It's all about Demographics, really. Sony struck gold by marketing to 20+ year old gamers, making games they wouldn't feel silly playing (it's hard for a 27 year-old welder to play a cartoon peter pan running around rescuing a cartoon princess. But let him play a mobster capping other mobsters...)
This is what Nintendo never got. Adults don't feel silly watching action movies and thus don't feel silly playing action movies. Adults do feel a little silly watching peter pan cartoons, and thus do feel silly manipulating a little guy with his green hood and tights.
That market exploded; video games moved into the mainstream with the playstation and PS2, and Sony played it perfectly. It didn't hurt that they included DVD capability right at the upswing of the DVD boom.
Nintendo has continued to market to the kiddies. A PS2 looks like a piece of entertainment hardware like a VCR or DVD player; a GameCube looks like a toy, it's purple plastic and cute shape and cute little lunch box handle on the back.
That little kid audience is limited; they're not where the frontier of this market is. It's about making video games as common as watching videos at home, about convincing the older guys that it's not just a kiddie thing. Sony knows this, MS knows this. I doubt Nintendo ever will.
...is their Story Generating software, which uses a 3rd generation Character Attachment/Sympathy Building scheme, along with a cutting-edge Story Arc generator and a powerful Linux Universal Resonant Story Theme workstation.
Seriously, their technology is two generations away from a Best Picture Oscar.
The frank replies to this thread surprise me a little. So let me ask this one very simple question:
Is there really any reason to switch to Linux (my geek friends are always trying to get me to) other than as income-deprivation for evil microsoft? Because I'm using a pirated copy anyway...
Seriously here. Most of my favorite software will not run on Linux. We've already established that it can crash just as often (even if it's not the creators' fault).
So as Joe-Average PC user, give me some reasons. Because I can't think of a single one.
Music is just information. And information wants to be free.
Right?
Right?
This reminds me of teenagers who get mad about high prices at the mall and thus suggest a system where "there is no ownership! No property! Where everything is free!!!!"
Here's the news; if somebody makes something (A book, a song, a poem) that tens of thousands of people love and enjoy, they DESERVE to get something for it.
True, the RIAA screws artists as much as it screws consumers... it needs reform, but cringley's idea is actually much more evil. The most deserving party in this situation is not the consumers. It's the artists.
That may be too strong a word. The kid is famous... hell, when I first saw it I thought he was doing a Chris Farley impersonation... and that he was a rather gifted physical comic.
But from a legal sense... how can he show a quarter million in damages? Is that how much his counseling bills will be? Is that what it cost him to change schools? Has he lost future income?
Come on... he'll claim emotional distress but how do you quantify that?
This case will be thrown out very fast if they don't settle first...
I guess that's the part that baffles me the most, the costs per song that's being bandied about.
Anybody out there have legal knowledge regarding copyright issues? In any other legal case where you are asking for damages you must first prove you suffered that much damage (plus punitive damages, I guess). So how does the record company prove that by me stealing ONE SONG (which I could have bought from Apple for 99 cents) damages them tens of thousands... even if I made it available to ten other people?
I don't want to hear "BECAUSE THEY'RE EVIL!!!" It's not that simple; there must be a legal basis for it somewhere.
This is not a joke any more. If you don't believe artists aren't hurt by file trading, look at one example from the article: Def Leppard. Here you have a band that faithfully preserved intellectual property by not even using the actual spelling of either word in their name. The band was massively successful... until file trading became popular.
Where are they now? Bankrupt and derelict, their artistic skills moldering. Word is their drummer isn't half the drummer he once was.
If you come clean, the RIAA will be lenient. Go HERE and submit your name and a list of the files you have traded.
Your parents have raised you and fed you. They deserve better than to find themselves pinned to the kitchen linoleum with an RIAA jackboot on their neck.
