You're also misrepresenting the statistics here. The PSP is a blunder not because of buy-in, but because of tie-in. Games just arn't selling. GTA Liberty city stories, a game in a series that has sold 5 million on each version of the PS2 sold 1 million Gta Vice city stories sold 500K. The PSP is an expensive system as is the PS3, if they can't sell the games (and they arn't, at least not enough to be considered a success) that's a failure. The DS sells tons of games and comes at a lower production price where they can survive after sale or two of a DS game. The PSP needs to sell a significantly higher amount of games. The PS3 even more. You have between 100 - 300 dollar deficit at the begining of sales. That's between 2-5 games if they got all 60 dollars for a game which they don't. It's more like 10 dollars.
This is the way of the industry. Nintendo was smart here. If you a buy a Wii they are ahead. If you buy a game they are more ahead. However if you buy a PSP Sony's behind. There was a statistic that if sony sold 6 Million PS3s and no games they would be ripe for a takeover. So hide behind the 25 million handhelds sold but if you don't see at least triple that in games you're going to have a huge problem.
Your forgetting one other important fact. American copyrights are products of American culture, which likely appeal to Americans. And believe me piracy is still around in America.
But here's where it gets fuzzy and why I find it annoying. MPAA makes a great movie, lets call it Alpha. I live in Russia and want to see Alpha, however MPAA says this is only available in America. What can he do? Import it paying almost double the price for a movie after waiting 6-12 months for the DVD because it's only available in theaters at the time? Sure that's fair to be paying more after waiting that long. The MPAA doesn't even want him to see so why do we expect him to take the completely legit route? I think in this case the MPAA isn't making the product available to the consumer why shouldn't the consumer be able to find another route to get the movie. Hell Amazon and other retailers are forced not to export the products so it becomes even harder for the viewer.
I like European music (Eurobeat and other styles that are hard to find if it's available at all in America) and unfortunately European distribution networks suck for America as most small stores who can get the hard to find cds still can't even find those. There's one artist called "Do" that I like with a album "Do" which is near impossible to search for in the first place but the fact I have to pay out the ass (after paying for the music) for music I like just infuriates me.
I'd like to say the PSP is Sony's biggest blunder, but it's not. The PS3 is turning out to be the titanic of the industry with all the bad press. But the PSP is a pretty massive blunder too. There's just too many bad moves to make the system viable. Here's a short list.
1. Bad Advertisements. Everyone talked about them, everyone said "WTF", everyone shook their head. Again this isn't an awful move, but combine it with the rest of this list and we got the "PSP".
2. Attacking the fans. People bought the PSP and homebrewed it. Sony closed the gaps. Now this isn't a bad thing but it forced people to make decisions between upgrading to buy games and leaving it at 1.5 to play homebrew. Overtime we've found ways to upgrade to 3.0+ software and play homebrew, however the sore feelings came early and lingered. When people were forced to make that choice and picked homebrew, then sony lost money right there. Games is all Sony's going to make money on.
3. UMDs. Not the worst idea ever but UMDs are clunky and a poor format. They are also slow. Notice that DS is a cartridge. Yeah they are outdated but they also have no load time, and little if any problems. Sony was smart enough to protect the disc instead of putting the laser right next to it, but the UMD is a failed concept that no one was going to buy. Blu-ray is slightly better, but forcing it on the consumer was bad voodoo.
4. Ambition, they made the best handheld, but it cost them a shit ton of money. The DS cost less, and sold for a profit (or close to it) It's similar to the PS3, 900 dollars or so for production of the version 1 consoles. Selling for 600. Why start a marathon a mile back from the starting line?
5. Ports. This is perhaps the most damning of them all. The PSP is the Playstation portable. The Gameboy is the game boy. Not the NES portable, not the Famicom portable. The Gameboy is it's own system. The PSP on the other hand is a suped up PSX or a downgraded PS2 but it wasn't it's own system. For that neurotic nerd who loves his PS2 so much he wants to buy the games a second time for his PSP so he can have it on the go great, but there's only a couple exclusives out of something like 200 games. Lumines? great. But there's just too much other crap that didn't work. It's great that I can now play burnout, Golf, or any other PS2 game on the go, but instead of the full experience off the DVD, I pay more money for downgraded graphics.
Consider that people play the DS while sitting next to full home entertainment systems, but I find it hard to believe people would do the same for the PSP. I know I wouldn't.
6. Not being nintendo. Let's get petty for a minute. Sony isn't nintendo. Sega, Neo geo, atari, and other all tried this before. The gameboy worked, everything else failed. Why? Who knows but challenging nintendo on their home court and you're going to be laughed off the field.
