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That much is obvious in this classic tale.

Because of all the great stories you get to tell people!!11

I hear Gord dropped out of the video game store market, and is teaching english in Korea.

And I believe that you didn't RTFA. GRUB is included in OpenSolaris.

I wonder if it's this Gord.

Most have probably seen this already, but if you haven't it's worth a browse. The stories on here seem to resemble the Simpsons' Comic Book Guy, only with video games instead.

http://www.actsofgord.com/

Just to (sort-of) back that up, here's a bit of history:

The Mythology of Loss-leaders

It appears that Nintendo may have taken a loss for some of the lifecycle of the Gamecube, but this was most definitely not the norm.

At the time that both machines were current hardware, I followed the SNES / Genesis battle closely in the magazines (I wish I had them to refrence her, but they are unfortunatly in a crate in my mom's attic in annother state right now).

If memory serves, the SNES / Super Famicom out sold the Genesis / Mega Drive around the same time that Ninendo's library of games grew larger than Sega's.

The only figures I could find regarding total world wide sales were here.

36 Million Confirmed SNES / Super Famicom sales (not including the redesigned SNES2)

21 Million Confiemed Genesis / Mega Drive sales.

I'm not sure where you're getting your data from, but every source I've ever seen since Saturn came out has shown Nintendo won the 16 Bit war (even if they were late to it).

Praise Gord!

Mock not the Lord thy Gord, for He is uppon you.

Acts of Gord has a funny bit regarding this practice that I've adopted.
When the door-nazi asks for the receipt, a quick "Got it here in the bag. Thanks!" while you blow past them is a source of great amusement.

...of this story...someone registers his stores name and tries to sue him. Pretty funny read too, even if that site has been around for awhile.

Finally, a massively multiplayer version of Tetris! (context)

Says the business model of every single video game console ever.

Why state something like that instead of investigating it first?

Here, I Googled for you

I don't know if it's illegal or not, but some Canadians have ways of dealing with mods.

http://www.actsofgord.com/Chronicles/chapter24.htm l

Maybe, moron, because video games are for kids.

Really? You sound like the kind of ignorant jerk that would rent Ninja Scroll for a kid because it's a "cartoon" and obviously cartoons are for kids. Here's a clue: us adults also like to play games and watch "cartoons". There's a market there, quite a sizeable one. And in a capitalistic world, that means that someone will make games and cartoons for adults. Don't pre-judge something simply because of its medium.

No discussion of video games in Canada would be complete without a reference to Acts Of Gord, a Canadian video game store. Especially topical would be the Oddity story in Chapter 23 of the Book of Annoyances. .

No discussion of video games in Canada would be complete without a reference to Acts Of Gord, a Canadian video game store. Especially topical would be the Oddity story in Chapter 23 of the Book of Annoyances. .

All the more morons for Gord to devour and debase :)

No, the PS2 was sold at profit.

I submit putting such a sticker on the game probably would not impact sales.

For as The Gord has written in The Book of Annoyance, Chapter 18, Verses 4 and 5, no one cares what the sign says.

I submit putting such a sticker on the game probably would not impact sales.

For as The Gord has written in The Book of Annoyance, Chapter 18, Verses 4 and 5, no one cares what the sign says.

Calling a liar a liar sounds like something this guy does on a regular basis.

He runs a video game rental store in Canada, and doesn't hesitate to give shit to people who are trying to rip him off. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I subscribe to the theory of intellectual osmosis. As such, I must now cease our conversation and move away from you before my intelligence begins to drop. Good day." is one of the far, far more polite ones.

Rental companies figured out several solutions to that problem many decades ago. a) Demand a deposit. b) Collect information on the renter so that you may ruin their credit at will.

And yes, even video rental stores run by people like this guy are considered quite authoritative sources by credit companies.

The gord speaks the truth about the dreamcast 128bit myth

The man behind the website Acts of Gord (stories of a video game retail/rental store) has done this, and talks about it in his forum

While the parent of your comment is pretty much a troll, most consoles are not like that. How often must this be posted before this myth is finally laid to rest?

please educate yerself:
acts of gord

no one is in the habit of selling consoles at a loss.

