Guys, it's pretty easy to figure out. Compared to Japan and South Korea, people in the US and Canada are sparsely populated. When laying down fiber for an area with the same radius reaches 5x more people in Japan or South Korea than in the US, you bet they can have cheaper prices. Also because there are less areas to deploy when rolling out new tech, it isn't as costly either.
Yep, funny stuff happens when you try to move things faster than the speed of light. Gotta start talking about Quantum Mechanics and Einstien's theory of relativity to make sense of it all.:P
Like the GP said, the most important part of the iPhone doesn't come from hardware, but instead software. They could have held back on that part and still had something to show in June.
I was thinking that too, but the PS3 has interchanagable drives, and I doubt programmers bothered to think about the extra hoopla needed for testing. Besides, there's nothing on the Xbox 360 that requires exact timing off the HDD (no games use it exclusively), so it doesn't matter.
Or more cameras could shoot pictures in RAW or RAW + JPEG mode. I don't want to spend $300 for a camera that doesn't throw away information when $100 can capture the same info anyway.
It's been 2 months after the console was launched. Regardless, rabid fanboys should be hounding stores looking for a unit to purchase. Of all the console launches I've seen in the past 10 years, never has a system been this widely available so quickly.
Could it be price? Most definitely. But you can't use that as a scapegoat to say, "Oh, because it's expensive, that's why it's not selling". That's the very REASON why it's not selling: it costs too much!
Never refer to the PS3 as the "next Dreamcast". The Dreamcast was amazing system that was killed from hype of ANOTHER console, it itself did not perform pitifully.
If you want a better analogy, refer to the PS3 as the next 3D0. Price fits about the same too.
It's not about the amount of storage space a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc can hold, as both formats have proven adequate to storing HD movies with amazing quality. No, it's about being able to get those discs into mass production with little increase in costs. That's why that 200GB Blu-Ray disc is pointless if it costs 10 or 20 times more to produce. Blu-Ray lost out earlier last year because while it did HAVE 50GB discs in it's initial spec, it took until late November to use them in movies. HD-DVD has been using dual layer 30GB discs from the start.
We'll just have to wait and see how long it takes before these discs become reasonable to manufacturer. Until then, I'm sticking to DVD.
Going from 1920x1080 to 1280x720 itself is a HUGE jump. You're talking about 2.25 more times data in a 1080p stream than a 720p one. Sure, no one's expecting NO quality loss when going from a 30GB HD-DVD disc to a 8.4GB DVD, but with some reasonable quality loss, it sure is better than paying $500 for a new player!
The individual pieces may not be new, but rarely are you going to come up with a completely new concept to fulfill a need from scratch. WHS brings all those things together in an easy to use fashion so yeah, it's pretty new to the 99.999% of the public that has no idea how to set one up using today's software.
It's going to take a LONG time for the iPhone to ever gain any traction. Sure, iPods sell in the tens of millions every quarter, but that's only because the most popular models are the cheapest ones, namely the iPod Shuffle and lower end iPod Nanos. Also notice that Apple didn't get an insane amount of sales UNTIL those cheaper models hit the market. And still today, you can see people will envy cool looking gadgets but will never buy them until they reach a mass-market price (which is pretty much $200 and below).
Of course, no one really expects the iPhone to be the end-all to the high-end cell phone market right away. I'd say give it 2 years or so before we start seeing a major popularity craze. Oh, and Apple needs to sign up other phone companies as well, otherwise it's just going to be a novelty like the PS3.
What I'm thinking is that Nintendo is waiting for a much more established amount of consoles before releasing big games. If you just got a Wii a year from now and SMB3 were available, do you think that you'd buy SMB3 or a lesser known title instead? Nintendo's trying to create some breathing room for titles that aren't necessarily "must-haves" so that when those particular games do come out, other publishers have made some money.
Plus, some games are no brainers as promotions. Randomly bundle a copy of SMB3 with Super Mario Galaxy and you can bet that game would literally be flying off shelves faster than you can say "Mama mia!".
When a system has to depend on 2 games that won't reach American shores for a good 1-2 years, you can definitely sense trouble. No one spends $600 for 1 game. That's lunacy.
The way I see it, it's going to be real hard to get the PS3 out of this rut unless it finds a way to cut costs. It can't have developer abuse anymore, not when the system with the most units right now is also EASIER to develop for as well.
If I were a developer, there's no way I wouldn't put a game on the Xbox 360 unless the game was designed for the Wii in mind. Even more, a publisher only thinks of profits, and right now the PS3 is a huge sink in which money must be thrown in before any will come back out.
The original Playstation didn't have any strong competition until the N64 came which by that time, was doing just fine. But, not only did the PS3 have a poor start, the Xbox 360 has had a year to get its act together and the Wii still has plenty of steam from its launch as well. Sony has been accustomed to having a year to get things straight before other competitors came with their consoles. Not going to work this time...
Often the downtime was a lot longer than it was supposed to be. Usually it meant not playing the game for an entire day, and patch days were even WORSE. Now, of course, I've quit WoW to focus on school but I was part of the WoW craze too. Don't knock it until you've tried it, it can be rather addicting.
Besides, people are paying $15 per month for the game, some people would like to take advantage of that as much as possible.
My HP dv4000 I bought a year ago lasts 6-6.5 hours with the extended 12 cell battery (and it has an ATI x700 in it too) after undervolting, ATI Powerplay, and making sure the HDD turns off when possible. Sure, the battery sticks out a bit, but I always laugh at people who's laptops die after 4 hours.:P
Just don't expect amazing battery life and a high powered laptop. Keep your CS:S and HL2 skills on a desktop where they belong.
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If most people think that stretched SD shows on their new HDTV is HD, then no, Blu-Ray won't save the PS3.
