> The industry chiefs finally realized that you get what you pay for. Amazing.
Not really. This is part of a PR blitz to raise the H-1B cap. Otherwise, in order to increase supply they'd have to increase salaries. And we wouldn't want that, would we?
Set-up two local sites: one in China, one in the US. In each, post articles denouncing the local country and call the country's leader every vile name known to man. In the US, you'll end up with a popular left-wing web site. In China, you'll get a knock on the door in the middle of the night and will never be heard from again.
I was going to make a snarky comment, but I suppose that what the author is doing is more productive than, for instance, playing World of Warcraft. I'm still waiting for some lawyer to file a class action against some big-league spammer (or customer of a big league spammer) and win a large settlement. That will have some impact.
Interesting analysis, but I disagree that games will go entirely to the 'mass market' blockbuster. If anything I think games will move to the 'long tail' model. There still will be blockbusters, but there will also be small games that will find their own marketable niche. These will be developed by small companies, or even individuals and sold as downloads. Review sites and on-line word of mouth will steer people to these games.
I'm most familiar with Nintendo's Virtual Console which offers various game company's back catalog, but nothing new (yet). I expect that to change, and I expect small niche games in aggregate, to be quite profitable for console makers.
I'm surprised students are not rallying to deal with the RIAA. Traditionally, college students have been one of the largest markets for recorded music. And the RIAA is directly attacking their traditional best customer with law suits. I would have expected campus rallys to fight the RIAA. Students obtaining pledges to boycott RIAA labels and distribution of lists of labels to boycott. Just surprised that theres no organized effort on the part of students to counter this.
Ironic considering that a design goal of the Arpanet (the predecessor of the Internet) was to be robust in the event of network component / communications line failures.
It'll make the trial lawyer and Hollywood/Music Industry contingents of the Democrats very happy. And those groups may be small, but they represent a lot of campaign donation dollars.
The UN, the EU, and the Arab League say it's not a problem. The US says it is a problem, but is stretched pretty thin right now. So, nothings going to change any time soon.
> I get the idea that Nintendo is going to drop the ball on this.
They've sold 4 million of them since the launch at the end of November '06. They plan to sell another 12 million between now and the end of the year. The factories are now churning our over a million a month. There's a limit to how fast you can get manufacturing capacity on-line. Particularly if you want to maintain quality. The WORST thing they could do at this point is increase production at the cost of churning out low-quality units.
So yeah, they could have forseen that the new console would sell like hot cakes. But to be fair, at the time, the industry analysts had already consigned Nintendo to a distant third place in the console wars. Nintendo made a contrarian bet. They just didn't ante quite high enough.
> mulling over rolling out more Folding@Home-like clients to their PlayStation 3 consoles
And I hear you can play games on the thing too! Seriously, if Sony wants to market it as a cheap 'supercomputer' they need to offer another form factor. Perhaps a rack-mounted version pre-configured with Linux clustering.
Maybe, I saw the Kotoku article - it was based on a rumor. Although I'd never count on any particular game 'till it's done'. Anyway, the game videos looked good - both the 'in game' character and then the same 'modern' version of the same character operating the Wiimote. Hope the rumor turns out to be wrong.
The fact that the big game companies were caught off-balance by the popularity of the Wii (clearly they were not reading SlashDot since last years E3 conference.) could be good for some of the smaller game companies. This will give them a window to launch titles and get some publicity and shelf space at retailers. In particular, HeatSeeker and Sadness both look interesting. The fact that the Wii is cheaper to develop for (I assume it's got a good SDK) and lower resolution (less time to do custom artwork) should also help the smaller development companies.
Slashdot Mirror
> The industry chiefs finally realized that you get what you pay for. Amazing.
Not really. This is part of a PR blitz to raise the H-1B cap. Otherwise, in order to increase supply they'd have to increase salaries. And we wouldn't want that, would we?
Let me add this little thought experiment:
Set-up two local sites: one in China, one in the US. In each, post articles denouncing the local country and call the country's leader every vile name known to man. In the US, you'll end up with a popular left-wing web site. In China, you'll get a knock on the door in the middle of the night and will never be heard from again.
In Hugo's Venezuela Blimps watch you!
Last set of numbers I saw - Nintendo was producing 1 million Wii's / month and ramping up to 1.5 million / month.
