Indeed. I've seen nothing compelling to make me interested in a 360. And now the only compelling game left (thus far) for PS3 is Heavenly Sword. If that'll be available for PC also, I look forward to sticking w/ my plan to purchase a Wii and keep the PS360 market away from my wallet.
I fear you have little experience in retail. Most large retailers (*cough*Wal-Mart*cough*) require the ability to return unsold stock to you and get their money back. Technically, even though the retailer may have bought the units, and have them sitting on shelves in stores, you cannot book it as sales revenue without also booking the RMA liability dollars (though some accountants are well paid for finding ways of doing so anyhow). Anyway, shipped is a long way from sold.
Also, most large retailers have corporate buyers with certain authority what to buy, etc. as well as local buyers with some authority to buy and stock items particular to that given store. It is not at all unheard of, however unfortunate it might seem, that a corporate buyer is buying on a contract, purchase X number of units of some widget, sends a percentage of them to each store, even though some stores have pallets of them sitting in the back wasting space. That's when those "pre-authorized" RMAs start coming in handy.
It is also common to have store FOO returning product while store BAR is buying more even though it is often less expensive to simply stock transfer products from FOO to BAR. A lot of it depends on the corporate structure and culture, the accounting setup, operating procedures, etc., and all that other corporate crap. I've seen managers of various levels refuse to ship stock from their store to another, even though they don't need it, the other store does, and there is nothing technically forbidding them from doing so...due to departmental and budgetary boundary lines (ie., some corporate structures, while looking good on paper, tend to create fiefdoms, enhance corporate politics, and all that jazz). Just remember: retailers aren't all perfectly oiled machines or even that adeptly managed. Just like anything else where people are involved. Nobody's perfect and it shows up more when there's less nobody around, if you catch my drift.
Oh, crap. My apologies. I read your post as talking about waste heat from the "jet engines", not waste heat from the cpus themselves. I can only blame not enough coffee.
No worries...I am definitely glad I refrained now.
We could use the heat to maybe put some heat back into the HVAC system of a building in the wintertime..might save on a little power.
That's the kind of thing I'm talking about, at least initially. I realize it isn't done now because it's more expensive than just paying for more electricity to, for all intents and purposes, blow the heat away. But piping the hot air into the heating ducts in the winter is a good start. As for water cooled systems, do they have to be closed loop? Why couldn't water cooling be done with cold water that comes into the building from the local municipality, is routed into the cooling system, then as it's heated and carries the heat away from the CPUs (et. al.) coming out the taps as hot water?
Again, I know this type of thing is not really feasible currently and not exactly economically viable. But the cost of energy just continues to rise. If somebody were researching and advancing these types of ideas (if not just the overall idea of how to recylce the heat loss) better (as in more efficient and less expensive) methods would result...and eventually (one would think) it could get to a mass production level where it then be very feasible and economically viable.
I'm a little taken aback by your response and want desperately to respond with ad hominems and name calling, etc. I'm trying to be better about those things though, so I'll refrain.
At any rate, yes, I read the article. Perhaps you didn't. There was no mention of anything whatsoever about recovering the energy from the heat transfer. Only mention of more efficient fans, water cooling, peltiers, etc. All things that amount to the same thing: using electricity to generate heat then using even more electricity to move that heat from A to B. Nothing whatsoever about doing anything useful with the energy that is "lost" to heat.
What I don't get is this: Since there is all that heat coming off of processors, etc...how can the energy in that hot air be captured and put to good use? Seems all cooling solutions just "consume" more energy to transfer energy (in the form of heat) from here to there.
The net effect is we take a bunch of energy (as electricity) and lose a lot of it as heat then take a bunch more of it (again, electricity) to just move the other "lost" energy (heat) around. It just seems wasteful and expensive to me. There's got to be a better way; not that I could tell you what it is.
(note: I put quotes areound "consume" and "lost" because I understand the energy isn't really lost or consumed...but that's sort of what it's like and I'm at a loss for better wording.)
Okay, I'm not going to be able to mod this discussion now, but...I'm compelled to respond.
I've worked in distribution centers and I can tell you this much: Wal-Mart makes it a condition of buying that they can return items for credit. If you don't agree, you don't get your product on Wal-Mart's shelves. Since they're the single largest retailer in the world, they drive the market. They set the standards, so to speak.
I would expect (because it's just common practice in the industry) most retailers are able to return unsold units for credit. That's just the way it works.
Which is why companies who always report shipped units are being a bit disengenuous at best. Units sold to consumers are the real indicator of a product's success...if they people aren't buying, the retailers aren't re-ordering.
As to your first point: I have no problem with Sony offering HD. I agree that it's perfectly reasonable if they expect (and they do) the majority of their target market already owns HDTVs (or will very soon), to offer a console that provides for that. But I think this kind of makes the point for why Nintendo isn't gaga over HD. HDTV ownsership in the US is quite low. (I don't know about the rest of the world.) Nintendo is attempting to broaden the market to people who aren't already gamers. It's highly likely to expect (as Nintendo does) the majority of this market does not own HDTV sets. Supporting anything more than the 480p they already had in the GameCube only adds expense and turns off a large portion of Nintendo's target market. It wouldn't be wise for them to do that.
As for #2: Sorry if I offended. We all have bad days. I just get sick of the comments from HD fans, PS3 fans, etc. who come across as if they think anybody who doesn't have at least one HDTV "in 2006" is retarded. Most people still do not own HDTVs. That's a fact. I read one article (not going to waste my time googling it now) wherein it was discussed how a majority of HDTV owners are watching SD broadcasts over them and don't even know the difference. They just think because they plugged their HDTV in, it's all HDTV.
As to 3a: okay, I'll give you that. But, as to 3b: you are right in that it appears there's been (roughly) a doubling of HDTV penetration over the last few years (~ 7% in 2004, 15% in 2005, 26% by the end of 2006). This uptake, however has as much to do with TV manufacturers preparing for the cutoff as buyers. It's akin to the numbers Microsoft quotes for how quickly a new operating system they release sells. Take XP, for instance. It sold X numbers right off the bat because people were just replacing old PCs and XP is what came on the new ones by default. It would take extra effort to get one without XP. This is like buying a new TV today, without HD support. It takes more effort.
I think HDTV uptake is a more of a symptom than a cause. It's as you say, a lot of people are replacing existing tube TVs with LCDs or Plasmas because of space and aesthetics...and HDTV just follows...it may be icing on the cake, but I can't believe it's still the driving factor in most cases. There's just not enough HD content still yet.
For example: I have a 35" tube TV that's going on 10 years old and beginning to show a hotspot on the middle right of the tube. If I wish to replace it, and I'm a typical consumer, I'm going to go into Best Buy or similar, looking for a roughly 35" TV and find a plethora of HDTVs (LCDs, Plasma, rear projection, etc.) sitting out in all the displays...and might find a SD 35" TV if I look around a bit...at which point the salesperson is going to recommend against it because I'll have to buy an adapter in 2009 if I want to keep watching TV on it...but if I buy this 32" LCD HDTV, it'll take up less space, weigh about 150 lbs less, and be good to go for the foreseeable future...and they cost the same. Hell, I'd buy the LCD model just because the space savings and the fact that it'd weigh in the 30lb range whereas my 35" tube TV weighs nearly 200 lbs. It's a major PITA to move it...even just to pull it out to plug or unplug a game console, new DVD player, etc.
But, rest assured, I wouldn't be buying an HDTV so I could see the quarterback's ass in higher resolution when "the big game" is on. Although that might be a driving factor in getting my wife's approval.
Yeah, and here in 2006 less than half of US households own HDTVs. The minority of you who do have them can keep right on creaming your pants over how sweet it is and blow your wad on a PS3.
But to the majority of the population, you sound just like the proponents of BluRay and HD-DVD trying to explain how much better it is than standard DVDs while we all sit back and look at our DVDs saying: "Maybe...but this looks pretty damn good to me, and it's a metric assload cheaper."
You and I both know the only reason HDTV will succeed is because our government mandated it. If we actually had a free market in this country, HDTV would likely never be more than a niche market for high-tech dweebs and super rich idiots who don't know crap about it but want it because "it's the best" and because it makes them feel special since loser poor people can't afford it.
The framework is there and the possible outcome would be mass infections on a worse level then any worm seen. Of course the whole notion is conceptual but I'm sure it can be done.
The reason this won't work is that multicast is blocked by a large percentage of edge routers. Without widescale use of multicast, your PoC would cause little harm. We don't have widescale use of multicast...as one could figure out from the fact you felt it necessary to include a DEFINITION of multicast in your post...assuming most people (even here, on slashdot, where all the geeks are) don't know what multicast is...because it's not in widescale use. From Wikipedia: "In order to prevent conflicts (where two groups have the same group IP) most routers will not forward multicast messages onto other network segments. This behaviour is, however, sometimes configurable on a case-by-case basis (it depends on the router software)."
And, unless I'm much mistaken, one of the reasons multicast is not in widescale use is because of this type of vulnerability. Also from Wikipedia: "Multicast security is a major issue. Standard, practical, communications security solutions normally employ symmetric cryptography. But applying that to IP Multicast traffic would enable any of the receivers to pose as the sender. This is clearly unacceptable. The IETF MSEC workgroup is developing security protocols to solve this problem, mostly within the architectural framework of the IPsec protocol suite.
IPsec cannot be used in the multicast scenario because IPsec security associations are bound to two hosts and not many. IETF proposed a new protocol TESLA, which is quite convincing and flexible for multicast security."
A smart RPG developer will map spell casting to gestures. Need to cast a spell, wave your hand.
Imagine: you need to cast a healing spell on a member of your party...you point the wiimote at that person, press a button to lock on, and make an infinity motion (sideways eight) to cast "infinite heal". OR...Aim at an opponent, lock on, and move the controller in a circle to cast "circle of fire".
Let me first say that I have no love (actually, I have something more like contempt) for Sony and Microsoft. I have not historically been a big fan of Nintendo either. I have *never* bought a console within a year of its first release. For my family, we typically stay a year or more behind the typical gamers for affordability reasons.
This Wii system has me stoked. I can't wait to get one. If it is released at $199, I will be on a waiting list to get one on day one. If it is released at $250, maybe not...but still likely, especially if it's bundled with a decent game at that price.
Remember the very first statement I made? I will never own any Microsoft X-anything. I will never own a copy of Vista. I used to say I'd never buy a PS3, for any reason. But I watched the live stream of Sony's conference and so in response to this bit of your comment:
the PS3 will have titles like Assassin's Creed, Genji, Heavenly Sword, Lair, Afrika, etc.
I can't wait until 2008. Because by then hopefully the price of a PS3 and the new HDTV I'll have to buy to use it might be affordable to me...and I think Assassin's Creed, Heavenly Sword, and Lair look totally F-ing awesome.
Aside from your wholesale copying and posting of the entire article here---a move which undoubtedly oversteps the bounds of fair use---I will merely point you to this article on Groklaw in which I think PJ deftly points out the the errors in the Economist article, thereby leaving me with little else to say but: troll much?
You know, I'm starting to think that broadcast television, motion pictures and recorded music might not be worth all this trouble.
It's not. Don't get me wrong...I'm not one of those holier than thou asshats who "never watches TV" or who thinks "there's nothing good on the radio" or any of that. I enjoy movies from time to time. I like listening to music, even some of the pop stuff. And I'm a huge fan of many of HBO's series.
But I haven't bought music in a long time. Not that I'm out downloading it illegally either. For fun, we typically have friends and family get together, eat, drink, and play music together. If you're not musically inclined, get a friend or two who are. Hang out at their house(s) and enjoy live music for free.
For thousands of years, this is how music has been enjoyed. There's no reason for anybody to stop enjoying it this way...just because somebody invented iPods.
The sound and projection quality in the last few theater experiences I had sucked major ass. Either the volume was too high, too low, too overpowered by the gunshots/explosions in the action movie in the next theater over... AND the image was too dim, too askew, misaligned, etc.
I used to like going to the movies when I was a teenager. I guess that's why their target market is mostly teens.
The one with the widest distribution. I might be able to sell games for the Revolution and make $20 per game... but if only 5 million Revolutions are sold and I can make a game earning $10 bucks per sale to 20 million PS3 ownerss there's a good argument for developing for the PS3.
Disclaimer: All numbers are pulled out of my ass and serve merely to illustrate a point.
Unlike the AC responses, I'll posit that it's because you thought it was funny. Of course, ACs are mostly asshat trolls anyhow, so it's no wonder they have a difficult time lightening up and seeing an attempt at humor. I've already commented on this topic, so I can't mod you as funny.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. I've seen nothing compelling to make me interested in a 360. And now the only compelling game left (thus far) for PS3 is Heavenly Sword. If that'll be available for PC also, I look forward to sticking w/ my plan to purchase a Wii and keep the PS360 market away from my wallet.
I fear you have little experience in retail. Most large retailers (*cough*Wal-Mart*cough*) require the ability to return unsold stock to you and get their money back. Technically, even though the retailer may have bought the units, and have them sitting on shelves in stores, you cannot book it as sales revenue without also booking the RMA liability dollars (though some accountants are well paid for finding ways of doing so anyhow). Anyway, shipped is a long way from sold.
Also, most large retailers have corporate buyers with certain authority what to buy, etc. as well as local buyers with some authority to buy and stock items particular to that given store. It is not at all unheard of, however unfortunate it might seem, that a corporate buyer is buying on a contract, purchase X number of units of some widget, sends a percentage of them to each store, even though some stores have pallets of them sitting in the back wasting space. That's when those "pre-authorized" RMAs start coming in handy.
It is also common to have store FOO returning product while store BAR is buying more even though it is often less expensive to simply stock transfer products from FOO to BAR. A lot of it depends on the corporate structure and culture, the accounting setup, operating procedures, etc., and all that other corporate crap. I've seen managers of various levels refuse to ship stock from their store to another, even though they don't need it, the other store does, and there is nothing technically forbidding them from doing so...due to departmental and budgetary boundary lines (ie., some corporate structures, while looking good on paper, tend to create fiefdoms, enhance corporate politics, and all that jazz). Just remember: retailers aren't all perfectly oiled machines or even that adeptly managed. Just like anything else where people are involved. Nobody's perfect and it shows up more when there's less nobody around, if you catch my drift.
...that's the sound of a joke flying over your head.
I admire Warren Buffet. Lighten up.
This is an old person trying to get into heaven.
Again, I know this type of thing is not really feasible currently and not exactly economically viable. But the cost of energy just continues to rise. If somebody were researching and advancing these types of ideas (if not just the overall idea of how to recylce the heat loss) better (as in more efficient and less expensive) methods would result...and eventually (one would think) it could get to a mass production level where it then be very feasible and economically viable.
I'm a little taken aback by your response and want desperately to respond with ad hominems and name calling, etc. I'm trying to be better about those things though, so I'll refrain.
At any rate, yes, I read the article. Perhaps you didn't. There was no mention of anything whatsoever about recovering the energy from the heat transfer. Only mention of more efficient fans, water cooling, peltiers, etc. All things that amount to the same thing: using electricity to generate heat then using even more electricity to move that heat from A to B. Nothing whatsoever about doing anything useful with the energy that is "lost" to heat.
What I don't get is this: Since there is all that heat coming off of processors, etc...how can the energy in that hot air be captured and put to good use? Seems all cooling solutions just "consume" more energy to transfer energy (in the form of heat) from here to there.
