Making a product available does not mean people will buy it. You'd need to put considerable advertising power behind it ($500m is not that much, Nintendo spends very close to that). You need to convince people will want this.
Furthermore, if I go into a store, and I am Joe Shmoe and want a game console, would I really want the one that's not sold out? I look at two shelves, one is empty, and the other is full. What would I deduce over other people's desires to have the product?
Let's be realistic and look at the financials of companies... Nintendo's are here.
Now, in business, you're not expected to break even the first year. This $500,000,000 in advertising will be amortized over a few years. And people, stop tlaking about $500 million being so much.
I also read an interview (months ago) with the NOA President who said that Nintendo is already spending about 80-90% of what Microsoft is on advertising. (I think they spend something in the range of $300,000,000 per year on advertising).
It's a big industry. $500 million will get you noticed, but they won't flood the airwaves. It'd be interesting to do a break-even analysis for Microsoft and see how many units they have to sell to becomne succesful. My guess is anything below 1.5 million units and it will be a complete failure.
I'd have a hard time getting used to the curvature. I think a rocket is going to miss me and suddenly it loops to the left and hits me square in the ass...
What you're describing would wipe out increases in productivity. Productivity, in a broad, economic sense, doesn't allow us to work less, just create more by working the same amount of time. I think that if we did do that (USA) as an entire society we would fall behind other countries in terms of economic output. Granted, that shouldn't be any one person's goal, but it is a very important goal for governments - the economy is always at the forefront.
As long as in these societies one is not shunned for spending more time outside of work, I don't see a problem.
Efnet could do well by increasing their max nickname length to something a bit user-friendly. Currently, it is 9 characters. I have been on some IRC servers where the norm is much higher and you chat with people who use nicks like MolotovCocktail. While this is a somewhat stupid solution, even an increase by 2 characters will increase available names ten- or twenty-fold.
Netsplits are certainly interesting but very much a pain in the ass if they happen for too long. How they can be good, I have no idea.
Sony is the superior marketer. The only people "mired" in their PS2s are those boobs that follow whatever Daily Radar says and will buy sub-par hardware (PS2) with sub-par games (90% of titles) and impress their beer-drinking neighbors. To call Final Fantasy VIII a "megahit" is slightly implying the game is actually good -- an outright offense to the history of good Final Fantasy titles that came out before that piece of junk.
The PS2 is not "huge" -- it sold a lot based on the fact that there was no other console out there. In Japan, most people use their PS2s as DVD players, not as gaming consoles. I find it, as a gamer, extremely offensive that a company that makes Walkmen and Dave Matthews Band albums knows the first thing about "gaming" -- where are the likes of Miyamoto in Sony? Sony doesn't care about gamers -- it cares about extending its reach in the multimedia world. Use Sony Playstation 2 to watch Sony DVDs and listen to Sony albums. Don't trust someone who makes a "digital music" player that doesn't even play MP3s.
And no, the Jaguar was not a CD-ROM console -- furthermore, Nintendo had plenty of good games. Zelda, Goldeneye, and Mario Kart easily thwart anything Sony has come up with, with the exception of hiring SquareSoft and Konami (with FF7 and MGS being the only worthwile games on the PSX that could compare to the previous 3 games mentioned).
I sincerely hope your post was done in humor, because I find it insulting.
... kids are more disposed to buying video games and consoles [than older adults]
Surely you forget that adults have disposable income. Spending $20 on another DVD is not a big deal (but not something I do every day or week). For a kid, especially someone that young to spend that much money is quite different. How many people rush to buy the newest video card for $400? They might be starving (and need to re-prioritize) but adults have much more cash that they can spend their money on, at least those without families to support.
A buddy and I rented Pokémon Stadium last week and sat down and played it. He's an avid watcher and I know of it briefly, enough to name 10 characters tops (I've seen one episode at most).
Once you grasp the strategy of the game (each character is of a certain type -- each with their own strengths and weaknesses) it turns into a giant game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, except there's about 8 different variables to consider. It's very much like the turn-based fighting in RPGs. What's very interesting is that mid-fight your opponent can switch their character so it may not always pay off to choose a specific attack that only works on a certain type of Pokémon.