These are just some of the reasons the PSP failed and none of them are "that bad" but the wave of them keeps coming. They continue to produce port after port (next up Parapa the rapper, and Disgaea, and maybe FFT, and then.... You get the picture)
The PS3 is starting to turn this way, every month it seems there's a new bad story. Hell make that every week, and you'll see that Sony has a long way to turn both of these products into "success stories" but I think we are reaching the point where it's too little, too late.
So it's fine for a nonpartisan company to have a vague mission statement (Progressive ideas? Who decides what's progressive?) And then to completely rip into one party 90 percent of the time. Considering progressive has become almost a synonym for liberal, and liberalism is mainly one side of the aisle that to me sounds like less than non partisan. But we can't say that can we?
I demand a little more accountability. I'm not asking for "unbiased" but at the same time I am loathing the fact that groups claim "nonpartisan" when it's pretty blatant who they are cheering on. The ad council is a group I can get behind. They tip the scales a couple times (I think jumping into the global warming debate is a bad idea no matter what you do) but overall they tend to focus on issues of national importance. However for every group like the ad council there's at least 3 like Thinkprogress that hides behind a thin shade and pretends to be nonpartisan.
I'm willing to bet that conservatives and liberals use the internet and have the same amount of talk shows with a slight bias the way you're talking about. One thing I notice is conservatives don't give out their information that easily and tend not to just take surveys and such which will skew the data. On the other hand, liberals are willing to have talk shows that aren't just "liberal talk shows" they'll make it about a liberal topic or hide it as a variety of talk shows.
I've found myself hating "nonpartisan" sites for exactly the same reason you mention, as you bring up Thinkprogress, and others. Thinkprogress is one of those sites that claims to be a non partisan site but obviously has an agenda (hell a quick look at the front page makes it blazingly obvious which side of that fence they are on). Yet somehow they get away with calling themselves non-partisan and people believe them.
One site I frequent is ornery.org. A reprinting of newspaper articles from Orson Scott Card, who claims to be a democrat but seems to agree with the republicans more than the democrats currently. However a quick look at his forum just shows that there's obviously a larger portion of liberal thinking available that seems to troll his board to the point of it essentially becoming a liberal hangout (go figure, because most of his ideas seem to be the opposite).
I don't know if I can really call all of this an "organized" effort, but it's certainly a gathering of like minded individuals doing what they can for "the cause".
Way to use the Democratic slew defense. Ignore the impeachment and the whole reason for the impeachment and make a joke out of it.
The reason Clinton was impeached was because he perjured himself during his deposition. Everyone made the jokes about the sex, but the actual fact is he lied while under oath. Bush has not done that yet, and if he did the democrats would have the same grounds for impeachment.
Ok then why is slashdot promoting it to a story? Or hell why is it promoted to a front page story? It's a major event but it's not what expect from slashdot.
First off this is just glory grabbing by Kucinich, it won't go through because to impeach a president doesn't just require a president to do something wrong, it's to do something so wrong that a mark can be made upon the presidents of the past and future. Same for the vice president. Nixon did something at that level, Clinton did too. (the perjury, not the sex let's not try to confuse that issue again)
But even so this isn't news for Slashdot, this is partisan politics at it's best, and it has little if anything to do with anything. We arn't voting on it. So why is slashdot writting about it? This is Slashdot, the place I come to read news that matters to me, if I or any of us really cared about this we'd likely have an RSS feed or another news source to our political sources which would be mentioning this.
Let's get Slashdot back to being news about technology and nerdy stuff, rather then turning it into a Technology based version of CNN.
My point is more that they only have one guy with a vision, and he's not type to try to take on Microsoft. (Well two if you count RMS, who is just over aggressive).
The other side of it is I was showing Linux is not the answer to overtaking Windows, at least not the Linux of 2007. It's diversity and other attributes bred out of Open sourcing is hurting it as much as helping (we like these things where we choose which Linux distro we want, however the home users will not.)
That is the very base of the problem. Nothing needs to replace it right now. XP works, nothing else is needed, and if Microsoft's smart they'll continue to support XP. What will replace XP should be the Vista's successor that gives all the usefulness of what Vista should have been with XP specs (will never happen).
And please tell me you don't think this is a sign Microsoft is collapsing. It's a sign that XP is an amazing OS that doesn't need replacing. Linux isn't going to jump up because people aren't buying Vista. People aren't buying Vista because they are happy with their current OS. Sadly Microsoft is going to see this as "XP is too good" rather then "Vista isn't good enough".
