...wasn't this year's Christmas season made up almost entirely of top-notch, blockbuster, super-selling sequels? Judging by what the general video-gaming masses throw their money at, doesn't adherence to the tried-and-true actually make financial sense?
The guy goes on and on about how these franchises aren't attracting new gamers. That's bullocks. The problem is that the GameCube as a whole wound up becoming the Dreamcast of this generation. Not enough AAA-rate games to keep gamers happy: No Burnout 3, no GTA, limited sports support. Simple as that. Metroid Prime got attention, but for many reasons (lack of deathmatch being one), it wasn't the Halo that pulled Microsoft's similarly-shitty XBox release schedule out of the crapper. If Nintendo had gotten their crap together by snagging more third parties earlier, or perhaps by getting Mario Kart DD online, the console wars would've been completely different. As it stands, Nintendo blew the console wars again.
Then again, on the bright side, their profits are pretty damn good. What they lose in licensing, they've made up for by never selling their console for less than a profit and by making more profit for their first-party games. MS and Sony couldn't say that for years and lost more money in their deep pocketbooks than they'd ever care to admit, and paying for exclusivity deals with third parties takes its toll, too. Nintendo, as shortsighted as they are in getting American gamers' attention, have always been pretty good with the pocketbook. That might not mean much to gamers in search of a good system, but it does mean that Nintendo is going absolutely nowhere in the console wars. They won't fall like Sega anytime soon, but they do need to shape up with the new Revolution system, because they won't survive a third N64-style last-place finish, and two bad systems in a row is not a good reputation to go into the next generation with. Can we say Atari?
(that site includes info about a band that makes music with such 'instruments' as a "1977 Atari 2600 game console, a 1986 portable 286 PC, a 1983 Commodore 64 computer, and a 1985 Epson dot matrix printer." good music, too. I've seen them live in my hometown and they're amazing./. the mp3s.)
What are some examples of print comics that have inspired your comic-stripping ways in both good and bad ways? As in, are there strips you admire and/or despise that have, either way, pushed you to make a comic strip in your own way, without the regulation or, for that matter, PAY of a print comic?
I saw one of these in a booth at a huge fair in Dallas and called information immediately to get Nintendo's legal department on the line. The nice lady gave me an email address, and when I got home, I drafted the following letter. Amazing how stupid the guy manning the booth was, by the way, as you'll see below...
To whom it may concern,
I was at the State Fair of Texas today in Dallas, and inside the fair are a variety of booths with local crafts and the like. One booth was a bit odd, however - it featured a video game system that plugs directly into a TV and features older, nostalgic games, much like the recently-popular Pac-Man joysticks and the like. This one was different, however -- it copied the N64 controller to a T, if done in a much cheaper fashion, so at first I thought it was the iQue that is currently being sold in China.
But it wasn't. This system featured over 7,000 NES ROMS in its memory: Perfectly-emulated copies of games like Super Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt, Bubble Bobble.... I didn't even bother copying the list, because basically, every single NES game ever made was included in this controller. The controller, sold with a light gun peripheral, was sold for $40 a pop at the stand. I checked the box for any seal of approval from Nintendo, but all I could find was a Chinese copyright. Though I didn't write down that information, the guy behind the counter was foolish enough to hand me an information sheet with contact information for the responsible company, which I've copied below:
Super Joy III TV Game Performance Marketing Co. 3861 Royal Troon Dr Round Rock, TX 78664 512-244-7776 www.epowerplayer.com
The above website address actually includes all the information I listed and then some. This "Super Joy III" is some shady stuff, and as a dedicated Nintendo fan for many years, I am appalled to see such blatant disregard for Nintendo's copyrights in a for-profit product, so I called Nintendo of America on my cell phone and got this email address from the receptionist. I hope this is the correct contact information, and furthermore, that action is taken against this company's activity.
Please feel free to contact me with any further questions.
Parent hit upon the whole point of this business deal, because that's the target market this company is shooting for - idiots who will foolishly click "yes" to install a "free" product and wind up with adware galore. There are still plenty of people who assume they use computers safely only because they "don't open attachments in email." That's a lucrative market for marketing companies, like it or not.
This article doesn't pay attention to the biggest reason companies are going after the portable market with two new systems - they're trying to finally break into that 18-35 year old market that portables have never nailed before. Sure, the GBA SP is sleek and cool, but the games, for the most part, are dinky, 2d, kid-focused titles, and sales for older gamers certainly aren't in the same realm as consoles.
This guy's analysis assumes that the target consumer already owns a GBA or an SP. His assumption is WRONG. There are a lot of older gamers who don't see a need for a portable system, particularly the CASUAL adult gamer; the one who buys Madden and GTA and rents a few other games. Both companies are going for the wow factor to nail the older audience into thinking they need a portable system. The PSP has the edge in the "cool" factor, thanks to Gran Turismo, MGS:Acid, etc, but the DS has the battery life and price point that PSP desperately needs to convert its "cool" factor into pure sales. And Metroid Prime: Hunters might be just enough to get older gamers to pay attention and give a crap during launch. Furthermore, Nintendo has already announced an expected shortage this X-mas season. That is terribly intentional - the buzz of the "hard to get, super-awesome toy of the season" will put the DS in the lead with both sales AND reputation well before anyone even holds a PSP in the states.
Not exactly... the point of games is entertainment and immersion, physical activity aside. DDR, anyone?
I'm not sure how immersive it'll feel to have your own walking on the treadmill converted to the game world, but at any rate, this controller allows you to use more of your body to control the virtual world. I'm sure plenty of FPS gamers in fat America could use an increased heartrate while satisfying their hours-per-day habit, and I'm sure even more will willfilly ignore this product. But who can knock the company for giving PC gamers this kind of option?
anybody remember the initial 'marionette' rumors?
on
Nintendo DS Network
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The title "Marionette" has been sitting in Nintendo's cache since rumors began in 2000, though they were in a very different vein at the time.
