This might be a little known tidbit in the annals of the Xbox360’s creation process, but Epic claims that they convinced Microsoft to add 512MB of RAM to the motherboard of the next gen system to handle what Gears of War was promised to be bringing graphics wise reports Major Nelson. This addon brought a hefty price tag of a cool Billion. Microsoft obliged because, well, we all know what GoW brought as a Killer App. Now, Epic has brought a massive uproar about Microsoft charging 800 microsoft points for the new map pack. Epic claims that the map pack should be free, even though they laughed when they claimed they “spent” a lot of Bill Gates’ dough. They are essentially telling Microsoft that they can’t make that billion back. Who are the real losers here? Us. The consumer. We are the ones who have to shell out 10 bucks for new maps. Seems like the collateral damage always affects the little guy.
Now Major Nelson, who has been the so-called voice of the next gen gamer has created quite a stir with some of his comments on what is going on between Microsoft and Epic. Here is his podcast on this topic. Fast forward to about 7 minutes; thats when it gets juicy.
Both of these companies need to man up and realize that the consumers are losing with all these moves. Microsoft especially, as almost every bit of “premium” content is getting an uproar for the prices.