The article and headline clearly state it's a UK single. While in general, the UK is no stranger to rubbish (Spice Girls, Take That, Suga Babes, Pussycat Dolls) their charts usually have a slightly higher amount of decent music (across all genres) in them.
Gnarls Barkley is the collaboration between Danger Mouse and Cee-Loo Green. Cee-Lo had one of the most well-received albums of 2004, and Danger Mouse has been involved with a lot of critically acclaimed, succesful projects.
Just because you (and a lot of others) haven't heard of them doesn't mean they're bad. This is not Suga Babes II.
You'd think the/. crowd would be more understanding.
(For the record, I think Gnarles Barkley is just OK so far... I prefer some of Danger Mouse's other work).
Considering Google's willingness to appease the biggest government censor (China), I don't doubt that Google will also censor itself in Ballmer's home, if IPs were given out. And another th--
A lot of complaints here says something along these lines: "If Business Woman #2 picks XYZ Corp's product over mine just because I wear shorts, she's in for a world of hurt! Their product sucks!"
In this case, we have every right complain about Business Woman #2 and her choice to pick someone who was incompentent but in a suit vs. someone competent in chinos and sandals. It's too bad she has those views.
But you know what? We all lose.
Saying "I shouldn't care about my appearance" is always going to hold someone back. Even if you made small improvements, you'd be surprised at the new, different (better, even?) treatment you will get.
What if dress was the only thing standing between you and a $15,000/yr promotion? What if your haircut was the only thing standing between you being involved with a project or being project lead on something?
The fact of the matter is that an immaculately dressed idiot is not going to fool anybody. But, if you're already good at what you do, and adding a bit of "professionalism" can get you to the next level, you're only doing yourself a disservice by not taking advantage of it. Don't go overboard, just go up one or two notches. If you wear a t-shirt, wear a polo or collared shirt. If you wear a collared shirt, wear a loose tie and sports jacket.
And finally, the idea that by putting on a tie you lose your individuality is ridiculous; it implies you let your apparel define who you are.
There's the rub. In almost all games, there's a clear objective: save the kingdom, kill the space mutants, escape the zombie island, become the best warrior in the whole land. With Second Life having such a super-wide set of options, it can become underwhelming. I remember creating my character, flying around for a bit, then just realizing: "OK, what now?"
There was nothing for me to do except explore, which I did for about 10-15 minutes before I got bored. What do I "do"? Do I need to get a job? By which means do I track my performance against others?
It seemed to me much more like IRC with a really rich toolset. Which is fine, if I wanted to do IRC in 3D. But I don't.
Add to that the fact that in most MMORPGs, everyone starts at the same level and by craftily investing your time you can become better than others. In Second Life you can own an island, build a mansion, and do all kinds of cool stuff. But you can only do that by spending your own money. It removes monetary equality from the equation. Unless there's some way to gain Linden dollars in game.
My point is, as a prospective player, I logged in, tried it out, and said... "So what?" I'm not one to say I speak for anyone else than myself, but that's not the reaction you want to have after trying out a product.
A whole lot of stuff. What excited me about early (1998) news on the Prey engine was materials reacting the way real materials do: wood catches fire and is easy to break, metal bends, bricks shatter, etc. If this can be taken care of on the engine level, this frees up designers from needing to script events where if this x-y-z space is damaged, this brush animates like this, falling in such a manner. It can also make games more, not realistic but believable.
Take Burnout for example. If I crash my sportscar into a van at 200mph, the van will pop off the ground and go flying like I swatted a ball. That in itself I don't have a problem with. But when a few seconds later I miscalculate a turn and hit a wooden newspaper stand and I explode on impact with the newspaper stand being undamaged, that I have a problem with. Putting things like these into the engine extends believability because your game world just gets a lot more cohesive.
This is just one. A whole lot more needs to be done in audio, visuals, AI, and a number of other areas. As long as we improve these while still focused on gameplay, and we should be ok.