The net effect is we take a bunch of energy (as electricity) and lose a lot of it as heat then take a bunch more of it (again, electricity) to just move the other "lost" energy (heat) around. It just seems wasteful and expensive to me. There's got to be a better way; not that I could tell you what it is.
(note: I put quotes areound "consume" and "lost" because I understand the energy isn't really lost or consumed...but that's sort of what it's like and I'm at a loss for better wording.)
Okay, I'm not going to be able to mod this discussion now, but...I'm compelled to respond.
I've worked in distribution centers and I can tell you this much: Wal-Mart makes it a condition of buying that they can return items for credit. If you don't agree, you don't get your product on Wal-Mart's shelves. Since they're the single largest retailer in the world, they drive the market. They set the standards, so to speak.
I would expect (because it's just common practice in the industry) most retailers are able to return unsold units for credit. That's just the way it works.
Which is why companies who always report shipped units are being a bit disengenuous at best. Units sold to consumers are the real indicator of a product's success...if they people aren't buying, the retailers aren't re-ordering.
Plogger
Duh!
As to your first point: I have no problem with Sony offering HD. I agree that it's perfectly reasonable if they expect (and they do) the majority of their target market already owns HDTVs (or will very soon), to offer a console that provides for that. But I think this kind of makes the point for why Nintendo isn't gaga over HD. HDTV ownsership in the US is quite low. (I don't know about the rest of the world.) Nintendo is attempting to broaden the market to people who aren't already gamers. It's highly likely to expect (as Nintendo does) the majority of this market does not own HDTV sets. Supporting anything more than the 480p they already had in the GameCube only adds expense and turns off a large portion of Nintendo's target market. It wouldn't be wise for them to do that.
As for #2: Sorry if I offended. We all have bad days. I just get sick of the comments from HD fans, PS3 fans, etc. who come across as if they think anybody who doesn't have at least one HDTV "in 2006" is retarded. Most people still do not own HDTVs. That's a fact. I read one article (not going to waste my time googling it now) wherein it was discussed how a majority of HDTV owners are watching SD broadcasts over them and don't even know the difference. They just think because they plugged their HDTV in, it's all HDTV.
As to 3a: okay, I'll give you that. But, as to 3b: you are right in that it appears there's been (roughly) a doubling of HDTV penetration over the last few years (~ 7% in 2004, 15% in 2005, 26% by the end of 2006). This uptake, however has as much to do with TV manufacturers preparing for the cutoff as buyers. It's akin to the numbers Microsoft quotes for how quickly a new operating system they release sells. Take XP, for instance. It sold X numbers right off the bat because people were just replacing old PCs and XP is what came on the new ones by default. It would take extra effort to get one without XP. This is like buying a new TV today, without HD support. It takes more effort.
I think HDTV uptake is a more of a symptom than a cause. It's as you say, a lot of people are replacing existing tube TVs with LCDs or Plasmas because of space and aesthetics...and HDTV just follows...it may be icing on the cake, but I can't believe it's still the driving factor in most cases. There's just not enough HD content still yet.
For example: I have a 35" tube TV that's going on 10 years old and beginning to show a hotspot on the middle right of the tube. If I wish to replace it, and I'm a typical consumer, I'm going to go into Best Buy or similar, looking for a roughly 35" TV and find a plethora of HDTVs (LCDs, Plasma, rear projection, etc.) sitting out in all the displays...and might find a SD 35" TV if I look around a bit...at which point the salesperson is going to recommend against it because I'll have to buy an adapter in 2009 if I want to keep watching TV on it...but if I buy this 32" LCD HDTV, it'll take up less space, weigh about 150 lbs less, and be good to go for the foreseeable future...and they cost the same. Hell, I'd buy the LCD model just because the space savings and the fact that it'd weigh in the 30lb range whereas my 35" tube TV weighs nearly 200 lbs. It's a major PITA to move it...even just to pull it out to plug or unplug a game console, new DVD player, etc.
