MSFT Donates 'Ultimate Gamerooms' to Sick Kids

What's wrong for some terminally ill child to play a xbox game?

At 10,000 a pop, these hospitals could afford to put one in every floor without thought, if they can prove that the rooms are considerably raising spirits.

That's nice of microsoft. It would be better if they gave something to all of the hospitals, though.

Come on Microsoft do it for all of them. 10,000 x 170 = 1,700,000. Microsoft could easily afford this. Go the extra mile and make all of the children happy.

Since this is donating to charity, shouldn't they be able to write this off on their corporate taxes? They should also up it to dual 22" screens for those PC's...

billy, when an xbox has a terminal discease, it sometimes RROD's that means it goes ot heaven....

Kinda sad that they are only willing to let go of $30,000... (for a rather nice cause I might add.) 1.7m is really nothing to them as said above.

climber - not with Obama's cut with an AXE in Charitable write offs

i think they should all get it too.... not fair for one kid to wish he was dying elsewhere cause ms was cheap

3 isn't a lot but there are other groups out there doing the same thing, like the Penny Arcade guys

For multibillion dollar business they being pretty cheap. Not saying what they are doing is bad, but they can easily afford it for all the hospitals.

How can people possibly criticize them for being cheap? If they hadn't offered to build any of these centers, no one would have said anything. I applaud their generosity, regardless of whether they could afford to give 1000 times more. Microsoft is in it for the money, that's the nature of the beast, but that doesn't mean we should complain that their donation is not enough.

Agreed burnley.

I'm sure frequent readers have heard the news about all the difficulties Microsoft has had financially. It's going to matter to them despite being multibillionaires dollars. Getting fined by the EU daily, needing to pull Word. A number of their product lines don't often even make much money. Maybe some of it is still their fault but things aren't going as well as they were. I applaud their donations. I also think sick kids are more generous then most and would applaud any hospital that wins. The article did say they'd already contributed an x-box to all of them and considering they probably already had one or 2 game machines (when I went into surgery they had a whole arcade) that's pretty significant. Way to go Microsoft!

Okay guys c'mon. Instead of criticizing Microsoft, can't you just be nice to them for once. This is an incredibly generous thing to do and although I don't agree with the voting, you don't see Nintendo, Sony, or Apple giving their stuff away for free for sick children.

evr

Everyone here could afford to send the hospitals $20 but I doubt many of you have. Good job Microsoft. Bill Gates gives more to charity than anyone else. If theres one area not to pick on microsoft its charity

Give me a break.. Charity is charity.. It's better to give a little then to give a lot. And instead of putting down microsoft why not give them idea's. Maybe have this type of thing every 6-12 months. And has sony done this? Seriously don't never hear about sony.

Give somebody an inch, and they want a mile..

Terminally ill child need to waste time playing xbox 360 video games instead of sharing their last moments with their family that support them...

Thank you Microsoft, once again you are showing what humanity is all about...

you'd think that someone from microsoft would know that you don't use apostrophes for plurals.

Haha, oh man this is funny, all this MS bashing. Seriously, I'm willing to bash MS like the next guy but for charity work, I give MS a pat on the back. They have done a lot, besides this to charity all over not just here in the US. People bashing MS for this is pathetic and most likely have never donated to a thing in their life.

1.7m is nothing to them haha i love how stupid that statement is like 5 bil is nothing to intel. Consider they would have forked over 1.7m but just think of it as they already did to not sick kids pirating Microsoft Office and windows. Microsoft is not at all poor and 1.7m is a small drop in their annual working income of something like 20 billion a year but still they are shelling out some nice things.

^+1
Nicely said.

So, all I gotta do is start dieing for that?

It doesn't matter if it is 1.7 million or 30 grand, no matter what they give to charity there will always be people who say "Microsoft can afford way more than that".

They don't have to give anything to charity, where is the hospital donation from Apple, or Sony, or Nintendo? Say what you like about Microsoft but Bill Gates is the worlds biggest donator to charity. Period. Last year he spent $3.3 Billion, this year he has $3.8 Billion earmarked. It just goes to show that he has ingrained Microsoft with a sense of public service before he left. So only $30,000 went to these hospitals, can any provide me with a list of the number of other charity projects they donate to and the total combined funds allocated to these?

I know that in 2006 they passed the $2.5 billion mark since 1983, that's an average of around $100 million every year. They don't have to give any of that money away but they do. So to all the Microsoft haters, grow up.

Charity is something that you do because YOU want to help others not some contest to make people raise they're hope and then it's gone. This is something that should not be done in public but with a little secrecy and if they would have donated this equipment and said nothing and then when the news would have reached the ears of everyone the reaction would have been to applaud the way they decided to "do business".They spent $100M on a campain to promote something now they could have spent $1.7M and be all over the news.

That is exactly what i'm talking about. They dont setup billboard posters saying "look how much we give away". People report Microsoft news anyway and find ways to turn an act of charity into them being selfish.

STFU
STFU
STFU

I think it's a bit naive to think Microsoft isn't aware that they will get free advertisement out of it, even though they technically are not the ones pushing it.

That being said.. who cares?! It's still a good thing for these people regardless of Microsoft's actual motives behind it. And it's not as if their possible motives are dooming anything else. Heck more companies should follow suit, that is of course assuming Microsoft is actually doing this for advertisement (which I'm not sure of either way).

Would it really be that bad if a bunch of companies started advertising through charity?

It always humors me how much people can not see eye to eye....

All you haters here need to stop being ignorant and read up their charitable work, it is impressive to say the least.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_ [...] Foundation
"Bill and Melinda Gates, along with the musician Bono, were named by TIME as Persons of the Year 2005 for their charitable work."

Maybe instead of hacking Microsoft you should go donate $5 to something... Or better yet an hour of your time. Until you donate, STFU.

Here is another fun link... It's Gates himself, not Microsoft, same difference.
http://usproxy.bbc.com/2/hi/business/360770.stm

Free advertising or not, they still donate shit while we sit back on our asses doing nothing. They also have a promotion right now where they are trying to get people to upgrade from IE6 to IE8 and donating to food banks. Is there an alterior motive? Yes. There are always motives other for being charitable, even if it is to make ourselves feel better. Microsoft is using charity for many reason but they are still doing it. I think I would rather see them doing this than needlessly spending money on poor commercials (Jerry Seinfeld anyone?) or other advertising methods.

Charity is charity. Microsoft has done plenty for charity. When given something, why is it that instead of being thankful the needy tend to beg for more?