Neither of those products cost billions to develop and market. If Blu Ray fails, that means the companies who developed Blu Ray (primarily Sony, right?) are out A LOT of money, and anyone who buys a player is out of luck as no new media will come out for it. If an Open Source project fails, then the developers who spent their time on it are annoyed that they spent their time on something that didn't take off... but hey, they still have the product to use so it's not all bad.
I'm just saying - everyone seems to constantly harp that if you bought an iPod, you got ripped off and are just following trends, there are so many better players with the same features for less money... this is like a mantra on tech sites.
But what other options are there for 60 GB DAPs? When I bought mine, there was the (big AND discontinued) neuros, the (clunky) Zen Xtra, and the iPod. That's all I could find.
I don't see how I got ripped off, if there are no other players on the market with the same capacity/form factor. Now there is, finally, the Gigabeat (which I haven't seen in person yet). But that is more than 6 months after I bought my iPod... though if the Gigabeat is really good, I might switch.
My IPAQ plays videos, is a full featured PDA, a gaming machine, an ebook reader, a web surfing device (via BT or Wifi), I can skype and IM with it, etc.
iPods play videos. My phone is a PDA, web surfing device, a phone, an IM device - and it was free from work. I don't need an ebook reader, and your PDA is not a gaming machine, at least not in comparison to a DS or a PSP. My iPod also holds 60x the amount of music than your PDA, which is important to me because i like to have a variety of music and podcasts in my commute, at my work, and on my commute home.
There are a lot of people who just want one device that plays music well, and holds a lot of it. What's the # feature I wish they'd add to the iPod? It's none of the ones you mentioned... it's more space. a 120 GB iPod would be awesome.
the ipod is the perfect example of this. there are boundless examples of DAPs with more features at or below ipod costs.
People always say this, but the Creative vision:M 30 GB, the player that is most often touted to me as the best DAP, "get this, don't get an iPod" is within $10 of the price of the 30GB iPod with video. And there isn't a 60 GB vision:M. In fact, there are very few 60 GB DAPs... the Gigabeat which is just reaching the market will be one of the first 60 GB DAPs to challenge the 60 GB iPod. Other players which did have 60 GB were either way larger (like the Neuros), or had more clunky screen/interfaces (like the Nomad Jukebox). Unless I missed out on a 60 GB player when I was looking for one (which, admittedly was six months ago), what competition is there in the 60 GB range, and is it really significantly cheaper? If there is a really good, small, cheap 60 GB (or more) player, please tell me about it.
Hold on a second... replace blasé with "acceptable" : "Perhaps one day it will be as acceptable as telling someone you enjoy movies or television."
Is that incorrect usuage? Acceptable is also an adjective. In that sentence, "acceptable" is the adjective of "it". (What will be acceptable? It will be acceptable.)
It's been a long time since I took an english class, but I think that is passable grammar.
True - but unless a game is just HD cinematics, I think HD-DVD has more than enough space for plenty of in-game content and textures... especially if that means the console is $100 or more cheaper.
We'll see what happens, but I can't imagine the PS3 will have as quick an adoption as the PS2 at twice the price for the full version.
That assumes I can sell it on ebay for what I paid for it... which I could do, certainly, within the first few months, but not if I wait a year or two until I buy an HDTV. Of course, in 2 years I'd hope these won't be $500/600 anymore.
My point is that if the PS3 is more expensive because it's a blu ray player, and since so many people say it's a good deal BECAUSE it's a blu ray player (though i personally don't want blur ray for awhile), why is the base model not a decent blu ray player?
they should have either made the base model cheaper, without blu ray, or had it be able to watch blu ray at full res.
either way, i won't be getting any blu ray movies for awhile, because my current TV still works great and is not that old.
XBox 360 with 20GB hard drive ($400) + HD-DVD drive addon ($100?) + 1 year XBox Live ($50) = $550.
Playstation 3 with 20GB hard drive ($500) + Bluray drive (included) + 5 years online many (included) = $500.