Hiring may not necessarily be the answer. You need manpower, but once the site is up-and-running, you may not need as many people onboard. Could you accomplish the same goals by maybe hiring another key person but getting contractors for the rest of the work? Or maybe hiring someone (or some company) to oversee certain aspects of the site temporarily?
For example, a programmer or designer is pretty flexible. After the site is done they could work on other projects, update manuals, internal programs, media kits, etc. But what would, for example, a UI designer do? I'd also shy away from having an "email marketing manager" because almost all the professional marketing emails I get are usually handled by a company that's not the one advertising everything.
Of course, a couple of things need to be noted. First off, if they have not updated their site in 8 years and the internet is vital, how come they are still in business? Who are some competitors with a terrific web presence and how has that affected their business? I've seen plenty of cases where a very high investment has not really resulted in any new business. Or, the new business can't be tied to the site, eventhough the site is generating new business. (Build this into your proposal so if there's an increase, it can be directly attributed to the project you spearheaded!)
I have a friend who is a procurement specialist for a pretty big consultancy, with clients being a lot of Fortune 500 companies. Anytime he needs to compare commoditized products or services (say, plastic sheeting, wires) he always has a very big list of companies to contact. The easiest way he cuts that down from 100 companies to 30 or 40 is by eliminating ones with bad or non-existent websites. To an extent, it is a reflection of the professionalism and thoroughness of any company.
That being said, if your employer is afraid of new ideas, doesn't want to understand them, and doesn't see the benefit if a clear, realistic plan to great ROI is laid out in front of them, that company is a sinking ship. It that's the case, it wouldn't hurt to take your good idea and see if a competitor will do it instead (with you overseeing the project at a vastly higher salary, of course).
By almost any definition, prices for new games have been dropping steadily . Cartridge games for the NES were up to $50 ($86 in today's dollars), and I distinctively remember seeing Mortal Kombat for the SNES on "sale" somewhere for $70 ($90 in today's dollars).
Even if you take the most expensive widely available game out now (the Oblivion "Collector's Edition") and discount the fact that it has $10 of "value"-added material on it, it's still about $45 for the late 80's.
Even if you were to take the cheapest new games at $30 in 1986, that's still over $51 by today's value.
Add in the fact that many flagship new games sell new for $20 to $40, that there are constant "Greatest Hits" series reducing game prices to $20, and a very healthy used market, and games have gotten cheaper.
Now, gaming may be more expensive for the casual gamer. A casual NES player would've paid $199 in 1985 for the "Action Pack" which gave them the console, two games, and two controllers. That's $350 today. Compare that to a Xbox 360 Premium console which is $510 for two games (Hexic + PGR3, for example), and two controllers. Adding Xbox Live is another $50-$70 if you want a headset.
But, casual gamers shouldn't be getting launch titles. Casual gamers are the ones spending $200 on a PS2 plus three good games.
Desktop eyecandy sells. Sure, UNIX made OS X interesting, but if it wasn't pretty, it would not have gotten the response it did.
I tend to like my OS to be as unobtrusive as possible. Many times, eye candy effects take the focus away from what I should be doing. Some examples:
Any flash sites where the site has a million animations and sounds for the menu but lacking a lot of content, or useful content. Next time, don't spend 4 hours tweaking the window-close animations and add a damn site map.
I really hope in the next version of Office they do a better job of organizing menus better. In my mind, there should only ever be one options or preferences button with everything branching out from that. I can't say how many times I've found a program that has "Setup" and "Options" and "Preferences" and "Settings" menus all doing the same type of thing but without any sense or order.
For all intents and purposes the first thing I do whenever I set-up a freshly formatted XP (after the initial updates) is to switch the window style back to Windows 2000 and earlier and get rid of most of the effects.
If I want to use my computer to go on Slashdot, I don't need a huge blue-and-orange UI to tell me, "WELCOME TO WINDOWS!" and then the browser saying "FIREFOX PRESENTS:". I want my attention focused on Slashdot, not anything else.
Retailers aren't restricted now, so I don't see why they should be in the future.
