I love jumping on the ol' good-natured-poking-fun-at-Bob-Ross bandwagon, but let's actually consider what this game could end up being--and doing.
First, consider where Bob Ross' style meets computer technology. Ross is best known for two things: painting landscapes and easily recycled phrases. Now, think about what you could do with this in a computer game: dynamically-generated landscapes ("never the same painting!"); reasonably intelligent guidance (processing...object:forest. Speak: "happy little trees". Append random advice on painting trees. Bleep bleep.); Ease-of-use (no setup, no cleanup--paint for five minutes at a time! No need to buy brushes and canvas--you've got a full professional setup already!); and finally, the Revolution's controller (select: 1/2" fan brush. Dab, dab, dab, tilt, dab, dab--whoa, a happy little tree!) Get past the obvious snark, and this game actually holds some promise.
While I doubt it'll end up being a killer game, it could very well end up being a tipping-point game for parents/casual gamers making a purchasing decision. "Hey, here's something I could see myself enjoying..." "Hey, it has Tetris, Scrabble and this painting game...looks like it could be fun!" Heck, even I'm intrigued by it--and it certainly isn't the kind of thing I'd typically consider for a video game.
There are a lot of unsolved variables in this equation, but it could turn out to be something fun, profitable and--dare I say it--revolutionary...
It's difficult to ignore, though, that the PSP seems like the most attractive prospect right now for Western developers making "mature" games.
[...]
But in the U.S., the DS is seen as more like the successor to the Game Boy. Far from the brief flirtation with adult games like Sprung, Western devs are looking at the DS and thinking, "kids."
I still don't buy the "maturity myth"--or rather, I'm increasingly convinced that the "mature game" demographic is rapidly shrinking as a percentage of the overall gaming population. I genuinely don't think that either system's success or failure hinges primarily on the availability of "mature" games.
I wish the author had provided some support for his assertions--for example, which Western developers are shunning the DS because they think it is for kids? What makes the PSP inherently more attractive to the makers of "mature" games?
I think that Sony not releasing US sales figures is telling--if they were outselling the DS, don't you think they'd be shouting that fact from the rooftops? Of interest, too, is the slow-death of UMD movies. The DS is flying off the shelves--is the same true for the PSP?
But can we PLEASE get it into our heads ONCE AND FOR ALL that the purpose of any big corporation is JUST to make money for its shareholders - END OF STORY!!!
...so what? If I happen to really like the good or service they provide, why shouldn't I encourage other people to try it out? Because I'd be giving that corporation something for nothing in return? Heaven forfend.
And if they give you a good customer service and/or a good feeling every time you deal with them, it is not because they're feeling nice, warm or friendly about you but because it is profitable to do so.
...why, exactly, can't it be both? Do you really believe that human kindness and an entrepreneurial spirit are mutually exclusive? And in any case, how is a random large corporation any different from Poppa's Corner Store in this regard?
But PLEASE get it out of your thick skull that wearing a corporate logo of ANY sort is cool - it isn't because it just goes to show the rest of the world that you are insecure enough to want to belong to one (or more) exclusive little cliques that makes you feel special because you can look down on those that aren't members of those same cliques.
Hey, great! I've been searching for the Ultimate Arbiter of Human Emotion--glad I've finally found you!
In case you hadn't noticed, you're practicing the very thing you're preaching against. You're standing up and declaring that unless you wear label-less clothing (like, I assume, you yourself,) you're not cool, and if you want to be cool, you should start acting this particular way.
There's nothing wrong with having strong reasons for wearing what you wear--hell, I wear generic jeans and plain shirts, myself, mostly because I don't like to spend a lot of money on clothes--but there's a line drawn when you start to belittle others who don't see eye-to-eye with you over something as mind-bogglingly trivial as logos on clothing.
Let it be enough that you're proud of your decision to eschew branded clothing. Resist the urge to generously explain to everybody else why they're such fucking losers.
...and what of the scientist who, after ten years of research, has some solid leads, some strong hypotheses, but realizes that another ten-year study is in order to truly rule out some key issues? Should they not publish? If not, how do you propose they go about securing the funding they need to conduct that next round of research? "Well, I did a lot of really great science this decade, but I really need you to fund my lab for another decade before I can comfortably present any results to the scientific community. You understand, yes? I should only need three million dollars or so..."