But, rest assured, I wouldn't be buying an HDTV so I could see the quarterback's ass in higher resolution when "the big game" is on. Although that might be a driving factor in getting my wife's approval.
But to the majority of the population, you sound just like the proponents of BluRay and HD-DVD trying to explain how much better it is than standard DVDs while we all sit back and look at our DVDs saying: "Maybe...but this looks pretty damn good to me, and it's a metric assload cheaper."
You and I both know the only reason HDTV will succeed is because our government mandated it. If we actually had a free market in this country, HDTV would likely never be more than a niche market for high-tech dweebs and super rich idiots who don't know crap about it but want it because "it's the best" and because it makes them feel special since loser poor people can't afford it.
And, unless I'm much mistaken, one of the reasons multicast is not in widescale use is because of this type of vulnerability. Also from Wikipedia: "Multicast security is a major issue. Standard, practical, communications security solutions normally employ symmetric cryptography. But applying that to IP Multicast traffic would enable any of the receivers to pose as the sender. This is clearly unacceptable. The IETF MSEC workgroup is developing security protocols to solve this problem, mostly within the architectural framework of the IPsec protocol suite.
IPsec cannot be used in the multicast scenario because IPsec security associations are bound to two hosts and not many. IETF proposed a new protocol TESLA, which is quite convincing and flexible for multicast security."
*Nintendo has joined #E3
Nintendo: Wiiiiiii!!!
Audience: Gonads and Strife?
Imagine: you need to cast a healing spell on a member of your party...you point the wiimote at that person, press a button to lock on, and make an infinity motion (sideways eight) to cast "infinite heal". OR...Aim at an opponent, lock on, and move the controller in a circle to cast "circle of fire".
The possibilities are amazing.
+1 informative (sorry, I'm fresh out of mod points)
This Wii system has me stoked. I can't wait to get one. If it is released at $199, I will be on a waiting list to get one on day one. If it is released at $250, maybe not...but still likely, especially if it's bundled with a decent game at that price.
Remember the very first statement I made? I will never own any Microsoft X-anything. I will never own a copy of Vista. I used to say I'd never buy a PS3, for any reason. But I watched the live stream of Sony's conference and so in response to this bit of your comment: I can't wait until 2008. Because by then hopefully the price of a PS3 and the new HDTV I'll have to buy to use it might be affordable to me...and I think Assassin's Creed, Heavenly Sword, and Lair look totally F-ing awesome.
Aside from your wholesale copying and posting of the entire article here---a move which undoubtedly oversteps the bounds of fair use---I will merely point you to this article on Groklaw in which I think PJ deftly points out the the errors in the Economist article, thereby leaving me with little else to say but: troll much?
But I haven't bought music in a long time. Not that I'm out downloading it illegally either. For fun, we typically have friends and family get together, eat, drink, and play music together. If you're not musically inclined, get a friend or two who are. Hang out at their house(s) and enjoy live music for free.
For thousands of years, this is how music has been enjoyed. There's no reason for anybody to stop enjoying it this way...just because somebody invented iPods.
The sound and projection quality in the last few theater experiences I had sucked major ass. Either the volume was too high, too low, too overpowered by the gunshots/explosions in the action movie in the next theater over ... AND the image was too dim, too askew, misaligned, etc.
I used to like going to the movies when I was a teenager. I guess that's why their target market is mostly teens.
Disclaimer: All numbers are pulled out of my ass and serve merely to illustrate a point.
I wonder: Do you work for Microsoft? I only ask because your comment, while 100% technically accurate, was completely useless.
Unlike the AC responses, I'll posit that it's because you thought it was funny. Of course, ACs are mostly asshat trolls anyhow, so it's no wonder they have a difficult time lightening up and seeing an attempt at humor. I've already commented on this topic, so I can't mod you as funny.
But, hey, may the shwartz be with you.