[06/19/2000]
The kick of death
DailyRadar talks to Jason "I'm pretty na•ve" Jones about the Microsoft/Bungie acquisition. First of all I can't believe it is true, then I can't believe there is any sum of money that can convince a person to succumb to Microsoft, then I can't believe the Xbox is so great, after all it doesn't include anything revolutionary like cold fusion or quantum chips, which would justify the pride of the developers. Then I can't believe how na•ve the Bungie guys are, thinking MS will leave them their freedom. Maybe for Halo they will, and maybe they will even allow it to be released for more than just the Xbox, but afterwards, what are we going to see? Motocross Madness on the halo engine? Monstertruck Madness on the Halo engine? Bill Gates Madness? BSE? Ok I'm not objective anymore.
Ok so here's the situation: MS has bought Bungie and is integrating them as a separate team in Redmond (that's what they said anyway). Bungie will continue on their own, but get more finances, more testing resources and bandwidth for Bungie.net (that is what they say). Of course the earning will all flow directly into Windows development (that's what they didn't say). Bungie is going to heavily influence the Xbox (that is what they think), which is very cool (dito). The Xbox is going to be the best platform ever (that is what both of them think). Peope are going to buy an Xbox just to play Halo (because it will in fact be the only system that it will be optimized for, besides Windows maybe. I expect an eventual Mac version to be either very poor or even spiked with a few extra slowdowns, just to prove how bad the Mac is) sarcasm off.
Here's a list for you, where you can read some more news on that Black Monday of 2000:

[06/19/2000]
Duron details
the register has some details on AMDs low-cost chip, the Duron. The chips are fairly cheap and seem to be much faster than a comparable Celeron processor (Intel's low-cost chip).

[06/19/2000]
NV20 specs
3Dhardware has some rumored specs on nVidia's upcoming NV20 graphics card. Those numbers boggle the mind, holy cow. Remember that thing is rumored to come for the Mac too.

Final word
Yeah, that announcement shocke me half to death. I can't believe Microsoft has the guts to go and buy a company to enforce their newest monopoly, the Xbox, while they are still being judged by the DoJ for that antitrust case thing. THis whole system is so rotten, I'm pretty damn sure MS won't get split up, but one of the judges will suddenly buy a nice stay in the Caribean, with "funds of unknown origin". For all those of you who believed in Jobs' words "We're going to make the Mac the best gaming platform ever", dudes, forget it. As soon as the Xbox is out, even platforms like PS2 and the PC will start facing trouble, leave alone niche markets like Linux and the Mac. This is the Black Friday of 2000, or how I say, the Black Monday. Why don't we all just make offers to MS for selling ourselves? "Hey, I can make pizza, any need? Just 10'000 bucks and I'm yours" "Sorry, we just bought Pizza Hut five minutes ago, come back tomorrow".
Next companies on Microsofts list:

Next steps: