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The "early adopters" went HD in 2001. HD is mass-market in 2007: ilo 32" Widescreen LCD HDTV w/ Built-in Digital ATSC/NTSC Tuner $500

Resolution 1366 x 768
HDMI, S-Video, Component Video, DVI Inputs

What makes you think that?

The brand-name Vista Premium laptop at Walmart.com starts at $700:

Acer Aspire 5610 15.4" Widescreen Laptop PC w/ Pentium Dual-Core Processor 2 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, integrated Acer WiFi, integrated Intel graphics and sound.

This is $100 less than an HP Pavilion with 1 GB RAM and 120 GB HDD sold for last month -- and this is only the run-up to the Back-To-School and Christmas shopping seasons.

The $2000 Top-of-the-Line Vista Ultimate Laptop at Walmart:

HP 17" Pavilion Laptop PC w/ Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2 GB Ram, 240 GB HDD, HD-DVD Player/Multilayer DVD Burner, WiFi and Bluetooth, NVIDIA DX10 GeForce 8600 GS graphics w 256 MB RAM, up to 1 GB shared. Did I mention that the HP comes with an 8-cell Lion battery, integrated webcam, 1000 Gb Ethernet, a fingerprint reader and a remote control?

The Acer Vista Basic laptop clusters with others at $450-$500:

Celeron M, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD, DVD reader/CD burner.

Not so very different - and in some ways better - in specs and pricing from the entry-level XP laptop it replaces.

Vista systems with specs like these do not suck. Period. End of story. Neither are they over-priced for Walmart's middle-class market.

What makes you think that?

The brand-name Vista Premium laptop at Walmart.com starts at $700:

Acer Aspire 5610 15.4" Widescreen Laptop PC w/ Pentium Dual-Core Processor 2 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, integrated Acer WiFi, integrated Intel graphics and sound.

This is $100 less than an HP Pavilion with 1 GB RAM and 120 GB HDD sold for last month -- and this is only the run-up to the Back-To-School and Christmas shopping seasons.

The $2000 Top-of-the-Line Vista Ultimate Laptop at Walmart:

HP 17" Pavilion Laptop PC w/ Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2 GB Ram, 240 GB HDD, HD-DVD Player/Multilayer DVD Burner, WiFi and Bluetooth, NVIDIA DX10 GeForce 8600 GS graphics w 256 MB RAM, up to 1 GB shared. Did I mention that the HP comes with an 8-cell Lion battery, integrated webcam, 1000 Gb Ethernet, a fingerprint reader and a remote control?

The Acer Vista Basic laptop clusters with others at $450-$500:

Celeron M, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD, DVD reader/CD burner.

Not so very different - and in some ways better - in specs and pricing from the entry-level XP laptop it replaces.

Vista systems with specs like these do not suck. Period. End of story. Neither are they over-priced for Walmart's middle-class market.

What makes you think that?

The brand-name Vista Premium laptop at Walmart.com starts at $700:

Acer Aspire 5610 15.4" Widescreen Laptop PC w/ Pentium Dual-Core Processor 2 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, integrated Acer WiFi, integrated Intel graphics and sound.

This is $100 less than an HP Pavilion with 1 GB RAM and 120 GB HDD sold for last month -- and this is only the run-up to the Back-To-School and Christmas shopping seasons.

The $2000 Top-of-the-Line Vista Ultimate Laptop at Walmart:

HP 17" Pavilion Laptop PC w/ Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2 GB Ram, 240 GB HDD, HD-DVD Player/Multilayer DVD Burner, WiFi and Bluetooth, NVIDIA DX10 GeForce 8600 GS graphics w 256 MB RAM, up to 1 GB shared. Did I mention that the HP comes with an 8-cell Lion battery, integrated webcam, 1000 Gb Ethernet, a fingerprint reader and a remote control?

The Acer Vista Basic laptop clusters with others at $450-$500:

Celeron M, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD, DVD reader/CD burner.

Not so very different - and in some ways better - in specs and pricing from the entry-level XP laptop it replaces.