Should a scientist be expected to forsee problems that may crop up in year five? What if the scientist's hypothesis is wrong, but the results are still useful? What if the results are entirely inconclusive, yet the scientist has produced a wealth of sound data and reasoning that may be of use to their peers? Should they not publish their results simply to satisfy the vanity and impatience of the general public?
We'll set aside, for the moment, the fact that scientists are human beings and need validation as much as any other person out there (how would you like to work your fingers to the bone for ten years and have absolutely nothing to show the world? Think you could muster the will to take another ten-year crack at it, knowing that you could end up in exactly the same place?) Science is, and always has been, an ongoing process, not a set of tasks. It is not the fault of the scientist that the non-scientific media seems incapable of conveying this basic truth of science.
I see your joke but it really is pathetic how one study tells you this and another tells you something contrary. I remember when eggs were good for you and then they weren't and now they are good again. Apples were good for you ("An apple a day keeps the doctor away") and then they weren't ("The sugar in an apple can rot your teeth", my dentist told me.). Now, they are good for you again. And there are other examples out there.
...well, would you rather that scientists just sat on what they have until they're absolutely, positively sure they're right? That way we'd never need to deal with contradictory discoveries. We wouldn't know where babies come from, but at least we wouldn't need to deal with the embarassment of learning that mammalian ovaries don't work the way we always thought they did.
Stuff is complicated. Be glad that we strive to make progress, even when it means saying, "whoops, we were wrong."
Zonk, the Slashdot headline and summary have virtually nothing to do with the article.
For one, Greeson specifically states that he's not going to go into whether or not Apple overhyped their latest releases; by the tone he takes, one suspects that he sees the grumbling of "Apple's fanatical base" as a largely unavoidable cost of taking innovative risks. Beyond that, though, the focus of his article is on the remote control included with the mini; how it is simultaneously easy-to-use and powerful--he calls it "sophisticated simplicity"; and how he hopes and expects future devices to try to mimic Apple's design choice.
Instead, this summary takes a throwaway bit from the introduction and completely ignores the entire point of Mr. Greeson's article. The summary goes on to state that Mr Greeson thinks Apple over-hyped their latest product release--even though he explicitly says otherwise in his article. If I were Mr. Greeson, I'd be more than a little peeved that you'd so fundamentally butchered and misrepresented my work. Not even two minutes of the most basic editorial work would have revealed this.
You've been trolled, Zonk, and now it falls to us to clear the air. Of course, the joke's on us, too: we're not the ones who are getting paid to do the job in the first place.
What positive evidence do you have to offer to back up your assertion that "finding yourself in Europe" or "reading a good book once in a while" has greater value than a liberal arts education?
How about discovering themselves in Europe for a year? Or just reading a good book every once in a while. That'll do far more good than anything as worthless as a liberal arts college.
...as somebody who has done all three, I feel that my liberal arts education laid the foundation which made me understand and appreciate the other two far more than I otherwise would have.
Had I not spent the time and energy learning new ways to comprehend the world I live in, I wouldn't have appreciated my time abroad nearly as much as I did. Odds are I would have simply spent the lion's share of my time "finding myself" in bars and clubs with other expats my age, instead of actually launching myself headlong into the foreign culture itself.
Then again, you seem to have some insight into the value of a liberal arts education that I've missed. What is it about a liberal arts education that makes it so worthless, in your view?
I find this prediction of a big bounce for Lara Croft a little inflated, personally.
Perky, uplifting statements from the director of marketing tend to arouse my suspicion. It seems to me he's just attempting to implant totally artificial marketingspeak in our heads.
It has recently come to my attention that Infinium Labs has accumulated over sixty-two million dollars in debt.
Clearly, there are substantial numbers amidst your ranks who are perfectly willing to part with large sums of money for no good reason whatsoever.
I would ask these investors to send me $100,000 cash, in return for which I will do absolutely nothing. It should be obvious at this point that investing in Infinium Labs is an exercise in futility, humiliation and shame, so I think my offer looks pretty good, on balance. It's also much less expensive.
I eagerly await your reply in the form of crisp, new $100 bills.
