Apple's Steve Jobs 'raged' at Steve Ballmer when Microsoft bought Halo - Page 2

Yes, please, it gives me goosebumps and makes you look like a complete tech illiterate.

A small fraction of that could have been his own offer and he wouldn't have to have had another of his infamous tantrums.

It's tough for some people when they learn that you can't have the world for free.


"Something is happening to Steve that's sad and not pretty."
- a friend of Steve's
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?pro...&detail=medium

To clarify, I don't believe Apple holds any Disney stock.

Steve Jobs personally received 138 million shares in exchange from Disney's acquisition of Pixar. Jobs joined the Disney board of directors upon completion of the merger. Jobs also helps oversee Disney and Pixar's combined animation businesses with a seat on a special six-man steering committee.

Note that being on the board of any corporation does not normally give you outright powers to direct the companies daily operations in any manner.

For example, in Disney's case:

Quote:

CHARTER OF THE AUDIT COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

The responsibilities of the Board of Directors of The Walt Disney Company include oversight of the Companys systems of internal control, preparation and presentation of financial reports and compliance with applicable laws, regulations and Company policies. Through this Charter, the Board delegates certain responsibilities to the Audit Committee to assist the Board in the fulfillment of its duties to the Company and its shareholders. As more fully set forth below, the purpose of the Committee is to assist the Board in its oversight of:

the integrity of the Companys financial statements;
the Companys compliance with legal and regulatory requirements;
the qualifications and independence of the Companys independent auditors; and
the performance of the Companys independent auditors and of the Companys internal audit function.

http://corporate.disney.go.com/corpo...ers_audit.html

Back at the time (before MS bought Bungie), Steve had the head of Bungie come on stage at one of his keynote's (back when they used to webcast them live to everyone) and demo Halo for the Mac universe to see and announce it was coming for the Mac - which at the time was very visually impressive.

This was during one of Apple's "we need games" on the Mac periods that don't last too long and seem to come and go every 4 years or so. Gaming on the PC was really big at the time and Apple probably figured they needed to have that as well to bring users on board.

Then Microsoft bought Bungie...

Its amusing to think Ballmer had one of his people try to calm Stevo down...the whole idea even Microsoft had to treat him with such kid gloves back then is amusing...

Microsoft managed to bring that game to far more people than it would have seen on a Mac.

Sometimes I can't even remember my own name.

But it's amusing that anyone is even slightly interested in one phone call Steve made ten years ago. If Steve had failed to turn Apple around and form it into the powerhouse we know today, I doubt very much that anyone would care. Now it's viewed as a rare insight into an otherwise very private character, I suppose.

Steve Jobs may be highly demanding. But to characterize him as mercurial, is totally without foundation.

They do if they think it can be turned around. Contracts get re-negotiated all the time & unfortunately for the employees excessiveness often gets canned during a buy out.

Again, I also said I have doubts, but you oversimplify the situation. It would be far worse for Microsoft to move in & grab them up, that would really put some serious hurt on Apple.

It is amazing that some people take the word of journalists which like lawyer and politicians, are considered survey after survey, the most untrusted of all vocations.

Interesting that the author of your reference, journalist Mark Moritz, has other points of view in Bloomberg's 45 minute TV show, "Bloomberg Game Changers: Steve Jobs," now that he is a venture capitalist.

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/63722844/

Are you suggesting in your rebuttal to mdriftmeyer comment,

with

That "Apple" does or has done?

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! Get over it.

That is how I feel. It just doesnt ring true. Jobs may have been annoyed by MS buying Bungie, but that was a strategic, well played business move.

Jobs goes on his rants, but they are usually keen summations regarding what he feels is wrong with other companies and hes usually dead on balls accurate. But to complain to Ballmar about a purchase just doesnt sound like him.

and where is the Apple Pippin2?

Unless Apple is developing a home console, I don't know what company is gonna write a AAA game made only for the Mac.

So what if Apple were to purchase a 50% stake in Disney. That and S. Jobs 7% stake. Would that give Apple Control over Disney. Especially the type of control that would not fire Steve Jobs again?

With moves like this, it's no wonder Apple is so secretive about everything...

Sorry, I couldn't agree more. Now the exception would be, if Bungie didn't make Apple aware they were for sale - which seems silly, can you imagine how much more they could have got with Apple and MS bidding on them.

The only person Steve can be mad at, is himself for not buying them first.

This is one of those times (that was one of those times), that Steve needs to be a big boy and say, oh well, you snooze you loose.

Skip

No, Apple was in good financial shape. Apple was only touch and go with respect to PR in the late '90s. Their finances were never a problem.

If Steve wants the Mac platform to be a premiere gaming platform, then he needs to step up and have the OpenGL drivers updated, fixed, and optimized, and needs to do something tangible to court game developers. The arrival of Steam may signify a positive change, but we'll have to wait and see.

I agree. Once bitten, twice shy.

Halo 1 was awesome on the XBox, sorry Jobs. It would've stayed as a niche Mac game if it was released on the Mac. So many great memories playing Halo 1, 2, and 3. I love my Mac but Microsoft buying Bungie was a great move.

Yep. I was there. The crowd went nuts.
I still remember watching the rendering of light rays and also the wheel suspension action on the jeep vehicle, and thinking; "holy s++t"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2RVje3MyhQ
(note: ye youngsters out there would look at this and say "pfft, big deal". But last century on OS 9 it was a big deal. Or at least it was going to be a big deal)

Who are you talking about
The only ones crying today are Microsoft and Bungie.
Certainly not Apple.