Vista systems with specs like these do not suck. Period. End of story. Neither are they over-priced for Walmart's middle-class market.

This is what Walmart delivers for $780:

HP Pavilion Entertainment Laptop
Vista Premium
AMD Turon Dual Core 1.8 GHz CPU
WXGA 15" 1280x800 wide-screen display
120 GB SATA HDD
1 GB DDR RAM
8X DVD R/RW drive
Integrated WiFi and Ethernet
NVIDA GeForce Go graphics
Altec Lansing speakers
Integrated webcam
6-cell LiOn battery

For $820: HP Pavilion Vista Premium 2 GHz Intel Dual Core + 160 GB HDD. Intel 950 graphics.

HP Pavilion Entertainment Laptop w/Mobile

http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?search_ constraint=0&search_query=laser+printer&Continue.x =0&Continue.y=0&Continue=Find&ic=24_0

and their lowest end Mac is priced to compete with those $499 to $599 PC systems with Intel branded dual core processors, ATI video adapters, etc.

IT'S A $600 COMPUTER! It's not meant to do "heavy lifting."

We don't need another standard. A few days ago at Wal Mart I saw Wii-branded product that is really slick. It is an SD card, but the back of the card has been notched out so that the last few millimeters are the width of the little PCB that is in the connector part of USB. So the card fits in SD slots as normal, and the back side can be directly plugged into a USB slot.

Here it is.

Here is a similar product with a slide on sleeve. I assume that might be needed for physical compatibility with some SD slots?

Here is a SanDisk combo SD / USB memory card, but I don't like it as well because it has moving parts which can break.

These products are pure genius. Personally, I think the SD standard should be updated to increase supported capacity, so we can use a ubiquitous form factor long into the future. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have these worthless PCMCIA memory cards lying around, which I replaced with now worthless CF memory cards, which I've now replaced with SD. I don't want another change, and we don't need anything smaller than Micro-SD. So only bandwidth and capacity need to increase, which the SD standard can be modified to support (while maintaining backwards compatibility) as the technology improves.

Dan East

When I tasted coffee first time in my life I despised the taste at the first second. But then the caffeine kicked in and the taste did not seem that bad anymore. This briefly descibes how addiction works.

I drink coffee for caffeine. So I bought the cheepest espresso maker. I buy small amount of French roasted beans at Giant and grind them at the store at "Turkish" (the most fine) or "Espresso" (next to the most fine) setting.

There are 2 parameters you can regulate: amount of water and amount of grinded coffee. Playing with those two will allow you to satisfy either your taste (higher concentration of caffeine) or brain (higher amount of caffeine).

If you put more water at the same amount of coffee you will get more caffeine, but less concentration of it.

What I see is Walmart selling a wide-screen HP Vista Premium laptop for $800. AMD Dual-Core CPU. 1 GB RAM. 120 GB HDD, GeForce Go graphics and a DVD burner. HP Pavilion Entertainment Laptop

Exposure? What exposure?

The kiosk in the mega-mall? The Sunday Color supplements? Catalog mailings in the Fall? The Home Shopping Network? Or simply another premature burial in the back pages of a web site that only the Geek will ever see?

Remember when Walmart was touted here as the White Knight who could sell OEM Linux to the masses?

The story ends with the AMD Dual-Core $800 HP Vista Premium laptop. "The most up-to-date operating system on the market." HP Pavilion Entertainment Laptop. 1 GB RAM. 120 GB HDD. GeForce Go 6150 graphics. DVD R/RW drive.

The more they see choice, the more likely they will be to choose - either now or in the future.

The Geek sees his ideal operating system.

Dell's customers see the next generation of the platform that runs the programs they've been using for fifteen years.

Think. How many Geeks chose Linux simply because it was a free UNIX? Same skill sets, same software libraries. Migration always comes at a price in time or money. More than most are willing to pay.

It's pretty simple, really: * You != an average Linux user. * Loki Software proved the lack of market for Linux games 5 years ago when they shut down in 2002.

Uhhh....