Windows Vista Starter (designed to combat piracy of Windows overseas; probably won't go on sale in US)
Windows Vista Home Basic
Windows Vista Home Premium
Windows Vista Business Basic
Windows Vista Business Premium
Windows Vista Corporate Basic
Windows Vista Corporate Premium
Windows Vista Ultimate
While I'd really like to believe otherwise, I cannot help but think that this will turn into a nightmare for application support. The ones that worry the most are the two at either end of the line: Starter and Ultimate. Will you need Ultimate to run top-of-the-line games or use top-of-the-line hardware? Will people with Starter not be able to use your program because they're missing certain functionality? Will you be able to burn DVDs with Home Basic, or does that functionality only come with Premium and Ultimate?
Sure, each version will be tailored to that particular end user's most likely needs. You can bet, however, that there'll be all sorts of "incentives" to bump yourself up to the next level of functionality in the form of "well, that functionality only comes with version X"...
I meant exactly what I said. There are tons of TVs out there with compostite video. That's the one with the cute little yellow plug, the cute little red plug and the cute little white plug, right? Ohmigod! *ditzy giggle*
You'll get a better gaming experience using composite than you will with coax, even though it's still far from optimal. By contrast, there are comparatively few TVs out there with component video--if for no other reason than it's a much newer input method for TVs.
Fanboy? Until I got a DS--my only piece of Nintendo hardware--I hadn't purchased anything from Nintendo since the SNES. I've been a PlayStation man for close to a decade now.
The simple truth here is that of the three major console producers, only one of them seems poised to do something beyond "what we did last time plus five years". It is my honest opinion that Nintendo will come out on top this round because they're willing to take a sizeable risk, while the other two are playing it safe--and "safe" isn't going to be exciting enough to justify the historically high price tags.
What they conveniently overlook is Nintendo's lack of HD support is going to be awful for them.
I think you are vastly overestimating the importance of HD to the average consumer. The people who really care about HD have already purchased their XBox 360. Remember that many, many people still jack their current-gen systems in with a freakin' coax line, despite the availability of composite and S-Video on the TV they already own..
Then again, perhaps I expect too much from an individual who posts:
"Even if they don't have such a TV, families will walk into the store next Christmas season and see PS3, X-Box, and Nintendo screens side by side in demo areas, and next to the other two, the Nintendo will look like something from a 1980s arcade machine."
"the Revolution will have.... what? A "para para" game to take advantage of the new interface, and maybe a puppy simulator? Wow. That will still be dazzling people ten months from now, eh?" (emphasis mine)
First number is launch price, second is launch price adjusted for inflation (USD in 2005). "Winner" in bold.
The XBox 360 comes in at the high end, price-wise; the "real" system launched at $399, which means that only the Sega Saturn was more expensive at launch, in adjusted dollars.
What this does not show is the relative technological leap between console generations. The leap between the current next-gen and their predecessors is much, much narrower than was the leap between earlier iterations. You don't look at side-by-side screenshots of XBox and XBox 360 games and go, "Holy shit, that's amazing!" like you did when you first saw the SNES...
And I seem to remember paying upwards of $75 for Sega Genesis games, I don't think $50 or $60 is unreasonable.
As I recall, $75 games were the exception, not the rule. Remember, too, that Nintendo won that round--and I'm reasonably certain that their games tended to be less expensive than Sega's games.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the XBox 360 is in for a rough future.
The Launch: Microsoft did a decent job hyping the system, but the launch was, on balance, weak. You had your brief hysteria of $5,000 systems on eBay, but it died down fairly quickly. You had serious supply issues--to the point where it hurt more than helped. You had the whole power supply issue. You had decent games, but no "killer title" that made you want to go out and get it.
Today: The games are still pretty pedestrian--the operative word is "prettier", which will only get you so far. Now that the insanity of the launch period has passed, there isn't much about the XBox 360 that appeals to the average consumer--it's expensive, it has decent games but nothing "must-have", and finally, it's expensive. $350 for the system and $50-60 games is simply too expensive for the casual gamer.
Tomorrow: As Thanksgiving approaches, I'm willing to bet that the 360 hits hard times. Unless they can come up with a bigger hit than Halo, all the chatter is going to be about the Revolution. Nintendo is going to have the luxury of not needing killer games at launch; the new user interface alone will likely drive sales, and if they can put out a few decent games that take advantage of this, they'll be set.
