The Universal Blu myth

[Sylin]

Originally Posted by EricJ

And after reading the same "It's all Universal's fault!" whine for Bill Hunt's 25th time on the Digital Bits site, I'm convinced I'm the only person on planet Earth who knows why Universal is still the "loyal" HD holdout:

Three words that seem to have occurred to no one: MICROSOFT...OWNS...UNIVERSAL.

I don't know exactly what portion of the corporation they "own", or how much quotation marks to use, but we do know that MS has been tied to the parent company of NBC ever since the formation of MSNBC (duh ), and a few ties may have even been forged back when Dreamworks was still producing "Shrek" for the Globe.
WHICH MEANS: That Universal is now on Bill Gates's "evangelism" short leash to be the face-man studio to promote HD-DVD as Not Dead Yet...And even when it is dead later this year, they'll still be forced to wave the red banner for Microsoft's post-HD sour grapes of "The future is in HD downloads!" and dump all their movies onto X-Box Live.
As long as the war is All Microsoft's Fault(TM), Universal will forever be dragged down with the ship.

I've seen no argument as to why Disney supports Blu-Ray so loyally (ie., that Steve Jobs is the major shareholder in Disney, and Apple wants to keep Blu-ray in the QuickTime family as dominant format), so I can't see why it's so hard to accept the idea of another studio being leather-slaves to their Corporate Overlords.

This is some of the most narrow-minded, ignorant FUD I've ever read on these forums. Nothing personal, but your facts are incorrect.

MS doesn't "own" NBC or Universal. They have alliances and I am sure some ownership crossover, but NBC and Universal are both owned by GE. And even still, all of these companies you mention operate 100% autonomously, meaning they call their own shots. Matter of fact, Microsoft owns less than 20% of MSNBC (the network--they are 50/50 on the web site).

Secondly, people need to stop vilifying Bill Gates. It comes off as envy. Bill Gates is more a spokesman/mascot and does not call the shots at MS... he hasn't for years. There are many other executives who are making the decisions for MS's various departments and branches. Some are good and actually make sense, and some don't. But it's a capitalist nation so they are no worse than 90% of the other American companies.

You know where Bill Gates was last week? Not in some super-secret underground lair plotting to take over the government. He was in Nashville for a bridge tournament (his hobby), after his foundation just recently cut some very big checks to some very worthy charities that do good for others.

Do I think the man is a saint? No--very few people in the public eye are. But I'm not a hater, and I know he DOES do some good. How much money did you contribute to charity this year?

[GasCat]

Originally Posted by ikcizokm

Secondly, people need to stop vilifying Bill Gates. It comes off as envy. Bill Gates is more a spokesman/mascot and does not call the shots at MS... he hasn't for years. There are many other executives who are making the decisions for MS's various departments and branches. Some are good and actually make sense, and some don't. But it's a capitalist nation so they are no worse than 90% of the other American companies.

You know where Bill Gates was last week? Not in some super-secret underground lair plotting to take over the government. He was in Nashville for a bridge tournament (his hobby), after his foundation just recently cut some very big checks to some very worthy charities that do good for others.

Do I think the man is a saint? No--very few people in the public eye are. But I'm not a hater, and I know he DOES do some good. How much money did you contribute to charity this year?

A few things I don't like about Gates:
He took most of his US funds and traded it for Euros further weakening the dollar.
He wants the US government to issue more work visas so that more jobs can be taken away from American programmers.
Do you know that giving money away is one of the worst ways to help someone? The problem is it doesn't provide a sustainable source of income. Ask any economist and they will say the same thing. He started a business which employs thousands. That is great;that is what the people in Africa need. If they do not have viable businesses they will continue to hold their hands out for money.

The funny thing is Gates' income being given away is what I and probably everyone else here payed for overpriced software after he drove the competition out of business illegally. I can find better heroes than Bill Gates.

[BorrowedTime]

Originally Posted by ikcizokm

You know where Bill Gates was last week? Not in some super-secret underground lair plotting to take over the government. He was in Nashville for a bridge tournament (his hobby), after his foundation just recently cut some very big checks to some very worthy charities that do good for others.

Do I think the man is a saint? No--very few people in the public eye are. But I'm not a hater, and I know he DOES do some good. How much money did you contribute to charity this year?

That's kind of an unfair comparison to make. If Bill Gates donates 60 million to charity, and as you ask above "How much money did you contribute to charity this year?" I certainly know that I don't have that kind of money to throw around. I use $60M as an example, I don't know if that is in the ballpark of how much he donates, but even at $600M (which I highly doubt) it's only a drop in the bucket compared to his worth. At $60M, it represents a 0.1%of his overall net worth, at $600M, 1%. I know people that contribute as much as 10-15% of their yearly income to charities, not to mention their time in volunteerism. I highly doubt Bill Gates would miss, or bat an eye at dropping 1% of 60 Billion dollars. I don't know about you, but I think people that donate 10% of their annual income of say 50000-100000 dollars, and their time, sacrifice and contribute a hell of a lot more than Mr. Gates does.

Sorry, I get annoyed when people think that simply because they have the means to throw a ton of money at a charity, that their contribution is worth more than when someone with much less literally sacrifices more (and in many cases could use the money and time to better their own situation).