Digital Home Thoughts: Windows Ultimate Extras: All Hype and No Jump?

"Besides BitLocker encryption, a few pro-user tools (RDP, CompletePC backups, shadow copy etc..) and the Family Discount program, the only other reason to even consider purchasing Windows Vista Ultimate was for the Ultimate Extras. Users were suppose to feel good about themselves for having access to exclusive and premium content only available to the most expensive version of Windows ever manufactured, but at the moment, they might look a little stupid. Hold’Em & DreamScenesSo far, some users have paid an addition of approximately US$150 for a black box, some Vista features mentioned above, a poker card game, various language packs and videos projected on the desktop. Like there aren’t enough free hold’em poker card games out there already with much better graphics and AI. Even VLC media player could have even done what takes a technical preview to do, years ago - playing videos on the desktop. Now it takes another add-on (Deskscapes) on top of an add-on to do what should have been done in the first place - dynamic content on the desktop. Microsoft even has a patent for it."

I like the idea of Ultimate Extras, but I have to agree that one month into the thing, I haven't seen anything that would make me go "Yeah, I need to have Vista Ultimate". See, I already have Vista Ultimate, but it's because I'm an MVP and I didn't have to pay for it. If I had to pony up the pesos for Vista, I'd go with Home Premium. What would help the scenario here is if Microsoft would talk about a 12 month road map for Ultimate Extras, and let people know what they have planned. The digital books are, frankly, a stupid idea: anyone that's going to pay for Vista Ultimate is going to be a pretty hardcore geek already, and they're not the type to read digital books to get "tips".