Basically, to your average consumer, there's little reason to get an XBox 360 right now. It's a big enough investment that most people won't consider it as an impulse buy, and it's enough like the last generation of consoles that it won't generate enough interest--again, this is unless they can get a truly must-have game out before, say, September.
The 360's position in the next-gen war is that of the gung-ho kid who vaults out of the trench and bursts ahead of the rest of the charge: he's out front right now and will bask in glory if he can survive--but he's also the first target to come in range.
Or, from another angle: Sony and Microsoft are working hard to field the finest cavalry regiments ever seen on a field of battle. Nintendo is working hard on building a tank.
Awww, lighten up. Cheap jokes are good for your health.
If you want discussion of your "Toward more perfect programmers" comment, though, here it is:
You need hard data. You're drawing too many broad conclusions from anecdotal evidence.
The problem is that many people involved with computers fundamentally don't actually work for their company. Instead, they do only what they perceive is best for them. Generally, when such people are programmers they want a resume that shows familiarity with many computer languages.
But is there anything that distinguishes the programmer from, say, the lawyer, the salesman, or the drill-press operator? Couldn't you say pretty much the same thing about your typical employee, regardless of their trade?
That kind of short-term vision works because of the brokenness of the human resources department of most technically-oriented companies. In most such companies, the top management has too little technical understanding. The top management tries to reduce salary expense by hiring people who will work cheaply, and that means people with minimal technical understanding.
It isn't top management's job to have technical expertise. It is top management's job to run all aspects of the company and strive to make sure that the left hand knows what the right is doing. Similarly, an HR person cannot possibly hope to be well-versed in all the various technical disciplines they'll be hiring for. What most reasonable companies do is include technical teams in the hiring process; you'll have lead developers other techies interview candidates and report their decision up to HR. I'll readily grant that this isn't the perfect model, but any HR division worth their salt will know to include technical teams in a technical interview. If they don't, then you can be reasonably certain that they're botching things across the board, be it in hiring for sales, management, you name it.
Poorly educated human resources people are impressed by someone who says he has familiarity with several computer languages. (Actually, human resources people aren't impressed at all; they only think the manager for which they are interviewing applicants will be impressed. Generally the people with no technical knowledge at a technically-oriented company have a secret belief that they are superior to those who work with grubby technical details.)
Again, you're restricting a scenario to tech hires when a poorly-educated HR person will, in all likelyhood, do just as poorly with other departments they don't understand. You're also making rather lazy assumptions about the nature of non-techies in a technical organization. Building sociological arguments on a foundation of the "secret beliefs" of various types of worker is no way to go.
Of course, it would be possible for someone to lie on a resume and claim knowledge of languages with which he or she had little experience. But that is regarded by most people as far too risky. The liklihood is that someone doing the interviewing would detect ignorance.
Resume padding is as old as resumes. It's frighteningly common for people to lie on their resume; nobody ever expects to get caught. Again, this is a problem that transcends technical boundaries.
So, many programmers want enough practice that they can claim familiarity with several languages. Such people can be expected to lead their companies into as many technologies as possible.
That's a rather large leap in logic, there. What's to say that they're not just trying to get their foot in the door? If anything, you'd expect a programmer (or anyone else, for that matter) to fall back onto comfortable territory as much as possible once hired. What is the impetus for your typical worker to do things in a way that is new and unfamiliar to them?
Now, if you were to argue that a new hire is more likely to look at an existing system that they're unfamiliar with and decide to re-build
"There is a foolproof way to spot a voodoo scientist. If a scientist claims to have a theory about a natural phenomenon but is unable to explain the theory in a simple language that the average layman can understand, one can be absolutely certain that he is as clueless about the nature of the phenomenon in question as anybody else. Voodoo science is not about understanding nature but about working at being so incomprehensible or so arcane to one's fellow human beings as to be regarded as brilliant. The weapon of choice of a voodoo scientist is mathematics. The truth is that a scientist's understanding of a phenomenon is inversely proportional to the number of math equations he uses to describe it. Neither Newton's gravity equation nor the equations of General Relativity explain why things fall. But what better way is there to hide one's cluelessness while presenting a façade of erudition than to use obscure equations to erect an impregnable mountain of obfuscation? Voodoo science is guru science."