Then we got into the mini-games. With about 4 other guys from the dorms, we started playing some of the very simple, very fun games included in Pokémon Stadium 2 -- it took us until 5am to stop playing.
Now from a marketing perspective, the entire Pokémon genre is ingenious -- the show, the movies, the games, the cards, the figures are all so closely intertwined that you do feel like you have to catch them all. Of course this doesn't work as well on a bunch of people in their early 20's as it does on pre-teens.
Still, I find it amazing, especially in this Slashdot crowd that's supposed to be better than your average bear, that so many people would come down on this in a judgmental way w/out actually playing the game. It's not for everyone, but it is fun.
Rare isn't a third-party developer. They are definitely part of Nintendo -- a sort of "second-party" developer that still works outside of their direct scrutiny but ultimately answers to them.
"Serious" gamers don't play the Playstation 2. The only true remaining "serious gamer" system is the Neo-Geo. Tekken Tag Tournament pales in comparison to the complexity of a game like Last Blade 2. The now-dead Dreamcast and Nintedo still produce games and systems for "serious" gamers.
Sony is spending millions to wow over Joe Six-Pack into buying the latest robot game and the X-Box is the worst thing to ever hit the console market.
I use Frauenhoffer Gesellschaft's Codec (the one speed-optimized by Radium) and it works wonderfully on my PII-400... It does encode in real time but it uses 100% of my resources. Figuring that for good voice encoding you probably don't need more than 128kbps (seeing as how that is more than FM radio or telephone quality). However, the ultimate bottleneck is bandwidth. You could say "Well, we can video conference on a LAN or WAN." But if I'm on a LAN why not just walk the hell there.:- )
The state of Delaware hosts spaces for high-schools... For example, here's the clunkily designed webpage for my old high school. It looks like other states do the same things -- here, for example, is the homepage for the football team of Butte, Idaho -- the BUTTE PIRATES.
Yes, it's very dissapointing. But remember this: businesses don't do anything that doesn't affect their bottom line (for the most part). if marketing becomes increasingly annoying, there will be a certain backlash from certain groups. Look at Snapple for example. They built a (formerly) billion-dollar drink empire simply based on the fact that it was the true Anti-Cola (or so they made it seem to consumers).
This is all bad, but not nearly as bad as you make it seem.
Well, the organic feel and sound of vinyl will be very hard to replicate electronically... Carrot Innovations has created Virtual Turntables (shareware) which does a fairly decent job of emulating some qualities of a set of turntables. I admit I haven't used it in over a year, but as a toy, it was certainly interesting.
I've heard rumors of Pioneer and Technics making "CD Turntables" that will let you "scratch" your CDs back and forth and make it sound close to a vinyl table. Haven't used or seen these, but a DJ friend of mine told me about them... Here is a page selling them.
OT, but I was thinking, how cool would it be to have your own custom vinyl cutter? Then you can combine your mp3 collection with your vinyl collection...:)
I guarantee a win on my part... Why? We'll, let's just say I'm going to make sure it happens at that time. You see, back in the '60's I developed a satellite shooting machine, which was in essence a sophisticated heat beam which we called a "laser". Using these "lasers", we punch a hole in the protective layer around the Mir Space Station...
If you really need new music just hit IRC. Enough DCC channels automatically send out requested files in *.tar format from fast college boxen. (This is all in EfNet by the way).
"What about if by providing bandwidth, a user was credited some way towards their own napster subscription, i.e. if you serve over a certain threshold, you get a 50% discount on your napster subscription? Would that change the incentive level for being a host in a subscription napster world?"
Sounds like MojoNation. MojoNation is another P2P file sharing system, but it has costs ("Mojo"). You get Mojo by sharing your resources (disk space and bandwidth). You pay Mojo to have your content on the system (which is in turn stored, encrypted, on other user's harddrives). Then you pay Mojo to get content. Interesting concept, although I've never personally run the software.
