The PS3 recently launched in Europe. Microsoft played some of its classic pranks during its launch in the UK and stole the show. The Engadget article had the most comprehensive report of what went on. Microsoft had a barge advertising the Xbox 360 rolling up and down the river where the PS3 launch was taking place and they handed out chairs with a web address on them to people waiting in line for the launch. Check out the video of the barge:

This isn’t the first time they’ve done things like this. I know of two other events people from Microsoft told me about.

Back in the day Netscape developers had a web site that featured a live cam of their office. Located in their office was a LED banner display on which visitors to their live cam could display messages to the developers. The system had some way of censoring messages that were displayed. Microsoft developers with too much time on their hands hacked the Netscape system and had it displaying things like “Internet Explorer Rules!” all day long.

A few years ago Larry Ellison decided it would be a good idea to have a big Oracle conference right in Microsoft’s backyard at the Westin right up against their campus in Redmond. I don’t remember the exact topic of the conference but it was something anti-Microsoft and this is why he chose this location. Oracle didn’t reserve all the ballrooms for this event so Microsoft decided to reserve all the remaining available ballrooms. The highlight of their debauchery involved them handing out Microsoft branded coffee to all of the Oracle people as they entered the conference. Apparently Ellison about shat himself when he arrived and saw all that Microsoft was up to.

My company has fun but not this much fun.