Buying a CD isn't purchasing a license. It's purchasing a physical product. (I used to run a record label so I know a bit about this.) You actually have more rights when purchasing a physical product (IMHO) - such as you are guaranteed the right to resell the physical product (First Sale Doctrine).
However, you are limited in other ways. For example, you are not allowed to distribute a copy of a copyrighted work, even one you purchased a physical copy of. I believe you can legally make a copy of a physical copy that you purchased - for yourself. However, you are NOT allowed to sell your physical copy you purchased and keep your copy. So, it's okay to make a backup of a CD. But not okay to copy the CD then sell it to someone and keep the copy.
Also, since, like I said, you didn't buy a license, your purchase of that physical copy doesn't give you any right to download anything from anyone... you have the right of ownership of the physical copy you bought.
This is my understanding, based on my previous business experience... I am not a lawyer, so I am sure I am a little off, but hopefully that gives you an idea of how the law generally works with physical copies. Also, everyone ignores all these rules these days, of course, and very few people buy physical copies anyway... so I imagine these laws will be updated in a few years, as they really don't reflect the reality of how people use media today.
Except that there were web browsers before IE and the whole "www" thing was taking off before IE came out. IE was a catch up product. I remember these days quite clearly, and I recall that Bill Gates was widely made fun of for totally ignoring the WWW in his book "the Road Ahead". He rereleased it with updates to include the web a few years later. IE was a SUCCESSFUL product, but that's not the same thing as groundbreaking, now, is it?
Whereas iTunes + iPod + iTMS was a combination that had never been brought to market before. It was a concept that hadn't really been brought to market before, at least not in the music business.
MP3 players existed well before Apple.
Never said they didn't.
Before the iPod you couldn't go into an electronics or department store that didn't have MP3s for sale.
I don't recall being able to buy music on MP3 at any stores 5-6 years ago... I recall hearing about Japanese kiosks where you could download music, but I never saw one in the USA. Maybe you remember better than me, but pre-iTMS, I believe it was very hard to buy MP3s/AACs/etc of mainstream music.
That's the key part of the package that made the iPod successful: they managed to create an online music store that had music people actually wanted, mainstream music, unlike the stores before that that sold only very obscure music or music that most people didn't care about (like eMusic was back then). Then they made their store work directly within the software you use to organize your music, so it is basically an extension of that software, and they made the product also basically be an extension of that software.
Now, if another company had done that first, but failed in the marketplace, I'd say they were groundbreaking and Apple was just successful at using their business model (which is how I'd classify MS' success with IE). But I know of no examples of products that delievered that whole package before Apple did. Which is why I think it's fair to say it was a groundbreaking product/service.
The arguement you are using is a little ridiculous - yes, windows is the most popular OS. But that doesn't mean that whatever people run on their computers is popular just because of Windows (which is the point you seem to be trying to make). I'm sure if Windows and Office hadn't become #1, or even had they never existed, people would still be using a PC-based word processing program to type letters and memos - they wouldn't still be using typewriters.
AOL only existed on Windows
What are you talking about - AOL definitely existed on Apple/Macintosh platforms, and I think also a few others (possibly OS/2).
allowed IE to become the #1 Browser by far (95% marketshare worldwide).
You are off by 10% or so there, I'm afraid.
Portable music as we know it does NOT exist as a result of iPod/iTunes combo. If iPod had never existed, portable music would exist and probably be exactly the same.
It's very easy to just retype sentences but change the nouns around: Computing as we know it does NOT exist as a result of Windows. If Windows had never existed, personal computing would exist and probably be exactly the same. Maybe with less security holes.
See? Try actually communicating your points instead. Nothing you have posted disputes that the iPod/iTunes/iTMS vertical solution was a unique one in the music space at the time, and allowed Apple to capture the market. MS themselves is duplicating with the Zune, so even they have to admit it worked, and worked well.
I can't see how one could argue that it wasn't the iPod that made portable MP3 players popular. It definitely wasn't IE that made the internet popular.
The world wide web as we know it does NOT exist as a result of IE + Windows. If IE had never existed, the WWW would exist, and probably be exactly the same. Netscape and AOL both deserve way more credit than IE does for popularizing the internet/WWW (even if neither were first). IE was a product that, upon release had to play catch-up with it's competitors... hardly groundbreaking.