Guys, it's pretty easy to figure out. Compared to Japan and South Korea, people in the US and Canada are sparsely populated. When laying down fiber for an area with the same radius reaches 5x more people in Japan or South Korea than in the US, you bet they can have cheaper prices. Also because there are less areas to deploy when rolling out new tech, it isn't as costly either.
Since Allichin retired on Wednesday, looks like he can buy that Mac now. Maybe Jobs had a special one he's been saving all these years.
Uhh.. OEM is cheaper that upgrade.
Last time I checked, there was no such thing as an upgrade key, only retail and OEM keys. Go torrent a Vista RTM disc.
O_o
Yep, funny stuff happens when you try to move things faster than the speed of light. Gotta start talking about Quantum Mechanics and Einstien's theory of relativity to make sense of it all. :P
Like the GP said, the most important part of the iPhone doesn't come from hardware, but instead software. They could have held back on that part and still had something to show in June.
I was thinking that too, but the PS3 has interchanagable drives, and I doubt programmers bothered to think about the extra hoopla needed for testing. Besides, there's nothing on the Xbox 360 that requires exact timing off the HDD (no games use it exclusively), so it doesn't matter.
Or more cameras could shoot pictures in RAW or RAW + JPEG mode. I don't want to spend $300 for a camera that doesn't throw away information when $100 can capture the same info anyway.
Could it be price? Most definitely. But you can't use that as a scapegoat to say, "Oh, because it's expensive, that's why it's not selling". That's the very REASON why it's not selling: it costs too much!
Never refer to the PS3 as the "next Dreamcast". The Dreamcast was amazing system that was killed from hype of ANOTHER console, it itself did not perform pitifully. If you want a better analogy, refer to the PS3 as the next 3D0. Price fits about the same too.
We'll just have to wait and see how long it takes before these discs become reasonable to manufacturer. Until then, I'm sticking to DVD.
Going from 1920x1080 to 1280x720 itself is a HUGE jump. You're talking about 2.25 more times data in a 1080p stream than a 720p one. Sure, no one's expecting NO quality loss when going from a 30GB HD-DVD disc to a 8.4GB DVD, but with some reasonable quality loss, it sure is better than paying $500 for a new player!
The individual pieces may not be new, but rarely are you going to come up with a completely new concept to fulfill a need from scratch. WHS brings all those things together in an easy to use fashion so yeah, it's pretty new to the 99.999% of the public that has no idea how to set one up using today's software.
Yeah, if I was able to run Bittorrent on a WHS machine, I would be stoked. No longer would I need to leave my laptop on to run torrents.
It's going to take a LONG time for the iPhone to ever gain any traction. Sure, iPods sell in the tens of millions every quarter, but that's only because the most popular models are the cheapest ones, namely the iPod Shuffle and lower end iPod Nanos. Also notice that Apple didn't get an insane amount of sales UNTIL those cheaper models hit the market. And still today, you can see people will envy cool looking gadgets but will never buy them until they reach a mass-market price (which is pretty much $200 and below). Of course, no one really expects the iPhone to be the end-all to the high-end cell phone market right away. I'd say give it 2 years or so before we start seeing a major popularity craze. Oh, and Apple needs to sign up other phone companies as well, otherwise it's just going to be a novelty like the PS3.
What I'm thinking is that Nintendo is waiting for a much more established amount of consoles before releasing big games. If you just got a Wii a year from now and SMB3 were available, do you think that you'd buy SMB3 or a lesser known title instead? Nintendo's trying to create some breathing room for titles that aren't necessarily "must-haves" so that when those particular games do come out, other publishers have made some money. Plus, some games are no brainers as promotions. Randomly bundle a copy of SMB3 with Super Mario Galaxy and you can bet that game would literally be flying off shelves faster than you can say "Mama mia!".
Fiscal year 2007, not calendar year. That would be 6 million shipped by the end of March 2007. RTFA.
When a system has to depend on 2 games that won't reach American shores for a good 1-2 years, you can definitely sense trouble. No one spends $600 for 1 game. That's lunacy. The way I see it, it's going to be real hard to get the PS3 out of this rut unless it finds a way to cut costs. It can't have developer abuse anymore, not when the system with the most units right now is also EASIER to develop for as well. If I were a developer, there's no way I wouldn't put a game on the Xbox 360 unless the game was designed for the Wii in mind. Even more, a publisher only thinks of profits, and right now the PS3 is a huge sink in which money must be thrown in before any will come back out.
The original Playstation didn't have any strong competition until the N64 came which by that time, was doing just fine. But, not only did the PS3 have a poor start, the Xbox 360 has had a year to get its act together and the Wii still has plenty of steam from its launch as well. Sony has been accustomed to having a year to get things straight before other competitors came with their consoles. Not going to work this time...
You're program does nothing for Asians and Indians. Way to leave out 1/3 of the human population!
Wow, they knew AOL was bad in 1995! Too bad they didn't warn the masses.
Often the downtime was a lot longer than it was supposed to be. Usually it meant not playing the game for an entire day, and patch days were even WORSE. Now, of course, I've quit WoW to focus on school but I was part of the WoW craze too. Don't knock it until you've tried it, it can be rather addicting. Besides, people are paying $15 per month for the game, some people would like to take advantage of that as much as possible.
My HP dv4000 I bought a year ago lasts 6-6.5 hours with the extended 12 cell battery (and it has an ATI x700 in it too) after undervolting, ATI Powerplay, and making sure the HDD turns off when possible. Sure, the battery sticks out a bit, but I always laugh at people who's laptops die after 4 hours. :P
Just don't expect amazing battery life and a high powered laptop. Keep your CS:S and HL2 skills on a desktop where they belong.