Because people spend their time working on open source instead of the product to beat Microsoft. So Steve Jobs the second comes along today. He's going to make an OS that's going to destroy Windows. He looks for his best coder. However coders don't need a Steve Jobs to make software anymore. They can just work on Linux to get their coding fix. They don't need a guy with a vision because they have Linux Torvalds to follow and continue to lead them.
Let's face it, Linux is not going to destroy Windows, there's too many issues with it. People have already seen Linux and made their opinions then. We can change them but it's an uphill battle. The in fighting, the "hard core linux guys" vs. the Red hats vs. the Slackware vs. everyone else has ruined what little chance Linux has. The very fact that if Linux takes over, it won't be one version but every version and it will all create work for the end user means it's going to be problematic for it to even gain market share.
Open source diverts and directs a lot of time for the people who could take on Microsoft's products and that makes Microsoft happy. In theory it COULD make for a better product because everyone can be working towards one goal. But in reality every programmer has an opinion on how best to go about the assault on the big MS and with out true leadership (Torvalds isn't looking to lead the revolution, Stallman is but he's as polarizing as can be, hell Stallman will scare most corporations back to Microsoft's loving arms with his free software talk.) Even the term open source scares businesses and executives. It's a good thing after you understand it but there's a lot of parts of it that Microsoft can whisper in people's ears to scare them into using the Microsoft alternative.
So Microsoft loves the fact open source is here because if anything it's destroyed more genius ideas than they could probably fight on their own in a number of ways.
Seriously does anyone watch Mythbusters looking to prove or disprove a myth. They take a VERY rudimentary look at most myths. One example is mythes that involve old inventors such as Leonardo Da Vinci. The take less than a week to prove or disprove the theory. Leonardo likely worked on it for years so what does 1 week of two hollywood effect men mean?
The show is about entertainment and fun, not about the scientific method.
This is like going to Las Vegas, hearing all about the great and sexy wanda in big and bright lights, paying the 200 bucks to meet her, and getting a ugly whore instead.
Ok not exactly like that, Wanda is a lot more attractive than Vista is right now.
That's not what I wanted to bring up but that's the sum of the article. You get the "It's going to be big. It's going to be huge" syndrome that you always hear in hype pieces, but you're inevitably going to be disappointed if you buy in.
Skimming the names in the article, I see mention of Microsoft, and Dell. Wow I wonder if they are going to say PC gaming is going to be big. One is selling their new PC OS, and the other sells PCs. Then you have ID who sounds like they aren't major supporters of PCs, but look at their track record, if anything they shun the consoles (Doom 3 for the Xbox was a horrid port).
But the actual industry basically disagrees. Publishers see lack luster sales on the PC, a game that earns 90+ percent reviews sells about a third or a fourth as much as a 360 game that gets 80-90 percent reviews. That means an average game on the 360 will likely outsell the PC. It's not a shock we are seeing RTSes running for the 360. If EA can sell anything in that market for Command and Conquer 3, expect more RTSes to run the same way.
Attribute the lower sales for the PC to what you want (people not wanting to upkeep PCs, piracy, crappier games, driver issues, having to deal with Copy protection). But the off line PC market is dying. However there are a couple bright areas, MMOs will continue to shine, anything service driven, and games like Flight Simulation will continue to shine. But they are a very dim light compared to 10 years ago when everything was bigger better and badder on the PC.
There will always be PC games, people who can't buy into the consoles 20K a dev kit demands, will always make games on the PC, but that doesn't mean EA and others will continue to support it forever.
Note this is the industry vision, it's not some analyst talk, or someone trying to sell some goods, which is why you likely won't hear it in the newspaper but we can dispute the reasons for it but the fact is if the publishers see lower return on investments, why would they even support it?
Ok, we can all agree that the government has not been able to understand the internet, and I think that's pretty sad, but I have a feeling that there has been more than 14 laws put into place about the internet. He even admits there's been 100s of laws passed. My problem is that we can only find 2 good laws, 2 questionable laws and 10 bad laws? This sounds like the article's writer has a bit of an axe to grind and decided to take it out on laws while pretending to maintain impartiality. He admits he's biased, but I could admit I'm biased and repeat some of the stuff that Venezuelan president Chavez says about out country and Bush. Doesn't make what I say news, or even worthy of a title "The good and bad of Bush".
Personally I find this article to be subpar for our standards. Slashdot isn't a soap box, something we seem to have forgotten.
But apparently women don't have that right because a certain amount must become stock brokers or IT personnel?