There you have it. Does your proof involve advanced mathematics? Can you explain your theory in short sentences and small words? If not, it is a certaintly you're a arrogant, vain, brainless crackpot who is more concerned with looking smart than anything else.
This guy must have been picked on by nuclear physicists and molecular biologists when he was a kid, 'cuz he has a major bug up his ass when it comes to, well, the entire scientific community. Welcome to the ranks of Alex Chiu and Timecube, Mr. Savian.
Slashdot Mirror
First, consider where Bob Ross' style meets computer technology. Ross is best known for two things: painting landscapes and easily recycled phrases. Now, think about what you could do with this in a computer game: dynamically-generated landscapes ("never the same painting!"); reasonably intelligent guidance (processing...object:forest. Speak: "happy little trees". Append random advice on painting trees. Bleep bleep.); Ease-of-use (no setup, no cleanup--paint for five minutes at a time! No need to buy brushes and canvas--you've got a full professional setup already!); and finally, the Revolution's controller (select: 1/2" fan brush. Dab, dab, dab, tilt, dab, dab--whoa, a happy little tree!) Get past the obvious snark, and this game actually holds some promise.
While I doubt it'll end up being a killer game, it could very well end up being a tipping-point game for parents/casual gamers making a purchasing decision. "Hey, here's something I could see myself enjoying..." "Hey, it has Tetris, Scrabble and this painting game...looks like it could be fun!" Heck, even I'm intrigued by it--and it certainly isn't the kind of thing I'd typically consider for a video game.
There are a lot of unsolved variables in this equation, but it could turn out to be something fun, profitable and--dare I say it--revolutionary...
You guys are totally invited to my sleepover.
We're gonna talk about servers, and soldering irons, and building your own computer, and cameraphones, and open source software, and
OH! oh oh oh!
I heard that Linus and Richard might try to sneak in! They're sooooo cute! *SQueaL!*
*giggle*
It's difficult to ignore, though, that the PSP seems like the most attractive prospect right now for Western developers making "mature" games.
[...]
But in the U.S., the DS is seen as more like the successor to the Game Boy. Far from the brief flirtation with adult games like Sprung, Western devs are looking at the DS and thinking, "kids."
I still don't buy the "maturity myth"--or rather, I'm increasingly convinced that the "mature game" demographic is rapidly shrinking as a percentage of the overall gaming population. I genuinely don't think that either system's success or failure hinges primarily on the availability of "mature" games.
I wish the author had provided some support for his assertions--for example, which Western developers are shunning the DS because they think it is for kids? What makes the PSP inherently more attractive to the makers of "mature" games?
I think that Sony not releasing US sales figures is telling--if they were outselling the DS, don't you think they'd be shouting that fact from the rooftops? Of interest, too, is the slow-death of UMD movies. The DS is flying off the shelves--is the same true for the PSP?
And if they give you a good customer service and/or a good feeling every time you deal with them, it is not because they're feeling nice, warm or friendly about you but because it is profitable to do so.
But PLEASE get it out of your thick skull that wearing a corporate logo of ANY sort is cool - it isn't because it just goes to show the rest of the world that you are insecure enough to want to belong to one (or more) exclusive little cliques that makes you feel special because you can look down on those that aren't members of those same cliques.
Hey, great! I've been searching for the Ultimate Arbiter of Human Emotion--glad I've finally found you!
In case you hadn't noticed, you're practicing the very thing you're preaching against. You're standing up and declaring that unless you wear label-less clothing (like, I assume, you yourself,) you're not cool, and if you want to be cool, you should start acting this particular way.
There's nothing wrong with having strong reasons for wearing what you wear--hell, I wear generic jeans and plain shirts, myself, mostly because I don't like to spend a lot of money on clothes--but there's a line drawn when you start to belittle others who don't see eye-to-eye with you over something as mind-bogglingly trivial as logos on clothing.
Let it be enough that you're proud of your decision to eschew branded clothing. Resist the urge to generously explain to everybody else why they're such fucking losers.
Should a scientist be expected to forsee problems that may crop up in year five? What if the scientist's hypothesis is wrong, but the results are still useful? What if the results are entirely inconclusive, yet the scientist has produced a wealth of sound data and reasoning that may be of use to their peers? Should they not publish their results simply to satisfy the vanity and impatience of the general public?