My bad - Sony isn't using the Cartmanland Strategy, Nintendo is. And it's working!
Sony needs to take their current marketing plan to the next level - "This is the incredible new Sony PS/3 - and YOU CAN'T BUY ONE!!!"
They'll probably need to leave them turned on at all times, so no one will get to say "Shields Up!".
Yeah, those darn Republicans. Why just the other day, Rush Limbaugh was railing AGAINST censoring video games. (See Kotaku article)
I was going to make a snarky comment, but I suppose that what the author is doing is more productive than, for instance, playing World of Warcraft. I'm still waiting for some lawyer to file a class action against some big-league spammer (or customer of a big league spammer) and win a large settlement. That will have some impact.
In Communist China Vista is copied by you!!
> I've read the wikipedia article and such, but I still don't see how lobbying
> is any different than bribery and extortion.
Simple, one is legal and the others are not.
Interesting analysis, but I disagree that games will go entirely to the 'mass market' blockbuster. If anything I think games will move to the 'long tail' model. There still will be blockbusters, but there will also be small games that will find their own marketable niche. These will be developed by small companies, or even individuals and sold as downloads. Review sites and on-line word of mouth will steer people to these games.
I'm most familiar with Nintendo's Virtual Console which offers various game company's back catalog, but nothing new (yet). I expect that to change, and I expect small niche games in aggregate, to be quite profitable for console makers.
I'm surprised students are not rallying to deal with the RIAA. Traditionally, college students have been one of the largest markets for recorded music. And the RIAA is directly attacking their traditional best customer with law suits. I would have expected campus rallys to fight the RIAA. Students obtaining pledges to boycott RIAA labels and distribution of lists of labels to boycott. Just surprised that theres no organized effort on the part of students to counter this.
Ironic considering that a design goal of the Arpanet (the predecessor of the Internet) was to be robust in the event of network component / communications line failures.
It'll make the trial lawyer and Hollywood/Music Industry contingents of the Democrats very happy. And those groups may be small, but they represent a lot of campaign donation dollars.
Given the proliferation of MP3 as a standard audio format, I wonder how many people actually care about high quality audio?
The UN, the EU, and the Arab League say it's not a problem. The US says it is a problem, but is stretched pretty thin right now. So, nothings going to change any time soon.
But only if they're RW.
> I get the idea that Nintendo is going to drop the ball on this.
They've sold 4 million of them since the launch at the end of November '06. They plan to sell another 12 million between now and the end of the year. The factories are now churning our over a million a month. There's a limit to how fast you can get manufacturing capacity on-line. Particularly if you want to maintain quality. The WORST thing they could do at this point is increase production at the cost of churning out low-quality units.
So yeah, they could have forseen that the new console would sell like hot cakes. But to be fair, at the time, the industry analysts had already consigned Nintendo to a distant third place in the console wars. Nintendo made a contrarian bet. They just didn't ante quite high enough.
> mulling over rolling out more Folding@Home-like clients to their PlayStation 3 consoles
And I hear you can play games on the thing too! Seriously, if Sony wants to market it as a cheap 'supercomputer' they need to offer another form factor. Perhaps a rack-mounted version pre-configured with Linux clustering.
The US has pre-positioned the USS Jack Thompson, home of the 1049th Barrister Brigade ("The Terrible Torts") in the South China Sea.
> Anyone heard whether Steve Ballmer is thinking of taking the trip too ?
The ISS can handle micro-meteorites, but what about chairs?
> Sadly, Sadness is vapourware.
Maybe, I saw the Kotoku article - it was based on a rumor. Although I'd never count on any particular game 'till it's done'. Anyway, the game videos looked good - both the 'in game' character and then the same 'modern' version of the same character operating the Wiimote. Hope the rumor turns out to be wrong.
The fact that the big game companies were caught off-balance by the popularity of the Wii (clearly they were not reading SlashDot since last years E3 conference.) could be good for some of the smaller game companies. This will give them a window to launch titles and get some publicity and shelf space at retailers. In particular, HeatSeeker and Sadness both look interesting. The fact that the Wii is cheaper to develop for (I assume it's got a good SDK) and lower resolution (less time to do custom artwork) should also help the smaller development companies.
> I'd rather say, thank-god-i'm-not-in-china!
Or Utah.