And, yes there were music players, music sites, and music organizers before the iPod/iTunes combo. However none of them really worked together, thus none gained popularity. Having one solution that worked together and did it all allowed iTMS to become the #1 online music store by far (80% marketshare worldwide), and the iPod to become the #1 music player by far (62% marketshare).
How is that in anyway like MS bundling apps with Windows? iPod + iTunes + iTMS = a integrated solution to buy music (service), organize music (software), play music (hardware). Seamlessly. Anyone that buys an iPod does so to play music. Windows + Minesweeper doesn't have that same value add, since most people don't buy their PCs just to play Minesweeper. IF Internet Explorer had been the first web browser, I'd agree that was a similar achievement. But it wasn't the first, so it's inclusion wasn't ground-breaking.
Considering the impact on the portable music market that the iPod + iTunes + iTMS has had, I'm not sure I even need to explain this, but hey, it's slashdot.
I don't know why you'd want one on your PDA, but I want one on my music player. Perhaps you see no desire to have your whole collection with you, but I do and that's why there are different devices for different tastes. I like having my whole music collection with me... plus room for some podcasts, maybe a video or two, plus some room for transfering files if I need to.
Good example of why I'm happy to have most (I only have the 60GB) of my collection on my iPod - I'm going to visit my parents for a week over xmas. They live in a very rural part of the country, and go to bed very early. Just getting there will take about 12 hours (the nearest airport is a 6 hours drive from their house) so I'll need a player which can last that long without a charge (which my iPod can handle). I'm quite happy to have a wide variety of music and audiobooks available to me while I am there. Since my taste is quite varied, I never know what I'll be in the mood to listen to.
I am complete agreement with this. My music library is huge, so the variety of organizational choices (smart playlists, etc) and ease of handling podcasts makes iTunes a no-brainer for me. I've seen nothing else that comes close. I'd love some suggestions, though!
The iPod was an attractive product, but it was never ground breaking.
I would argue that perhaps the iPod itself wasn't groundbreaking, but the iPod + iTunes + iTunes Music Store combo was. Their software, store, and player were all easy to use and worked together seamlessly. None of the other players in the market at that time could offer up a solution that could say the same.
(besides a short stint on Excite Truck at GameStop)... it was really fun. We mostly played minigames (from Sports and Monkey Ball), but they were mostly easy to pick up. I was VERY suprised at how well the remote worked. It was very sensitive, and could detect the precise angle you want to hold your baseball bat, and let you do spinning shots in tennis, and so forth. We played a FPS minigame in Monkey Ball that was GREAT! Really exciting and fun. I'm looking forward to Metroid now, for sure.
On the flip side: The graphics were certainly nothing to write home about. They are better than the last gen, but that's all. The Wiimote does have a tendency to flip out if you move from where you start a minigame... once i moved from the right side to the left mid-game and it was annoying having to compensate for my location swap, but it went away on the next game. Not really sure why it did that, but it was noticable. Also if you are extreme angles to the sensor bar, it seems like there are issues. But both of these are things that shouldn't matter for most play, I would guess.
All in all, for the price I think the Wii is pretty cool. I think I will want to have a 360 or PS3 as well for more traditional games, but for fun party style games I think the Wii is perfect.
First off, I said "many", not "everyone" look at it as a patriotic issue.
I've seen literally thousands of blog posts and comments (many on Slashdot) that assert that Japanese gamers aren't buying the 360 because they "hate American products". This is, of course, not true since many US products are successful there. But MS/Xbox fanboys make this complaint alot, and they also assert the aforementioned "patriotism" as one reason they like the Xbox.
They aren't JUST toys to a lot of people on slashdot. A decent percentage of people who post here work in the games industry, thus are very close to this topic. Several of my good friends work for game developers, one works at SoA. The "way the wind blows" is pretty important to them.
Beyond that, what other people buy WILL have an impact on you. If a console fails to achieve marketshare, the 3rd parties will stop supporting them.
Also, many people in the US (and, I'm sure, Japan as well) look on it as a patriotic issue... many Americans want to see US companies do well in what has traditionally been a market not dominated by American console manufacturers.
Finally - I don't see how it's any emptier to be interested in the videogame industry than the traditional software industry, or even sports...
I don't know of any other MP3 player that is as overloaded with useless features.
This is amusing, because most iPod-critics on slashdot decry how the iPod is lacking in features... yet I guess there are still some who think it has too many.