If there was millions of women who wanted to get into IT or any field then this would be a problem. But there's no glass ceiling in IT, there's just less interest.
It's the same reason there's less male nurses, there's no problem with the field, there's just less desire for men to do that job. Feel free to try to change perception but constantly complaining it isn't helping.
Actually I do have quite a bit of experience with financial trading and if you think you only work when the market is open and you quit when the market is closed you're sorely mistaken. I'm guessing you've never spent any time on a trading floor. Most of the trader barely step away from their desk because they are always working.
But go ahead and think that it's easy, then the real question is since there's so much money made by stock traders why aren't you doing it? Blaming it on the culture over and over, doesn't work because that culture is not in every trading office. The fact we keep using that as a crutch is sad.
Let's be honest here, Women don't want to be in IT. I've never seen an normal IT room that says "we don't want women". The only time someone would say that is because they swear a lot and that can be handled by a woman who's welcome to that.
The fact is that IT isn't "easy". It's the same reason you don't see many female stock traders (there's some, but not many). The simple fact is there's a commitment to the industry that must be made. Not just the time to learn the trade but when they understand there's late nights and long hours, as well as the dreaded crunch. I see "old timers" (5-10 years) in the game industry who just say "I can't do this any more". Imagine not only being in the industry that long but also dealing with the biological clock.
That doesn't mean IT shouldn't have woman, that just means that instead of worrying about how to attract women to the industry ask "do women want to be in the industry?" The answer seems to be no. Why are we trying to force women into roles they don't want? Or is there something in the industry that doesn't attract normal people but the people in the industry are already accepting of it, if so identifying that would be worthy, but this big question "how do we get more female programmers" isn't helping anyone.
I just hate the fact we ask him real questions and they just immediately try to spin it. The first guy says he joined SCEA in 1996. And then he goes to tell him that Wikipedia can't be trusted, giving his history until he says he joined the American branch in 1996. That's essentially what joined SCEA in 1996 means.
At the very least don't allow them to hijack questions to sell their products or point out shit that has nothing to do with it. Why allow a person to ask a question about the european delay and then allow him to fob it off, then give the company line "800,000 units in europe being the best launch ever" (sad I know that by memory, but I've heard it about 20 times since the european launch because they are so happy) Then talking about Casino Royale? you gave it away free? I'm guessing the fact that you then made it the best selling BD or HDDVD title had nothing to do with it?
Phil Harrison has been a double talking weasel in the industry for too long. I think it's time to get him to stop.
I know these questions come from us, but who ever set this up must have seen this coming. We got a ton of user questions and then allow him to get away with fake answers that don't pertain to the question and marketese speak.
Next time we get an interview with a marketing big wig please demand they answer the questions and non compliant answers will be remove. I hate seeing slashdot being turned into a game of softball.
Considering that even developers have to jump through hoops to directly access the hardware of a PS3, this will likely be considered illegal access and blocked off.
The biggest secret that Sony has is how little support developers get (hell Early versions of the PS2 only allowed printf debugging, attaching to process didn't even seem to work.)
a rag tag band of resistance fighters, who find a strange and mysterious but important girl or guy in the woods and we can call Venezuela "Final Fantasy land".
Ok so let's assume the article is true, then sony's being stupid, games arn't going to sell 600 dollars, yadda yadda. It's exactly what you think now.
However how could it be untrue? Well Sony could be thinking about a price drop (If they have a brain in their head they are considering it, hell all companies are considering when not if they will cut prices). However any producer of goods knows this fact, NEVER let them know their's a price drop coming. Why would I buy a 360 today for 400 dollars when I can buy one tomorrow for 350 dollars? Sony makes more money if you buy it at 600, they have the stock out there, why destroy any chance people will buy it at 600 with news of a price drop.
So essentially this article is meaningless when you realize no matter what Sony was doing, they'd have to have said this to keep people buying the 600 dollar ps3.
As a point of reference however allow me to direct your attention to the FF13 rumor that it might not be exclusive yet. Allow me to point out the fact that Sony and Square really haven't said anything about it since the possibility came out. There's no reason to ignore the rumor on Sony's end unless there's truth that the main game might not be exclusive any more. If I was sony on that story I'd get to the top of the nearest building and scream "WE STILL HAVE FF13 EXCLUSIVE" the fact they haven't speaks volumes.