The problem with the Sega Channel is that it didn't catch on, not that it had any games. It was released late enough in a console's life that it revitalized interest for me. I mean, there were hundreds of games available, and dozens of them I could get within a minute! It was only about $9.95, which is pretty fair if you compare that to rental prices. No, it didn't succeed in the long run, but I liked it.
Why make the headline 'Sega Announces Dreamcast Successor'?
Is that a successor for the Dreamcast? I was expecting a next-gen console, not this, which I can only best describe as a "stand-alone" add-on.
A story well-circulated around the offices of MAD Magazine is that an envelope containing only a picture of Alfred E. Neuman's face was delivered to them succesfully.
I know for a fact Americorps is running several programs in which they have tech-savvy people (read: you) bring computers to communities that need them. Here's a listing of Americorps*Vista's programs in California or your state.
In New York, for example:
CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY: NEW YORK AmeriCorps*VISTA Member will assist in providing underseved and technologically disadvantaged youth with the skills they need to operate as productive citizens in a technological world. Activities include the recruitment of tutors and mentors who can work directly with participant youth on the computer; successful pursuit of additional technology resources in the form of funding or sources for computer equipment and software; the establishment of Internet access and development of an encompassing plan for its appropriate use at all levels of the Club, including CareerLaunch and other online curriculum; and, implementation of the five basic promises of America's Promise and the formation of additional partnerships.
Ultimately, the problem of kids and computers doesn't boil down to who has the hardware or the software, but who tkaes initiative in helping others. The cynical might say "Grab a Linux box, a cheap 4-yr old computer and Net-Zero and they're done." Realistically, can we expect everyone to accomplish this without assistance?
With Lock, Stock still relatively fresh in my mind ("Chill, Winstaaan"), I felt that the plots were the same - something gets stolen, everyone wants the same thing, it ends up in the hands of the characters that you want it to in the end, and it all works out. Forgive the mathematical analogy, but it's like the plots of both oscillate around the same, straight line.
Agreed.. Guy Ritchie seems to be a one-trick pony. But it's a hell of a trick.
Slashdot Mirror
Sony? They make walkmen and memory sticks and CDrs and movies.
Microsoft? They don't know anything about games.
My heart goes out to the underdog... Nintendo! (Never thought I'd say that...
a) Drive everyone out of the market
b) Do it so well that when X-Box 2.0 comes out there are no competitors
And Nintendo of America and Sony have headquarters in the United States and ARE American companies.
Furthermore, if I go into a store, and I am Joe Shmoe and want a game console, would I really want the one that's not sold out? I look at two shelves, one is empty, and the other is full. What would I deduce over other people's desires to have the product?
Now, in business, you're not expected to break even the first year. This $500,000,000 in advertising will be amortized over a few years. And people, stop tlaking about $500 million being so much.
I also read an interview (months ago) with the NOA President who said that Nintendo is already spending about 80-90% of what Microsoft is on advertising. (I think they spend something in the range of $300,000,000 per year on advertising).
It's a big industry. $500 million will get you noticed, but they won't flood the airwaves. It'd be interesting to do a break-even analysis for Microsoft and see how many units they have to sell to becomne succesful. My guess is anything below 1.5 million units and it will be a complete failure.
This could be interesting for certain mods...
As long as in these societies one is not shunned for spending more time outside of work, I don't see a problem.
Netsplits are certainly interesting but very much a pain in the ass if they happen for too long. How they can be good, I have no idea.
And no, the Jaguar was not a CD-ROM console -- furthermore, Nintendo had plenty of good games. Zelda, Goldeneye, and Mario Kart easily thwart anything Sony has come up with, with the exception of hiring SquareSoft and Konami (with FF7 and MGS being the only worthwile games on the PSX that could compare to the previous 3 games mentioned).
I sincerely hope your post was done in humor, because I find it insulting.
