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Peter Moore Talks About His Experiences In the Gaming Industry
Over the past several days, the Guardian has posted a five-part interview with Peter Moore, head of EA Sports. Moore was also the president of Sega, and a vice-president at Microsoft, so his experience at the top levels of the gaming industry is extensive. He describes how he came to be employed by Sega, the development of the Dreamcast, and its subsequent flop when confronted with the Playstation 2. He also discusses his involvement with the development of the Xbox franchise, how the integrated hard drive "killed" the original model, and he gives his account of how the Red Ring of Death fiasco affected the company. The series ends with a look at EA Sports' plans for the future, and how they're trying to create a new business model beyond the micro-payments popularized by iTunes, which Moore calls "a rip-off."
It's pretty clear. He mentions that songs on iTunes are 99 cents, and asks what they are in the UK. The interviewer says 79 pence. He says "oh, you're being ripped off."
I think it's both clear and accurate.
After RTFA, I would just like to point out that Moore doesn't call iTunes or micropayments "a rip-off."
After mentioning the 99c US price for individual iTunes tracks, the interviewer tells Mr. Moore that the UK price is 79p. Mr Moore responds "you're being ripped off." The inference here is that 79p is not equal, given to the exchange rate of US Dollars to UK Pounds, to 99 cents.
This is one of many (growing) examples of the /. summaries being inaccurate, sensational, and combative. I expect this from the comments. In the summary, I expect at least the pretense of some sort of journalistic integrity.
Sigh.
I was using national figure, so thats xbox at 19 million worldwide then. Pretty far from a "failed" system.
It isn't if it isn't intentional. You can't expect a company to change its prices every time a currency fluctuates. Plus, there are also fixed costs and marginal costs that are different in the different countries you do business in. For instance, sometimes the rights to the same song by the same band may be held by different companies depending on the country you sell it in. Plus, there may also be some differences in taxation (VAT or no VAT) and regulations that we may not know about. I don't know why the British are complaining anyway. If they're jealous of the Euro prices, they should just switch to the Euro currency. And if they're jealous of the American price, they should just ask their government to just do like ours and print money like mad -- diluting the currency until it's worth nothing.