Look, capitalists just aren't going to ask the government to ban a cheap, useful, industrial commodity. If hemp were as useful as its proponents say, there would be an industry producing products from it. No law will get in the way of that. Look at the immigration situation in the USA - plenty of laws and even more who turn a blind eye to the law. If hemp were as useful to industry as cheap labor, you can bet your last dollar companies would be engaged in its production on an industrial scale, regardless of the law, just like they import cheap labor on an industrial scale, despite the law.

Hemp is in many products, from clothes to food. There's a hemp store about 15 minutes walk from where I live that sells clothes and other things made from hemp. In the opposite direction another 5 minutes walk takes me to a coop, The Wedge, that has hemp salad dressing as well as hemp bits that can be sprinkled on salad and other food much like bacon bits or croutons are. Even Target and Walmart sale items with or made from hemp. Just because you and others don't know these are available does not mean they aren't. And the government doesn't want people to know, because if they did then more people would become informed about the uses of hemp. This could start a mass of people to demand hemp be more widely available, even farmed, in the US. As it is now, Canada has already gotten a head start on farming hemp. More can be found in Google's Industrial Hemp directory.

The thing is places like Walmart.com are still only offering the $650 bundled setup. I would imagine these bundles don't sell as quickly so there is some stock just sitting for now.

You would imagine wrong.

The bundles probably do sit around for a couple minutes longer than the stand alone consoles do, but everything is selling out bundle or not. Usually within an hour of showing up; often within minutes.

Here's the walmart page for that big $650 bundle: Out of Stock

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=5303671

And here's a page tracking a dozen e-tailers, and their various options.

http://www.xpbargains.com/wii_locator.php

As you can plainly see, there is simply nothing anywhere.

cheers

Ah, but now you can compare it to the XBox Elite (est. $480) and the fact that to get a Wii you have to buy it second hand (starting at $379.95 on Amazon last I checked).

No, the Wii sells in retail bundles online at Costco and WalMart that are priced far far below that - and ships within days.

Well, aside from HD DVD and BD, what is there "to settle" in HD? Broadcasters have all been using (and mostly continue to use) the same standards: 720p and 1080i with your TV/cable box up- or downscaling as it sees fit. I'm not particularly bleeding edge but I've had an HDTV for about five years. If you've gone to any major electronics retailer you can see the slow death of regular tube (CRT) TVs. They're slowly being driven out as other technologies (LCD) keep dropping in price.

Not everyone is going to upgrade in the next year or five. Televisions can last a very, very long time. As of last year my parents still had a 20+ year old set from Sears in the bedroom. For people where that's "good enough" they may never need to upgrade.

But, once you do upgrade and your budget is north of, say, $200, it's going to be harder to avoid HDTV. The dust settled years ago. At this point, you might just be waiting for the "best ever" TV to come out and I assume that since you're reading a tech site, you know full well any TV you buy will reach obsolescence in a year or so. But you can still watch TV, movies, and play games on it. Just like on all the obsolete ten year old TVs we have right now.

When Walmart.com, etc. started offering Wii bundles, I was concerned that the bundles might only let you draw from a subset of all the Wii games sold by that retailer.

I was pleased to notice that when "Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII Wii" came out, it became a bundle option shortly soon-after at Walmart.com. Just a few days later, iirc.

Does anyone know: if a game comes to market and proves really popular, do retailers like Walmart.com tend to exclude it from being one of the game options that's included in the purchase of the bundle?

A good many of those have poor transfers also

I've notice that for older films. This is especialy true for DVD's under $2. As a collector of the cartoons I grew up with, 2 hours of early animation at $99cents a copy is a much better value to me than 1950's rock and roll at $12.95 for 48 minutes of stuff.

Let's face it. I can buy a fairly recent (less than 5 years old) DVD for less than $6 new. Ice age and Ever After I just picked up at the grocery store for 5.95 each. Have you checked the price on 20 year old music on CD's? The RIAA hasn't got a clue. I do buy something other than overpriced CD's.

http://www.shop.com/op/~Dark_Side_of_the_Moon_SACD _CD_(Pink_Floyd)-prod-29774059-38976525?sourceid=2 98 Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Now $32.99 was $47.38

http://www.towerrecords.com/product.aspx?pfid=1015 357 Beatles White Album Your Price: $28.99

http://www.amazon.com/Night-at-Opera-Queen/dp/B000 000OAN Queen Night at the Opera Price: $10.47 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.