We'll set aside, for the moment, the fact that scientists are human beings and need validation as much as any other person out there (how would you like to work your fingers to the bone for ten years and have absolutely nothing to show the world? Think you could muster the will to take another ten-year crack at it, knowing that you could end up in exactly the same place?) Science is, and always has been, an ongoing process, not a set of tasks. It is not the fault of the scientist that the non-scientific media seems incapable of conveying this basic truth of science.
Stuff is complicated. Be glad that we strive to make progress, even when it means saying, "whoops, we were wrong."
For one, Greeson specifically states that he's not going to go into whether or not Apple overhyped their latest releases; by the tone he takes, one suspects that he sees the grumbling of "Apple's fanatical base" as a largely unavoidable cost of taking innovative risks. Beyond that, though, the focus of his article is on the remote control included with the mini; how it is simultaneously easy-to-use and powerful--he calls it "sophisticated simplicity"; and how he hopes and expects future devices to try to mimic Apple's design choice.
Instead, this summary takes a throwaway bit from the introduction and completely ignores the entire point of Mr. Greeson's article. The summary goes on to state that Mr Greeson thinks Apple over-hyped their latest product release--even though he explicitly says otherwise in his article. If I were Mr. Greeson, I'd be more than a little peeved that you'd so fundamentally butchered and misrepresented my work. Not even two minutes of the most basic editorial work would have revealed this.
You've been trolled, Zonk, and now it falls to us to clear the air. Of course, the joke's on us, too: we're not the ones who are getting paid to do the job in the first place.
...your source?
As for the value of a liberal arts education, it's well demonstrated that people with bachelor's degrees earn significantly more than people with incomplete or no college education. An individual's income level has a direct bearing on their quality of life, including access to superior healthcare, more flexibility in their jobs, and more free time. How do you figure this is "worthless"?
This is all tangential, though. Again, I ask: what, in your view, makes a liberal arts education "worthless"?
Had I not spent the time and energy learning new ways to comprehend the world I live in, I wouldn't have appreciated my time abroad nearly as much as I did. Odds are I would have simply spent the lion's share of my time "finding myself" in bars and clubs with other expats my age, instead of actually launching myself headlong into the foreign culture itself.
Then again, you seem to have some insight into the value of a liberal arts education that I've missed. What is it about a liberal arts education that makes it so worthless, in your view?
Perky, uplifting statements from the director of marketing tend to arouse my suspicion. It seems to me he's just attempting to implant totally artificial marketingspeak in our heads.
(Boobies! *snrk*)
It has recently come to my attention that Infinium Labs has accumulated over sixty-two million dollars in debt.
Clearly, there are substantial numbers amidst your ranks who are perfectly willing to part with large sums of money for no good reason whatsoever.
I would ask these investors to send me $100,000 cash, in return for which I will do absolutely nothing. It should be obvious at this point that investing in Infinium Labs is an exercise in futility, humiliation and shame, so I think my offer looks pretty good, on balance. It's also much less expensive.
I eagerly await your reply in the form of crisp, new $100 bills.
Warmest Regards,
AAiP
Windows Vista Starter (designed to combat piracy of Windows overseas; probably won't go on sale in US)
Windows Vista Home Basic
Windows Vista Home Premium
Windows Vista Business Basic
Windows Vista Business Premium
Windows Vista Corporate Basic
Windows Vista Corporate Premium
Windows Vista Ultimate
While I'd really like to believe otherwise, I cannot help but think that this will turn into a nightmare for application support. The ones that worry the most are the two at either end of the line: Starter and Ultimate. Will you need Ultimate to run top-of-the-line games or use top-of-the-line hardware? Will people with Starter not be able to use your program because they're missing certain functionality? Will you be able to burn DVDs with Home Basic, or does that functionality only come with Premium and Ultimate?
Sure, each version will be tailored to that particular end user's most likely needs. You can bet, however, that there'll be all sorts of "incentives" to bump yourself up to the next level of functionality in the form of "well, that functionality only comes with version X"...
You'll get a better gaming experience using composite than you will with coax, even though it's still far from optimal. By contrast, there are comparatively few TVs out there with component video--if for no other reason than it's a much newer input method for TVs.