As for consumers... I, for one, am excited to finally be able to get Pro Evolution Soccer Management 2, EA Sports' Cricket 2007, and the newest Densha de Go! Tokyo Kyuukouhen train simulator game.
There's two reasons a movie's release might be delayed or staggered:
The movie needs to be translated from the original language and subbed or dubbed into the audience's language.
The movie is in the same language but does not yet have distribution.
In the former case, it's a worthless debate. As much as I would've liked to see the new Chan-wook Park movie, if I get a DVD of just the movie, with no subtitles, it doesn't do me any good. I don't speak Korean.
This week, if you're in the U.S. you could walk into any DVD retailer and pick up Capote. It debuts theatrically in the Netherlands tomorrow. If everyone in Turkey could buy the American DVD, it doesn't mean they would want to.
The second point then, is distribution. Well, it's time for the damn distributors to learn to adapt. Having seen how hard some of these distributors "work" I have no problem if there's a shake up that leaves only the intelligent, efficient, and competent. Get your movies out internationally at the same time, and then importing DVD releases will become useless.
Besides, anyone that wants to circumvent regions already has a region-free player, so all it has done is inconvenienced the majority.
Region 1: North America, South America, Japan and East Asia (excluding China) Region 2: Europe and Africa Region 3: India, China, Russia, and all other countries.
Note how they put China and Russia, two countries with lax copyright controls, in the same region.
This means that PS3s, at least as Blu-Ray players, will be the same in Japan as they are in the US, making them much more inviting as imports if they were to launch earlier in Japan as opposed to everywhere else.
Ultimate AV magazine also got to see a preview of Blu-Ray. Here are the important points:
All first titles are expected to be limited to a single layer.
There are two Blu-ray modes: Movie Mode (used for high definition films) and BD-J Mode (a fully programmable mode that includes interactive features, like games and Internet connectivity). Both modes can be used on the same disc.
Sony and MGM titles will be encoded on the discs at 1080/24p. The user will set the player to convert this native resolution as required to match the capability of his or her display.
At this time Sony has no immediate plans to implement the Image Constraint Token (ICT). ( That is, they can always turn it on in the future on a per-title basis.)
All of the Sony and MGM titles will initially be encoded using MPEG-2, at a variable bit rate, but up to a maximum of 30Mb/sec.
When other codecs exceed MPEG-2 at all data rates, Sony will begin using them.
On the audio side, all Sony and MGM titles will include both conventional Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks. Dolby data rate is still unconfirmed. DTS data rate will be 1.5Mb/sec. Additionally all Sony/MGM releases will include a 5.1 uncompressed PCM audio track. (To make sense of these audio formats, Todd B. has written a nice summary here).
The first Sony and MGM titles will each have a hidden Easter Egg containing several setup test patterns-- a sweep, a standard SMPTE pattern including, among other things, a PLUGE, color bars, and a resolution monoscope.
Two types of Blu-ray Disc video players will be available: a "BD Player" type and an Internet connected player. The most fundamental feature difference is that one supports Internet connections and the other does not. Either player type can be produced and marketed from day one. The internet connections may be used for firmware upgrades. Toshiba has said in their HD-DVD players you can simply burn an image onto a CD-ROM to do the same thing.
From the beginning, all models of either player type support playback of interactive BD-Java content. (This had been something that was supposed to be delayed in the hardware).
A source at a studio has said that current "Special Edition" content for Blu-Ray discs is being ported over to a High Def signal. It won't be only the movies that are in HD.
If you have a video card that says it will support HDCP, you may be disappointed. It looks like no current video cards on the market will really support HDCP. From Ars: "With regards to shipping cards, they are correct: no matter what a box's feature list may say, no video card supports HDCP fully at this time. Why? They have not been completely programmed. Until the specifications for the access control system are completely finished, implementing pro
Sony, in their Kutaragi "Ten Points" announcement, hopes to manufacture and sell 6 million units by the end of fiscal year 2006 (about five months). I have no doubt they will be able to sell all the units they manufacture, if they don't face any delays or shortages. However, that somewhat compares to Microsoft's boast of reaching about 5 million by June of 2006 (about six-and-a-half months).