Anyway, as others have pointed out, those features are very incidental to the iPod and you can even simply not show them on your menu if you like... as I have done.
"A 64% decline in sales from last year is a complete rout "
I'm not trying to say it's not a complete rout in this case, because I don't follow WW, but many content companies have cyclical businesses based on their hot properties. For example, if you just look at year to year figures, Sony-Columbia appears to have bad years between releases of the Spider-Man movies... but are they really hurting, or is Spider-Man just that much more successful than their other offerings?
Again, no clue if that's the case here, but if WW released a big new product or a 2.0 version of a game world last year, that could certainly skew the statistics for this one.
That said, I would imagine the huge success of MMORPG must affect the PNP market. That and the innate fact that, if you have a creative GM, you really just need one rulebook to have infinite adventures with a PNP game.
She marches in parades side by side with NAMBLA members (you know - the 'eight is too late' crowd - at least Foley was messing with guys over the age of consent).
Wasn't this completely debunked? I remember reading that this was debunked and that she had no way of knowing who was marching in that parade anyway, since the NAMBLA members weren't carrying signs talking about NAMBLA, they were just there in civilian garb. I know that Pat Buchanan's similar comments about Hilary Clinton were debunked, so I assume his ones about Nancy Pelosi were as well - he had said Hilary Clinton marched in a Gay Pride Parade where NAMBLA had a float, and that was proven to be untrue.
She thinks I exist to provide tax revenue that she can confiscate and hand out to the unproductive and underserving.
This is a problem with all politicians - Bush hasn't exactly done much to hinder government handouts under his tenure. His is not very fiscally conservative.
The neo-geo did okay even though it never hit the top spot. The 3D0 was a bit of a failure.
I was a teen in the heyday of the Neo-Geo. I only knew one person who had one. Of course, it was a specialty prduct compare to the other consoles, but I don't think you can really say it "did okay".
The 3D0 was a huge, huge failure that caused the 3DO company to sell off all it's assets and restructure as a content company.
Using pirated music costs you: you can be sued, and you gotta use questionable service full of porn, scam ads and trojans. Not every price has a dollar value.
I agree with most of what you are getting at, but this is not always true. Many people simply burn/rip their friends' music. Very low risk there. There are also many high quality undergoround download sites which are easier to use than ITMS or Napster, and have no advertising. Of course, the threat of being sued still exists on even the easiest to use sites.
And again, I really don't think that any of these companies (with the exception of MS, maybe) are sitting around saying to themselves "How do we become iPod killers?"
Tell that to Creative (the #3 in the market, I believe), who definitely marketed some of their players as iPod killers- and made press releases about how they wanted their new models to replace the iPod. Also there is Sandisk (#2 in the market), with their "iDon't" campaign that depicted iPod owners as mindless sheep... I think you are a bit off on this.
I'm in the same boat - I loved WinAmp, but now that my music collection is past 1000 albums, I really need the powerful library & smart playlist features of iTunes.
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) warrants to the original purchaser that this product (hardware, game discs and accessories) shall be free from defects in material and workmanship for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase (the "Warranty Period")
LIMITED WARRANTY FOR THE PLAYSTATION 2 COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) warrants to the original purchaser that this product (hardware, game discs and accessories) shall be free from defects in material and workmanship for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase (the "Warranty Period").
Seeing as 90 days isn't that long, I reiterate that a product that generates a lot of heat is a concern of mine, since products that generate a lot of heat tend to die sooner rather than later (this is why people get so anal about fans on their PCs). Since Sony usually has 90 day warranties, I want to be confident my PS3 won't be ailing on day 91.
If I was that worried about a fire hazard, I wouldn't have a stove in my house. As it is, I'm not worried, and yes, I do have a stove in my house, as well as a fireplace, matches, lighters, and other things that cause fires more often than the occasional one-in-a-million fires from electronic gadgets.
None of these things cause fires if they are propery operated. Electrical fires happen even under normal operation. As a result, electrical fires account for more dollars in damages than any other kind of fire except arson, according to the National Fire Protection Agency. About 1 in 10 home fires is caused by an electrical source, also accoridng to NFPA. Far from one in a million.
Discounting everything else - it's one of the first (if not the first) products to use a Cell processor.
It's one of the first CONSUMER products to use a cell processor. Cell processors have been used in tiny gadgets and big iron for several years. It's proven to be, well, awesome.
