPod all over my face for good measure.
Because that's TOTALLY what Mac users do.

Not really surprising.

 

[Hungry Donner]

I have a hard time believing this because it always seemed to me that Steve Jobs never cared much about video games. He pretty much saw Apple as being for "everything but games" and any that happened to show up were incidental.

Now apparently his attitude is changing somewhat, back back when the whole "Halo" thing was going on I have a hard time believing that he himself really cared all that much or considered his system to have a "premiere game developer".

It always seemed to me that the lack of decent games and game development on the Mac compared to the PC was largely because Mr. Jobs didn't care about games, and the platform just wasn't friendly.

Yeah, maybe it was after this but I could have sworn Apple announced it would no longer attend E3 before Bungie was acquired. Around the same time that they backed out of E3 they canceled some planned OS improvements dealing with 3D graphics that upset a lot of game developers that were still supporting Macs (as well as some CAD/CAM developers doing the same).

Apple has warmed to games since then but for a while that wasn't the impression they were giving.

I wish I was able to confirm all of these dates so I knew what order they happened in.

 

[The Cheezy One]

Yeah, but your earlier qualifier was just 'Rich', not 'Rich and just a Figurehead', which I lump in with 'Rich and Retired'. Also, back in the 90s, his company was not nearly as successful, and the decisions he was making then had huge impact.

I feel no need to bash the rich. I hope to one day be rich.

Also, president > figurehead. Figureheads can't use executive orders. Most of the time I wish the president couldn't either.

Ah, I automatically lump 'Rich' in with 'Rich businessmen', and my cynicism does the rest. Also, I got through my business studies course reading Dilbert comics, and while they are an exagerration, when you work in the industry, they hit quite close to home. Sometimes, when a CEO is used to his orders making/breaking a company, he doesn't understand when he has people to do his thinking for him. My dad says that his boss needs to understand when to let his underlings do the work, because he keeps trying to fix everything himself

I also hope to be rich. Well off at least. I want to be able to work really hard to give my family what they want. Like my dad.

 

[sir.rutthed]

Interesting to think how modern gaming would be different had that acquisition not happened. Think about it, Halo was the main reason xbox won that round of the console wars. Had it been released on PC/Mac it may have either given a second wind to the PC market and made Macs more game friendly, or vanished into relative obscurity.

 

[SantoUno]

Well this explains why the first Halo was ok as it started out development as PC-native, then got worse and worse after it became console-native.

It's just more evidence to support the master-race's argument.

You've got to be joking, this isn't the thread for a response as irrelevant as that.

OT: Seeing how popular Halo got, I'm not surprised, it could have sold Macs as much as it did Xboxes.

But then again, how many people would have owned Macs AND be gamers at that time? Not very much I believe.

 

[Direwolf750]

yep. kind of old news but glad that everyone knows now. still can't say that I mind.

 

[luckycharms8282]

Tis business my friend. Thats pretty funny he threw a fit at a CEO of another company that did a perfectly legal (but possibly underhanded) business move

 

[Cogwheel]

But...

Mac got Marathon. I think they won this one.

In terms of having an amazing series, obviously. No offense to Halo, I just like Marathon better. Mostly for the plot.

Money-wise, yes, they lost. Big time.

 

[tkioz]

How how shocking Microsoft made a yet another good businesses decision (you know the reason they are so huge...) and Apple/Jobs threw a fit... this is really news.