Lots of VOD (Video on Demand)opportunities already exist. Scripps Networks (Food, HGTV, etc) already have robust VOD offerings on Comcast's service. Best part? They are free. There's a:30 spot in the beginning, the show and then a:15 or a vignette at the end. That's it. Quite brilliant actually. As VOD matures, this will become more and more commonplace.
VOD from the major networks will probably have a slower adoption rate. Their biz model is busted, but they have a lot of inertia. It takes them a long time to move, but when they do it changes the industry. See TV sets of DVDs. Before there was no way you'd see any sort of compilation before a show was sold into syndication (that's where the real dollars are), but the networks and the studios realized that releasing the DVD sets could capture even more fans and therefore drive higher ratings in subsequent seasons. As a result of the higher ratings, they can sell the shows into syndication for more money. It's a very nice circle.
It'll come. Just not as soon as you'd like. (Isn't that true about everything though?)
Might I ask what out of this list do you feel were better launch titles? Like many others, I had a PS2 on launch day and in my house SSX was the game of choice.
Ah, as they say, arguing on the Internet is like competing in the special olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded.
From Boy Scoutz 'N the Hood Homer: Hmm...ow, pointy!
Eww, slimy.
Oh, moving!
Ah-ha! Oh, twenty dollars...I wanted a peanut! Homer's brain: Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts! Homer: Explain how. Homer's brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
I was running a GF4 Ti4200 64mb with no problem. Hell, that card ran Doom 3 with no problem. You won't get all the fancy-fancy eye candy, but you will get to play the game. You'll also have the bonus of saving a couple of hundred bucks.
That pricewatched crap lets me play the latest games at high frame rates. Also, if I'm paying 1/3 for my box than what an equalivilant Mac costs, then it also lets me upgrade 3x more often.
I use my computer for (in order of importance):
Web (Opera also blocks popups)
Games (Reality: most games DO NOT make it to Macs. Even some of the good ones)
Email (Use my work email exclusively through an exchange server. Well I also have some disposable web accounts)
Can't really sympathize with you. You can get a 2.2ghz Dell (evil yes. No, I don't care) sans monitor for ~$600. Including the Windows license that is apparently needed to play HL2. Financing it would prolly cost $20/month.
Stop bitching and buy a new box. Or buy new internals and use your old case. Or buy an old Athlon 1.XGHZ for $300 on eBay. Or wait 6 months until it comes out on the consoles and spend $150 on one of those.
While you're numbers are true, they don't really tell the whole story. Apple is using music to differentiate themselves. iPod, iTunes, ITMS & ProTools (that's Apple right? If not, whatever) are the products receiving their big push (and advertising dollars right now. Music isn't yet a huge revenue generator for Apple, but all indications are that it will be sooner than you think. Why else make iPods and ITMS compatible with windows? Their business model has the potential to be gigantic and they know it.
That said, they'll probably just chuck some money Apple Records' way and be done with it. I don't see this becoming a knock down, drag out fight. They'll lose.
And to the poster(s) who have said that the Beatles have no talent musically, I weep for you. Same goes to the kid that claims he'll never go to a concert because concert music isn't 'pure'.
No, not all concerts cost $75. I've seen some of the most brilliant concerts of my life for $5 or so. Additionally, I'm sure that none of the 'independent' artists that you listen to would charge more than $20. Besides smaller venues make for better shows, and I'm sure your favorites would be playing clubs/bars/etc.
Even if people are paying $75 to go to a show, they're doing it for a reason. Their intrinsic love for music tells them that they NEED to see a band live to get the full experience. I won't repeat what many, many other posters have said, but there's more to music than bits on a hard drive.
And no, you don't have to drink.
Back on topic: Many artists/record companies are starting to do unique things to help sell their product. Not all, but some. I just got the new Allison Moorer (alt country and smoking hot to boot) disc 'Show'. It's a concert disk that includes a full length DVD concert video . Price? $15. Her other CD was TEN BUCKS and that's at Virgin, a place where they sell things OVER MSRP.