This to me indicates near neck-and-neck sales figures out of the gate, assuming these predictions are all accurate. (They are not).
Besides the other correct reply I want to add on to the fact that whether or not it was profitable, King Kong did not provide a very good per-dollar investment. Even if it ends up making $825MM after DVD sales, that's a 4-to-1 return on the investment and they had to wait about two years to recoup the cost.
Smart (read: "profitable") companies have been churning out horror flicks to capture the teenage market or romantic comedies. These are still two types of audiences which want or need to go to movies: teenagers because they can't or won't hang around their parent's house, and couples who are going out on dates. To some extent, families are sort of a third group (Narnia). But teenagers are still a big draw.
Take a look at how When a Stranger Calls has done. First off, you probably have not heard of this recent movie, and neither had I until I saw a trailer on Apple.com. That should tell you that the marketers are doing a good job because they're not wasting money on convincing people like us to go to this movie. Entire cost: About $15 million. The movie started taping this summer and about six months after production made all of its money back. Two weeks after the opening weekend it had tripled its gross. We can safely say over the next two years (same timeline as King Kong), this movie will make eight or more times its gross after raking in DVD sales, worldwide sales, pay-per-view and cable.
Or take a look at Hostel, another horror/thriller. Within a month of its release, it made back ten times its budget. It still has been less than a year since production started. By this time next year it will have made 15 to 25 times its budget. (It hasn't even come out in most foreign territories).
There's tons of these types of movies that are not terribly good but because they are cheap and to some, somewhat entertaining, they make money. Madea's Family Reunion is on its way to make $50MM if you can wrap your head around that. That's 1/3rd of what Fantastic Four made and they spent at least $50MM on marketing the movie.
This assumes people aren't waiting until the PS3 and NR come out - which they are.
Yes and no. While some people have already made up their mind about the 360 vs. the PS3 vs. the Revolution (read: everyone posting on the internet), most people I think will wait until there's more information on the PS3/NR. Right now, real information on the PS3/NR is about as rare as finding a real non-crippled 360 in stores. Let's say the PS3 launch disappoints: Sony at E3 says the console will be out definitely on January 7, 2007 at a price of $699 and the only two launch titles will be Puyo Puyo Fever 3 and Tomb Raider Racing. (Let's leave Nintendo out of the equation for right now). What happens the next few weeks? Everyone who's been waiting between the PS3 and the 360 now suddenly buys a 360 the next day.
It's not as simple as this but consumers (some call them "people") won't wait until the launch of the PS3. Sony, one way or the other, has to deliver something big in the next few months, even if it's just on paper and/or a working prototype. Otherwise, people will know they can hold off on the PS3 and do something else.
Where are there statistics for any type of map site to be the leader? There's still not one that's perfect.
Google Maps has the API you can hook into and the neat-o hybrid views, but its ability to properly tell directions is awful. It's happened enough that I know not to rely on it.
MapQuest has great directions but the interface is still a bit 1999; also, it assumes that when you print you want a map the size of a cracker surrounded by ads and whitespace.
Map24 is hands-down my favorite for browsing a site AND its interface was around a LONG time before Google's. However, for directions it's worthless.
And Yahoo Maps seems nice (especially the beta traffic advisories) but otherwise it's similar to MapQuest and I just use MQ as force of habit.
That said, I can't imagine Google has the majority (50%+) market share out of this group. Perhaps their maps are accessed more than any others, but for the classic use of directions, I don't see them being #1 since they're not that much better than the others.
This is sort of the obvious, useless delay. I don't think anyone expected the console to arrive in April or May. However, the article mentions a "U.S. delay until 2007" which is sourced from an analyst, not a Sony source. So this doesn't mean it's delayed for the U.S. at all, since we never expected to get it until fall anyway.