But, yes, Nintendo has been toying with online content for a long time in Japan. They've known better than to try online with add-on products in the states, though, so any online strategy with the DS will have to be integrated in the launch hardware.
Furthermore, Nintendo knows that this is their last shot at getting the older gaming population to buy into portable gaming. They don't want to get beat by Sony a second time to the older-gaming spenders, and the remarkably early launch of the DS before PSP, along with this rumored adult-ish marketing campaign, makes total sense. Kudos to NOA for getting their heads out of Japan's ass and getting aggressive.
The most important part of an online music store is the selection. The biggest reason I download music on Soulseek is because I'm almost guaranteed to find the song I'm looking for at any given moment. No record store or legal online music service can guarantee me that high a probability.
So, let's say I get online and want a few things: a song by ABBA, a death-metal track from some obscure Norweigan band, an unreleased mash-up remix that combines Nine Inch Nails and 50 Cent, and an album that saw limited release in a small community in Oregon.
There's no way I can download all four of those on iTunes, or any other online service, for that matter. iTunes has come the closest by garnering unprecedented label support, but until they can spread their wings as far as the Internet stretches, I have little desire to use their service in place of what I've already got.
I guess the ultimate service, in my opinion, would be a Soulseek-style service that is p2p (meaning I can download anything in the world) and then charges me small amounts per download, much in the same way songwriters are compensated in the BMI/ASCAP system when a song is played on the radio. Only pennies a download (same exact charge as BMI), and whatever song title I download is cross-indexed and the pennies I spend go to the artist in question. On top of that, a small monthly fee to cover the costs of the cross-indexing system, which I don't think would ever need to exceed $3.95/mo. However difficult that system would be to create and implement, it would still best marry the infinity of Internet song selection and the rights of the songwriters/musicians in question.
Who cares about a new Gran Turismo game without online play? It's been the same game over and over. Sure, the last sequel had the benefit of PS2-powered graphics, but what's this one going to bring to the mainstream-gamer's table? A few more cars? More decals? Spiffier-looking still shots that wind up being lost when you're actually racing? Please.
If Sony had any respect for its customers, they would abandon this game's Xmas hopes and prep the game's release, with online, for Spring 05, rather than wait a few months after a lame Xmas launch and later release an "online patch" product for the low low price of $49.99!!
Am I too paranoid to feel completely iffy about submitting my social security number over a non-encrypted website? I don't think it's very naive to expect a little lock icon to pop up when I visit Apple's "tell us everything about you, but we'll keep it private, fer sure, promise!!!11" zone.
By your logic, your brain COULD be tricked by something like a computer rig playing Doom III with a surround sound system. Sight and sound is there, movement is not. And even though I'm assuming that you, a/.er, aren't affected by that, there are plenty of people who ARE sickened by first-person games. Also, old VR systems at arcades, a few of which I certainly played, were very blurry, which made those extremely sickening to use before movement even STARTED.
But otherwise, the physical issue you note is certainly a challenge to next-gen VR game systems, including some I have been privately planning out, and the point is that once prices drop and technology incrases, you'll be able to create a system that is more user-friendly and has a more natural feel to it. I won't go into detail as to how that could be worked around, but creativity makes it pretty easy to do.
The point of this TrackIR device isn't that VR could happen. We've known that. The important thing to see is the potential for progression in the technology to put a real, feasible VR system in your house, something that's 100000x better than Virtual Boy and yet still cost-effective. That's what companies want to happen.
The article makes a small mention of VR, but really, this has to be pretty damn important for the behind-the-scenes push for VR game consoles in the next decade. Every game company in the world with a brain should already be planning for an eventual shift to a VR system, even if it's 10 years away, and both the dropping price and increasing functionality of this TrackIR product makes the feasability of a low-priced, easy-to-use VR console that much more likely in the coming years.
The recent success of World Series of Poker championships on ESPN (and, yes, the word is 'success,' as the stuff has been driving up ESPN's ratings in surprising fashion) proves that what you're saying isn't so much of a joke.
People will watch any competition on television if it's crafted correctly. Forget the other stuff people have said about making televised competitions look like movies. G4 does that sometimes and the result is boring.
No, the real kicker is personalities. The success of WSOP programs is found in the combo of competition and the humans involved in that competition. Dads, young novices, old mainstays, families, "crew"s, and all their backstories and quirks and so on. Otherwise, the actual poker is some pretty boring stuff.
If a program can edit together competition highlights that pay as much attention to the gamers as to the game, then there's a serious shot at mainstream success. Could that be done? Perhaps not as easily as poker, as the participants aren't as "all over the board" in the gaming world (this is the same reason bowling competitions generally suck ass on TV), but the possibility is still worth noting.
EA's Steve Schnur "says that he and his team of two listen to 4,000-plus songs before deciding, for example, the 21 that will be included in "Madden NFL 2005," which. features such artists as Hoobastank, Green Day, Alter Bridge, the Hives, and New Found Glory."
Mm-hmm. Sure.
One thing the video game publishers are not benefiting from is an additional revenue stream; they are not being paid for the exposure they give the artists. Said an EA spokesperson, "We want to compensate the artists for their intellectual property. We also want to retain the integrity of the creative content of the game. We don't want the game to be just an advertising vehicle. If it evolves to that, then the spirit of the music within the game may change. Our goal is to create the most entertaining experience for the gamer."
Right. Totally.
The songs chosen and put into EA's games are picked based on the preferences of the designers. Definitely. Totally. Just like the songs chosen and put into radio playlists are picked based on the preferences of DJs.
If you didn't RTFL, payola schemes have been ruining radio airplay for decades. Since direct payola is illegal, record companies hire "indies" (the nice term for music middlemen) to take the $ from the label to the radio station in order to "persuade" said station to play certain songs at certain times.