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You're also misrepresenting the statistics here. The PSP is a blunder not because of buy-in, but because of tie-in. Games just arn't selling. GTA Liberty city stories, a game in a series that has sold 5 million on each version of the PS2 sold 1 million Gta Vice city stories sold 500K. The PSP is an expensive system as is the PS3, if they can't sell the games (and they arn't, at least not enough to be considered a success) that's a failure. The DS sells tons of games and comes at a lower production price where they can survive after sale or two of a DS game. The PSP needs to sell a significantly higher amount of games. The PS3 even more. You have between 100 - 300 dollar deficit at the begining of sales. That's between 2-5 games if they got all 60 dollars for a game which they don't. It's more like 10 dollars.
This is the way of the industry. Nintendo was smart here. If you a buy a Wii they are ahead. If you buy a game they are more ahead. However if you buy a PSP Sony's behind. There was a statistic that if sony sold 6 Million PS3s and no games they would be ripe for a takeover. So hide behind the 25 million handhelds sold but if you don't see at least triple that in games you're going to have a huge problem.
Your forgetting one other important fact. American copyrights are products of American culture, which likely appeal to Americans. And believe me piracy is still around in America.
But here's where it gets fuzzy and why I find it annoying. MPAA makes a great movie, lets call it Alpha. I live in Russia and want to see Alpha, however MPAA says this is only available in America. What can he do? Import it paying almost double the price for a movie after waiting 6-12 months for the DVD because it's only available in theaters at the time? Sure that's fair to be paying more after waiting that long. The MPAA doesn't even want him to see so why do we expect him to take the completely legit route? I think in this case the MPAA isn't making the product available to the consumer why shouldn't the consumer be able to find another route to get the movie. Hell Amazon and other retailers are forced not to export the products so it becomes even harder for the viewer.
I like European music (Eurobeat and other styles that are hard to find if it's available at all in America) and unfortunately European distribution networks suck for America as most small stores who can get the hard to find cds still can't even find those. There's one artist called "Do" that I like with a album "Do" which is near impossible to search for in the first place but the fact I have to pay out the ass (after paying for the music) for music I like just infuriates me.
I'd like to say the PSP is Sony's biggest blunder, but it's not. The PS3 is turning out to be the titanic of the industry with all the bad press. But the PSP is a pretty massive blunder too. There's just too many bad moves to make the system viable. Here's a short list.
.... You get the picture)
1. Bad Advertisements. Everyone talked about them, everyone said "WTF", everyone shook their head. Again this isn't an awful move, but combine it with the rest of this list and we got the "PSP".
2. Attacking the fans. People bought the PSP and homebrewed it. Sony closed the gaps. Now this isn't a bad thing but it forced people to make decisions between upgrading to buy games and leaving it at 1.5 to play homebrew. Overtime we've found ways to upgrade to 3.0+ software and play homebrew, however the sore feelings came early and lingered. When people were forced to make that choice and picked homebrew, then sony lost money right there. Games is all Sony's going to make money on.
3. UMDs. Not the worst idea ever but UMDs are clunky and a poor format. They are also slow. Notice that DS is a cartridge. Yeah they are outdated but they also have no load time, and little if any problems. Sony was smart enough to protect the disc instead of putting the laser right next to it, but the UMD is a failed concept that no one was going to buy. Blu-ray is slightly better, but forcing it on the consumer was bad voodoo.
4. Ambition, they made the best handheld, but it cost them a shit ton of money. The DS cost less, and sold for a profit (or close to it) It's similar to the PS3, 900 dollars or so for production of the version 1 consoles. Selling for 600. Why start a marathon a mile back from the starting line?
5. Ports. This is perhaps the most damning of them all. The PSP is the Playstation portable. The Gameboy is the game boy. Not the NES portable, not the Famicom portable. The Gameboy is it's own system. The PSP on the other hand is a suped up PSX or a downgraded PS2 but it wasn't it's own system. For that neurotic nerd who loves his PS2 so much he wants to buy the games a second time for his PSP so he can have it on the go great, but there's only a couple exclusives out of something like 200 games. Lumines? great. But there's just too much other crap that didn't work. It's great that I can now play burnout, Golf, or any other PS2 game on the go, but instead of the full experience off the DVD, I pay more money for downgraded graphics.
Consider that people play the DS while sitting next to full home entertainment systems, but I find it hard to believe people would do the same for the PSP. I know I wouldn't.
6. Not being nintendo. Let's get petty for a minute. Sony isn't nintendo. Sega, Neo geo, atari, and other all tried this before. The gameboy worked, everything else failed. Why? Who knows but challenging nintendo on their home court and you're going to be laughed off the field.
