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Microsoft Releases Windows 7 Family Guy Clips

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If you thought the Windows 7 house party ad was lame, wait ’til you see this. On November 8, Microsoft was planning to sponsor a special episode of Seth McFarlane’s animated comedy series Family Guy to promote their latest operating system.

You can see where this was going: Family Guy’s humor is very edgy, while Microsoft’s marketing is very corporate. Combining the two would have resulted in a horrifying trainwreck of pure sellout stupidity.

Fortunately, Microsoft pulled out of the deal after executives from Redmond saw an actual taping of the show. Apparently, up until that point, they were blissfully unaware of Family Guy’s edgy humor. Talk about being out of touch.

Windows 7 Family Guy SpecialNow Microsoft has released clips from that hideous abortion through the Windows YouTube channel. As you can see from these clips, Microsoft made the right decision by killing their collaboration with McFarlane. One of the video descriptions even acknowledges the blatant selling-out involved: “When Brian notices Stewie has a new PC, he thinks he smells a sellout.”

Call your neurologist, because the sheer inanity of these totally unfunny sketches will kill your brain. [Read more…]

Originally posted on November 28, 2009 @ 2:50 pm

Windows 7 Gets Official Anime Girl

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Windows 7 Anime Girl

For years, the Japanese geek community has anthropomorphized various Windows versions as cute anime girls called “OS-tans“. Hopping on the bandwagon and jumping the gun on Japanese Windows fans, Microsoft imposes its own official anime girl on Windows 7.

Whereas previous fanmade mascots had affectionate names like 2K-tan and XP-tan, Redmond’s new J-girl gets a punnily clever official name: “Nanami Madobe” (“Nana” is Japanese for “Seven”.). Nanami even gets her own voice actress, and graces a bundled desktop theme for Japanese preorder customers. Heck, she even tweets.

From ME-tan’s clumsiness to 2K-tan’s business attire to XP-tan’s big boobs, previous OS-tans had a real community-driven feel to them. They embodied actual user reactions to the operating systems. Sadly, the blandly smiling Nanami looks like yet another sad case of Microsoft design-by-committee. No matter how hard Redmond pimps her out, a boring woman is still a boring woman.

(Via Sankaku Complex.)

Originally posted on October 27, 2009 @ 6:33 am

Burger King Sells Windows 7 Whopper

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Microsoft’s marketing never fails to confuse the Hell out of me. Windows 7 is supposed to be leaner than the bloated Vista. In a hilarious contrast to the promise of a leaner OS, Burger King in Japan is offering a seven-patty Windows 7 Whopper.

This 1.7-pound greasemonster slams 2,120 calories down your throat. Maybe Microsoft wants to give you a heart attack before Windows 7’s “newness” wears off. [Read more…]

Originally posted on October 28, 2009 @ 9:14 am

Windows 7 Anime Girl Theme Preview

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Windows 7’s official mascot in Japan is an anime girl named Nanami Madobe. She’s featured in nineteen sound sets and three wallpapers bundled with the first 7,777 copies of the Japanese Windows 7 Ultimate DSP editions.

Personally, I’d take the fanmade XP anime girl over this contrived corporate concoction any day of the week. The earnestness and curviness of the XP girl actually reflect XP’s stability and memory usage. This Windows 7 girl is just… generically chirpy.

Originally posted on October 27, 2009 @ 6:56 am

Windows 7 Torrenting Party!

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While Microsoft encourages you to hold some ridiculous Windows 7 launch party, Funny or Die encourages you to do something that’s much more fun: a Windows 7 torrenting party!

The best part is, you can give your guests better party favors. Instead of giving out trial copies of Windows 7, you can give out working copies of Windows 7!

Interestingly enough, this parody clip actually sounds more believable than Microsoft’s propaganda. Perhaps that’s because it better reflects people’s real attitudes towards software today.

Originally posted on October 23, 2009 @ 8:35 am