Now some older classis movies for comparison;

http://www.amazon.com/Fiddler-Roof-Special-Topol/d p/B00005N7YZ Fiddler on the Roof 17 used & new available from $16.95

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/search-ng.gsp?searc h_constraint=0&search_query=star%20wars%20dvds&adi d=0100000031361378202498 Star Wars trilogy 3 movies for about $10 each. List Price: $49.98
Our Price: $33.88

The RIAA can't figure out why I don't buy CD's..

More hints.. here is a list of DVD's at 5.99 Page 1 of 756 titles.
http://www.jr.com/JRSectionView.process?N=13326+16 5&Ne=160#Budget+DVD's

Of course, nearly any DVD from Criterion will be around $30. So, the price isn't that big of an issue for me.

There are people who do pay premium prices for premium content. There is a market for Cadilacs and Mercedez Benz, but the real money is in Wal * Mart. Trying to make a Mercedes the standard car of choice is going to have a tough run against the Toyota's.

The HD DVD manufactures are seeing this right now. Hummers were a hot item as was the Escalade. Casino Royale is a hot item, but it's not overtaking conventional DVD's anytime soon much like Hummers and Escalades are not overtaking Accords and Camerys. This is reflected in the number of unsold high priced titles.

How can the war be over when high def DVD players account for less than 1% of all DVD player sales? Did you know that sales of ACTUAL high def DVD players have 200,000 HD-DVD players sold vs. 30,000 Blu-Ray players? You really can't count all of the PS3 sales in there since not everyone who has one uses it for a Blu-Ray player. The fact is it is still much cheaper to make HD-DVD players and HD-DVD media than it is to make the Blu-Ray counterparts. In my opinion the winner will be the first camp to get a cheap ($100-200) player available in Wal-Mart and HD-DVD has the edge there since the parts are cheaper.

I just did a quick check of Wal-Mart's available HD DVD players and they have a HD-DVD player for $378 while the Blu-Ray player is $898. Hmm, I wonder which one I would buy if I was on a budget. Here are the players:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=540 874&catNavId=62055

The simply fact is that current DVD Emporium figures show Blu-Ray now outselling HD-DVD titles about 70% to 30%, trended Amazon data agrees with this assesment.

Wow, I wonder how those numbers came about. Could it be all of the free vouchers for Blu-Ray discs that Sony gave away to purchasers of the PS3? While that is a significant percentage difference if you look at how it got that way you should come to the conclusion that the numbers have been fudged a little do to the free vouchers.

Ask Microsoft, they are the ones that want the 360 to be a media hub. They would offer a Blu-Ray player for the same reason they offer a cheap HD-DVD option today, it's just the add-on at that point would be $50 and not $200. But it's pretty clear why they are not building HD-DVD into the console, so they have that option.

The reason they did not build the HD drive into the unit was because they didn't want to drive the price of it up and thats it. I can't find the article but there was someone at MS who was quoted saying that they didn't include it in the Elite version for the very fact that they wanted to give the users a choice instead of automatically driving the price up. If you look at this http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/56565.html there is this quote:

"Adding an HD DVD drive, now available as a plug-in accessory, "would have raised the Xbox cost another $200 and that would have gone over [the] PS3 price"

Why would it go over the PS3 cost? Because Sony is selling the PS3 at a pretty hefty loss to them. MS doesn't want to go that route and would instead just like to give the user the choice to spend the extra $200.

I also think that more people will purchase the HD-DVD drive once Halo 3 is released since it sounds like it will be an HD-DVD exclusive title. This will then add more potential players to the market and may result in increased HD-DVD movie sales.