These are just some of the reasons the PSP failed and none of them are "that bad" but the wave of them keeps coming. They continue to produce port after port (next up Parapa the rapper, and Disgaea, and maybe FFT, and then
The PS3 is starting to turn this way, every month it seems there's a new bad story. Hell make that every week, and you'll see that Sony has a long way to turn both of these products into "success stories" but I think we are reaching the point where it's too little, too late.
So it's fine for a nonpartisan company to have a vague mission statement (Progressive ideas? Who decides what's progressive?) And then to completely rip into one party 90 percent of the time. Considering progressive has become almost a synonym for liberal, and liberalism is mainly one side of the aisle that to me sounds like less than non partisan. But we can't say that can we?
I demand a little more accountability. I'm not asking for "unbiased" but at the same time I am loathing the fact that groups claim "nonpartisan" when it's pretty blatant who they are cheering on. The ad council is a group I can get behind. They tip the scales a couple times (I think jumping into the global warming debate is a bad idea no matter what you do) but overall they tend to focus on issues of national importance. However for every group like the ad council there's at least 3 like Thinkprogress that hides behind a thin shade and pretends to be nonpartisan.
Well because the government is against us and wants to opress us. Unless our party is in office.
I mean what other way can we create hatred against the enemy? Claim they are going to reinstate the draft? Oh wait....
I'm willing to bet that conservatives and liberals use the internet and have the same amount of talk shows with a slight bias the way you're talking about. One thing I notice is conservatives don't give out their information that easily and tend not to just take surveys and such which will skew the data. On the other hand, liberals are willing to have talk shows that aren't just "liberal talk shows" they'll make it about a liberal topic or hide it as a variety of talk shows.
I've found myself hating "nonpartisan" sites for exactly the same reason you mention, as you bring up Thinkprogress, and others. Thinkprogress is one of those sites that claims to be a non partisan site but obviously has an agenda (hell a quick look at the front page makes it blazingly obvious which side of that fence they are on). Yet somehow they get away with calling themselves non-partisan and people believe them.
One site I frequent is ornery.org. A reprinting of newspaper articles from Orson Scott Card, who claims to be a democrat but seems to agree with the republicans more than the democrats currently. However a quick look at his forum just shows that there's obviously a larger portion of liberal thinking available that seems to troll his board to the point of it essentially becoming a liberal hangout (go figure, because most of his ideas seem to be the opposite).
I don't know if I can really call all of this an "organized" effort, but it's certainly a gathering of like minded individuals doing what they can for "the cause".
Way to use the Democratic slew defense. Ignore the impeachment and the whole reason for the impeachment and make a joke out of it.
The reason Clinton was impeached was because he perjured himself during his deposition. Everyone made the jokes about the sex, but the actual fact is he lied while under oath. Bush has not done that yet, and if he did the democrats would have the same grounds for impeachment.
Ok then why is slashdot promoting it to a story? Or hell why is it promoted to a front page story? It's a major event but it's not what expect from slashdot.
First off this is just glory grabbing by Kucinich, it won't go through because to impeach a president doesn't just require a president to do something wrong, it's to do something so wrong that a mark can be made upon the presidents of the past and future. Same for the vice president. Nixon did something at that level, Clinton did too. (the perjury, not the sex let's not try to confuse that issue again)
But even so this isn't news for Slashdot, this is partisan politics at it's best, and it has little if anything to do with anything. We arn't voting on it. So why is slashdot writting about it? This is Slashdot, the place I come to read news that matters to me, if I or any of us really cared about this we'd likely have an RSS feed or another news source to our political sources which would be mentioning this.
Let's get Slashdot back to being news about technology and nerdy stuff, rather then turning it into a Technology based version of CNN.
My point is more that they only have one guy with a vision, and he's not type to try to take on Microsoft. (Well two if you count RMS, who is just over aggressive).
The other side of it is I was showing Linux is not the answer to overtaking Windows, at least not the Linux of 2007. It's diversity and other attributes bred out of Open sourcing is hurting it as much as helping (we like these things where we choose which Linux distro we want, however the home users will not.)
That is the very base of the problem. Nothing needs to replace it right now. XP works, nothing else is needed, and if Microsoft's smart they'll continue to support XP. What will replace XP should be the Vista's successor that gives all the usefulness of what Vista should have been with XP specs (will never happen).
And please tell me you don't think this is a sign Microsoft is collapsing. It's a sign that XP is an amazing OS that doesn't need replacing. Linux isn't going to jump up because people aren't buying Vista. People aren't buying Vista because they are happy with their current OS. Sadly Microsoft is going to see this as "XP is too good" rather then "Vista isn't good enough".
