[playa_playa]

Heh, I thought MS's profit expectation utterly shattered itself when I saw my friend's piracy setup w/ the Xbox. Some of you may be familiar w/ it, so I won't reiterate it. But suffice it to say, it's even more convenient than DC pirating (something that I thought wouldn't be possible). When he started playing pirated Halo broadband games against other players w/ pirated copies, I thought that all pretensions of Xbox being a console fell apart quicker than porky's cottage under hurricane Andrew.

However, with the user-friendliness of Xbox's OS coupled w/ its computer-like setup makes stopping this piracy a certain quagmire. This would have to mean that whatever MS decides to do against piracy will have to be relegated to future preventions that will be inherent to its next console.

Unless MS conjures up a way to stop this deep-seated piracy, I see the potential profit margin of Xbox going down the toilet. While this may not phase MS initially, it will make their future console endeavors that much more precarious. Therefore, inferring that MS will not be able to offer as attractive offer as the Xbox for its successor would be a prudent deduction.

My guess as to the magnitude of the impact on MS? Let's put it this way: they certainly won't be hurting all that much nor will they give up their amibitions for console market domination (MS's total revenue is way to large for that to happen). However, it will reduce their options as to how they can approach their next console