Either way even if they had included the HD-DVD drive they still would have "had the option" to offer a Blu-Ray add-on if they wished. They did not leave the HD-DVD drive out because they are worried the format is going to die.

Believe what you wish but the fact remains that the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war is far from over and it is much too early to declare a winner.

Yeah, my PS2 is the last full-size model they made (when they first introduced progressive scan DVD playback). It has a quieter fan and built-in IR receiver also. It's possible they may have improved the DVD playback in newer versions, but it can't hold a candle to the progressive scan DVD player I got at Wal-mart. Here it is: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=4810681 Supports progressive scan, great picture/quality even in progressive on my Samsung 20" widescreen LCD HDTV (using component), and also plays Divx files burned to DVD+/-R. I'm very happy with it.

That's basically been done.

That's funny, I could have sworn that Linspire was an OEM Linux distribution. It comes on this Wal-Mart desktop:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=3762912

Repeat until the lesson is learned:

What passes for Gospel truth on the Geek forums is not always true in the larger world.

Walmart made a try at selling OEM Linux to the masses but has left the game:

Compaq Presario w/19 inch LCD Monitor Athlon 64 CPU. 1 GB RAM. 200 GB HDD. DVD Burner. Memory Card Reader. $700

Widespread adoption of Linux on the desktop isn't going to happen. Here's why.

In 2004, it looked close. You could buy Linux desktop machines, and even laptops, at WalMart. Dell and HP had offerings. Today, the Linux laptops are gone from mainstream vendors.

What happened?

First, the laptop has replaced the desktop. Laptops used to be niche machines, expensive, fragile, and less powerful than desktops. That's changed. Today, for many users, a laptop is their primary machine. Laptops have less-standard hardware, and getting Linux to run reliably on a laptop without manufacturer cooperation remains iffy. Take a look at the laptop support instructions on Linux.org. Almost all the machines listed are out of production. (Many of the companies listed no longer even make laptops.)

Second, the ability to handle content in proprietary formats has become much more important to consumers. Want to play a DVD, or talk to the iTunes store? Tough. There's been talk of a "legal DVD player" for Linux since 2000, and although two companies came close to shipping such a player, neither still does. Linspire does have one, but only for their version of Linux, and there are some players licensable by OEMs for embedded devices. Seven years after the first claims of "real soon now" in Wired, it didn't happen.

Linux missed the window. Microsoft won. Deal with it, fanboys.

They could say you could always work at Wal*Mart.

And I don't mean in the IT department...

He didn't cram anything down anyone's throats.

He sold operating systems and software for hardware platforms which were entry-level at the time of their release.

That is the mass-market solution pioneered by Henry Ford. The solution which always generates more money and greater opportunities for development than the handcraft work so admired by the Geek in his own technological Stanley Steamers.

Here are the specs for a $900 Toshiba Vista Premium laptop from Walmart:

1.73 GHz Dual-Core Intel CPU
15.4" wide-screen display
1 GB DDR RAM (expandable)
160 GB HDD
DVD-R
Intel Wi-Fi Toshiba Sattelite

That, unadjusted for inflation, is 2/3 of the price our family paid for a Win 95 Packard-Bell desktop twelve years ago:

75 MHz Pentium CPU
12" CRT Monitor w/ 1 MB integrated graphics
8 MB RAM
545 MB HDD
4X CD-ROM
14.4 K Modem

I noticed our Wal-Mart has a "Max Media Dock" adapter for the DS. It accepts a CF card, and allows you to play MP3s and the like. It is like this one, but accepts CF instead of Memory Stick. According to their web site:
"MAX Media Player is the most exciting product ever released for the Nintendo DS. Combining a pristine app launcher for home brew software and an easy-to-use media MP3 and video player"

The interesting thing is this is right there on the shelf at my local Wal-Mart, when it apparently can be used to play, ahem, backups. I doubt Wal-Mart is aware of that capability. I know the packaging makes no mention of it, which is probably why they carry it.