The Heart of the Matter, right here...
on
Saving the Net
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
This is the key point from the article, the heart of what's wrong with the anti-IP movement and the Slashdot crowd:
On such a simple scale, it was clear how the majority of the Court would vote. Not because they are conservative, but because they are Americans. We have a (generally sensible) pro-property bias in this culture that makes it extremely hard for people to think critically about the most complicated form of property out there--what most call "intellectual property." To question property of any form makes you a communist. Yet this is precisely our problem: To make it clear that we are pro-copyright without being extremists either way.
So deep is this confusion that even a smart, and traditionally leftist, social commentator like Edward Rothstein makes the same fundamental mistake in a piece published Saturday. He describes the movement, of which I am part, as "countercultural," "radical," and anti-corporate. Now no doubt there are some for whom those terms are true descriptors. But I for one would be ecstatic if we could just have the same copyright law that existed under Richard Nixon..."
Through history the "there should be no such thing as private property!" movement has been driven by those who simply don't have much private property of their own and thus would like some of yours. This is the perception most of the mainstream has of the "it's our right to download movies and software!" crowd; that they simply want something for free because they lack the resources to pay.
You ask why we middle-Americans side with the big-media companies, but the answer is we don't. We side with the very basic American idea of you not being able to move into my houses with twenty of your hippy friends in the name of "property belongs to everybody!!! Who cares that we didn't build or maintain or earn or buy it!!!"
Someone will shout back that this isn't the argument of the anti-IP side, and I understand; but that's how it sounds to us. You didn't write or film or fund the movie. So why do you claim a "right" to see it free?
The author of the article is absolutely right; if you want to win the debate you must make it more about reforming copyright laws to make them more reasonable (the mainstream can get down with that), and less about "YOU EVIL CAPITALISTS DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO KEEP ANYTHING TO YOURSELVES WITHOUT SHARING WITH US!!!" The average American will NEVER come over to that side.
The ability to own property is as fundamental a freedom to this country as free speech or the right to privacy. If you want to change the minds of the masses (and you must if you want the politicians and CEO's to change theirs; bribes or no bribes they will go with the flow of public opinion in order to stay in office) you must re-frame the argument in that way... or watch your movement slowly die as the open-trading technology window closes. And it WILL close.
This also hurts any bullied geeks planning a school shooting, now forced to keep using outdated Doom and Doom II mods to map out their attacks. When Kleinbold and Harris began their spree they were completely unprepared for jumping or for how prettily water reflects in real life.
Besides, just imagine how many thousands of us have watched that Star Wars stickfighting kid's video without paying him a dime. Struggling performance artists like him deserve our financial support.
I've got a startling essay from a film expert who gets into some of the "deeper meaning" of the Matrix films, and trust me, it has nothing to do with spirituality:
I don't agree with every point made, but I've heard from a lot of fans, and have seen a lot of changed minds. He's got a petition going, and I think Warner Bros. is in for a serious surprise when they get it.
Most experts who have studied the issue say battle droids would be grossly ineffective in combat (some theorizing that your entire army could be immobilized by simply destroying your orbiting space fortress).
If you want to dominate with an army of mindless drones, cloning is widely thought to be the way to go, if your goal is to get every star system to bow to you.
I for one look to the day when nations can resolve their differences with such software rather than actual warfare.
There is no excuse for sacrificing young lives when a simple computer simulation would show the world exactly how the USA would kick their asses deeply into the dirt.
Guys, corporations do a perfectly good job of screwing us without all your weird-assed exaggerations.
They're putting restrictions on their product, we find it inconvenient. 1) don't go flying off the handle and claiming we can't play their CD's on anything but our PC's, and 2) don't act like some fundamental God-given right has been raped away from you.
It's a product inconvenience, making the product less desirable. The free market always solves these problems in the end. If loss of sales due to these features offsets the sales they're allegedly losing due to P2P, they'll drop it. That's all.
Calm down. You don't have some basic humanitarian right to listen to popular music.
A University of Chicago study in 1994 found that the quality of a woman's interaction with a group of males can be measured by the amount of eye contact with her breasts.