Oh, but EA said they don't take money? That's cute. Complete bullshit, but cute. I have a lot of buddies who only buy EA Sports video games (and the occasional GTA and such), and every single time they load up an EA Sports game around me, they almost always mention a "favorite song" on EA Trax. The shit works because it targets the perfect mainstream audience: sports-watching males, ages 15-35. Record labels would be crazy to ignore that kind of advertising.
I do wonder whether or not ESPN/Sega Sports is accepting $ for song contributions, though, since they appear to be dipping in the non-major-label pool. I've seen the figures on labels like Definitive Jux, and they can't afford much in marketing, so I'll play the semi-optimist and pretend that Take Two's financial clout has helped Sega make a move like that without asking for "indie" fees.
Not like EA needs the money, though, thanks to their superhuge bankroll these days.
The reason the music market has dwindled so much in the past eight years is because, up until yesterday, only five big corporations (not four) had a bottom line to work with.
Turning two companies into one means turning two bottom lines into one. Or, better put...
"Why should we, SONY/BMG, release the same amount of material that competes against itself? We don't need to release that Avril Lavigne clone we'd been developing, since we actually have Avril Lavigne, and that means we can focus our teen advertising on one artist/album rather than two. Cut the Avril clone and we'll wind up with more profit. Same with our gangsta rappers, our garage rock bands, our adult contemporary singers, our country artists, etc etc etc. Cut 'em down and we'll spend less money on more, better-focused profit."
This might get rid of a few cookie-cutter artists, but ultimately, it retracts the feelers of the new, shrunken two-companies-into-one, which means even less resources are poured into artist discovery, catalog development and risk-taking. Reprise Records was founded with Sinatra's vision that there was both integrity and profit to be had in developing an artist over many years, and then once that artist finally breaks big, watching cash pour in with later sales of the back catalog. Major labels have killed this strategy and have put current sales and quarterly figures at the head of conversation instead. Another merger simply speeds this decay of major label integrity by having even fewer hands working to pluck out hits rather than develop catalog & LP artists.
When you cut 20% of the diversity out of a market that already lacks diversity, you're pouring more black oil into the ocean. Remember, just because an ocean is polluted doesn't excuse the further pollution. Five big evil labels are now four bigger, more evil labels, and the non-SONY/BMG labels will scramble to do whatever they can to catch up to this news, which means plenty of bands will be punted out of their contracts and dropped on their asses before said bands ever had a chance to tour and recoup their previous marketing expenditures. Another sad day in major label history.
It's a sinusoidal relationship. Companies jump at a shot to create new channels and get TV market share, only to flood the channel selection and get weeded out over time for lower ratings. Then, once TV-Darwinism slims the herd, more companies will put $ into the fray and the rise and fall of channels will occur again. Heck, even if channels are on the fall right now, they're bound to rise up once "dedicated HDTV" channels start popping up (which they have already in limited #s for the time being).
People are certainly still watching plenty of TV, though. Heck, most net addicts I know have a TV positioned so they can surf the web and gorge on the idiocy of MTV's Newlyweds at the same time. DVDs and TVRs may chop into the amount of advertising we watch, but until a simpler, cheaper mass-market means of watching TV shows without commercials comes into play, I don't expect the current model of "choose a channel, watch some commercials and we'll entertain you" will slip anytime soon. Tivo and DVR products are certainly simple enough, but let's wait until every poor schmuck in America has one before we really forecast the death of television.
I as well am a freelance music writer, and though I'm tempted to link to my writing, I'd rather not have my editor freak out about her website crashing for "some completely random spike in traffic." mm-hmm.
at any rate, this has to be my favorite/. link yet, because it combines everything that I love -- songwriting, music criticism and analysis of language. his database work is really good at nailing reviewer's cliches... in fact, while flipping through his data, I've found a lot of phrases that I gravitate towards that are listed and used here, too. this may mean much more to me than most of the people who read this, but as a guy who writes CD reviews, I have found the holy grail of how NOT to construct a CD review. it's like, "THESE are the cliche phrases - don't use them."
what's interesting, though, is that this isn't so much a breakdown of music critism as much as it is a breakdown of human expression. I think if you take a narrow field of ANY sect of criticism, be it paintings, music, or even sports, you're going to run into a very particular style of expression, of phrases, of whatever specifically TARGETS the audience that seeks said narrow field. I mean, I'm not going to review impressionist art and gripe about qualities befitting a lifelike landscape portrait... sure, both forms will have things in common as visual expressions, but the person who wants the Van Gogh and the person who wants the 'happy trees' are going to appreciate their choice for very different reasons. so the fact that his mp3s sound much like what a pitchfork critic loves isn't a surprise at all. it just proves the consistency of the listening audience in question.
now on to the music.
I downloaded the mp3s and was pretty impressed with the instrumental work. sometimes, the drumwork tries so hard to contrast the backing music that it begins to sound TOO uncomfortable, but other times, the contrast is compelling. otherwise, he has picked up the spirit of Pitchfork-style criticism, in which new music fuses analog and digital instrumentation by culling LOTS of older influences and smushing them together. important bands are the ones that do two things: first, they take a step towards doing something new and interesting with musical forms, and second, they root their sounds in pop precedents. you hear both experimentation and catchiness in Wilson's test songs.
those lyrics, on the other hand, don't come off so well, and I'm pretty sure the biggest reason is because a music critic considers lyrics as an integral part of the sound of a song, while Wilson takes the lyrical portion of songwriting and sets it outside the musical portion. Lyrics might be called "poetry," but even the greatest books of lyrics sound much worse when read than when sung with the intended music. Perhaps Pitchfork would eat these emo-sad lyrics up, but I see these lyrics in the same vein as NIN lyrics - sad for sad's sake, cliched, no real metaphoric weight.