Sure most of them are tyrants, but not all. You just need to know where to look.
So what you're saying is that if I just want to play through the single player game once and then have nothing more to do with HL2 (or counterstrike or expansion packs or whatever) then I can pay $10 to rent the game for a month instead of dropping $50?
This is Sierra using the MMRPG model for a type of game that has traditionally been supported for free. Sure patches and whatnot will still be free, but other things that were free aren't gonna be anymore (Counterstrike). I dunno, I think this is weird. Maybe I'm just not grasping the whole thing, but I don't see a ton of people subscribing to Half-Life (steam, whatever).
If this was MS changing Office to subscription based sales (or even offering that option for non corporate users) everyone here would be going ape shit.
As another poster stated, It was what, six years between games? That's $720 right there. ENOUGH FOR A DECENT NEW MACHINE. I am truely baffled by this.
It took Nintendo 10 years to shrink a SNES to game boy proportions cause they didn't have to do it any sooner. The original gameboy kept on selling with minor revisions (pocket, color, pocket color, pokemon edition, etc...).
Have you seen the new Sony Clie? They're getting pretty good at the whole minituraztion thing.
Bart After Dark was a decent episode until the song. Then it became a great one. I'm a sucker for pretty much any of the musical eps. Homer's Phobia is a good ep, but not top 25 material. I can think of three other eps from Season 8 that top it: Homer's Enemy, Homer vs. 18th Amendment & You Only Move Twice. YOMT lies in my top 10. But like I said before, it's all subjective.
The greatest thing about the Simpsons is how well the show has aged in syndication. I firmly believe that it takes 3-4 viewings of an ep to really catch all of the nuances. Even newer episodes, which some view as a bit weak, really shine in syndication. Hey it's either that or watch Fraiser reruns.
That said, there are numerous omissions from this list.
Other Classics:
Two Bad Neighbors (s7)
Bart vs. Australia (s6)
Deep Space Homer (s5)
Homers Enemy (s8)
2 dozen and 1 greyhounds -- best song ever (see my vest)
Brother From another Series -- "..those years at clown college" "I appreciate you not refer to Princeton that way"
$pringfield "I think we'll keep those jars of urine"
Colonel Homer "The don't call me Colonel Homer because I'm some dumbass army guy"
Anyway, I could do this all day but I think you get my point. (Quotes courtesy of The Simpsons Archive).
As for eps that shouldn't have been included in the top 25: THOH, Spin-Off Special & Homer's Phobia. But this is purely subjective, so no flames please.
Or you could switch to DirecTV. Or just go without cable. It's not like you're gonna die without SportsCenter. Okay that was the worst example ever for this group. You're not gonna die without Farscape.
Sony already makes something like this. It's not as small as the unit we're discussing, but it's also less than 1/2 of the price. The Sony Psyc DVD player.
> I imagine that budgets are tight, media options are somewhat slimmer...
If anything there are more choices for advertising media than ever. Been to a bar lately? Advertisments over urinals (I have seen GTA3 ads on these), postcards by the doors, coasters, swizzlesticks, matchbooks. It's all fair game these days. My company used cars wrapped in ads to get their message out. There is a company were you can lease models to hand out product samples.
TV, radio, internet (banners, spam, popups), print (magazines, newspapers) outdoor, sponsorships, 'guerilla media' (Bars, wild postings, samplings, elevator LCDs, floor graphics), LCDs in checkout lines. Christ, even the divders in the supermarket checkout lines have ads on them.
Advertising is becoming so commonplace and persistant that companies need something to differentiate themselves. Hence this new campaign by nintendo.
It's fucking brilliant.
I'm a media planner and I wish I had the opportunity to come up with this idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Lots of VOD (Video on Demand)opportunities already exist. Scripps Networks (Food, HGTV, etc) already have robust VOD offerings on Comcast's service. Best part? They are free. There's a :30 spot in the beginning, the show and then a :15 or a vignette at the end. That's it. Quite brilliant actually. As VOD matures, this will become more and more commonplace.
