Comment by arcastroe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arcastroe | Hacker News Reader

When the Microsoft Store first came out, I remember they went around college campuses offering $100 per each app submitted to the store. This multiplayer version of Conway's game of life is one of the first apps I implemented and cashed in. I had previously participated in a hackathon that had us implement this version of Game of Life, and I thought it'd make a good app. Sadly, it looks like it's been removed from the store by now.

P.S. The Microsoft representative didn't seem to have much confidence in the quality of apps submitted. He sold it to us by saying that it was just for growth and that they were trying to catch up to the Apple store, which had already had its period of growth with "useless Fart apps". He even offered a "whack-a-mole" style template game that you could re-theme with different images and submit for $100.

Microsoft has a history of being laser focused on petty things like number of apps or how naming it the Xbox 2 would make it inferior to the PlayStation 3. If they had instead focused that energy towards quality, who knows what might happen.

As a consumer (SO’s perspective) even as a PS-biased player, she feels as if the Xbox 360’s naming was enough to potentially sway her.

Maybe there’s a reason, even if we’re not fans.

Did she think she missed out on Xboxes 3 through 359, so the 360th one must've been good?

I don’t know if this is true, but the xbox naming definitely never made sense to me.

Nintendo tried that with the wii U and look at how successful it was.

Of course, the Wii U was released well after the Xbox 2 (360) and about a year before the Xbox One.

I worked on a business that lived of selling Microsoft licenses like Office and the Windows Server version. They also came with this idea of creating apps but for Windows Phone. There was some people uploading more than 100 apps to the store with things like recipes, free books, mini games, etc. They distributed a few Windows Phones as prizes. It was very weird and I don't know who came up with the idea.

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