Nine times out of ten, or better, it's not going to be a problem for EB to do an immediate turnaround because the property isn't stolen (besides, of course, the problem of potentially violating local laws). It takes only the one time, though, to get your business into trouble. It's worth the traditional link to Acts of Gord to see examples of what people try to pull on video game dealers/resellers.

Quoth Gord:

"Would this be a bad time to point out I'm a video game store and not a pawn shop?"

Quoth Gord:

"Would this be a bad time to point out I'm a video game store and not a pawn shop?"

Here's an interesting read on prior art & trademarks.

Acts of Gord

Who'da thunk? He really is a Fascist...

www.actsofgord.com/Wrath/chapter01.html

So the bottom link is wrong too.

Who'da thunk? He really is a Fascist...

www.actsofgord.com/Wrath/chapter01.html

So the bottom link is wrong too.

Tell it to the Gord

Show me the part of the constitution or the Bill of Rights the part that says he can't do any of this?

Or, to put it another way, it's my business. If I don't want to serve you, it'll be for a good reason. You can be whatever colour you want, what ever religion you want, hell I don't much care what species you are (and you better believe I've seen 'em all, buddy). Wanna come in, have fun, give me your money, fine. Wanna harrass my paying customers, break my machines, lose me business? See the sign? Door's to your left.

See, as the business owner is also a person, he or she too has rights. He doesn't want to have his property damaged or stolen. He doesn't to have to work in a stressful or threatening enviroment. He doesn't want to be negligent. It's what's called contributing to the delinquency of a minor, but what it boils down to is finding answers to life's little questions such as "what are those obviously underage kids looking at on that monitor I can't see with their hands in their pockets, sneaking (crucial point)guilty, furtive looks up at the counter where I'm busy pretending to be fully occupied elsewhere?" and "why is someone trying to access a command line from the machine behind the pillar where they think i can't see them?", and of course the one everybody loves to hate..."Shouldn't you be in school?"

What the grandparent was talking about was discriminating against the people described here.

Gord for Prez!

Tell it to the Gord

Show me the part of the constitution or the Bill of Rights the part that says he can't do any of this?

Or, to put it another way, it's my business. If I don't want to serve you, it'll be for a good reason. You can be whatever colour you want, what ever religion you want, hell I don't much care what species you are (and you better believe I've seen 'em all, buddy). Wanna come in, have fun, give me your money, fine. Wanna harrass my paying customers, break my machines, lose me business? See the sign? Door's to your left.

See, as the business owner is also a person, he or she too has rights. He doesn't want to have his property damaged or stolen. He doesn't to have to work in a stressful or threatening enviroment. He doesn't want to be negligent. It's what's called contributing to the delinquency of a minor, but what it boils down to is finding answers to life's little questions such as "what are those obviously underage kids looking at on that monitor I can't see with their hands in their pockets, sneaking (crucial point)guilty, furtive looks up at the counter where I'm busy pretending to be fully occupied elsewhere?" and "why is someone trying to access a command line from the machine behind the pillar where they think i can't see them?", and of course the one everybody loves to hate..."Shouldn't you be in school?"

What the grandparent was talking about was discriminating against the people described here.

Gord for Prez!

'These discs are only provided as backups and you must own the original game.' - which raises the question, why isn't the person backing up the game themselves?

Or 'These roms are legal to download provided you delete them within 24 hours' - despite there being no such law.

Or my personal favourite.. 'If you are affiliated with any government, or ANTI-Piracy group, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), local or state police or government agencies, any record label or recording company or distribution company or group or any other related group or were formally a worker of one you cannot enter this web site, cannot access any of its files and you cannot view any of the pages contained herein. All the objects on this site are private property and are not meant for viewing or any other purposes other then bandwidth space. Do not enter whatsoever! If you enter this site you are not agreeing to these terms and you are violating code 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act signed by Bill Clinton in 1995. That means that you cannot threaten our ISP(s) or any person(s) or company storing these files, cannot prosecute any person(s) affiliated with this page which includes family, friends or individuals who run or enter this web site.'. Wow. Well, that's the feds screwed then. Anyone got any examples of loopier disclaimers?

Gord suggests that Nintendo was losing a small amount on the GC when it was released at $199. Fast-forward two years, during which time hardware costs will have fallen quite significantly and the price drop probably isn't breaking them.