VOD from the major networks will probably have a slower adoption rate. Their biz model is busted, but they have a lot of inertia. It takes them a long time to move, but when they do it changes the industry. See TV sets of DVDs. Before there was no way you'd see any sort of compilation before a show was sold into syndication (that's where the real dollars are), but the networks and the studios realized that releasing the DVD sets could capture even more fans and therefore drive higher ratings in subsequent seasons. As a result of the higher ratings, they can sell the shows into syndication for more money. It's a very nice circle.
It'll come. Just not as soon as you'd like. (Isn't that true about everything though?)
How do I know this? It's part of my job.
Might I ask what out of this list do you feel were better launch titles? Like many others, I had a PS2 on launch day and in my house SSX was the game of choice.
Ah, as they say, arguing on the Internet is like competing in the special olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded.
Incorrect.
From Boy Scoutz 'N the Hood
Homer: Hmm...ow, pointy!
Eww, slimy.
Oh, moving!
Ah-ha! Oh, twenty dollars...I wanted a peanut!
Homer's brain: Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts!
Homer: Explain how.
Homer's brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
I was running a GF4 Ti4200 64mb with no problem. Hell, that card ran Doom 3 with no problem. You won't get all the fancy-fancy eye candy, but you will get to play the game. You'll also have the bonus of saving a couple of hundred bucks.
I'm thinking that the article submitter must have one strange E.T. fetish.
That's just odd.
Many Thanks.
Can anyone point me to a way to get rid of them? Thanks.
I use my computer for (in order of importance):
Web (Opera also blocks popups)
Games (Reality: most games DO NOT make it to Macs. Even some of the good ones)
Email (Use my work email exclusively through an exchange server. Well I also have some disposable web accounts)
Office Aps (Sometimes have to work from home)
I need a Mac why?
They should have included a WMA-> AAC/MP3 converter too. A little stick in the eye for MS.
Can't really sympathize with you. You can get a 2.2ghz Dell (evil yes. No, I don't care) sans monitor for ~$600. Including the Windows license that is apparently needed to play HL2. Financing it would prolly cost $20/month.
Stop bitching and buy a new box. Or buy new internals and use your old case. Or buy an old Athlon 1.XGHZ for $300 on eBay. Or wait 6 months until it comes out on the consoles and spend $150 on one of those.
No to flame, but shut up.
While you're numbers are true, they don't really tell the whole story. Apple is using music to differentiate themselves. iPod, iTunes, ITMS & ProTools (that's Apple right? If not, whatever) are the products receiving their big push (and advertising dollars right now. Music isn't yet a huge revenue generator for Apple, but all indications are that it will be sooner than you think. Why else make iPods and ITMS compatible with windows? Their business model has the potential to be gigantic and they know it.
That said, they'll probably just chuck some money Apple Records' way and be done with it. I don't see this becoming a knock down, drag out fight. They'll lose.
And to the poster(s) who have said that the Beatles have no talent musically, I weep for you. Same goes to the kid that claims he'll never go to a concert because concert music isn't 'pure'.
Some people just don't get it.
Oh bloody hell.
No, not all concerts cost $75. I've seen some of the most brilliant concerts of my life for $5 or so. Additionally, I'm sure that none of the 'independent' artists that you listen to would charge more than $20. Besides smaller venues make for better shows, and I'm sure your favorites would be playing clubs/bars/etc.
Even if people are paying $75 to go to a show, they're doing it for a reason. Their intrinsic love for music tells them that they NEED to see a band live to get the full experience. I won't repeat what many, many other posters have said, but there's more to music than bits on a hard drive.
And no, you don't have to drink.
Back on topic: Many artists/record companies are starting to do unique things to help sell their product. Not all, but some. I just got the new Allison Moorer (alt country and smoking hot to boot) disc 'Show'. It's a concert disk that includes a full length DVD concert video . Price? $15. Her other CD was TEN BUCKS and that's at Virgin, a place where they sell things OVER MSRP.
