MIcrosoft to Drop Extras from Windows 7 Ultimate

In a decision that's bound to cause some chucking around the blogosphere, Microsoft has confirmed that although it's going to have an Ultimate version of Windows 7, it will be ditching the much-derided "Ultimate Extras" it used as a selling point for Vista Ultimate.

"Ultimate Extras" were supposed to be exclusive add-ons for Windows Vista Ultimate, but they never amounted to much of anything, and definitely not the cutting-edge extras that consumers had been led to expect. In a statement, Microsoft said:

"Our new approach to planning and building Windows doesn't have the capacity to continue to deliver features outside the regular release cycle. While our core development team is focused on building the next release; our sustained engineering team is focused on updates to existing features. As a result, we don't plan to create Ultimate Extras."

The last time Microsoft released a new set of "Extras" was last September, when they released a game, "Tinker," and some content packs. Based on that as well as prior "Extra" releases, we're not missing out on much. They'll just have to find another way to sucker, er, encourage us to buy Ultimate.