You sure about that? The Cell Wikipedia page says:
Cell is a microprocessor architecture jointly developed by a Sony, Toshiba, and IBM alliance known as STI. The architectural design and first implementation were carried out at the STI Design Center over a four-year period beginning March 2001 on a budget reported by IBM as approaching $400 million.
Cell is a shorthand for Cell Broadband Engine Architecture, commonly abbreviated CBEA in full or Cell BE in part. Cell combines a general-purpose Power Architecture core of modest performance with streamlined coprocessing elements which greatly accelerate multimedia and vector processing applications, as well as many other forms of dedicated computation.
The major commercial application of Cell is in Sony's upcoming PlayStation 3 game console which is slated to launch in November 17, 2006 (in the US). Mercury Computer Systems has a dual Cell server, a dual Cell blade configuration, a rugged computer and a PCI Express accelerator board available in different stages of production.
It goes on to say that the only company currently using the Cell is Mercury Systems, who use it for an accelerator card and a blade system. IBM has a blade prototype, but no products. Wikipedia can of course be wrong, but it doesn't seem to be as widepread, or out as long, as you say. Can you link to some of these other devices you mention?
You're missing the point, completely. Whatever their manufacturing problems are, I really don't care. Neither should you. You're buying the end product. If it works, great. If it doesn't, you get your money back.
What are you smoking? I don't want to pay money for a product that doesn't work. I don't want to have to take something back - especially not something I had to put money down in advance for a preorder, then wait in line to get, etc. This goes EVEN MORE for people who buy theirs on ebay, because even if they returned it for a refund if has problems, they won't get the extra cash they spent on ebay back.
Also, electronic products with heat issues tend to die sooner than those that don't. Since the PS3 likely only has a 30 day warranty, I think it's pretty important to find out if has heat issues before I plunk down $600+ on a product that I think has a risk of dying after 2-3 months, thus well past the time I could get a warrantied replacement.
Pondering this issue is useful, if for nothing else, to decide if it's a good idea to buy the Best Buy/Circuit City/etc extended warranty (which is USUALLY a rip-off, but is a bargain on devices that have bad quality control and fail often).
Why analyze every step of the R&D and manufacturing process of this stupid thing?
Discounting everything else - it's one of the first (if not the first) products to use a Cell processor. And one of the first to use Blu-Ray. That's interesting in itself - will these technologies be cost effective? Will they become dominant? Will they help Sony stay on top, or cause Sony to falter? If you don't find those questions interesting - why are you on Slashdot?
Do you analyze ythe toothbrushes that you buy this much? Are you aware where the material for the bristles comes from? Are they having problems in the extruding process? How about the paint? Is Crest having problems mixing the green paint today? I mean really...
Ridiculous comparison, for all the reasons I've mentioned above, plus the obvious - the PS3 is billed as a groundbreaking new piece of electronics, that contains several totally new components (cell & BluRay)... that's a lot more interesting than a simple toothbrush or other commodity good.
Oh... you also completely failed to address the possible FIRE HAZARD aspect. There are documented incidents of people who had fires started in their homes due to overheating Xboxes (not a Sony product, of course, but also a game system, so it establishes that the risk is there). There are documented incidents where Sony laptop batteries overheated and caused fires... If the PS3 can overheat and cause a fire (like the millions of recalled Sony-made batteries could), then it's not just a matter of returning it for a replacement if it happens to catch fire.
"as have more than" = "as have". Sorry, was going to tally up the # of recalled Sony batteries, but didn't feel like it.
Also, another reason why this 380 watt power consumption could be an issue just came to me.
The average home circuit for a bedroom or living room will trip at around 1800 watts - less if your home is older. Will some people have to turn off the lights when they play their PS3, or risk having their circuit breaker flip mid-game?
Slashdot Mirror
Buying a CD isn't purchasing a license. It's purchasing a physical product. (I used to run a record label so I know a bit about this.) You actually have more rights when purchasing a physical product (IMHO) - such as you are guaranteed the right to resell the physical product (First Sale Doctrine).
However, you are limited in other ways. For example, you are not allowed to distribute a copy of a copyrighted work, even one you purchased a physical copy of. I believe you can legally make a copy of a physical copy that you purchased - for yourself. However, you are NOT allowed to sell your physical copy you purchased and keep your copy. So, it's okay to make a backup of a CD. But not okay to copy the CD then sell it to someone and keep the copy.