Because people spend their time working on open source instead of the product to beat Microsoft. So Steve Jobs the second comes along today. He's going to make an OS that's going to destroy Windows. He looks for his best coder. However coders don't need a Steve Jobs to make software anymore. They can just work on Linux to get their coding fix. They don't need a guy with a vision because they have Linux Torvalds to follow and continue to lead them.
Let's face it, Linux is not going to destroy Windows, there's too many issues with it. People have already seen Linux and made their opinions then. We can change them but it's an uphill battle. The in fighting, the "hard core linux guys" vs. the Red hats vs. the Slackware vs. everyone else has ruined what little chance Linux has. The very fact that if Linux takes over, it won't be one version but every version and it will all create work for the end user means it's going to be problematic for it to even gain market share.
Open source diverts and directs a lot of time for the people who could take on Microsoft's products and that makes Microsoft happy. In theory it COULD make for a better product because everyone can be working towards one goal. But in reality every programmer has an opinion on how best to go about the assault on the big MS and with out true leadership (Torvalds isn't looking to lead the revolution, Stallman is but he's as polarizing as can be, hell Stallman will scare most corporations back to Microsoft's loving arms with his free software talk.) Even the term open source scares businesses and executives. It's a good thing after you understand it but there's a lot of parts of it that Microsoft can whisper in people's ears to scare them into using the Microsoft alternative.
So Microsoft loves the fact open source is here because if anything it's destroyed more genius ideas than they could probably fight on their own in a number of ways.
Seriously does anyone watch Mythbusters looking to prove or disprove a myth. They take a VERY rudimentary look at most myths. One example is mythes that involve old inventors such as Leonardo Da Vinci. The take less than a week to prove or disprove the theory. Leonardo likely worked on it for years so what does 1 week of two hollywood effect men mean?
The show is about entertainment and fun, not about the scientific method.
This is like going to Las Vegas, hearing all about the great and sexy wanda in big and bright lights, paying the 200 bucks to meet her, and getting a ugly whore instead.
Ok not exactly like that, Wanda is a lot more attractive than Vista is right now.
That's not what I wanted to bring up but that's the sum of the article. You get the "It's going to be big. It's going to be huge" syndrome that you always hear in hype pieces, but you're inevitably going to be disappointed if you buy in.
Skimming the names in the article, I see mention of Microsoft, and Dell. Wow I wonder if they are going to say PC gaming is going to be big. One is selling their new PC OS, and the other sells PCs. Then you have ID who sounds like they aren't major supporters of PCs, but look at their track record, if anything they shun the consoles (Doom 3 for the Xbox was a horrid port).
But the actual industry basically disagrees. Publishers see lack luster sales on the PC, a game that earns 90+ percent reviews sells about a third or a fourth as much as a 360 game that gets 80-90 percent reviews. That means an average game on the 360 will likely outsell the PC. It's not a shock we are seeing RTSes running for the 360. If EA can sell anything in that market for Command and Conquer 3, expect more RTSes to run the same way.
Attribute the lower sales for the PC to what you want (people not wanting to upkeep PCs, piracy, crappier games, driver issues, having to deal with Copy protection). But the off line PC market is dying. However there are a couple bright areas, MMOs will continue to shine, anything service driven, and games like Flight Simulation will continue to shine. But they are a very dim light compared to 10 years ago when everything was bigger better and badder on the PC.
There will always be PC games, people who can't buy into the consoles 20K a dev kit demands, will always make games on the PC, but that doesn't mean EA and others will continue to support it forever.
Note this is the industry vision, it's not some analyst talk, or someone trying to sell some goods, which is why you likely won't hear it in the newspaper but we can dispute the reasons for it but the fact is if the publishers see lower return on investments, why would they even support it?
But this is slashdot. If we had a molecule of knowledge on the subject, we'd be working on it instead of here discussing it in very vague terms.
Oh damn now I made myself feel bad.
Ok, we can all agree that the government has not been able to understand the internet, and I think that's pretty sad, but I have a feeling that there has been more than 14 laws put into place about the internet. He even admits there's been 100s of laws passed. My problem is that we can only find 2 good laws, 2 questionable laws and 10 bad laws? This sounds like the article's writer has a bit of an axe to grind and decided to take it out on laws while pretending to maintain impartiality. He admits he's biased, but I could admit I'm biased and repeat some of the stuff that Venezuelan president Chavez says about out country and Bush. Doesn't make what I say news, or even worthy of a title "The good and bad of Bush".
Personally I find this article to be subpar for our standards. Slashdot isn't a soap box, something we seem to have forgotten.
