Good point, but that's Japan. Japanese and American markets are very different and I can't image all of these 'hardcore' American gamers willing to spend $500-$600 and camp out for a week to get a PS3 (remember: PS3 is cheaper in Japan, by the way) and not get at least one game with it. Or do you think hardcore American gamers got the PS3 to watch their bluray copy of [insert 1 of 16 bluray movie titles]?
The sooner PS3s start selling the better chance they have of securing the market. If they wait until summer '07, it will be too late to enter the game as most gamers won't wait that long to buy a system and will already have a 360, Wii, or both. Despite there only being 400,000 units available, that's still 400,000 customers. Take that as you will, that's at least 1 game per system sold, not to mention the accessories, the movies, etc. to go along with the system. Plus, that's 400,000 gamers that will show off their new toy to their friends, who will in turn, wait for the system because of their good experience with it (obviously not 100% will like it and cancel their Wii/360 orders, but even if 10% do, its still worth it for Sony).
The only game with greater longevity then the HL mods is Diablo II, which is STILL on store shelves, nearly 7 years after it's release.
Don't forget Starcraft. That came out two years before Diablo II and is still on shelves wherever video games are sold. That still has a huge multiplayer following with new maps and patches still being released. They also still use it in competitive play.
Is the betamax your primary source for viewing recorded shows/movies or is it, at this point, a novelty system to *only* watch your old, recorded star trek episodes? It does matter who wins and who loses because not everyone out there can buy a system that fails, shrug their shoulders and go 'oh well, let's buy another $250-$600 piece of hardware and hope for the best.'
A new study reports that passengers on space elevators of current design could be killed by radiation. Even traveling at 200 kilometers per hour, passengers would spend several days in the Van Allen radiation belts, long enough to kill them."
Potentially lethal because of the radiation, which in turn makes it a little more expensive. NOT potentially lethal because its a little more expensive.
Actually, I hope ads play during a conversation. Say, call your friend and tell him to pick up a case of Pepsi, and all of the sudden you and your friend hear a chime and an ad for Pepsi starts streaming to both of your phones.
Or maybe the cellphones they're making have the same sensors as the Wii remote and all of the sudden a holographic ad appears in front of you to PUNCH THE MONKEY AND WIN A FREE IPOD
Well, up in the northeast, where the average household income is $70-$100k, I would say many parents are willing to spend $600-$1k. Some of my friends got 360s last year for Christmas and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they get ps3s this year. I do agree with you, however, that most systems will be purchased for personal use rather than as gifts but I guess the extra holiday hype never hurt anyone (by 'anyone', I mean sony, of course).
If they were to remove captchas and instead use this method, I don't think it would be long before spammers would use other tools. I use QTP at work which includes a browser plugin for web-based regression. I could easily see this being used to spam forums as it attaches itself to the browser--and it wouldn't matter whether or not the fields were generated through the plain ol' html or javascript.
Let's see...the cost of a handful of IE developers spread out over millions of windows copies sold....hrm.
When was the last time you bought a computer from Microsoft? What they don't sell computers in general? Well who are their customers? OEMs and corporations are their customers and they are legally entitled to have a choice of buying both Windows and other products without being coerced into buying a browser or anything else just because they ahve to buy Windows to stay in business.
The browser comes with Windows. They aren't forced to buy it. And, by the way, my HP laptop came with Firefox installed, so I don't know where you are getting off saying companies can't because you're wrong.
Is there an existing market for really basic text editors or solitaire games? If so, then yes. If not, MS is in the clear.
Well, there are many text editors and solitaire games out there. Is there a market for them? Well, that depends on what you mean. Is there a market for web browsers? Last I heard, all of the popular ones are free.
So? If I buy a computer does it come with Firefox pre-installed? Does the update for Firefox run automatically or do I need to know about it and download it first? When MS sells a Windows license and gives part of the money to the IE developers, do they also give a similar amount of money to the Firefox team?
Should the same be done about solitaire and notepad as well? Clearly, you are an idiot if you cannot understand that microsoft includes standard features with its operating system to give users the best experience out of the box. Anyone can download and run firefox--there's nothing stopping them.
In your infinite wisdom, why should microsoft include every competitor's software with the operating system? Where do you draw the line? Should windows ship with 50+ browsers, 100's of versions of solitaire, the infinite amount of text-editors, etc? Are you that dense?
Food and water don't pull people out of poverty. Creating a stable government would, but average citizens can't do that. The best way is providing education and the tools to go along with it.
f you want to give poor people computers then give them computers. I have a few old laptops laying around, and I'm sure the big manufacturers could enjoy a big tax write off by donating their surplus stock.
The whole point of this project was to make cheap computers that could be given to developing nations. They didn't have to be fancy, or get 60fps on doom3, they needed to work well and provide the necessary features in order to run (example: the crank to charge the battery).
How will your used laptops help these people? Most don't even have an energy source (hence, the crank). Will you supply a gerbil and wheel to power your used laptops or will you give them to families that can afford electricity?
2. Reliability; Using all web apps or a web based OS would be ridiculous. What happens when your DS3 circuit goes down at your company? Yeah sure we already rely on the internet for job related things and internet downtime does kill productivity, but it doesn't render your computer useless, you can still write code, do accounting stuff or whatever it is that you do.
Sadly, this isn't the case anymore. With the increased number of apps that search servers to validate/retrieve licenses upon launch, its very possible a computer can become almost completely useless without a network connection.
This still does not make any sense. Can users still play non-drm'd music, such as: music taken off of bt, music from allofmp3.com, and music ripped from cds? If so, what have they accomplished? The only thing wmp11 does differently is that is allows users to play new kinds of drm music. So how does wmp11 have a tighter grip on windows users?