NEW YORK (AP) - Is CNN Headline News down with it?
The cable network is trying, judging from an effort emanating from its executive suite to think young.
CNN Headline News general manager Rolando Santos told the San Francisco Chronicle this week that he's looking to mix 'the lingo of our people' -- words like 'whack' and 'ill' -- into newscasts to attract young people.
And the New York Daily News on Wednesday quoted from an e-mail sent by a network manager to his headline writers, sending them a copy of a slang dictionary so they can be 'as cutting edge' as possible.
'Please use this guide to help all you homeys and honeys add a new flava to your tickers and dekkos,' the message said, referring to graphics on the Headline News screen.
The list of phrases included 'fly,' meaning sexually attractive.
Santos said Thursday that the e-mail was designed to point out resources that might help headline writers.
'The e-mail was informational, not a policy or directive from me,' Santos said. 'With that said, I should point out that I want the language used in our tickers and dekkos to be real, current and relevant to the people who watch us.'
CNN underwent a makeover a year ago to add busy graphics to make its screen look like a computer screen. Its ratings have been improving among young viewers.
--------------------
Eh, maybe that wasn't such a great example. "Yo, that suicide bombing is wack!"
You mean back when we had exactly 22 minutes of world news for the entire day?
You mean before the days of 24 hour news channels? And 24 hour Headline News channels?
You mean before the days of live congressional coverage via C-Span?
And are you aware that virtually every TV network went commercial-free during 9/11 coverage?
TV news deserves its criticism, for sure... but be fair. And don't pretend there was this golden age of news when reporters and newscasters worked for free because of an altruistic love of the truth. They've always been under pressure to make the news presentable, entertaining, to package it for consumption. If they don't we stop watching. But there are a HELL of a lot more TV news resources now than there were then.
So tell me again what possible motivation the news industry has for upgrading their online capabilities?
Are any of them even making a penny on their websites? So why pour more money into upgrades? What's the reward? So they can pay more for bandwidth and lose more money?
I was at work, away from a television on September 11th I heard vague news of a plane crash on the radio. I logged in for details:
msnbc.com - down
cnn.com - down
cbsnews.com - down
abcnews.com - down
drudgereport.com - down
I turned the radio back on. Yep. Still works.
Why? Because radio can charge enough for ad space to pay for a working transmitter and a studio and a full-time staff. Cable news makes enough money to support their operation as well.
But online news, for the most part, loses money, and thus can exist only as an offshoot from an offline operation like a TV news broadcast or a newspaper. Therefore it winds up acting only as 1) a supplement and a promotional tool for the broadcast or publication 2) a reader feedback time-waster.
It's always this way; follow the money and you get your answer. And right now the answer is none of the online operations have the desire or motivation to be "the" online news source when the next 9/11 breaks. Let the site go down. Who cares?
Do these people have a dialogue dubbing studio? I used to love those TV edits:
"Suck my (much deeper voice) socks you murderous mother trucker. You wanna mess with me? Lemme show you who you're messing with, you corn-eating son of a librarian.
That's 5 percent who believe in a literal Biblical account of creation (Garden of Eden). The percentage of scientists who believe in a personal God (one who could answer prayers) is around 40% at last check, the percentage who believe in some kind of creator is higher than that.
"Mr. Wong, we've been monitoring your incoming hotmail and we can only assume you've spent hours of company time sending out hundreds of inquiries requesting information on how you can lengthen your penis by 3-4 inches with some kind of herbal supplement..."
Slashdot Mirror
It's all about Demographics, really. Sony struck gold by marketing to 20+ year old gamers, making games they wouldn't feel silly playing (it's hard for a 27 year-old welder to play a cartoon peter pan running around rescuing a cartoon princess. But let him play a mobster capping other mobsters...)
This is what Nintendo never got. Adults don't feel silly watching action movies and thus don't feel silly playing action movies. Adults do feel a little silly watching peter pan cartoons, and thus do feel silly manipulating a little guy with his green hood and tights.
