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Nah, I'll just use the estimates reported in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal as to the Sony console losing more than $240 per unit sold (and more for the other version of the PS3) - which requires them to sell that many games, based on license fees and mix of ownership of games.

Note that if they sell movie titles and music in Blu-Ray format, they partially make up that amount in license fees, but all music stores show that demand for these - especially movies - just isn't there, unless you count Taladega Nights, which was shipped in an included bundle with the PS3.

You can rely on the Sony "estimates". I'll rely on the independent financial whizzes.

The XBox360's superiority in graphics and computing power has nothing to do with HD-TV, its far away from the Wii in SD-TV just as well. What is holding back the XBox360 so far is that a lot of games are still build for multiple platforms. If you see Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the XBox360 it won't look that much different then on a PS2 or Wii, the gameplay is all the same on every console and the much better bump mapping, resolution and light effects on the XBox360 won't change that.

All I know is what I've seen and what people in head-to-head reviews who've played both consoles - as evidenced in reviews at the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal for example, as well as G4 TV, Spike TV, etc - in that, sure, the xBox360 and PS3 have nice graphics, and they look cool close up (less than 4 feet for an HDTV that is more than 40 inches in size), but in the end it's all about the game play.

For most people, in 480p (standard TV), it really isn't that much different. And a lot of the PS3 releases don't even have good game graphics and camera controls - for example, water waves sloshing thru the land in a few, or bouncing into walls in Need for Speed 2, or whatever.

Again, it's all about the games. It's like my sports coupe - in the hands of someone like me, who actually knows the limitations of the vehicle, you can drive up to the ski hill with it, but the average Joe can't even drive their 4WD up to ski hill without getting stuck. Sure, they have more power, more clearance, they should be able to beat me there, but in real life they can't.

Now, the lead article is about first-week sales for the Wii in Japan of Zelda, compared to an already released user base of xBox360 consoles with a game that was released a couple of weeks before. It's like comparing pomegranates to oranges. Pomegranates may be better, but if they only are available right now, and people are used to oranges, you'll sell a lot more oranges.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. Finally, complain to the media. If they get enough letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

Remember, VeriSign is busy telling them its side of the story. We need to tell them ours!

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

Dude, you need to move out of brooklyn. Or the valley. Or wherever it is you're living that costs are that high. And stop looking at BMWs.

A nice, new Honda Accord is less than 1/4 the national average household income. A house in a less inflated real-estate market should work well for you also. $120K for 4 bedrooms here in Indiana, and interest rates are rock-bottom.

For the record, the average household income in 2002 for the whole US was $58K. Your numbers for the value of stuff in the 70s are still true today. 1/3 of $58K is a little over $19K. Plenty for a new car. Houses start at only a little more than 1x that here! Lots of small houses in the $85-$90K range. Huge houses (by valley/nyc standards) are available for $150K.

Email: letters@washpost.com
Snail:
Jonathan Krim
C/O The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20071

The editorial stories are decided on by committee and are deliberately unsigned.
See http://washpost.com/news_ed/editorial/ for their description.

Dear Mr. Thomason:

I found your article "7 Experts Sound Off After a Music Test" to be rather lacking in the information it provided. First of all, was the test a so-called blind test? In a blind test, the testers are not told what they are listening to. It is a well know fact that if you are told what you are listening to, you may set expectations, and those expectations may affect your perceptions of reality. From the quotes you give, it rather sounds like the testers knew what they were listening to.

Also, you fail to mention the bit rate at which the sounds were recorded. The bit rate winds up affecting the size of the file and the rate of compression. Although a bit rate of 128 kbps is frequently found on files distributed on the Internet, it is fairly well known that in order to achieve a reasonable reproduction of the original music, a rate more along the lines of 192 kbps should be used for MP3. It has been claimed that Ogg Vorbis performs better at the same bit rate. In any such comparision, the bit rate should be mentioned, and care should be taken to ensure that the same bit rate is used on all encoders. The bit rate was not mentioned in your article, nor did you make clear if the same bit rate was used for all tests.

Also, I would hope that the listeners were comparing to a CD listened to via the same "ordinary stereo system". I'm assuming that's the case, because otherwise the stereo system itself could affect the outcome. You also don't mention how the sound was sent to the stereo system itself. If the sound was sent out of the computer's sound card, then the quality of the sound card could also come into play. A better check would be to convert the compressed audio back to .WAV files (uncompressed), and burn a CD with the audio. Then you mearly need to compare the quality of the CDs. This also helps with keeping the identity of the test samples hidden from the listeners.

This is obviously a very complex issue. I would appreciate such clarifications, as I'm sure would may others. You may find it interesting to know that your article is being discussed at http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/13/155823 9


If you've made it this far, you might want to consider emailing the author himself at : Robert Thomason <thomason@washpost.com>.
Please remember to keep your comments civilized and direct, of course.