Plus, how does Microsoft's stock rise from this? Do they own a record label I don't know about? I really don't see how allowing to play new forms of drm music in a free upgrade to their pre-existing free media player helps their stock rise one bit.
Slashdot Mirror
Could someone define the word 'supprise' please? I've never seen this word before and since he said it twice, I assume it wasn't a typo.
From what I've heard, the classic controller can only be used for VC games, and the GC controller can only be used for GC games.
Good point, but that's Japan. Japanese and American markets are very different and I can't image all of these 'hardcore' American gamers willing to spend $500-$600 and camp out for a week to get a PS3 (remember: PS3 is cheaper in Japan, by the way) and not get at least one game with it. Or do you think hardcore American gamers got the PS3 to watch their bluray copy of [insert 1 of 16 bluray movie titles]?
The sooner PS3s start selling the better chance they have of securing the market. If they wait until summer '07, it will be too late to enter the game as most gamers won't wait that long to buy a system and will already have a 360, Wii, or both. Despite there only being 400,000 units available, that's still 400,000 customers. Take that as you will, that's at least 1 game per system sold, not to mention the accessories, the movies, etc. to go along with the system. Plus, that's 400,000 gamers that will show off their new toy to their friends, who will in turn, wait for the system because of their good experience with it (obviously not 100% will like it and cancel their Wii/360 orders, but even if 10% do, its still worth it for Sony).
Instead of the first refuge of the competent?
Don't forget Starcraft. That came out two years before Diablo II and is still on shelves wherever video games are sold. That still has a huge multiplayer following with new maps and patches still being released. They also still use it in competitive play.
Starcraft.
You're posting on slashdot rather than help educate and feed the poor? Nice hypercritical view there...
Is the betamax your primary source for viewing recorded shows/movies or is it, at this point, a novelty system to *only* watch your old, recorded star trek episodes? It does matter who wins and who loses because not everyone out there can buy a system that fails, shrug their shoulders and go 'oh well, let's buy another $250-$600 piece of hardware and hope for the best.'
You guys must really want to take your West Wing boxsets everywhere you go...
I'd get more worried if it started playing "Bad to the Bone"
Ahem...I believe Sony was the one to copy Nintendo on that.
I forgot the 32x had a C:> prompt
Potentially lethal because of the radiation, which in turn makes it a little more expensive. NOT potentially lethal because its a little more expensive.
I really hope you were trolling
Actually, I hope ads play during a conversation. Say, call your friend and tell him to pick up a case of Pepsi, and all of the sudden you and your friend hear a chime and an ad for Pepsi starts streaming to both of your phones.
Or maybe the cellphones they're making have the same sensors as the Wii remote and all of the sudden a holographic ad appears in front of you to PUNCH THE MONKEY AND WIN A FREE IPOD
Well, up in the northeast, where the average household income is $70-$100k, I would say many parents are willing to spend $600-$1k. Some of my friends got 360s last year for Christmas and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they get ps3s this year. I do agree with you, however, that most systems will be purchased for personal use rather than as gifts but I guess the extra holiday hype never hurt anyone (by 'anyone', I mean sony, of course).
If they were to remove captchas and instead use this method, I don't think it would be long before spammers would use other tools. I use QTP at work which includes a browser plugin for web-based regression. I could easily see this being used to spam forums as it attaches itself to the browser--and it wouldn't matter whether or not the fields were generated through the plain ol' html or javascript.
Let's see...the cost of a handful of IE developers spread out over millions of windows copies sold....hrm.
The browser comes with Windows. They aren't forced to buy it. And, by the way, my HP laptop came with Firefox installed, so I don't know where you are getting off saying companies can't because you're wrong.
Well, there are many text editors and solitaire games out there. Is there a market for them? Well, that depends on what you mean. Is there a market for web browsers? Last I heard, all of the popular ones are free.
Should the same be done about solitaire and notepad as well? Clearly, you are an idiot if you cannot understand that microsoft includes standard features with its operating system to give users the best experience out of the box. Anyone can download and run firefox--there's nothing stopping them.
In your infinite wisdom, why should microsoft include every competitor's software with the operating system? Where do you draw the line? Should windows ship with 50+ browsers, 100's of versions of solitaire, the infinite amount of text-editors, etc? Are you that dense?
hopefully something a lot better
Food and water don't pull people out of poverty. Creating a stable government would, but average citizens can't do that. The best way is providing education and the tools to go along with it.
The whole point of this project was to make cheap computers that could be given to developing nations. They didn't have to be fancy, or get 60fps on doom3, they needed to work well and provide the necessary features in order to run (example: the crank to charge the battery).
How will your used laptops help these people? Most don't even have an energy source (hence, the crank). Will you supply a gerbil and wheel to power your used laptops or will you give them to families that can afford electricity?
Sadly, this isn't the case anymore. With the increased number of apps that search servers to validate/retrieve licenses upon launch, its very possible a computer can become almost completely useless without a network connection.
You see, the joke is, Lik-Sang just went out of business...
joke
----
you
This still does not make any sense. Can users still play non-drm'd music, such as: music taken off of bt, music from allofmp3.com, and music ripped from cds? If so, what have they accomplished? The only thing wmp11 does differently is that is allows users to play new kinds of drm music. So how does wmp11 have a tighter grip on windows users?
Plus, how does Microsoft's stock rise from this? Do they own a record label I don't know about? I really don't see how allowing to play new forms of drm music in a free upgrade to their pre-existing free media player helps their stock rise one bit.