Also, since, like I said, you didn't buy a license, your purchase of that physical copy doesn't give you any right to download anything from anyone... you have the right of ownership of the physical copy you bought.
This is my understanding, based on my previous business experience... I am not a lawyer, so I am sure I am a little off, but hopefully that gives you an idea of how the law generally works with physical copies. Also, everyone ignores all these rules these days, of course, and very few people buy physical copies anyway... so I imagine these laws will be updated in a few years, as they really don't reflect the reality of how people use media today.
Nowhere in the article does it blame the PS3 for the delays.
Huh? The TITLE of the article linked is "Pachter: PS3 Port Caused GTA IV Delay" - now, that might be biased, but it's not Zonk's bias...
Except that there were web browsers before IE and the whole "www" thing was taking off before IE came out. IE was a catch up product. I remember these days quite clearly, and I recall that Bill Gates was widely made fun of for totally ignoring the WWW in his book "the Road Ahead". He rereleased it with updates to include the web a few years later. IE was a SUCCESSFUL product, but that's not the same thing as groundbreaking, now, is it?
Whereas iTunes + iPod + iTMS was a combination that had never been brought to market before. It was a concept that hadn't really been brought to market before, at least not in the music business.
MP3 players existed well before Apple.
Never said they didn't.
Before the iPod you couldn't go into an electronics or department store that didn't have MP3s for sale.
I don't recall being able to buy music on MP3 at any stores 5-6 years ago... I recall hearing about Japanese kiosks where you could download music, but I never saw one in the USA. Maybe you remember better than me, but pre-iTMS, I believe it was very hard to buy MP3s/AACs/etc of mainstream music.
That's the key part of the package that made the iPod successful: they managed to create an online music store that had music people actually wanted, mainstream music, unlike the stores before that that sold only very obscure music or music that most people didn't care about (like eMusic was back then). Then they made their store work directly within the software you use to organize your music, so it is basically an extension of that software, and they made the product also basically be an extension of that software.
Now, if another company had done that first, but failed in the marketplace, I'd say they were groundbreaking and Apple was just successful at using their business model (which is how I'd classify MS' success with IE). But I know of no examples of products that delievered that whole package before Apple did. Which is why I think it's fair to say it was a groundbreaking product/service.
The arguement you are using is a little ridiculous - yes, windows is the most popular OS. But that doesn't mean that whatever people run on their computers is popular just because of Windows (which is the point you seem to be trying to make). I'm sure if Windows and Office hadn't become #1, or even had they never existed, people would still be using a PC-based word processing program to type letters and memos - they wouldn't still be using typewriters.
AOL only existed on Windows
What are you talking about - AOL definitely existed on Apple/Macintosh platforms, and I think also a few others (possibly OS/2).
allowed IE to become the #1 Browser by far (95% marketshare worldwide).
You are off by 10% or so there, I'm afraid.
Portable music as we know it does NOT exist as a result of iPod/iTunes combo. If iPod had never existed, portable music would exist and probably be exactly the same.
It's very easy to just retype sentences but change the nouns around: Computing as we know it does NOT exist as a result of Windows. If Windows had never existed, personal computing would exist and probably be exactly the same. Maybe with less security holes.
See? Try actually communicating your points instead. Nothing you have posted disputes that the iPod/iTunes/iTMS vertical solution was a unique one in the music space at the time, and allowed Apple to capture the market. MS themselves is duplicating with the Zune, so even they have to admit it worked, and worked well.
I can't see how one could argue that it wasn't the iPod that made portable MP3 players popular. It definitely wasn't IE that made the internet popular.
The world wide web as we know it does NOT exist as a result of IE + Windows. If IE had never existed, the WWW would exist, and probably be exactly the same. Netscape and AOL both deserve way more credit than IE does for popularizing the internet/WWW (even if neither were first). IE was a product that, upon release had to play catch-up with it's competitors... hardly groundbreaking.
And, yes there were music players, music sites, and music organizers before the iPod/iTunes combo. However none of them really worked together, thus none gained popularity. Having one solution that worked together and did it all allowed iTMS to become the #1 online music store by far (80% marketshare worldwide), and the iPod to become the #1 music player by far (62% marketshare).