Your numbers are a bit flawed, since the $500 PS3 doesn't have HDMI, which some people require to watch HD content on their TVs, also some Blu-Ray discs are planned to be released as only playable via HDMI (to prevent copying or some such nonsense), so the non-HDMI PS3 can't really be considered a full-featured movie player like the $600 one.
Not adding HDMI on both seems like a bad move, unless they also offer an accessory that can let people get the HDMI later... I would be pissed if I decided to upgrade to HD and realized my PS3 didn't have the right connectors.
Also, if one ignores the movie playing aspect (whch will be much less a big deal this time, since the difference between VHS and DVD was much greater than the difference between DVD and HD/Blu Ray), there is still that $100 price difference, which may well widen by the time of the PS3 launch or, perhaps more likely, soon after. I could see MS leaving the current price til after Christmas, then dropping the price in January. A $350 Core Xbox vs a $500 Core PS3? That's a much bigger gap, and the PS3 can't really drop it's price so soon after release.
That was also posted on Digg.com and GameAsylum and they called it the "classic controller". It doesn't look like a shell to me, as it's wired. Time will tell what it is, if it connects to teh Wiimote, fits over it, or connects directly to the Wii.
The Wii has 4 GC controller ports. It remains to be seen if it wil ship with a GC controller. They also spoke of the "shell" you could insert the "Wiimote" into, and then use it as a normal controller, but they haven't mentioned thatagain lately.
It also is very cheap. It debuted at $199, I believe? That's quite a bit less than the price of the PS2 or the Xbox at release. I probably ended up with maybe 2-3 more PS2 games than GC games, but I'm pretty happy with the value of my purchase... especially since I waited for Wind Waker to come out before I bought my GC, and the price had dropped by then, to $150 or maybe even $130. Between Wind Waker, Double Dash, Pikmin, Metroid, RE4 (which eventually came out for PS2) and a few other games, it was worth it for me. Moreso than my Xbox, for which I only have 4-5 games.
That said, though - don't buy it if it doesn't have games you want!
Not me. I have a GC but I'm done rooting for the underdog and missing out on great games.
Why don't you just buy more than one system if you like more than one? They all have great games. It's not about rooting for the underdog, it's about playing games you like. Buy whatever system(s) that have the games you want to play.
There are significant variety of "regular" bicycles. Fixed-gear, single gear, dirt, road, race bikes all have different designs and elements. Bicycle technology has come a long way... different breaking systems, shock absorbers, gear systems, etc. You might want to look here and here.
Anything CAN be scratched (well, almost anything). What matters is how easy it is. The coating of a Nomad is way tougher than that of an iPod - perhaps not an iPod Mini, however, those seem to be the toughest iPods in terms of scratches or impact damage.
Have you ever owned or even held a Nomad? Especially one of those first gen ones? They are so huge, there is so much plastic and metal between the drive and any dangers... those things are indestructable. Seriously, they are literally the size of a large discman.
That said, I have an iPod, not a Nomad, so it's not like I'm campaigning for the Nomad, which I don't think they even make anymore, so it's a moot point anyway.
...and my iPod has dozens of scratches from the one week i didn't have a 3rd-party case yet, even though i was using the included slipcover.
sorry man, i like my iPod but it isn't as sturdy as the Nomad jukebox. Especially not that old discman-sized one, which i believe is the one the GP poster was talking about. that thing is a tank. of course, have fun slipping it in your pocket, but that's the trade-off.
The sparkplug may be standard (not that anyone steals a car to sell the sparkplugs) but the engine components, as well as all the body components, transmission, etc, are likely not. A new bumper for my (not luxury car) would cost me at least $500 new, for example.
Netflix also tells me it's "preparing to ship" movies for awhile after they arrive... I assume this means that some warehouse person has to go to some folder somewhere, grab the movie, and mail it to me. And not just that, but do the same thing for however many 1,000s of other people's movies were returned that day.