I'd be interested to see a similar project used to analyze poetry criticism, and then have those "analyzed" lyrics ported into Wilson's songs. then he might have a computer-created winner.
all in all, you'd expect a totally robotic response to this sort of database study. "a song must have ingredient x and ingredients b, y and q. the computer has fused those ingredients together and here is the result." but one thing Wilson doesn't credit in his study is the ultimate human creation that is necessary. Wilson's statistics merely guided his own brain into composing what he felt matched the criticisms, which means the songs also matched the pop sensibilities that had to have been burrowed in his head for years. He's obviously a music fan and, even if he played "against his will," still applied his years of musical study and play to his final product. I wouldn't expect many other people in his shoes to apply his database results to music and come out in the end with mp3s that sound that listenable.
I worked customer service for a phone company for about a year, and this was after I'd received a bachelor's degree from a four-year university. This company was a land-line reseller that marketed business-rate services (T1, DID trunks, etc) - basically, lots of multi-line accounts for companies with hundreds of phones.
Somehow, though, a lot of small companies were suckered into signing up with our company, which was silly cuz these small companies only needed one or two lines, tops. Those small companies were at the bottom rung of the company's priority list. Shitty line service, tons of billing errors, and on and on.
But here's the thing: the biggest complaints I got from callers, time and time again, always concerned the 1- and 2-year contracts that they'd inadvertently signed to. People do not like having to stick to a contract that they willingly signed to and will do anything they can to be freed of one. Including complaining over and over and over.
In your case, I'm afraid that the company didn't refund your cancellation fee because of the legality of the contract. What I mean is, even if your service was shit-ass poor, you were still receiving some sort of signal strength, some sort of "product," however shitty it may have been, and unless your contract specifically stated a range and strength of signal over a span of time, you'd be SOL if you took that to claims court. Contracts are not written to favor customers who've been shafted with a bad product. If you'd been charged for a span of time in which your phone wasn't activated, you would have a case, because then you could dig through AT&T's system and check for the date of the activation of your service along with the span of time your phone was used.
No, you got what is known as a courtesy refund, or a "we'd rather lose $175 than deal with the publicity of an upset customer and possible retaliation thereof." Most customers DON'T get those. Call centers are designed to placate people in your situation into accepting the terms of their contract and eating their mistake.
Now, here's the insight that I think is most necessary in understanding these customer service "rankings." When people complain about bad customer service, it's commonly for two reasons:
1) the idiot on the other end of the phone is ignorant and truly underqualified. 2) you didn't get what you wanted, ie refunds, free stuff, an extension on your late bill, a voided contract.
So when I think about my experience in landline service, I think about how many customers were pissed about contract terms, and only 40% of customers were actually under a contract. Imagine a call center with 100% of its callers being stuck in a contract, and you can see the #2 reason having a much bigger effect in the "well fuck this customer service, they're screwing me!" opinion.
Me, I hate contracts with a passion, because they can put people in situations like Mr. AT&T above me and give such people no legal recourse against perfectly-worded contract gibberish. That's why I haven't upgraded my phone or changed my cell phone terms since my Sprint contract ran out. It gives me strength in my consumer/provider relationship that I couldn't dream of under a contract.
I would love to see a rebuttal, though, if in fact he did legally have legal strength over AT&T in his situation. Links to precedents?
wait wait wait - you're on to something, but you're missing the A1 numero uno priority for Sony to do this. Let's follow the train of the latest news in portable hardware, shall we?
Sony wants to claim a huge stake in the handheld gaming market, and they know that the opening sales of the PSP will be pretty indicative of how the console will do down the line. Big launch will mean big boost in reputation, and then more third parties to develop for the PSP, more sales, yadda yadda.
However, this article points to a huge possible dent in all systems portable this year due to a tighter supply of LCD screens. the linked article talks about Nintendo, I know, but it still drives the point home: Sony has to prioritize its allocation of LCDs, and it has to do so ASAP.
Pretty big judgment call on Sony's part to give up a decent PDA marketshare in order to go full-force on the PSP. But, then again, considering how much $ they can pull not only with PSP sales, but also games, music and movies (many of which will come directly from Sony studios/records/etc), it seems like Sony has quite a forward-looking financial plan, and this move to re-allocate LCDs is proof positive of such forward-looking. Even if the additional movie/music stuff doesn't lift off in the States, Europe and Japan are ripe for such sales, so don't scoff at that notion too quickly.
This has to be among the most unnecessary "stipulations" of a settlement I've ever heard. Why, you might ask? Because only the people who purchased McAfee VirusScan and HAVEN'T upgraded it on a regular basis will be able to take advantage of this deal. Any home/business user who consciously ensures the security of his system(s) could care less about this "free" offer, since he's already upgraded from versions 3 & 4 (come onnnnn! we're at 8 already! talk about overdue!), while the others who purchased those older versions and haven't upgraded.. well, seriously, do you really think they're visiting Slashdot or checking the McAfee press releases on a frequent basis? Of course not. Hell, even if they did check the McAfee website lately, they'd find no easy-to-find trace of this upgrade.
This extra "offer" is really useless lip service that gives fake dignity to the company. "Whoops, we messed up, but we're taking care of it, even though it won't even cost us 100 copies of the software in question, but hey, it looks noble and respectful to the people who ARE paying attention, right?" Bullocks.
Slashdot Mirror
"The Guy Game II -- The Big Easy"
...wasn't this year's Christmas season made up almost entirely of top-notch, blockbuster, super-selling sequels? Judging by what the general video-gaming masses throw their money at, doesn't adherence to the tried-and-true actually make financial sense?