That market exploded; video games moved into the mainstream with the playstation and PS2, and Sony played it perfectly. It didn't hurt that they included DVD capability right at the upswing of the DVD boom.
Nintendo has continued to market to the kiddies. A PS2 looks like a piece of entertainment hardware like a VCR or DVD player; a GameCube looks like a toy, it's purple plastic and cute shape and cute little lunch box handle on the back.
That little kid audience is limited; they're not where the frontier of this market is. It's about making video games as common as watching videos at home, about convincing the older guys that it's not just a kiddie thing. Sony knows this, MS knows this. I doubt Nintendo ever will.
Seriously, their technology is two generations away from a Best Picture Oscar.
How many reading this cried during Finding Nemo?
Me, too.
The frank replies to this thread surprise me a little. So let me ask this one very simple question:
Is there really any reason to switch to Linux (my geek friends are always trying to get me to) other than as income-deprivation for evil microsoft? Because I'm using a pirated copy anyway...
Seriously here. Most of my favorite software will not run on Linux. We've already established that it can crash just as often (even if it's not the creators' fault).
So as Joe-Average PC user, give me some reasons. Because I can't think of a single one.
Music is just information. And information wants to be free.
Right?
Right?
This reminds me of teenagers who get mad about high prices at the mall and thus suggest a system where "there is no ownership! No property! Where everything is free!!!!"
Here's the news; if somebody makes something (A book, a song, a poem) that tens of thousands of people love and enjoy, they DESERVE to get something for it.
True, the RIAA screws artists as much as it screws consumers... it needs reform, but cringley's idea is actually much more evil. The most deserving party in this situation is not the consumers. It's the artists.
Also, angry townfolk determined to burn down the creepy old castle where the monsters come from.
An old idea. GET SOME NEW NEWS, SLASHDOT!!!!
That may be too strong a word. The kid is famous... hell, when I first saw it I thought he was doing a Chris Farley impersonation... and that he was a rather gifted physical comic.
But from a legal sense... how can he show a quarter million in damages? Is that how much his counseling bills will be? Is that what it cost him to change schools? Has he lost future income?
Come on... he'll claim emotional distress but how do you quantify that?
This case will be thrown out very fast if they don't settle first...
And then we could all shit in a bag and mail it to them!
I guess that's the part that baffles me the most, the costs per song that's being bandied about.
Anybody out there have legal knowledge regarding copyright issues? In any other legal case where you are asking for damages you must first prove you suffered that much damage (plus punitive damages, I guess). So how does the record company prove that by me stealing ONE SONG (which I could have bought from Apple for 99 cents) damages them tens of thousands... even if I made it available to ten other people?
I don't want to hear "BECAUSE THEY'RE EVIL!!!" It's not that simple; there must be a legal basis for it somewhere.
Anybody know?
This is not a joke any more. If you don't believe artists aren't hurt by file trading, look at one example from the article: Def Leppard. Here you have a band that faithfully preserved intellectual property by not even using the actual spelling of either word in their name.
The band was massively successful... until file trading became popular.
Where are they now? Bankrupt and derelict, their artistic skills moldering. Word is their drummer isn't half the drummer he once was.
If you come clean, the RIAA will be lenient. Go HERE and submit your name and a list of the files you have traded.
Your parents have raised you and fed you. They deserve better than to find themselves pinned to the kitchen linoleum with an RIAA jackboot on their neck.
This is the key point from the article, the heart of what's wrong with the anti-IP movement and the Slashdot crowd:
On such a simple scale, it was clear how the majority of the Court would vote. Not because they are conservative, but because they are Americans. We have a (generally sensible) pro-property bias in this culture that makes it extremely hard for people to think critically about the most complicated form of property out there--what most call "intellectual property." To question property of any form makes you a communist. Yet this is precisely our problem: To make it clear that we are pro-copyright without being extremists either way.