But apparently women don't have that right because a certain amount must become stock brokers or IT personnel?
If there was millions of women who wanted to get into IT or any field then this would be a problem. But there's no glass ceiling in IT, there's just less interest.
It's the same reason there's less male nurses, there's no problem with the field, there's just less desire for men to do that job. Feel free to try to change perception but constantly complaining it isn't helping.
Actually I do have quite a bit of experience with financial trading and if you think you only work when the market is open and you quit when the market is closed you're sorely mistaken. I'm guessing you've never spent any time on a trading floor. Most of the trader barely step away from their desk because they are always working.
But go ahead and think that it's easy, then the real question is since there's so much money made by stock traders why aren't you doing it? Blaming it on the culture over and over, doesn't work because that culture is not in every trading office. The fact we keep using that as a crutch is sad.
Let's be honest here, Women don't want to be in IT. I've never seen an normal IT room that says "we don't want women". The only time someone would say that is because they swear a lot and that can be handled by a woman who's welcome to that.
The fact is that IT isn't "easy". It's the same reason you don't see many female stock traders (there's some, but not many). The simple fact is there's a commitment to the industry that must be made. Not just the time to learn the trade but when they understand there's late nights and long hours, as well as the dreaded crunch. I see "old timers" (5-10 years) in the game industry who just say "I can't do this any more". Imagine not only being in the industry that long but also dealing with the biological clock.
That doesn't mean IT shouldn't have woman, that just means that instead of worrying about how to attract women to the industry ask "do women want to be in the industry?" The answer seems to be no. Why are we trying to force women into roles they don't want? Or is there something in the industry that doesn't attract normal people but the people in the industry are already accepting of it, if so identifying that would be worthy, but this big question "how do we get more female programmers" isn't helping anyone.
I just hate the fact we ask him real questions and they just immediately try to spin it. The first guy says he joined SCEA in 1996. And then he goes to tell him that Wikipedia can't be trusted, giving his history until he says he joined the American branch in 1996. That's essentially what joined SCEA in 1996 means.
At the very least don't allow them to hijack questions to sell their products or point out shit that has nothing to do with it. Why allow a person to ask a question about the european delay and then allow him to fob it off, then give the company line "800,000 units in europe being the best launch ever" (sad I know that by memory, but I've heard it about 20 times since the european launch because they are so happy) Then talking about Casino Royale? you gave it away free? I'm guessing the fact that you then made it the best selling BD or HDDVD title had nothing to do with it?
Phil Harrison has been a double talking weasel in the industry for too long. I think it's time to get him to stop.
I know these questions come from us, but who ever set this up must have seen this coming. We got a ton of user questions and then allow him to get away with fake answers that don't pertain to the question and marketese speak.
Next time we get an interview with a marketing big wig please demand they answer the questions and non compliant answers will be remove. I hate seeing slashdot being turned into a game of softball.
Considering that even developers have to jump through hoops to directly access the hardware of a PS3, this will likely be considered illegal access and blocked off.
The biggest secret that Sony has is how little support developers get (hell Early versions of the PS2 only allowed printf debugging, attaching to process didn't even seem to work.)
a rag tag band of resistance fighters, who find a strange and mysterious but important girl or guy in the woods and we can call Venezuela "Final Fantasy land".
My dream is almost here.
They told me that macs are more fun, and I know it's true because of all the games that are on the mac and not the PC.
Ok so let's assume the article is true, then sony's being stupid, games arn't going to sell 600 dollars, yadda yadda. It's exactly what you think now.
However how could it be untrue? Well Sony could be thinking about a price drop (If they have a brain in their head they are considering it, hell all companies are considering when not if they will cut prices). However any producer of goods knows this fact, NEVER let them know their's a price drop coming. Why would I buy a 360 today for 400 dollars when I can buy one tomorrow for 350 dollars? Sony makes more money if you buy it at 600, they have the stock out there, why destroy any chance people will buy it at 600 with news of a price drop.
So essentially this article is meaningless when you realize no matter what Sony was doing, they'd have to have said this to keep people buying the 600 dollar ps3.
As a point of reference however allow me to direct your attention to the FF13 rumor that it might not be exclusive yet. Allow me to point out the fact that Sony and Square really haven't said anything about it since the possibility came out. There's no reason to ignore the rumor on Sony's end unless there's truth that the main game might not be exclusive any more. If I was sony on that story I'd get to the top of the nearest building and scream "WE STILL HAVE FF13 EXCLUSIVE" the fact they haven't speaks volumes.