GBA selling like hotcakes at a hotcake addicts convention probably doesn't hurt either.

..it lies within the Acts of Gord.

Sony and Nintendo have consistently sold console systems as loss-leaders with the plan to recoup costs primarily from game licenses.

There is more urban legend here than actual history. While a few companies have sold console systems at a loss (notably Sega), most have not. Sony certainly doesn't and Nintendo historically didn't (but may have on the GameCube).

Here's one source on the matter.

Sony is *not*, and never has, lost money on the PS1 or the PS2 in order to make up the difference on the games.

The gamecube never did before the Xbox did. They might be doing it now, but they weren't before.

The reason people believe this happened before is due to Sony announcing the PS2 for $299 while everyone else was selling higher. Right away there were shouts of dumping. (dumping is the term for selling product at a loss to destroy your competitors.)

But they were wrong, because at that time, the exchange rate was at a point where $299 still meant a profit.

www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02.html

Have either of the other consoles gotten close to what the PS2 is still selling at? I look at this as an act of desperation to be profitable before 2004 numbers roll in.
See what Gord had to say when the GC was released (link on the page for Xbox stuff)
I honestly don't see Sony losing it's grip on this market. Especially since the PS3 is promised to play PS2/PSX games.

This is patently false. The Gord speaks on this, and many other truths of the Console Industry here.

To quote The Gord, from IBM to SCO, "Just because you say it doesn't make it so."

I would like to point out that the above post provides incomplete information. Console companies have done this for a long time, but all it has done is run their profits into the ground.

"Lies!" you say? well its not. Take exhibit A: the case of Sega Saturn vs Playstation. While Sega was trying to make the "Ultimate 2D machine," Sony was flexing its CE muscles and spending millions on researching how to manufacture their own chips cheaply and quickly for the playstation.

When they both were released the Saturn retailed for $399 and the playstation at (drum roll please) $299. Sega attempted to get in on the market by selling their product at a loss and match the $299 tag on the PSone. Sony on the other hand was _making_ money on the console because it had spent its time and effort on mass producing its own components. The Saturn, as we all know, was a business failure.

The same goes for the DreamCast and N64 which were both also sold at a loss. Time will tell on the XBox and GC. I think Nintendo might have learned their lesson and will tred more carefully, but MS... well, let's just say that the odds of the XBox making them money is quite low.

Sony is not selling the PS2 at a loss either, keep that in mind...

By the way the above can be read about in more detail on this site. It's more entertainning there anyway.

So the local coffee shop smartly provides free WiFi, in exchange for geeks like me spending all day there buying coffee and food. I'm sitting there, 1600x1200 screen w/ a maximized ssh session into my devbox, watching parsed packet traces blaze across my screen as fast as MySQL could select them.

An unknown voice behind me laughs. "Whatcha doin' man, lookin' at porn?"

Perfunctory hello. Evil grin. "Don't you know it." A few minutes later, mplayer's compiled on the FreeBSD system, and what else can I do but...

ssh effugas@devbox "mplayer -vo aa Dark_Angel.avi"

SSH, Mplayer, and AALib: When you absolutely, positively, maybe even desperately need something to watch.

"Excuse me. I have something you might want to see."

It even drew a bit of a crowd :-)

Of course, you might have noticed the Dark Angel avi. Triple-DES or not, I wasn't about to drop Debbie does ASCII in the middle of a coffee shop. So I settled for the next best thing, the Fecal Tootsie Pop...sweet on the outside...absolute crap once you bite in.

Yeah, yeah. Too little sleep, too much Gord. It's all about having a bit of fun with things...ain't nothin' wrong with that.

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

Nah. Only Microsoft do that, because they have huge overflowing chests of gold in their basement and can afford it.

The Gord has a thing or two to say about this.

They cost nearly $500 to make. Ouch.

Take it as you will.

DeanT

Anyway, I'll be the bigger person and ignore your behavior. Check this article if you'd like to actually know what's in your Gamecube, fanboy.

"Some are calling this just another unfair tactic, losing money to maintain marketshare. Well, maybe it is, but isn't that what M$ is doing with the XBox? Rumor has it that Sony did it with the PS2 at least when it came out."

The old "all consoles sold at a loss" myth... The best truth is told here: acts of gord, proclamation 2!