I think the comment was referring to the 360 excelling at FPS games as opposed to the Gamecube and the PS2, which it does. (The Gamecube controller is not built for FPSs, the PS2 analog sticks don't "feel right" to a lot of people). Control-wise, of course it can't match the PC, but many people prefer to play FPSs while sitting on their couch, not a desk. So beyond that it's personal preference.
Slashdot Mirror
The article and headline clearly state it's a UK single. While in general, the UK is no stranger to rubbish (Spice Girls, Take That, Suga Babes, Pussycat Dolls) their charts usually have a slightly higher amount of decent music (across all genres) in them.
Gnarls Barkley is the collaboration between Danger Mouse and Cee-Loo Green. Cee-Lo had one of the most well-received albums of 2004, and Danger Mouse has been involved with a lot of critically acclaimed, succesful projects.
/. crowd would be more understanding.
Just because you (and a lot of others) haven't heard of them doesn't mean they're bad. This is not Suga Babes II.
You'd think the
(For the record, I think Gnarles Barkley is just OK so far... I prefer some of Danger Mouse's other work).
At least it's better than the games section. :(
Considering Google's willingness to appease the biggest government censor (China), I don't doubt that Google will also censor itself in Ballmer's home, if IPs were given out. And another th--
WAIT... Steve Ballmer has human children?!?
A lot of complaints here says something along these lines: "If Business Woman #2 picks XYZ Corp's product over mine just because I wear shorts, she's in for a world of hurt! Their product sucks!"
In this case, we have every right complain about Business Woman #2 and her choice to pick someone who was incompentent but in a suit vs. someone competent in chinos and sandals. It's too bad she has those views.
But you know what? We all lose.
Saying "I shouldn't care about my appearance" is always going to hold someone back. Even if you made small improvements, you'd be surprised at the new, different (better, even?) treatment you will get.
What if dress was the only thing standing between you and a $15,000/yr promotion? What if your haircut was the only thing standing between you being involved with a project or being project lead on something?
The fact of the matter is that an immaculately dressed idiot is not going to fool anybody. But, if you're already good at what you do, and adding a bit of "professionalism" can get you to the next level, you're only doing yourself a disservice by not taking advantage of it. Don't go overboard, just go up one or two notches. If you wear a t-shirt, wear a polo or collared shirt. If you wear a collared shirt, wear a loose tie and sports jacket.
And finally, the idea that by putting on a tie you lose your individuality is ridiculous; it implies you let your apparel define who you are.
There's the rub. In almost all games, there's a clear objective: save the kingdom, kill the space mutants, escape the zombie island, become the best warrior in the whole land. With Second Life having such a super-wide set of options, it can become underwhelming. I remember creating my character, flying around for a bit, then just realizing: "OK, what now?"
There was nothing for me to do except explore, which I did for about 10-15 minutes before I got bored. What do I "do"? Do I need to get a job? By which means do I track my performance against others?
It seemed to me much more like IRC with a really rich toolset. Which is fine, if I wanted to do IRC in 3D. But I don't.
Add to that the fact that in most MMORPGs, everyone starts at the same level and by craftily investing your time you can become better than others. In Second Life you can own an island, build a mansion, and do all kinds of cool stuff. But you can only do that by spending your own money. It removes monetary equality from the equation. Unless there's some way to gain Linden dollars in game.
My point is, as a prospective player, I logged in, tried it out, and said... "So what?" I'm not one to say I speak for anyone else than myself, but that's not the reaction you want to have after trying out a product.
A whole lot of stuff. What excited me about early (1998) news on the Prey engine was materials reacting the way real materials do: wood catches fire and is easy to break, metal bends, bricks shatter, etc. If this can be taken care of on the engine level, this frees up designers from needing to script events where if this x-y-z space is damaged, this brush animates like this, falling in such a manner. It can also make games more, not realistic but believable.
