NBC To Offer Complete Olympics Online — But Only To Windows Vista

Oh, this is rich. For the first time, NBC (which owns rights for the U.S. television market) will offer complete video of the Summer Olympic Games online. Yay! The service, dubbed, "NBC Olympics on the Go" will be available only for users of Microsoft's Vista Home Premium and Ultimate operating systems. Say what?!

But the new service is available only to computers running Microsoft's (MSFT) Vista operating system — a limitation that leaves out millions of Windows XP and Apple (AAPL) Mac users as well as those using mobile devices such as iPods and mobile phones. And only two flavors of Vista — Home Premium and Ultimate — have the Media Center component necessary for running NBC's software. That eliminates most business notebooks.

So, uh, it eliminates all the people who don't have Vista or who have downgraded to XP or who didn't pony up for Premium or Ultimate or who actually might be "on the go" during the games?

It doesn't even look like Microsoft paid for the exclusive. Are these people really this astronomically stupid?

Jump