How is that in anyway like MS bundling apps with Windows? iPod + iTunes + iTMS = a integrated solution to buy music (service), organize music (software), play music (hardware). Seamlessly. Anyone that buys an iPod does so to play music. Windows + Minesweeper doesn't have that same value add, since most people don't buy their PCs just to play Minesweeper. IF Internet Explorer had been the first web browser, I'd agree that was a similar achievement. But it wasn't the first, so it's inclusion wasn't ground-breaking.
Considering the impact on the portable music market that the iPod + iTunes + iTMS has had, I'm not sure I even need to explain this, but hey, it's slashdot.
I could probably figure out where they are stored
They are stored in your iTunes music folder (mine is on my D: drive) , like so:
d:/iTunes/Beatles/LetItBe/
Podcasts would be in there too, but there might be a specific podcast folder. Some podcasts are MP3, some are AAC (or other formats, I imagine).
Why would I need an 80 GB drive on my PDA?
I don't know why you'd want one on your PDA, but I want one on my music player. Perhaps you see no desire to have your whole collection with you, but I do and that's why there are different devices for different tastes. I like having my whole music collection with me... plus room for some podcasts, maybe a video or two, plus some room for transfering files if I need to.
Good example of why I'm happy to have most (I only have the 60GB) of my collection on my iPod - I'm going to visit my parents for a week over xmas. They live in a very rural part of the country, and go to bed very early. Just getting there will take about 12 hours (the nearest airport is a 6 hours drive from their house) so I'll need a player which can last that long without a charge (which my iPod can handle). I'm quite happy to have a wide variety of music and audiobooks available to me while I am there. Since my taste is quite varied, I never know what I'll be in the mood to listen to.
I am complete agreement with this. My music library is huge, so the variety of organizational choices (smart playlists, etc) and ease of handling podcasts makes iTunes a no-brainer for me. I've seen nothing else that comes close. I'd love some suggestions, though!
The iPod was an attractive product, but it was never ground breaking.
I would argue that perhaps the iPod itself wasn't groundbreaking, but the iPod + iTunes + iTunes Music Store combo was. Their software, store, and player were all easy to use and worked together seamlessly. None of the other players in the market at that time could offer up a solution that could say the same.
(besides a short stint on Excite Truck at GameStop)... it was really fun. We mostly played minigames (from Sports and Monkey Ball), but they were mostly easy to pick up. I was VERY suprised at how well the remote worked. It was very sensitive, and could detect the precise angle you want to hold your baseball bat, and let you do spinning shots in tennis, and so forth. We played a FPS minigame in Monkey Ball that was GREAT! Really exciting and fun. I'm looking forward to Metroid now, for sure.
On the flip side: The graphics were certainly nothing to write home about. They are better than the last gen, but that's all. The Wiimote does have a tendency to flip out if you move from where you start a minigame... once i moved from the right side to the left mid-game and it was annoying having to compensate for my location swap, but it went away on the next game. Not really sure why it did that, but it was noticable. Also if you are extreme angles to the sensor bar, it seems like there are issues. But both of these are things that shouldn't matter for most play, I would guess.
All in all, for the price I think the Wii is pretty cool. I think I will want to have a 360 or PS3 as well for more traditional games, but for fun party style games I think the Wii is perfect.
First off, I said "many", not "everyone" look at it as a patriotic issue.
I've seen literally thousands of blog posts and comments (many on Slashdot) that assert that Japanese gamers aren't buying the 360 because they "hate American products". This is, of course, not true since many US products are successful there. But MS/Xbox fanboys make this complaint alot, and they also assert the aforementioned "patriotism" as one reason they like the Xbox.
They aren't JUST toys to a lot of people on slashdot. A decent percentage of people who post here work in the games industry, thus are very close to this topic. Several of my good friends work for game developers, one works at SoA. The "way the wind blows" is pretty important to them.
Beyond that, what other people buy WILL have an impact on you. If a console fails to achieve marketshare, the 3rd parties will stop supporting them.
Also, many people in the US (and, I'm sure, Japan as well) look on it as a patriotic issue... many Americans want to see US companies do well in what has traditionally been a market not dominated by American console manufacturers.
Finally - I don't see how it's any emptier to be interested in the videogame industry than the traditional software industry, or even sports...
I don't know of any other MP3 player that is as overloaded with useless features.