Take Burnout for example. If I crash my sportscar into a van at 200mph, the van will pop off the ground and go flying like I swatted a ball. That in itself I don't have a problem with. But when a few seconds later I miscalculate a turn and hit a wooden newspaper stand and I explode on impact with the newspaper stand being undamaged, that I have a problem with. Putting things like these into the engine extends believability because your game world just gets a lot more cohesive.
This is just one. A whole lot more needs to be done in audio, visuals, AI, and a number of other areas. As long as we improve these while still focused on gameplay, and we should be ok.
Hiring may not necessarily be the answer. You need manpower, but once the site is up-and-running, you may not need as many people onboard. Could you accomplish the same goals by maybe hiring another key person but getting contractors for the rest of the work? Or maybe hiring someone (or some company) to oversee certain aspects of the site temporarily?
For example, a programmer or designer is pretty flexible. After the site is done they could work on other projects, update manuals, internal programs, media kits, etc. But what would, for example, a UI designer do? I'd also shy away from having an "email marketing manager" because almost all the professional marketing emails I get are usually handled by a company that's not the one advertising everything.
Of course, a couple of things need to be noted. First off, if they have not updated their site in 8 years and the internet is vital, how come they are still in business? Who are some competitors with a terrific web presence and how has that affected their business? I've seen plenty of cases where a very high investment has not really resulted in any new business. Or, the new business can't be tied to the site, eventhough the site is generating new business. (Build this into your proposal so if there's an increase, it can be directly attributed to the project you spearheaded!)
I have a friend who is a procurement specialist for a pretty big consultancy, with clients being a lot of Fortune 500 companies. Anytime he needs to compare commoditized products or services (say, plastic sheeting, wires) he always has a very big list of companies to contact. The easiest way he cuts that down from 100 companies to 30 or 40 is by eliminating ones with bad or non-existent websites. To an extent, it is a reflection of the professionalism and thoroughness of any company.
That being said, if your employer is afraid of new ideas, doesn't want to understand them, and doesn't see the benefit if a clear, realistic plan to great ROI is laid out in front of them, that company is a sinking ship. It that's the case, it wouldn't hurt to take your good idea and see if a competitor will do it instead (with you overseeing the project at a vastly higher salary, of course).
Why, that's how exactly Alienware went out of business.
By almost any definition, prices for new games have been dropping steadily . Cartridge games for the NES were up to $50 ($86 in today's dollars), and I distinctively remember seeing Mortal Kombat for the SNES on "sale" somewhere for $70 ($90 in today's dollars).
Even if you take the most expensive widely available game out now (the Oblivion "Collector's Edition") and discount the fact that it has $10 of "value"-added material on it, it's still about $45 for the late 80's.
Even if you were to take the cheapest new games at $30 in 1986, that's still over $51 by today's value.
Add in the fact that many flagship new games sell new for $20 to $40, that there are constant "Greatest Hits" series reducing game prices to $20, and a very healthy used market, and games have gotten cheaper.
Now, gaming may be more expensive for the casual gamer. A casual NES player would've paid $199 in 1985 for the "Action Pack" which gave them the console, two games, and two controllers. That's $350 today. Compare that to a Xbox 360 Premium console which is $510 for two games (Hexic + PGR3, for example), and two controllers. Adding Xbox Live is another $50-$70 if you want a headset.
But, casual gamers shouldn't be getting launch titles. Casual gamers are the ones spending $200 on a PS2 plus three good games.
Ah, is that what they call it now? I guess "Performing the Jedi Hand Trick" and "Manually Targeting the Rebel Base" have become passé.
Desktop eyecandy sells. Sure, UNIX made OS X interesting, but if it wasn't pretty, it would not have gotten the response it did.
I tend to like my OS to be as unobtrusive as possible. Many times, eye candy effects take the focus away from what I should be doing. Some examples:
Any flash sites where the site has a million animations and sounds for the menu but lacking a lot of content, or useful content. Next time, don't spend 4 hours tweaking the window-close animations and add a damn site map.
I really hope in the next version of Office they do a better job of organizing menus better. In my mind, there should only ever be one options or preferences button with everything branching out from that. I can't say how many times I've found a program that has "Setup" and "Options" and "Preferences" and "Settings" menus all doing the same type of thing but without any sense or order.