But hey, don't let me ruin your moment.
The simple truth here is that of the three major console producers, only one of them seems poised to do something beyond "what we did last time plus five years". It is my honest opinion that Nintendo will come out on top this round because they're willing to take a sizeable risk, while the other two are playing it safe--and "safe" isn't going to be exciting enough to justify the historically high price tags.
What they conveniently overlook is Nintendo's lack of HD support is going to be awful for them.
I think you are vastly overestimating the importance of HD to the average consumer. The people who really care about HD have already purchased their XBox 360. Remember that many, many people still jack their current-gen systems in with a freakin' coax line, despite the availability of composite and S-Video on the TV they already own..
Then again, perhaps I expect too much from an individual who posts:
"Even if they don't have such a TV, families will walk into the store next Christmas season and see PS3, X-Box, and Nintendo screens side by side in demo areas, and next to the other two, the Nintendo will look like something from a 1980s arcade machine."
"the Revolution will have.... what? A "para para" game to take advantage of the new interface, and maybe a puppy simulator? Wow. That will still be dazzling people ten months from now, eh?" (emphasis mine)
Which of the two of us has a bone to pick, here?
NES: $199 ($353)
SMS: $199 ($340)
SNES: $199 ($280)
Genesis: $249 ($388)
Saturn: $399 ($496)
PS1: $299 ($372)
N64: $199 ($241)
DC: $199 ($230)
PS2: $299 ($332)
XBox: $299 ($324)
GC: $199 ($299)
First number is launch price, second is launch price adjusted for inflation (USD in 2005). "Winner" in bold.
The XBox 360 comes in at the high end, price-wise; the "real" system launched at $399, which means that only the Sega Saturn was more expensive at launch, in adjusted dollars.
What this does not show is the relative technological leap between console generations. The leap between the current next-gen and their predecessors is much, much narrower than was the leap between earlier iterations. You don't look at side-by-side screenshots of XBox and XBox 360 games and go, "Holy shit, that's amazing!" like you did when you first saw the SNES...
And I seem to remember paying upwards of $75 for Sega Genesis games, I don't think $50 or $60 is unreasonable.
As I recall, $75 games were the exception, not the rule. Remember, too, that Nintendo won that round--and I'm reasonably certain that their games tended to be less expensive than Sega's games.
The Launch: Microsoft did a decent job hyping the system, but the launch was, on balance, weak. You had your brief hysteria of $5,000 systems on eBay, but it died down fairly quickly. You had serious supply issues--to the point where it hurt more than helped. You had the whole power supply issue. You had decent games, but no "killer title" that made you want to go out and get it.
Today: The games are still pretty pedestrian--the operative word is "prettier", which will only get you so far. Now that the insanity of the launch period has passed, there isn't much about the XBox 360 that appeals to the average consumer--it's expensive, it has decent games but nothing "must-have", and finally, it's expensive. $350 for the system and $50-60 games is simply too expensive for the casual gamer.
Tomorrow: As Thanksgiving approaches, I'm willing to bet that the 360 hits hard times. Unless they can come up with a bigger hit than Halo, all the chatter is going to be about the Revolution. Nintendo is going to have the luxury of not needing killer games at launch; the new user interface alone will likely drive sales, and if they can put out a few decent games that take advantage of this, they'll be set.
Basically, to your average consumer, there's little reason to get an XBox 360 right now. It's a big enough investment that most people won't consider it as an impulse buy, and it's enough like the last generation of consoles that it won't generate enough interest--again, this is unless they can get a truly must-have game out before, say, September.
The 360's position in the next-gen war is that of the gung-ho kid who vaults out of the trench and bursts ahead of the rest of the charge: he's out front right now and will bask in glory if he can survive--but he's also the first target to come in range.
Or, from another angle: Sony and Microsoft are working hard to field the finest cavalry regiments ever seen on a field of battle. Nintendo is working hard on building a tank.
*grin*
The day that PC games do not literally have a fraction of the shelf space in a store is the day the universe faces some serious, serious issues.
If you want discussion of your "Toward more perfect programmers" comment, though, here it is:
You need hard data. You're drawing too many broad conclusions from anecdotal evidence.