So deep is this confusion that even a smart, and traditionally leftist, social commentator like Edward Rothstein makes the same fundamental mistake in a piece published Saturday. He describes the movement, of which I am part, as "countercultural," "radical," and anti-corporate. Now no doubt there are some for whom those terms are true descriptors. But I for one would be ecstatic if we could just have the same copyright law that existed under Richard Nixon..."
Through history the "there should be no such thing as private property!" movement has been driven by those who simply don't have much private property of their own and thus would like some of yours. This is the perception most of the mainstream has of the "it's our right to download movies and software!" crowd; that they simply want something for free because they lack the resources to pay.
You ask why we middle-Americans side with the big-media companies, but the answer is we don't. We side with the very basic American idea of you not being able to move into my houses with twenty of your hippy friends in the name of "property belongs to everybody!!! Who cares that we didn't build or maintain or earn or buy it!!!"
Someone will shout back that this isn't the argument of the anti-IP side, and I understand; but that's how it sounds to us. You didn't write or film or fund the movie. So why do you claim a "right" to see it free?
The author of the article is absolutely right; if you want to win the debate you must make it more about reforming copyright laws to make them more reasonable (the mainstream can get down with that), and less about "YOU EVIL CAPITALISTS DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO KEEP ANYTHING TO YOURSELVES WITHOUT SHARING WITH US!!!" The average American will NEVER come over to that side.
The ability to own property is as fundamental a freedom to this country as free speech or the right to privacy. If you want to change the minds of the masses (and you must if you want the politicians and CEO's to change theirs; bribes or no bribes they will go with the flow of public opinion in order to stay in office) you must re-frame the argument in that way... or watch your movement slowly die as the open-trading technology window closes. And it WILL close.
"religion is the opiate of the masses."
...and yet we can sit here and seriously discuss VIDEO GAMES. Talk about opiates of the masses...
On second thought, I suppose in America that actual opiates are the opiate of the masses. But anyway.
Oh yeah? Uh... MICROSOFT SUCKS!!! OPEN SOURCE FOREVER!!
Dammit... PC game comedy died with Old Man Murray.
This also hurts any bullied geeks planning a school shooting, now forced to keep using outdated Doom and Doom II mods to map out their attacks. When Kleinbold and Harris began their spree they were completely unprepared for jumping or for how prettily water reflects in real life.
Nobody thinks of them.
...or at least that's the opinion of this guy, who makes a powerful, powerful, powerful point:
HERE
Besides, just imagine how many thousands of us have watched that Star Wars stickfighting kid's video without paying him a dime. Struggling performance artists like him deserve our financial support.
I've got a startling essay from a film expert who gets into some of the "deeper meaning" of the Matrix films, and trust me, it has nothing to do with spirituality:
50 Reasons to Avoid The Matrix
I don't agree with every point made, but I've heard from a lot of fans, and have seen a lot of changed minds. He's got a petition going, and I think Warner Bros. is in for a serious surprise when they get it.
Most experts who have studied the issue say battle droids would be grossly ineffective in combat (some theorizing that your entire army could be immobilized by simply destroying your orbiting space fortress).
If you want to dominate with an army of mindless drones, cloning is widely thought to be the way to go, if your goal is to get every star system to bow to you.
I for one look to the day when nations can resolve their differences with such software rather than actual warfare.
There is no excuse for sacrificing young lives when a simple computer simulation would show the world exactly how the USA would kick their asses deeply into the dirt.
Guys, corporations do a perfectly good job of screwing us without all your weird-assed exaggerations.
They're putting restrictions on their product, we find it inconvenient. 1) don't go flying off the handle and claiming we can't play their CD's on anything but our PC's, and 2) don't act like some fundamental God-given right has been raped away from you.
It's a product inconvenience, making the product less desirable. The free market always solves these problems in the end. If loss of sales due to these features offsets the sales they're allegedly losing due to P2P, they'll drop it. That's all.