This is amusing, because most iPod-critics on slashdot decry how the iPod is lacking in features... yet I guess there are still some who think it has too many.
Anyway, as others have pointed out, those features are very incidental to the iPod and you can even simply not show them on your menu if you like... as I have done.
"A 64% decline in sales from last year is a complete rout "
I'm not trying to say it's not a complete rout in this case, because I don't follow WW, but many content companies have cyclical businesses based on their hot properties. For example, if you just look at year to year figures, Sony-Columbia appears to have bad years between releases of the Spider-Man movies... but are they really hurting, or is Spider-Man just that much more successful than their other offerings?
Again, no clue if that's the case here, but if WW released a big new product or a 2.0 version of a game world last year, that could certainly skew the statistics for this one.
That said, I would imagine the huge success of MMORPG must affect the PNP market. That and the innate fact that, if you have a creative GM, you really just need one rulebook to have infinite adventures with a PNP game.
It adds up pretty quickly. They probably throw some useless accessories in there too, like "Wii Game carry cases" or something similar.
She marches in parades side by side with NAMBLA members (you know - the 'eight is too late' crowd - at least Foley was messing with guys over the age of consent).
Wasn't this completely debunked? I remember reading that this was debunked and that she had no way of knowing who was marching in that parade anyway, since the NAMBLA members weren't carrying signs talking about NAMBLA, they were just there in civilian garb. I know that Pat Buchanan's similar comments about Hilary Clinton were debunked, so I assume his ones about Nancy Pelosi were as well - he had said Hilary Clinton marched in a Gay Pride Parade where NAMBLA had a float, and that was proven to be untrue.
She thinks I exist to provide tax revenue that she can confiscate and hand out to the unproductive and underserving.
This is a problem with all politicians - Bush hasn't exactly done much to hinder government handouts under his tenure. His is not very fiscally conservative.
The neo-geo did okay even though it never hit the top spot. The 3D0 was a bit of a failure.
I was a teen in the heyday of the Neo-Geo. I only knew one person who had one. Of course, it was a specialty prduct compare to the other consoles, but I don't think you can really say it "did okay".
The 3D0 was a huge, huge failure that caused the 3DO company to sell off all it's assets and restructure as a content company.
Using pirated music costs you: you can be sued, and you gotta use questionable service full of porn, scam ads and trojans. Not every price has a dollar value.
I agree with most of what you are getting at, but this is not always true. Many people simply burn/rip their friends' music. Very low risk there. There are also many high quality undergoround download sites which are easier to use than ITMS or Napster, and have no advertising. Of course, the threat of being sued still exists on even the easiest to use sites.
And again, I really don't think that any of these companies (with the exception of MS, maybe) are sitting around saying to themselves "How do we become iPod killers?"
Tell that to Creative (the #3 in the market, I believe), who definitely marketed some of their players as iPod killers- and made press releases about how they wanted their new models to replace the iPod. Also there is Sandisk (#2 in the market), with their "iDon't" campaign that depicted iPod owners as mindless sheep... I think you are a bit off on this.
I'm in the same boat - I loved WinAmp, but now that my music collection is past 1000 albums, I really need the powerful library & smart playlist features of iTunes.
Depends - I use all floor lamps at my apartment, as I dislike overhead lighting. True though, I could just use the overheads if it was a problem.
No, Sony has always had a one year warranty on their Playstations, and they most definitely honor them.
A year huh? Always been a year? From Sony's PS2 Support page:
LIMITED WARRANTY FOR THE PLAYSTATION GAME CONSOLE
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) warrants to the original purchaser that this product (hardware, game discs and accessories) shall be free from defects in material and workmanship for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase (the "Warranty Period")
LIMITED WARRANTY FOR THE PLAYSTATION 2 COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) warrants to the original purchaser that this product (hardware, game discs and accessories) shall be free from defects in material and workmanship for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase (the "Warranty Period").
Seeing as 90 days isn't that long, I reiterate that a product that generates a lot of heat is a concern of mine, since products that generate a lot of heat tend to die sooner rather than later (this is why people get so anal about fans on their PCs). Since Sony usually has 90 day warranties, I want to be confident my PS3 won't be ailing on day 91.
If I was that worried about a fire hazard, I wouldn't have a stove in my house. As it is, I'm not worried, and yes, I do have a stove in my house, as well as a fireplace, matches, lighters, and other things that cause fires more often than the occasional one-in-a-million fires from electronic gadgets.