I hear ya. The rants that people are posting on here attacking Jobs - based on a RUMOR not fact - just proves that these folks are either trolling, or can be played like a violin. Maybe both? \

No. There won't. Because the last Bungie game developed for the Mac by Bungie was Oni in 1997. Since then, Halo (only the first one) was ported by a third-party studio and Bungie has been purchased by a company that will NEVER give them up.


If it was great on your console, it would have been the same on the computer. This is nonsense.

There was never any mention that this was going to be a "Mac Only" game.
It was originally scheduled to come out on the Mac first.

No they don't.

You don't buy a company that bad and dump in tens of billions on a whim. Apple will design ideas they think Sony should have made and release them for the Mac Platform.

Steve has admired certain parts of Sony all the way back when we were at NeXT. He even mentioned a few times during the merger with Apple [back when SONY was hot] how Apple could be the next SONY.

Apple has far surpassed the next SONY.

No. They won't waste their assets on the past. They are learning where SONY fails and moving into new frontiers.

Hearsay from a biased source. Wow. How many times will we hear from whiners who can't separate fact from hearsay, who would rather believe the worst of someone, especially someone an order of magnitude more successful and well-known. This continuing morbid fascination with the personality of Steve Jobs, known for his intensity and directness, is really rather silly. How in fact did you get to "narcissistic personality"? And as compared to whom? What CEO is not driven, direct and intense? Know any personally in the Fortune 10? 100? 500? You sound more "trapped" than committed. Perhaps a change is in order, because I can deduce from your comments that you would rather deal with the "quality control" of say Dell, or Acer or HP - who have much better QC than Apple. Don't they? So how about some tolerance for diversity in personality? How about lauding the personalities that drive innovation (not worship, just laud) and chuckle with a knowing wink when the Gateses, the Ballmerses, the Jobses, Schmidtses and so on demonstrate a little personality and intensity. Even when it is most rumor and innuendo.

And why WOULDN'T Microsoft try to cherry-pick Bungie - a demonstrated hit maker to bring a strong game to the nascent XBox system? It was a double win because it took away a game developer from the Mac platform as well - very clever monkey-man! This is corporate life folks and if it pissed off Steveo - well there you go, why not pile on while Jobsie is try to pull Apple out of the grave. C'mon, this is how corporations play -it ain't nice pretty and polite, except when absolutely necessary. You think this is bad you should try peeking into something like the finance industry...

The author of the article I cited was Andy Hertzfeld. Ever heard of him? He's not a venture capitalist.

The quote I used from Mr. Hertzfeld's article was from a friend of Steve's, not the journalist.

I made no reference to anything Mr. Moritz wrote at all, then or now. That's your own distraction.

The quote I used from that article was merely to show how little things change - here's one from a very recent Apple employee:


http://www.businessinsider.com/apple...-return-2009-8

No, that first-hand account didn't give their name either. When dealing with Jobs, all fear being wished into the corn field.

It was not scheduled to be released on the Mac first, it was always intended to be released simultaneously (both Mac and Windows). I know this because I heard their pitch at E3 before it was announced at macworld later that year.

Helpful Link: http://pc.ign.com/articles/068/068975p1.html

who is having the last laugh now, I think Apple (Jobs) got back at MS already and did it in a way that makes it hard to MS to say Apple did the same thing they did. Right now MS can not pay enough to get developers to develop games and such for their mobile platform.

It is one thing to buy a company and change it market direction, however it is another thing when a bunch a companies think it is too costly to make product for your products.

I think MS is living the results of their actions in the past, and Job is a lot more savvy how he did it.

mer·cu·ri·al
   mer-kyoor-ee-uhl
adjective
1.
changeable; volatile; fickle; flighty; erratic: a mercurial nature.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mercurial

I meant Jobs. Not y'all. Sorry.

It appears as if no one at Microsoft has a proper grasp of the English Language.

I speak English good.

What about my comment warrants your response?

Did I say it was going to be Mac Only or did I say Microsoft brought it to a larger audience than Mac ever would?

I have a feeling once the company saw all that cash in front of them and the prospect of such a large user base, they couldn't give less of a shit about whether it was intended as Mac-Only.

I'm merely pointing out why the company sold out in the first place, and why Jobs scream fest didn't matter for Halo.

In your opinion.

In fact Apple sold a lot more Macs in the time frame than Microsoft has sold Xbox.

Lots of the early adopters of Xbox bought it for Halo, do you think they may have bought Macs instead maybe?

Games need only a subset of OS instructions, I suspect Apple's gaming aspirations are better suited to future iterations of iOS than OS X.

.

You can thank the recent (last 20 years) decimation of antitrust enforcement in this country. With the settlement of the suit against Microsoft, the government made it clear that violating antitrust laws could be done nearly with impunity. Sad.

Steve making an angry call to Microsoft over the Bungie buyout was common news 10 years ago. Why is it being posted today?

Er...Finger Works?

This statement is way far overboard. For one thing, the antitrust suit against Microsoft was filed during the Clinton administration. That was quite a bit less than 20 years ago. Antitrust law enforcement was hardly decimated at that time. For another, it's hardly clear that Microsoft buying Bungie was any kind of antitrust law violation. In fact it's nothing more than a fantasy. Finally, we've had several thread full of cranky posts about the FTC's investigating claims against Apple, as though the entire capitalist system is under threat the moment the FTC even looks into a complaint. Sounds like we're experiencing a whole lot of wanting to have it both ways.

You are correct. It was in an anecdote written in 1982. Two years before the intro of the Mac.

"The (Time) cover story did include another profile of Steve Jobs, containing some comments that were less than complimentary. One unspecified friend was quoted saying "something is happening to Steve that's sad and not pretty", but the best quote was attributed to Jef Raskin: "He would have made an excellent King of France."

Obviously, I attributed an anecdote written by another about an article written by another journalist.

No wonder people can't trust the media.