Once you grasp the strategy of the game (each character is of a certain type -- each with their own strengths and weaknesses) it turns into a giant game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, except there's about 8 different variables to consider. It's very much like the turn-based fighting in RPGs. What's very interesting is that mid-fight your opponent can switch their character so it may not always pay off to choose a specific attack that only works on a certain type of Pokémon.
Then we got into the mini-games. With about 4 other guys from the dorms, we started playing some of the very simple, very fun games included in Pokémon Stadium 2 -- it took us until 5am to stop playing.
Now from a marketing perspective, the entire Pokémon genre is ingenious -- the show, the movies, the games, the cards, the figures are all so closely intertwined that you do feel like you have to catch them all. Of course this doesn't work as well on a bunch of people in their early 20's as it does on pre-teens.
Still, I find it amazing, especially in this Slashdot crowd that's supposed to be better than your average bear, that so many people would come down on this in a judgmental way w/out actually playing the game. It's not for everyone, but it is fun.
Rare isn't a third-party developer. They are definitely part of Nintendo -- a sort of "second-party" developer that still works outside of their direct scrutiny but ultimately answers to them.
"Serious" gamers don't play the Playstation 2. The only true remaining "serious gamer" system is the Neo-Geo. Tekken Tag Tournament pales in comparison to the complexity of a game like Last Blade 2. The now-dead Dreamcast and Nintedo still produce games and systems for "serious" gamers. Sony is spending millions to wow over Joe Six-Pack into buying the latest robot game and the X-Box is the worst thing to ever hit the console market.
I use Frauenhoffer Gesellschaft's Codec (the one speed-optimized by Radium) and it works wonderfully on my PII-400... It does encode in real time but it uses 100% of my resources. Figuring that for good voice encoding you probably don't need more than 128kbps (seeing as how that is more than FM radio or telephone quality). However, the ultimate bottleneck is bandwidth. You could say "Well, we can video conference on a LAN or WAN." But if I'm on a LAN why not just walk the hell there. :- )
The state of Delaware hosts spaces for high-schools... For example, here's the clunkily designed webpage for my old high school. It looks like other states do the same things -- here, for example, is the homepage for the football team of Butte, Idaho -- the BUTTE PIRATES.
This is all bad, but not nearly as bad as you make it seem.
I've heard rumors of Pioneer and Technics making "CD Turntables" that will let you "scratch" your CDs back and forth and make it sound close to a vinyl table. Haven't used or seen these, but a DJ friend of mine told me about them... Here is a page selling them.
OT, but I was thinking, how cool would it be to have your own custom vinyl cutter? Then you can combine your mp3 collection with your vinyl collection... :)
I guarantee a win on my part...
Why? We'll, let's just say I'm going to make sure it happens at that time. You see, back in the '60's I developed a satellite shooting machine, which was in essence a sophisticated heat beam which we called a "laser". Using these "lasers", we punch a hole in the protective layer around the Mir Space Station...
What about my Love Ewe? Surely that's not cheating...
If you really need new music just hit IRC. Enough DCC channels automatically send out requested files in *.tar format from fast college boxen. (This is all in EfNet by the way).
Sounds like MojoNation. MojoNation is another P2P file sharing system, but it has costs ("Mojo"). You get Mojo by sharing your resources (disk space and bandwidth). You pay Mojo to have your content on the system (which is in turn stored, encrypted, on other user's harddrives). Then you pay Mojo to get content. Interesting concept, although I've never personally run the software.
Why make the headline 'Sega Announces Dreamcast Successor'?
Is that a successor for the Dreamcast? I was expecting a next-gen console, not this, which I can only best describe as a "stand-alone" add-on.
A story well-circulated around the offices of MAD Magazine is that an envelope containing only a picture of Alfred E. Neuman's face was delivered to them succesfully.
In New York, for example:
Ultimately, the problem of kids and computers doesn't boil down to who has the hardware or the software, but who tkaes initiative in helping others. The cynical might say "Grab a Linux box, a cheap 4-yr old computer and Net-Zero and they're done." Realistically, can we expect everyone to accomplish this without assistance?
Agreed.. Guy Ritchie seems to be a one-trick pony. But it's a hell of a trick.