The real measure of whether you are getting screwed isn't if Netflix is mailing you a new movie instantly - that's kind of unreasonable. The real measure is how many movies you can get through in a month, if you watch them and return them the day after you get them. I generally watch my movies the day I get them, or the next, and I go through a LOT of movies a month.
I find if you manage your rentals so you never have more than 1 at home, and you dont hold onto any one movie for more than a few days (even if you return it unwatched), you can go through a huge amount of movies in a month.
How many movies can you go through in a month when you don't hold onto any movie for more than a day or two?
Ruth did this despite being drunk and overweight, because he could hit with enough power to make up for his being drunk and overweight, he could thus run at leisure, and often enough to make up for his many strikeouts.
Which was my exact point above. Blockbuster has a pretty bad track record so far, and their traditional business seems to be failing (losses, stores closing, selling off assets). You made the point that this might be an endurance race, but I don't see any signs that Blockbuster can win in any sort of endurance situation (since they are woefully in debt and have started selling off sections of their business).
Now you suggest that they may hit a home run? Maybe, but I would say that the likelihood is exceedingly low, as they have no track record of ever doing so before - unlike the Babe.
A home run is defined as having beaten the ball to home plate.
A home run is when you are at bat, and you score a run. Which pretty much only happens in pro ball when you knock the ball past the outfield, right? Don't watch a lot of baseball myself these days, but I don't think inside home runs are all that common. Certainly, Babe Ruth was not known for hitting inside home runs. He was known for knocking balls out of the park, or at least out of the outfield - he was a power hitter.
Not hard to beat the ball anywhere when you have scored a home run - which is obviously not the same as an "endurance race", which you implied this competition is.
If you want to change metaphors, though, that's fine... BB hasn't hit any home runs recently, nor do any seem likely in the future, based on their current & past performance.
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Neither of those products cost billions to develop and market. If Blu Ray fails, that means the companies who developed Blu Ray (primarily Sony, right?) are out A LOT of money, and anyone who buys a player is out of luck as no new media will come out for it. If an Open Source project fails, then the developers who spent their time on it are annoyed that they spent their time on something that didn't take off... but hey, they still have the product to use so it's not all bad.
I'm just saying - everyone seems to constantly harp that if you bought an iPod, you got ripped off and are just following trends, there are so many better players with the same features for less money... this is like a mantra on tech sites.
But what other options are there for 60 GB DAPs? When I bought mine, there was the (big AND discontinued) neuros, the (clunky) Zen Xtra, and the iPod. That's all I could find.
I don't see how I got ripped off, if there are no other players on the market with the same capacity/form factor. Now there is, finally, the Gigabeat (which I haven't seen in person yet). But that is more than 6 months after I bought my iPod... though if the Gigabeat is really good, I might switch.
My IPAQ plays videos, is a full featured PDA, a gaming machine, an ebook reader, a web surfing device (via BT or Wifi), I can skype and IM with it, etc.
iPods play videos. My phone is a PDA, web surfing device, a phone, an IM device - and it was free from work. I don't need an ebook reader, and your PDA is not a gaming machine, at least not in comparison to a DS or a PSP. My iPod also holds 60x the amount of music than your PDA, which is important to me because i like to have a variety of music and podcasts in my commute, at my work, and on my commute home.
There are a lot of people who just want one device that plays music well, and holds a lot of it. What's the # feature I wish they'd add to the iPod? It's none of the ones you mentioned... it's more space. a 120 GB iPod would be awesome.
the ipod is the perfect example of this. there are boundless examples of DAPs with more features at or below ipod costs.
People always say this, but the Creative vision:M 30 GB, the player that is most often touted to me as the best DAP, "get this, don't get an iPod" is within $10 of the price of the 30GB iPod with video. And there isn't a 60 GB vision:M. In fact, there are very few 60 GB DAPs... the Gigabeat which is just reaching the market will be one of the first 60 GB DAPs to challenge the 60 GB iPod. Other players which did have 60 GB were either way larger (like the Neuros), or had more clunky screen/interfaces (like the Nomad Jukebox). Unless I missed out on a 60 GB player when I was looking for one (which, admittedly was six months ago), what competition is there in the 60 GB range, and is it really significantly cheaper? If there is a really good, small, cheap 60 GB (or more) player, please tell me about it.