For all intents and purposes the first thing I do whenever I set-up a freshly formatted XP (after the initial updates) is to switch the window style back to Windows 2000 and earlier and get rid of most of the effects.
If I want to use my computer to go on Slashdot, I don't need a huge blue-and-orange UI to tell me, "WELCOME TO WINDOWS!" and then the browser saying "FIREFOX PRESENTS:". I want my attention focused on Slashdot, not anything else.
(BTW, I highly recommend Aaron Spuler's "Smoke" theme for Moz/Firefox - http://www.spuler.us/themes/smoke/).
Retailers aren't restricted now, so I don't see why they should be in the future.
As for consumers... I, for one, am excited to finally be able to get Pro Evolution Soccer Management 2, EA Sports' Cricket 2007, and the newest Densha de Go! Tokyo Kyuukouhen train simulator game.
In the former case, it's a worthless debate. As much as I would've liked to see the new Chan-wook Park movie, if I get a DVD of just the movie, with no subtitles, it doesn't do me any good. I don't speak Korean.
This week, if you're in the U.S. you could walk into any DVD retailer and pick up Capote. It debuts theatrically in the Netherlands tomorrow. If everyone in Turkey could buy the American DVD, it doesn't mean they would want to.
The second point then, is distribution. Well, it's time for the damn distributors to learn to adapt. Having seen how hard some of these distributors "work" I have no problem if there's a shake up that leaves only the intelligent, efficient, and competent. Get your movies out internationally at the same time, and then importing DVD releases will become useless.
Besides, anyone that wants to circumvent regions already has a region-free player, so all it has done is inconvenienced the majority.
Please, you made my heart flutter with such news. One can only hope.
Xbox Live has the option to "ignore member" and also lets you remove people from your friends list. Anyone willing to spam me isn't my friend.
Region 1: North America, South America, Japan and East Asia (excluding China)
Region 2: Europe and Africa
Region 3: India, China, Russia, and all other countries.
Note how they put China and Russia, two countries with lax copyright controls, in the same region.
This means that PS3s, at least as Blu-Ray players, will be the same in Japan as they are in the US, making them much more inviting as imports if they were to launch earlier in Japan as opposed to everywhere else.
Ultimate AV magazine also got to see a preview of Blu-Ray. Here are the important points:
That is, they can always turn it on in the future on a per-title basis.)
The Blu-Ray group also summarized what they announced at CeBit in this PDF.
Highlights:
content. (This had been something that was supposed to be delayed in the hardware).
A source at a studio has said that current "Special Edition" content for Blu-Ray discs is being ported over to a High Def signal. It won't be only the movies that are in HD.
Netflix will be carrying both Blu-Ray and Hd-DVD discs at launch.
If you have a video card that says it will support HDCP, you may be disappointed. It looks like no current video cards on the market will really support HDCP. From Ars: "With regards to shipping cards, they are correct: no matter what a box's feature list may say, no video card supports HDCP fully at this time. Why? They have not been completely programmed. Until the specifications for the access control system are completely finished, implementing pro
It is, and it isn't. $50 a year is not that much but it cuts out a lot of budget gamers, to whom that might be two (or more) games.
Then again, budget gamers aren't the ones buying PS3s this year (or maybe even next) so it's of no practical importance to argue this.
Sony, in their Kutaragi "Ten Points" announcement, hopes to manufacture and sell 6 million units by the end of fiscal year 2006 (about five months). I have no doubt they will be able to sell all the units they manufacture, if they don't face any delays or shortages. However, that somewhat compares to Microsoft's boast of reaching about 5 million by June of 2006 (about six-and-a-half months).
This to me indicates near neck-and-neck sales figures out of the gate, assuming these predictions are all accurate. (They are not).
Besides the other correct reply I want to add on to the fact that whether or not it was profitable, King Kong did not provide a very good per-dollar investment. Even if it ends up making $825MM after DVD sales, that's a 4-to-1 return on the investment and they had to wait about two years to recoup the cost.