The problem is that many people involved with computers fundamentally don't actually work for their company. Instead, they do only what they perceive is best for them. Generally, when such people are programmers they want a resume that shows familiarity with many computer languages.
But is there anything that distinguishes the programmer from, say, the lawyer, the salesman, or the drill-press operator? Couldn't you say pretty much the same thing about your typical employee, regardless of their trade?
That kind of short-term vision works because of the brokenness of the human resources department of most technically-oriented companies. In most such companies, the top management has too little technical understanding. The top management tries to reduce salary expense by hiring people who will work cheaply, and that means people with minimal technical understanding.
It isn't top management's job to have technical expertise. It is top management's job to run all aspects of the company and strive to make sure that the left hand knows what the right is doing. Similarly, an HR person cannot possibly hope to be well-versed in all the various technical disciplines they'll be hiring for. What most reasonable companies do is include technical teams in the hiring process; you'll have lead developers other techies interview candidates and report their decision up to HR. I'll readily grant that this isn't the perfect model, but any HR division worth their salt will know to include technical teams in a technical interview. If they don't, then you can be reasonably certain that they're botching things across the board, be it in hiring for sales, management, you name it.
Poorly educated human resources people are impressed by someone who says he has familiarity with several computer languages. (Actually, human resources people aren't impressed at all; they only think the manager for which they are interviewing applicants will be impressed. Generally the people with no technical knowledge at a technically-oriented company have a secret belief that they are superior to those who work with grubby technical details.)
Again, you're restricting a scenario to tech hires when a poorly-educated HR person will, in all likelyhood, do just as poorly with other departments they don't understand. You're also making rather lazy assumptions about the nature of non-techies in a technical organization. Building sociological arguments on a foundation of the "secret beliefs" of various types of worker is no way to go.
Of course, it would be possible for someone to lie on a resume and claim knowledge of languages with which he or she had little experience. But that is regarded by most people as far too risky. The liklihood is that someone doing the interviewing would detect ignorance.
Resume padding is as old as resumes. It's frighteningly common for people to lie on their resume; nobody ever expects to get caught. Again, this is a problem that transcends technical boundaries.
So, many programmers want enough practice that they can claim familiarity with several languages. Such people can be expected to lead their companies into as many technologies as possible.
That's a rather large leap in logic, there. What's to say that they're not just trying to get their foot in the door? If anything, you'd expect a programmer (or anyone else, for that matter) to fall back onto comfortable territory as much as possible once hired. What is the impetus for your typical worker to do things in a way that is new and unfamiliar to them?
Now, if you were to argue that a new hire is more likely to look at an existing system that they're unfamiliar with and decide to re-build
Exactly. Take a close look at the linked graphic...(I probably should have included a [sic] in there, but that kinda ruined the flow...)
- Constant X = The sentence "How'd you like to be a Vice President at Google?"
- Variable Y = A geek
Prove:X + Y = "Hell, yes!" for all values of Y.
"There is a foolproof way to spot a voodoo scientist. If a scientist claims to have a theory about a natural phenomenon but is unable to explain the theory in a simple language that the average layman can understand, one can be absolutely certain that he is as clueless about the nature of the phenomenon in question as anybody else. Voodoo science is not about understanding nature but about working at being so incomprehensible or so arcane to one's fellow human beings as to be regarded as brilliant. The weapon of choice of a voodoo scientist is mathematics. The truth is that a scientist's understanding of a phenomenon is inversely proportional to the number of math equations he uses to describe it. Neither Newton's gravity equation nor the equations of General Relativity explain why things fall. But what better way is there to hide one's cluelessness while presenting a façade of erudition than to use obscure equations to erect an impregnable mountain of obfuscation? Voodoo science is guru science."
There you have it. Does your proof involve advanced mathematics? Can you explain your theory in short sentences and small words? If not, it is a certaintly you're a arrogant, vain, brainless crackpot who is more concerned with looking smart than anything else.
This guy must have been picked on by nuclear physicists and molecular biologists when he was a kid, 'cuz he has a major bug up his ass when it comes to, well, the entire scientific community. Welcome to the ranks of Alex Chiu and Timecube, Mr. Savian.
(Seriously. It's like he read Zeno's Paradoxes and it blew his mind, man.)