None of these things cause fires if they are propery operated. Electrical fires happen even under normal operation. As a result, electrical fires account for more dollars in damages than any other kind of fire except arson, according to the National Fire Protection Agency. About 1 in 10 home fires is caused by an electrical source, also accoridng to NFPA. Far from one in a million.
Discounting everything else - it's one of the first (if not the first) products to use a Cell processor.
It's one of the first CONSUMER products to use a cell processor. Cell processors have been used in tiny gadgets and big iron for several years. It's proven to be, well, awesome.
You sure about that? The Cell Wikipedia page says:
Cell is a microprocessor architecture jointly developed by a Sony, Toshiba, and IBM alliance known as STI. The architectural design and first implementation were carried out at the STI Design Center over a four-year period beginning March 2001 on a budget reported by IBM as approaching $400 million.
Cell is a shorthand for Cell Broadband Engine Architecture, commonly abbreviated CBEA in full or Cell BE in part. Cell combines a general-purpose Power Architecture core of modest performance with streamlined coprocessing elements which greatly accelerate multimedia and vector processing applications, as well as many other forms of dedicated computation.
The major commercial application of Cell is in Sony's upcoming PlayStation 3 game console which is slated to launch in November 17, 2006 (in the US). Mercury Computer Systems has a dual Cell server, a dual Cell blade configuration, a rugged computer and a PCI Express accelerator board available in different stages of production.
It goes on to say that the only company currently using the Cell is Mercury Systems, who use it for an accelerator card and a blade system. IBM has a blade prototype, but no products. Wikipedia can of course be wrong, but it doesn't seem to be as widepread, or out as long, as you say. Can you link to some of these other devices you mention?
You're missing the point, completely. Whatever their manufacturing problems are, I really don't care. Neither should you. You're buying the end product. If it works, great. If it doesn't, you get your money back.
What are you smoking? I don't want to pay money for a product that doesn't work. I don't want to have to take something back - especially not something I had to put money down in advance for a preorder, then wait in line to get, etc. This goes EVEN MORE for people who buy theirs on ebay, because even if they returned it for a refund if has problems, they won't get the extra cash they spent on ebay back.
Also, electronic products with heat issues tend to die sooner than those that don't. Since the PS3 likely only has a 30 day warranty, I think it's pretty important to find out if has heat issues before I plunk down $600+ on a product that I think has a risk of dying after 2-3 months, thus well past the time I could get a warrantied replacement.
Pondering this issue is useful, if for nothing else, to decide if it's a good idea to buy the Best Buy/Circuit City/etc extended warranty (which is USUALLY a rip-off, but is a bargain on devices that have bad quality control and fail often).
Why analyze every step of the R&D and manufacturing process of this stupid thing?
Discounting everything else - it's one of the first (if not the first) products to use a Cell processor. And one of the first to use Blu-Ray. That's interesting in itself - will these technologies be cost effective? Will they become dominant? Will they help Sony stay on top, or cause Sony to falter? If you don't find those questions interesting - why are you on Slashdot?
Do you analyze ythe toothbrushes that you buy this much? Are you aware where the material for the bristles comes from? Are they having problems in the extruding process? How about the paint? Is Crest having problems mixing the green paint today? I mean really...
Ridiculous comparison, for all the reasons I've mentioned above, plus the obvious - the PS3 is billed as a groundbreaking new piece of electronics, that contains several totally new components (cell & BluRay)... that's a lot more interesting than a simple toothbrush or other commodity good.
Oh... you also completely failed to address the possible FIRE HAZARD aspect. There are documented incidents of people who had fires started in their homes due to overheating Xboxes (not a Sony product, of course, but also a game system, so it establishes that the risk is there). There are documented incidents where Sony laptop batteries overheated and caused fires... If the PS3 can overheat and cause a fire (like the millions of recalled Sony-made batteries could), then it's not just a matter of returning it for a replacement if it happens to catch fire.
"as have more than" = "as have". Sorry, was going to tally up the # of recalled Sony batteries, but didn't feel like it.
Also, another reason why this 380 watt power consumption could be an issue just came to me.
The average home circuit for a bedroom or living room will trip at around 1800 watts - less if your home is older. Will some people have to turn off the lights when they play their PS3, or risk having their circuit breaker flip mid-game?