Sure most of them are tyrants, but not all. You just need to know where to look.
So what you're saying is that if I just want to play through the single player game once and then have nothing more to do with HL2 (or counterstrike or expansion packs or whatever) then I can pay $10 to rent the game for a month instead of dropping $50?
That doesn't sound right. Is it?
This is news. This is kind of a big deal.
This is Sierra using the MMRPG model for a type of game that has traditionally been supported for free. Sure patches and whatnot will still be free, but other things that were free aren't gonna be anymore (Counterstrike). I dunno, I think this is weird. Maybe I'm just not grasping the whole thing, but I don't see a ton of people subscribing to Half-Life (steam, whatever).
If this was MS changing Office to subscription based sales (or even offering that option for non corporate users) everyone here would be going ape shit.
As another poster stated, It was what, six years between games? That's $720 right there. ENOUGH FOR A DECENT NEW MACHINE. I am truely baffled by this.
It took Nintendo 10 years to shrink a SNES to game boy proportions cause they didn't have to do it any sooner. The original gameboy kept on selling with minor revisions (pocket, color, pocket color, pokemon edition, etc...).
Have you seen the new Sony Clie? They're getting pretty good at the whole minituraztion thing.
I watched bothe the original series and V - The Final Battle on Starz! or one of its variants just the other week.
No commercials either. Good stuff.
Ok, I found that hella funny and I'm 28. Go figure.
Ah, unfortuately you've proved yourself wrong with that quote. That quote is FUNNY. Nothing in the Worst. Episode. Ever. is funny.
Bart After Dark was a decent episode until the song. Then it became a great one. I'm a sucker for pretty much any of the musical eps. Homer's Phobia is a good ep, but not top 25 material. I can think of three other eps from Season 8 that top it: Homer's Enemy, Homer vs. 18th Amendment & You Only Move Twice. YOMT lies in my top 10. But like I said before, it's all subjective.
Other Classics:
Two Bad Neighbors (s7)
Bart vs. Australia (s6)
Deep Space Homer (s5)
Homers Enemy (s8)
2 dozen and 1 greyhounds -- best song ever (see my vest)
Brother From another Series -- "..those years at clown college" "I appreciate you not refer to Princeton that way"
$pringfield "I think we'll keep those jars of urine"
Colonel Homer "The don't call me Colonel Homer because I'm some dumbass army guy"
Anyway, I could do this all day but I think you get my point. (Quotes courtesy of The Simpsons Archive).
As for eps that shouldn't have been included in the top 25: THOH, Spin-Off Special & Homer's Phobia. But this is purely subjective, so no flames please.
I do agree with they're pick for worst ep though
It's a laptop for christsakes. People do turn those off everyonce in a while. To, you know, travel with them.
Think people. Not different (sic). Just think.
What DirecTV channel are the BMW Films played on?
Or you could switch to DirecTV. Or just go without cable. It's not like you're gonna die without SportsCenter. Okay that was the worst example ever for this group. You're not gonna die without Farscape.
Sony already makes something like this. It's not as small as the unit we're discussing, but it's also less than 1/2 of the price. The Sony Psyc DVD player.
Kinda stupid looking though.
> I imagine that budgets are tight, media options are somewhat slimmer...
If anything there are more choices for advertising media than ever. Been to a bar lately? Advertisments over urinals (I have seen GTA3 ads on these), postcards by the doors, coasters, swizzlesticks, matchbooks. It's all fair game these days. My company used cars wrapped in ads to get their message out. There is a company were you can lease models to hand out product samples.
TV, radio, internet (banners, spam, popups), print (magazines, newspapers) outdoor, sponsorships, 'guerilla media' (Bars, wild postings, samplings, elevator LCDs, floor graphics), LCDs in checkout lines. Christ, even the divders in the supermarket checkout lines have ads on them.
Advertising is becoming so commonplace and persistant that companies need something to differentiate themselves. Hence this new campaign by nintendo.
It's fucking brilliant.
I'm a media planner and I wish I had the opportunity to come up with this idea.