Dan East

Rabbit ears (two pole antenna) are useless for HD. But many Rabbit ears antenna's today do come with the UHF loop (looks like a plate inbetween the two poles). If you live in suburbia, an amplified rabbit ears (provided they come with the uhf loop example) is often enough to pull in HD signal reliably, but if you want to be sure, mount a yagi. - Do not be forgetting what you can not remember.

Hmm... Just pulled out one of mine. it's a GE Helical 20W unit, designed for 120VAC/60Hz/300mA operation. Model FLE 20HT32SW. It's good down to -15C, has a color temperature of 2700K and a CRI of 82*. They're $15/6 at walmart.

Of course, Japan tends to be far more expensive than the USA, though the difference in Hz and voltage shouldn't make a huge difference, unless they're just rebranded bulbs meant for 120VAC. The electronic ballasts are like switched power supplies; They multiply the frequency of the AC(into the 10's of kHz) in order to make transforming the voltage easier and more efficient in a small package, even then, the 10hz difference is nothing. Not being able to read japanese, I can't compare with the ones on the site you posted. I do remember reading somewhere that the helicals are the best, but have no source.

*The tubes I just installed might be a shade whiter, their CRI is over 90(shouldn't have thrown the tabs with the info away).

I flat out don't believe you. What couldn't they find in Vista? What's so drastically different from XP? Did they fail to notice the handy (new) search bar? Do they not know how to make shortcuts?

There's always going to be a bit of a learning curve with any new product that is different even in the slightest of ways. Complaining about how it's different is asinine to me...if they just wanted XP because that's what they were used to, then why were they shopping for new computers? Sounds like you weren't much of a help at all.

And as for this nonsense about Vista being a memory hog and performance drain...that is demonstrably false. I have a 3 year old Dell that I've just upgraded with Vista, and if anything, Vista is snappier.

You are right about one thing, though; XP is next to impossible to find:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?j=1&id=cat 16104&type=category
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/5385 14/ref=br_bx_c_2_1/103-9340057-3065405
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/search-ng.gsp?searc h_constraint=3944&search_query=windows+xp&Continue .x=22&Continue.y=7
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/d efault.mspx
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?DEPA =0&type=&Description=xp&Submit=ENE&N=0&Ntk=all

Speaking of price, how often have we seen the soundtrack of a movie costing more than the entire, full length, soundtrack-included movie ? So basically adding the visuals and dialog to the music makes the entire package worth less?

Speaking of price, how often have we seen the soundtrack of a movie costing more than the entire, full length, soundtrack-included movie ? So basically adding the visuals and dialog to the music makes the entire package worth less?

Here's a copy of a letter I wrote to Wal-Mart through their email us page on their website.

http://www.walmart.com/cservice/cu_commentsonline. gsp?cu_heading=8

Subject: 7. Report Site Problem

Dear Walmart,

I wanted to let you know that your new video downloads service appears to be broken, as it requires me to install spyware to continue. I hope you fix this problem soon, I would love to be able to try your new service. Thanks!

watch -n 2 wget http://www.walmart.com/swap/SwapEntry.do?dslURL=/s wap/LoadMain.do%3FmainCategoryId%3D2500

Except that every computer has IE installed.

This is another one of those crap articles that links to a blog, which links to other blogs, and doesn't link to the actual source of the problem.

Which is WalMart Video Downloads (Beta).. And which is currently returning the message "Site Temporarily Unavailable The Wal-Mart Video Downloads store is currently unavailable due to temporary site maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please try again later."

So see what happens when it comes back up.

Of course, the real problem is probably that, having downloaded, you can only play the resulting download with Windows Media Player.

"Site Temporarily Unavailable. The Wal-Mart Video Downloads store is currently unavailable due to temporary site maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience. Pleae try again later."

So, maybe they're about to fix it? After all, they do label it as "beta". If it only works with IE 6+, I'd consider that a significant bug worth fixing.

They sell ISP access via Netscape and AOL: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=103 468 Does the site work with their respective browsers?

The Wal-Mart Video Downloads store is currently unavailable due to temporary site maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.

I can't even get to the site ( http://mediadownloads.walmart.com/ ) on Internet Explorer.