Smart (read: "profitable") companies have been churning out horror flicks to capture the teenage market or romantic comedies. These are still two types of audiences which want or need to go to movies: teenagers because they can't or won't hang around their parent's house, and couples who are going out on dates. To some extent, families are sort of a third group (Narnia). But teenagers are still a big draw.
Take a look at how When a Stranger Calls has done. First off, you probably have not heard of this recent movie, and neither had I until I saw a trailer on Apple.com. That should tell you that the marketers are doing a good job because they're not wasting money on convincing people like us to go to this movie. Entire cost: About $15 million. The movie started taping this summer and about six months after production made all of its money back. Two weeks after the opening weekend it had tripled its gross. We can safely say over the next two years (same timeline as King Kong), this movie will make eight or more times its gross after raking in DVD sales, worldwide sales, pay-per-view and cable.
Or take a look at Hostel, another horror/thriller. Within a month of its release, it made back ten times its budget. It still has been less than a year since production started. By this time next year it will have made 15 to 25 times its budget. (It hasn't even come out in most foreign territories).
There's tons of these types of movies that are not terribly good but because they are cheap and to some, somewhat entertaining, they make money. Madea's Family Reunion is on its way to make $50MM if you can wrap your head around that. That's 1/3rd of what Fantastic Four made and they spent at least $50MM on marketing the movie.
Yes and no. While some people have already made up their mind about the 360 vs. the PS3 vs. the Revolution (read: everyone posting on the internet), most people I think will wait until there's more information on the PS3/NR. Right now, real information on the PS3/NR is about as rare as finding a real non-crippled 360 in stores. Let's say the PS3 launch disappoints: Sony at E3 says the console will be out definitely on January 7, 2007 at a price of $699 and the only two launch titles will be Puyo Puyo Fever 3 and Tomb Raider Racing. (Let's leave Nintendo out of the equation for right now). What happens the next few weeks? Everyone who's been waiting between the PS3 and the 360 now suddenly buys a 360 the next day.
It's not as simple as this but consumers (some call them "people") won't wait until the launch of the PS3. Sony, one way or the other, has to deliver something big in the next few months, even if it's just on paper and/or a working prototype. Otherwise, people will know they can hold off on the PS3 and do something else.
A foot icon? Silly rabbit, Vista has nothing to do with Gnome. Unless they mess with the interface a lot and get rid of entire menus.
* ducks *
Where are there statistics for any type of map site to be the leader? There's still not one that's perfect.
Google Maps has the API you can hook into and the neat-o hybrid views, but its ability to properly tell directions is awful. It's happened enough that I know not to rely on it.
MapQuest has great directions but the interface is still a bit 1999; also, it assumes that when you print you want a map the size of a cracker surrounded by ads and whitespace.
Map24 is hands-down my favorite for browsing a site AND its interface was around a LONG time before Google's. However, for directions it's worthless.
And Yahoo Maps seems nice (especially the beta traffic advisories) but otherwise it's similar to MapQuest and I just use MQ as force of habit.
That said, I can't imagine Google has the majority (50%+) market share out of this group. Perhaps their maps are accessed more than any others, but for the classic use of directions, I don't see them being #1 since they're not that much better than the others.
This is sort of the obvious, useless delay. I don't think anyone expected the console to arrive in April or May. However, the article mentions a "U.S. delay until 2007" which is sourced from an analyst, not a Sony source. So this doesn't mean it's delayed for the U.S. at all, since we never expected to get it until fall anyway.
And it's NOT going to cost $800.
I think the comment was referring to the 360 excelling at FPS games as opposed to the Gamecube and the PS2, which it does. (The Gamecube controller is not built for FPSs, the PS2 analog sticks don't "feel right" to a lot of people). Control-wise, of course it can't match the PC, but many people prefer to play FPSs while sitting on their couch, not a desk. So beyond that it's personal preference.