The guy goes on and on about how these franchises aren't attracting new gamers. That's bullocks. The problem is that the GameCube as a whole wound up becoming the Dreamcast of this generation. Not enough AAA-rate games to keep gamers happy: No Burnout 3, no GTA, limited sports support. Simple as that. Metroid Prime got attention, but for many reasons (lack of deathmatch being one), it wasn't the Halo that pulled Microsoft's similarly-shitty XBox release schedule out of the crapper. If Nintendo had gotten their crap together by snagging more third parties earlier, or perhaps by getting Mario Kart DD online, the console wars would've been completely different. As it stands, Nintendo blew the console wars again.
Then again, on the bright side, their profits are pretty damn good. What they lose in licensing, they've made up for by never selling their console for less than a profit and by making more profit for their first-party games. MS and Sony couldn't say that for years and lost more money in their deep pocketbooks than they'd ever care to admit, and paying for exclusivity deals with third parties takes its toll, too. Nintendo, as shortsighted as they are in getting American gamers' attention, have always been pretty good with the pocketbook. That might not mean much to gamers in search of a good system, but it does mean that Nintendo is going absolutely nowhere in the console wars. They won't fall like Sega anytime soon, but they do need to shape up with the new Revolution system, because they won't survive a third N64-style last-place finish, and two bad systems in a row is not a good reputation to go into the next generation with. Can we say Atari?
In addition to parent's insight, IGN's review agrees and elaborates on FFII's updates.
This link should probably be in the original subject post, too, methinks.
You sure about that?
/. the mp3s.)
(that site includes info about a band that makes music with such 'instruments' as a "1977 Atari 2600 game console, a 1986 portable 286 PC, a 1983 Commodore 64 computer, and a 1985 Epson dot matrix printer." good music, too. I've seen them live in my hometown and they're amazing.
What are some examples of print comics that have inspired your comic-stripping ways in both good and bad ways? As in, are there strips you admire and/or despise that have, either way, pushed you to make a comic strip in your own way, without the regulation or, for that matter, PAY of a print comic?
I saw one of these in a booth at a huge fair in Dallas and called information immediately to get Nintendo's legal department on the line. The nice lady gave me an email address, and when I got home, I drafted the following letter. Amazing how stupid the guy manning the booth was, by the way, as you'll see below...
To whom it may concern,
I was at the State Fair of Texas today in Dallas, and inside the fair are a variety of booths with local crafts and the like. One booth was a bit odd, however - it featured a video game system that plugs directly into a TV and features older, nostalgic games, much like the recently-popular Pac-Man joysticks and the like. This one was different, however -- it copied the N64 controller to a T, if done in a much cheaper fashion, so at first I thought it was the iQue that is currently being sold in China.
But it wasn't. This system featured over 7,000 NES ROMS in its memory: Perfectly-emulated copies of games like Super Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt, Bubble Bobble.... I didn't even bother copying the list, because basically, every single NES game ever made was included in this controller. The controller, sold with a light gun peripheral, was sold for $40 a pop at the stand. I checked the box for any seal of approval from Nintendo, but all I could find was a Chinese copyright. Though I didn't write down that information, the guy behind the counter was foolish enough to hand me an information sheet with contact information for the responsible company, which I've copied below:
Super Joy III TV Game
Performance Marketing Co.
3861 Royal Troon Dr
Round Rock, TX 78664
512-244-7776
www.epowerplayer.com
The above website address actually includes all the information I listed and then some. This "Super Joy III" is some shady stuff, and as a dedicated Nintendo fan for many years, I am appalled to see such blatant disregard for Nintendo's copyrights in a for-profit product, so I called Nintendo of America on my cell phone and got this email address from the receptionist. I hope this is the correct contact information, and furthermore, that action is taken against this company's activity.
Please feel free to contact me with any further questions.
Thank you, (name and contact info removed)
Parent hit upon the whole point of this business deal, because that's the target market this company is shooting for - idiots who will foolishly click "yes" to install a "free" product and wind up with adware galore. There are still plenty of people who assume they use computers safely only because they "don't open attachments in email." That's a lucrative market for marketing companies, like it or not.
This article doesn't pay attention to the biggest reason companies are going after the portable market with two new systems - they're trying to finally break into that 18-35 year old market that portables have never nailed before. Sure, the GBA SP is sleek and cool, but the games, for the most part, are dinky, 2d, kid-focused titles, and sales for older gamers certainly aren't in the same realm as consoles.
This guy's analysis assumes that the target consumer already owns a GBA or an SP. His assumption is WRONG. There are a lot of older gamers who don't see a need for a portable system, particularly the CASUAL adult gamer; the one who buys Madden and GTA and rents a few other games. Both companies are going for the wow factor to nail the older audience into thinking they need a portable system. The PSP has the edge in the "cool" factor, thanks to Gran Turismo, MGS:Acid, etc, but the DS has the battery life and price point that PSP desperately needs to convert its "cool" factor into pure sales. And Metroid Prime: Hunters might be just enough to get older gamers to pay attention and give a crap during launch. Furthermore, Nintendo has already announced an expected shortage this X-mas season. That is terribly intentional - the buzz of the "hard to get, super-awesome toy of the season" will put the DS in the lead with both sales AND reputation well before anyone even holds a PSP in the states.
Not exactly... the point of games is entertainment and immersion, physical activity aside. DDR, anyone?
I'm not sure how immersive it'll feel to have your own walking on the treadmill converted to the game world, but at any rate, this controller allows you to use more of your body to control the virtual world. I'm sure plenty of FPS gamers in fat America could use an increased heartrate while satisfying their hours-per-day habit, and I'm sure even more will willfilly ignore this product. But who can knock the company for giving PC gamers this kind of option?
The title "Marionette" has been sitting in Nintendo's cache since rumors began in 2000, though they were in a very different vein at the time.
But, yes, Nintendo has been toying with online content for a long time in Japan. They've known better than to try online with add-on products in the states, though, so any online strategy with the DS will have to be integrated in the launch hardware.