Hold on a second... replace blasé with "acceptable" : "Perhaps one day it will be as acceptable as telling someone you enjoy movies or television."
Is that incorrect usuage? Acceptable is also an adjective. In that sentence, "acceptable" is the adjective of "it". (What will be acceptable? It will be acceptable.)
It's been a long time since I took an english class, but I think that is passable grammar.
True - but unless a game is just HD cinematics, I think HD-DVD has more than enough space for plenty of in-game content and textures... especially if that means the console is $100 or more cheaper.
We'll see what happens, but I can't imagine the PS3 will have as quick an adoption as the PS2 at twice the price for the full version.
I believe it was Joystiq that said this plugs into the "Wiimote"... but I haven't seen any pictures of that yet.
That assumes I can sell it on ebay for what I paid for it... which I could do, certainly, within the first few months, but not if I wait a year or two until I buy an HDTV. Of course, in 2 years I'd hope these won't be $500/600 anymore.
My point is that if the PS3 is more expensive because it's a blu ray player, and since so many people say it's a good deal BECAUSE it's a blu ray player (though i personally don't want blur ray for awhile), why is the base model not a decent blu ray player?
they should have either made the base model cheaper, without blu ray, or had it be able to watch blu ray at full res.
either way, i won't be getting any blu ray movies for awhile, because my current TV still works great and is not that old.
duhhh i meant 350 vs 500 PREMIUM, not core. d'oh!
XBox 360 with 20GB hard drive ($400) + HD-DVD drive addon ($100?) + 1 year XBox Live ($50) = $550.
Playstation 3 with 20GB hard drive ($500) + Bluray drive (included) + 5 years online many (included) = $500.
Your numbers are a bit flawed, since the $500 PS3 doesn't have HDMI, which some people require to watch HD content on their TVs, also some Blu-Ray discs are planned to be released as only playable via HDMI (to prevent copying or some such nonsense), so the non-HDMI PS3 can't really be considered a full-featured movie player like the $600 one.
Not adding HDMI on both seems like a bad move, unless they also offer an accessory that can let people get the HDMI later... I would be pissed if I decided to upgrade to HD and realized my PS3 didn't have the right connectors.
Also, if one ignores the movie playing aspect (whch will be much less a big deal this time, since the difference between VHS and DVD was much greater than the difference between DVD and HD/Blu Ray), there is still that $100 price difference, which may well widen by the time of the PS3 launch or, perhaps more likely, soon after. I could see MS leaving the current price til after Christmas, then dropping the price in January. A $350 Core Xbox vs a $500 Core PS3? That's a much bigger gap, and the PS3 can't really drop it's price so soon after release.
That was also posted on Digg.com and GameAsylum and they called it the "classic controller". It doesn't look like a shell to me, as it's wired. Time will tell what it is, if it connects to teh Wiimote, fits over it, or connects directly to the Wii.
The Wii has 4 GC controller ports. It remains to be seen if it wil ship with a GC controller. They also spoke of the "shell" you could insert the "Wiimote" into, and then use it as a normal controller, but they haven't mentioned thatagain lately.
It also is very cheap. It debuted at $199, I believe? That's quite a bit less than the price of the PS2 or the Xbox at release. I probably ended up with maybe 2-3 more PS2 games than GC games, but I'm pretty happy with the value of my purchase... especially since I waited for Wind Waker to come out before I bought my GC, and the price had dropped by then, to $150 or maybe even $130. Between Wind Waker, Double Dash, Pikmin, Metroid, RE4 (which eventually came out for PS2) and a few other games, it was worth it for me. Moreso than my Xbox, for which I only have 4-5 games.