The Walmart video download site (http://mediadownloads.walmart.com/) appears to be Slashdotted already, so I can't check to see if it's just a UA check or something that actually won't work outside of IE (Like ActiveX controls).

I'm surprised the article's author didn't try a user agent string from IE7. I couldn't reach what I velieve to be the web site in question in either Firefox or IE, so the site just may be having problems at the moment.

Let's think of all the things we can that have gotten cheaper over the same period, yet perform the same or better than in the 1980s.
- Your PC - by performance numbers alone, it should cost $50M each.
- Hard disks - i have a 10M Seagate that cost me almost $500, today you get a 1GB USB drive for $20.
- Gasoline - Everyone thinks gas is higher, it isn't if you do the math.
- VHS movies were $79, they are now $5 in the bargain bin. DVDs too.
- High quality audio equipment - you had to spend $10,000 back then to reach the sound quality of a $200 system today
- FM Radio is still free, but FM radios are given away as company schwag - Thanks Business Objects http://www.businessobjects.com/ and Sun http://www.sun.com/!
- DVD players were $500 (I have a Toshiba) and now they are $30 http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=5270015
- T-shirts are still $9-15
- Items that have been outsourced for production are 30%-90% cheaper.
- I'm sorry that you want a raise, RIAA, I'd like a raise too, but haven't had one since 2001.

Ok, so this means that CDs should now cost $1 since manufacturing has been completely outsourced and costs have dropped at least 16x over this same period. Get over it RIAA and wake up to competition. You are confused as to which business you are in. You think you are in the art business, when you are in the magazine business.

And for an added bonus the link to Wal-Mart's video store within the story is broken.

Article link

Wal-Mart Video Store note: the site renders horribly in Mozilla & Firefox... at least for me.

...anyone considering buying a PS3 would naturally have enough money to buy any of the alternatives...

I agree, if someone has the cash to buy the most expensive item, then value comes into play. But that's a big "if."

I have been trying to postulate that the average consumer is not in the position that you are.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=5303663
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=5303668

Xbox 360 bundle (2 controllers, 2 games, 1 case) = $479
PS3 bundle (2 controllers, 2 games, 1 movie) = $696

Frankly, I think a spread of $217 (45% increase) puts the PS3 in a completely different category. Therefore, I believe the PS3 will sell less because it will have fewer consumers looking for a game system at that price point.

However, I could be wrong. Maybe the majority of consumers in the market for a movie-playing, next-gen, HD game system can afford either system.

...anyone considering buying a PS3 would naturally have enough money to buy any of the alternatives...

I agree, if someone has the cash to buy the most expensive item, then value comes into play. But that's a big "if."

I have been trying to postulate that the average consumer is not in the position that you are.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=5303663
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=5303668

Xbox 360 bundle (2 controllers, 2 games, 1 case) = $479
PS3 bundle (2 controllers, 2 games, 1 movie) = $696

Frankly, I think a spread of $217 (45% increase) puts the PS3 in a completely different category. Therefore, I believe the PS3 will sell less because it will have fewer consumers looking for a game system at that price point.

However, I could be wrong. Maybe the majority of consumers in the market for a movie-playing, next-gen, HD game system can afford either system.

It's safe to predict that 99.99999% of Vista sales will be OEM installs.

Like Windows 98, ME, 98SE, 2000 and XP before it.

high price of Vista will kill over the counter sales

Like... XP before it?

For the immediate future, forcing Vista will hurt computer sales because no one wants it.

Who is this mythical "no one"? You?

going to have trouble gettin money out of OEMs. The margins don't allow it.

Reality sucks, doesn't it?

The end of the M$ monopoly is here.

But wait, didn't you say this when Windows 95 came out? And then with Windows 98 and 2000? And then again with XP?

I guess it's kinda like predicting "the year of Linux" every year, isn't it? Your track record with prediction is 100% wrong so far, but then again you seem completely detached from reality anyway. Constantly harping that "M$ is going down" on Slashdot will not actually cause that. Hopefully some day you'll realize that.