Furthermore, Nintendo knows that this is their last shot at getting the older gaming population to buy into portable gaming. They don't want to get beat by Sony a second time to the older-gaming spenders, and the remarkably early launch of the DS before PSP, along with this rumored adult-ish marketing campaign, makes total sense. Kudos to NOA for getting their heads out of Japan's ass and getting aggressive.
The most important part of an online music store is the selection. The biggest reason I download music on Soulseek is because I'm almost guaranteed to find the song I'm looking for at any given moment. No record store or legal online music service can guarantee me that high a probability.
So, let's say I get online and want a few things: a song by ABBA, a death-metal track from some obscure Norweigan band, an unreleased mash-up remix that combines Nine Inch Nails and 50 Cent, and an album that saw limited release in a small community in Oregon.
There's no way I can download all four of those on iTunes, or any other online service, for that matter. iTunes has come the closest by garnering unprecedented label support, but until they can spread their wings as far as the Internet stretches, I have little desire to use their service in place of what I've already got.
I guess the ultimate service, in my opinion, would be a Soulseek-style service that is p2p (meaning I can download anything in the world) and then charges me small amounts per download, much in the same way songwriters are compensated in the BMI/ASCAP system when a song is played on the radio. Only pennies a download (same exact charge as BMI), and whatever song title I download is cross-indexed and the pennies I spend go to the artist in question. On top of that, a small monthly fee to cover the costs of the cross-indexing system, which I don't think would ever need to exceed $3.95/mo. However difficult that system would be to create and implement, it would still best marry the infinity of Internet song selection and the rights of the songwriters/musicians in question.
Who cares about a new Gran Turismo game without online play? It's been the same game over and over. Sure, the last sequel had the benefit of PS2-powered graphics, but what's this one going to bring to the mainstream-gamer's table? A few more cars? More decals? Spiffier-looking still shots that wind up being lost when you're actually racing? Please.
If Sony had any respect for its customers, they would abandon this game's Xmas hopes and prep the game's release, with online, for Spring 05, rather than wait a few months after a lame Xmas launch and later release an "online patch" product for the low low price of $49.99!!
I mean, didn't everyone assume that Acclaim could rest its laurels on its old super-hot franchise?
You know what I'm talkin' 'bout... IGGY'S RECKING BALLS. The one where a bunch of balls, you know, "recked" each other.
Yup. All five of you balls-lovers remember that one, I'm sure.
(let's see how long until someone combines the trucking, olsen and recking game titles......)
Am I too paranoid to feel completely iffy about submitting my social security number over a non-encrypted website? I don't think it's very naive to expect a little lock icon to pop up when I visit Apple's "tell us everything about you, but we'll keep it private, fer sure, promise!!!11" zone.
By your logic, your brain COULD be tricked by something like a computer rig playing Doom III with a surround sound system. Sight and sound is there, movement is not. And even though I'm assuming that you, a /.er, aren't affected by that, there are plenty of people who ARE sickened by first-person games. Also, old VR systems at arcades, a few of which I certainly played, were very blurry, which made those extremely sickening to use before movement even STARTED.
But otherwise, the physical issue you note is certainly a challenge to next-gen VR game systems, including some I have been privately planning out, and the point is that once prices drop and technology incrases, you'll be able to create a system that is more user-friendly and has a more natural feel to it. I won't go into detail as to how that could be worked around, but creativity makes it pretty easy to do.
The point of this TrackIR device isn't that VR could happen. We've known that. The important thing to see is the potential for progression in the technology to put a real, feasible VR system in your house, something that's 100000x better than Virtual Boy and yet still cost-effective. That's what companies want to happen.
The article makes a small mention of VR, but really, this has to be pretty damn important for the behind-the-scenes push for VR game consoles in the next decade. Every game company in the world with a brain should already be planning for an eventual shift to a VR system, even if it's 10 years away, and both the dropping price and increasing functionality of this TrackIR product makes the feasability of a low-priced, easy-to-use VR console that much more likely in the coming years.
The recent success of World Series of Poker championships on ESPN (and, yes, the word is 'success,' as the stuff has been driving up ESPN's ratings in surprising fashion) proves that what you're saying isn't so much of a joke.
People will watch any competition on television if it's crafted correctly. Forget the other stuff people have said about making televised competitions look like movies. G4 does that sometimes and the result is boring.
No, the real kicker is personalities. The success of WSOP programs is found in the combo of competition and the humans involved in that competition. Dads, young novices, old mainstays, families, "crew"s, and all their backstories and quirks and so on. Otherwise, the actual poker is some pretty boring stuff.
If a program can edit together competition highlights that pay as much attention to the gamers as to the game, then there's a serious shot at mainstream success. Could that be done? Perhaps not as easily as poker, as the participants aren't as "all over the board" in the gaming world (this is the same reason bowling competitions generally suck ass on TV), but the possibility is still worth noting.
The person who created lynx and 3DO doesn't think the DS will work! He likes the PSP instead!
This is great news! The Nintendo DS will be a huge hit!
In other news, Sony has recently conducted a private study, and in the results, they reported that nine out of ten rapists prefer the DS to the PSP.
EA's Steve Schnur "says that he and his team of two listen to 4,000-plus songs before deciding, for example, the 21 that will be included in "Madden NFL 2005," which. features such artists as Hoobastank, Green Day, Alter Bridge, the Hives, and New Found Glory."
Mm-hmm. Sure.
One thing the video game publishers are not benefiting from is an additional revenue stream; they are not being paid for the exposure they give the artists. Said an EA spokesperson, "We want to compensate the artists for their intellectual property. We also want to retain the integrity of the creative content of the game. We don't want the game to be just an advertising vehicle. If it evolves to that, then the spirit of the music within the game may change. Our goal is to create the most entertaining experience for the gamer."