That said, though - don't buy it if it doesn't have games you want!
Not me. I have a GC but I'm done rooting for the underdog and missing out on great games.
Why don't you just buy more than one system if you like more than one? They all have great games. It's not about rooting for the underdog, it's about playing games you like. Buy whatever system(s) that have the games you want to play.
There are significant variety of "regular" bicycles. Fixed-gear, single gear, dirt, road, race bikes all have different designs and elements. Bicycle technology has come a long way... different breaking systems, shock absorbers, gear systems, etc. You might want to look here and here.
Anything CAN be scratched (well, almost anything). What matters is how easy it is. The coating of a Nomad is way tougher than that of an iPod - perhaps not an iPod Mini, however, those seem to be the toughest iPods in terms of scratches or impact damage.
Have you ever owned or even held a Nomad? Especially one of those first gen ones? They are so huge, there is so much plastic and metal between the drive and any dangers... those things are indestructable. Seriously, they are literally the size of a large discman.
That said, I have an iPod, not a Nomad, so it's not like I'm campaigning for the Nomad, which I don't think they even make anymore, so it's a moot point anyway.
...and my iPod has dozens of scratches from the one week i didn't have a 3rd-party case yet, even though i was using the included slipcover.
sorry man, i like my iPod but it isn't as sturdy as the Nomad jukebox. Especially not that old discman-sized one, which i believe is the one the GP poster was talking about. that thing is a tank. of course, have fun slipping it in your pocket, but that's the trade-off.
The interface upgrades, playlists on the fly
iPod does both of these things. However, it is far more fragile than a Nomad Jukebox. Smaller, too, however.
Do they make a 60GB Vision:M yet?
The sparkplug may be standard (not that anyone steals a car to sell the sparkplugs) but the engine components, as well as all the body components, transmission, etc, are likely not. A new bumper for my (not luxury car) would cost me at least $500 new, for example.
Netflix also tells me it's "preparing to ship" movies for awhile after they arrive... I assume this means that some warehouse person has to go to some folder somewhere, grab the movie, and mail it to me. And not just that, but do the same thing for however many 1,000s of other people's movies were returned that day.
The real measure of whether you are getting screwed isn't if Netflix is mailing you a new movie instantly - that's kind of unreasonable. The real measure is how many movies you can get through in a month, if you watch them and return them the day after you get them. I generally watch my movies the day I get them, or the next, and I go through a LOT of movies a month.
I find if you manage your rentals so you never have more than 1 at home, and you dont hold onto any one movie for more than a few days (even if you return it unwatched), you can go through a huge amount of movies in a month.
How many movies can you go through in a month when you don't hold onto any movie for more than a day or two?
Ruth did this despite being drunk and overweight, because he could hit with enough power to make up for his being drunk and overweight, he could thus run at leisure, and often enough to make up for his many strikeouts.
Which was my exact point above. Blockbuster has a pretty bad track record so far, and their traditional business seems to be failing (losses, stores closing, selling off assets). You made the point that this might be an endurance race, but I don't see any signs that Blockbuster can win in any sort of endurance situation (since they are woefully in debt and have started selling off sections of their business).
Now you suggest that they may hit a home run? Maybe, but I would say that the likelihood is exceedingly low, as they have no track record of ever doing so before - unlike the Babe.
A home run is defined as having beaten the ball to home plate.
A home run is when you are at bat, and you score a run. Which pretty much only happens in pro ball when you knock the ball past the outfield, right? Don't watch a lot of baseball myself these days, but I don't think inside home runs are all that common. Certainly, Babe Ruth was not known for hitting inside home runs. He was known for knocking balls out of the park, or at least out of the outfield - he was a power hitter.
Not hard to beat the ball anywhere when you have scored a home run - which is obviously not the same as an "endurance race", which you implied this competition is.
If you want to change metaphors, though, that's fine... BB hasn't hit any home runs recently, nor do any seem likely in the future, based on their current & past performance.