Calm down. You don't have some basic humanitarian right to listen to popular music.
A University of Chicago study in 1994 found that the quality of a woman's interaction with a group of males can be measured by the amount of eye contact with her breasts.
CNN HEADLINE NEWS, baby.
From the AP:
CNN Looks to Get Hip, Think Young
Wed Oct 2, 5:02 PM ET
NEW YORK (AP) - Is CNN Headline News down with it?
The cable network is trying, judging from an effort emanating from its executive suite to think young.
CNN Headline News general manager Rolando Santos told the San Francisco Chronicle this week that he's looking to mix 'the lingo of our people' -- words like 'whack' and 'ill' -- into newscasts to attract young people.
And the New York Daily News on Wednesday quoted from an e-mail sent by a network manager to his headline writers, sending them a copy of a slang dictionary so they can be 'as cutting edge' as possible.
'Please use this guide to help all you homeys and honeys add a new flava to your tickers and dekkos,' the message said, referring to graphics on the Headline News screen.
The list of phrases included 'fly,' meaning sexually attractive.
Santos said Thursday that the e-mail was designed to point out resources that might help headline writers.
'The e-mail was informational, not a policy or directive from me,' Santos said. 'With that said, I should point out that I want the language used in our tickers and dekkos to be real, current and relevant to the people who watch us.'
CNN underwent a makeover a year ago to add busy graphics to make its screen look like a computer screen. Its ratings have been improving among young viewers.
--------------------
Eh, maybe that wasn't such a great example. "Yo, that suicide bombing is wack!"
A far cry from the days of Walter Cronkite.
You mean back when we had exactly 22 minutes of world news for the entire day?
You mean before the days of 24 hour news channels? And 24 hour Headline News channels?
You mean before the days of live congressional coverage via C-Span?
And are you aware that virtually every TV network went commercial-free during 9/11 coverage?
TV news deserves its criticism, for sure... but be fair. And don't pretend there was this golden age of news when reporters and newscasters worked for free because of an altruistic love of the truth. They've always been under pressure to make the news presentable, entertaining, to package it for consumption. If they don't we stop watching. But there are a HELL of a lot more TV news resources now than there were then.
So tell me again what possible motivation the news industry has for upgrading their online capabilities?
Are any of them even making a penny on their websites? So why pour more money into upgrades? What's the reward? So they can pay more for bandwidth and lose more money?
I was at work, away from a television on September 11th I heard vague news of a plane crash on the radio. I logged in for details:
msnbc.com - down
cnn.com - down
cbsnews.com - down
abcnews.com - down
drudgereport.com - down
I turned the radio back on. Yep. Still works.
Why? Because radio can charge enough for ad space to pay for a working transmitter and a studio and a full-time staff. Cable news makes enough money to support their operation as well.
But online news, for the most part, loses money, and thus can exist only as an offshoot from an offline operation like a TV news broadcast or a newspaper. Therefore it winds up acting only as 1) a supplement and a promotional tool for the broadcast or publication 2) a reader feedback time-waster.
It's always this way; follow the money and you get your answer. And right now the answer is none of the online operations have the desire or motivation to be "the" online news source when the next 9/11 breaks. Let the site go down. Who cares?
Do these people have a dialogue dubbing studio? I used to love those TV edits:
"Suck my (much deeper voice) socks you murderous mother trucker. You wanna mess with me? Lemme show you who you're messing with, you corn-eating son of a librarian.
That's 5 percent who believe in a literal Biblical account of creation (Garden of Eden). The percentage of scientists who believe in a personal God (one who could answer prayers) is around 40% at last check, the percentage who believe in some kind of creator is higher than that.
Albert Einstein, for instance, was one of them.
"Mr. Wong, we've been monitoring your incoming hotmail and we can only assume you've spent hours of company time sending out hundreds of inquiries requesting information on how you can lengthen your penis by 3-4 inches with some kind of herbal supplement..."