20th December 2005, 11:59 AM
Here's the first thing. MS didn't make a "hasty" jump into consoles. The code named "XBox" had been announced for many long years before that particular incarnation. In fact, at first some people believed MS would scrap this model and delay yet again.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)