Right. Totally.
The songs chosen and put into EA's games are picked based on the preferences of the designers. Definitely. Totally. Just like the songs chosen and put into radio playlists are picked based on the preferences of DJs.
BULLSHIT.
If you didn't RTFL, payola schemes have been ruining radio airplay for decades. Since direct payola is illegal, record companies hire "indies" (the nice term for music middlemen) to take the $ from the label to the radio station in order to "persuade" said station to play certain songs at certain times.
Oh, but EA said they don't take money? That's cute. Complete bullshit, but cute. I have a lot of buddies who only buy EA Sports video games (and the occasional GTA and such), and every single time they load up an EA Sports game around me, they almost always mention a "favorite song" on EA Trax. The shit works because it targets the perfect mainstream audience: sports-watching males, ages 15-35. Record labels would be crazy to ignore that kind of advertising.
I do wonder whether or not ESPN/Sega Sports is accepting $ for song contributions, though, since they appear to be dipping in the non-major-label pool. I've seen the figures on labels like Definitive Jux, and they can't afford much in marketing, so I'll play the semi-optimist and pretend that Take Two's financial clout has helped Sega make a move like that without asking for "indie" fees.
Not like EA needs the money, though, thanks to their superhuge bankroll these days.
The reason the music market has dwindled so much in the past eight years is because, up until yesterday, only five big corporations (not four) had a bottom line to work with.
Turning two companies into one means turning two bottom lines into one. Or, better put...
"Why should we, SONY/BMG, release the same amount of material that competes against itself? We don't need to release that Avril Lavigne clone we'd been developing, since we actually have Avril Lavigne, and that means we can focus our teen advertising on one artist/album rather than two. Cut the Avril clone and we'll wind up with more profit. Same with our gangsta rappers, our garage rock bands, our adult contemporary singers, our country artists, etc etc etc. Cut 'em down and we'll spend less money on more, better-focused profit."
This might get rid of a few cookie-cutter artists, but ultimately, it retracts the feelers of the new, shrunken two-companies-into-one, which means even less resources are poured into artist discovery, catalog development and risk-taking. Reprise Records was founded with Sinatra's vision that there was both integrity and profit to be had in developing an artist over many years, and then once that artist finally breaks big, watching cash pour in with later sales of the back catalog. Major labels have killed this strategy and have put current sales and quarterly figures at the head of conversation instead. Another merger simply speeds this decay of major label integrity by having even fewer hands working to pluck out hits rather than develop catalog & LP artists.
When you cut 20% of the diversity out of a market that already lacks diversity, you're pouring more black oil into the ocean. Remember, just because an ocean is polluted doesn't excuse the further pollution. Five big evil labels are now four bigger, more evil labels, and the non-SONY/BMG labels will scramble to do whatever they can to catch up to this news, which means plenty of bands will be punted out of their contracts and dropped on their asses before said bands ever had a chance to tour and recoup their previous marketing expenditures. Another sad day in major label history.
It's a sinusoidal relationship. Companies jump at a shot to create new channels and get TV market share, only to flood the channel selection and get weeded out over time for lower ratings. Then, once TV-Darwinism slims the herd, more companies will put $ into the fray and the rise and fall of channels will occur again. Heck, even if channels are on the fall right now, they're bound to rise up once "dedicated HDTV" channels start popping up (which they have already in limited #s for the time being).
People are certainly still watching plenty of TV, though. Heck, most net addicts I know have a TV positioned so they can surf the web and gorge on the idiocy of MTV's Newlyweds at the same time. DVDs and TVRs may chop into the amount of advertising we watch, but until a simpler, cheaper mass-market means of watching TV shows without commercials comes into play, I don't expect the current model of "choose a channel, watch some commercials and we'll entertain you" will slip anytime soon. Tivo and DVR products are certainly simple enough, but let's wait until every poor schmuck in America has one before we really forecast the death of television.
I as well am a freelance music writer, and though I'm tempted to link to my writing, I'd rather not have my editor freak out about her website crashing for "some completely random spike in traffic." mm-hmm.
/. link yet, because it combines everything that I love -- songwriting, music criticism and analysis of language. his database work is really good at nailing reviewer's cliches... in fact, while flipping through his data, I've found a lot of phrases that I gravitate towards that are listed and used here, too. this may mean much more to me than most of the people who read this, but as a guy who writes CD reviews, I have found the holy grail of how NOT to construct a CD review. it's like, "THESE are the cliche phrases - don't use them."
at any rate, this has to be my favorite
what's interesting, though, is that this isn't so much a breakdown of music critism as much as it is a breakdown of human expression. I think if you take a narrow field of ANY sect of criticism, be it paintings, music, or even sports, you're going to run into a very particular style of expression, of phrases, of whatever specifically TARGETS the audience that seeks said narrow field. I mean, I'm not going to review impressionist art and gripe about qualities befitting a lifelike landscape portrait... sure, both forms will have things in common as visual expressions, but the person who wants the Van Gogh and the person who wants the 'happy trees' are going to appreciate their choice for very different reasons. so the fact that his mp3s sound much like what a pitchfork critic loves isn't a surprise at all. it just proves the consistency of the listening audience in question.
now on to the music.
I downloaded the mp3s and was pretty impressed with the instrumental work. sometimes, the drumwork tries so hard to contrast the backing music that it begins to sound TOO uncomfortable, but other times, the contrast is compelling. otherwise, he has picked up the spirit of Pitchfork-style criticism, in which new music fuses analog and digital instrumentation by culling LOTS of older influences and smushing them together. important bands are the ones that do two things: first, they take a step towards doing something new and interesting with musical forms, and second, they root their sounds in pop precedents. you hear both experimentation and catchiness in Wilson's test songs.
those lyrics, on the other hand, don't come off so well, and I'm pretty sure the biggest reason is because a music critic considers lyrics as an integral part of the sound of a song, while Wilson takes the lyrical portion of songwriting and sets it outside the musical portion. Lyrics might be called "poetry," but even the greatest books of lyrics sound much worse when read than when sung with the intended music. Perhaps Pitchfork would eat these emo-sad lyrics up, but I see these lyrics in the same vein as NIN lyrics - sad for sad's sake, cliched, no real metaphoric weight.
I'd be interested to see a similar project used to analyze poetry criticism, and then have those "analyzed" lyrics ported into Wilson's songs. then he might have a computer-created winner.
all in all, you'd expect a totally robotic response to this sort of database study. "a song must have ingredient x and ingredients b, y and q. the computer has fused those ingredients together and here is the result." but one thing Wilson doesn't credit in his study is the ultimate human creation that is necessary. Wilson's statistics merely guided his own brain into composing what he felt matched the criticisms, which means the songs also matched the pop sensibilities that had to have been burrowed in his head for years. He's obviously a music fan and, even if he played "against his will," still applied his years of musical study and play to his final product. I wouldn't expect many other people in his shoes to apply his database results to music and come out in the end with mp3s that sound that listenable.
he hasn't rendered music critics obsolete or
I worked customer service for a phone company for about a year, and this was after I'd received a bachelor's degree from a four-year university. This company was a land-line reseller that marketed business-rate services (T1, DID trunks, etc) - basically, lots of multi-line accounts for companies with hundreds of phones.
Somehow, though, a lot of small companies were suckered into signing up with our company, which was silly cuz these small companies only needed one or two lines, tops. Those small companies were at the bottom rung of the company's priority list. Shitty line service, tons of billing errors, and on and on.
But here's the thing: the biggest complaints I got from callers, time and time again, always concerned the 1- and 2-year contracts that they'd inadvertently signed to. People do not like having to stick to a contract that they willingly signed to and will do anything they can to be freed of one. Including complaining over and over and over.
In your case, I'm afraid that the company didn't refund your cancellation fee because of the legality of the contract. What I mean is, even if your service was shit-ass poor, you were still receiving some sort of signal strength, some sort of "product," however shitty it may have been, and unless your contract specifically stated a range and strength of signal over a span of time, you'd be SOL if you took that to claims court. Contracts are not written to favor customers who've been shafted with a bad product. If you'd been charged for a span of time in which your phone wasn't activated, you would have a case, because then you could dig through AT&T's system and check for the date of the activation of your service along with the span of time your phone was used.
No, you got what is known as a courtesy refund, or a "we'd rather lose $175 than deal with the publicity of an upset customer and possible retaliation thereof." Most customers DON'T get those. Call centers are designed to placate people in your situation into accepting the terms of their contract and eating their mistake.
Now, here's the insight that I think is most necessary in understanding these customer service "rankings." When people complain about bad customer service, it's commonly for two reasons:
1) the idiot on the other end of the phone is ignorant and truly underqualified.
2) you didn't get what you wanted, ie refunds, free stuff, an extension on your late bill, a voided contract.
So when I think about my experience in landline service, I think about how many customers were pissed about contract terms, and only 40% of customers were actually under a contract. Imagine a call center with 100% of its callers being stuck in a contract, and you can see the #2 reason having a much bigger effect in the "well fuck this customer service, they're screwing me!" opinion.
Me, I hate contracts with a passion, because they can put people in situations like Mr. AT&T above me and give such people no legal recourse against perfectly-worded contract gibberish. That's why I haven't upgraded my phone or changed my cell phone terms since my Sprint contract ran out. It gives me strength in my consumer/provider relationship that I couldn't dream of under a contract.
I would love to see a rebuttal, though, if in fact he did legally have legal strength over AT&T in his situation. Links to precedents?
wait wait wait - you're on to something, but you're missing the A1 numero uno priority for Sony to do this. Let's follow the train of the latest news in portable hardware, shall we?
Sony wants to claim a huge stake in the handheld gaming market, and they know that the opening sales of the PSP will be pretty indicative of how the console will do down the line. Big launch will mean big boost in reputation, and then more third parties to develop for the PSP, more sales, yadda yadda.
However, this article points to a huge possible dent in all systems portable this year due to a tighter supply of LCD screens. the linked article talks about Nintendo, I know, but it still drives the point home: Sony has to prioritize its allocation of LCDs, and it has to do so ASAP.
Pretty big judgment call on Sony's part to give up a decent PDA marketshare in order to go full-force on the PSP. But, then again, considering how much $ they can pull not only with PSP sales, but also games, music and movies (many of which will come directly from Sony studios/records/etc), it seems like Sony has quite a forward-looking financial plan, and this move to re-allocate LCDs is proof positive of such forward-looking. Even if the additional movie/music stuff doesn't lift off in the States, Europe and Japan are ripe for such sales, so don't scoff at that notion too quickly.
This has to be among the most unnecessary "stipulations" of a settlement I've ever heard. Why, you might ask? Because only the people who purchased McAfee VirusScan and HAVEN'T upgraded it on a regular basis will be able to take advantage of this deal. Any home/business user who consciously ensures the security of his system(s) could care less about this "free" offer, since he's already upgraded from versions 3 & 4 (come onnnnn! we're at 8 already! talk about overdue!), while the others who purchased those older versions and haven't upgraded.. well, seriously, do you really think they're visiting Slashdot or checking the McAfee press releases on a frequent basis? Of course not. Hell, even if they did check the McAfee website lately, they'd find no easy-to-find trace of this upgrade.
This extra "offer" is really useless lip service that gives fake dignity to the company. "Whoops, we messed up, but we're taking care of it, even though it won't even cost us 100 copies of the software in question, but hey, it looks noble and respectful to the people who ARE paying attention, right?" Bullocks.