Remember VHS? That wasn't too long ago. 3 or 4 years down the road, standard DVD isn't going to cut it for Netflix. They're going to need to keep up with the times.
If you use Netflix now, would you still use it if all they offered was VHS? I know I wouldn't. In a few years people will be asking themselves that very question, only replace VHS with DVD.
When I get an HD DVD player, I'll be buying/renting HD DVDs. Why else would I buy the player in the first place? Everyone won't just stop renting DVDs, not for a long time. But when HD formats come out, you can bet that some people will stop. Netflix is going to need to offer HD formats for when people upgrade. Because when they do upgrade, they're going to want the HD format discs.
I know that with rise of nations I was able to put the CD in one computer, load the game, take the cd out, put it in computer #2, and voila multiplayer goodness.
As for the original question, WoW has little or nothing to do with the revenue streams flowing into other game developers. The purported "fear" of WoW cutting into game-buying is the sound of marketers quaking (pun not intended) because they promised management and shareholders 15-20% revenue increases based on publication of such scintillating games as "50 Cent: Bulletproof", and the revenue flow is just not happening. WoW is a convenient scapegoat.
Actually, you are incorrect. I for one have intentionally passed up on new games because of the fact that I'm playing WoW. It's not because the new games wouldn't be fun, it's just that WoW is MORE fun.
Granted, I am only 1 out of 4,000,000 players, but I also know that 2 of my RL friends have passed up on games they otherwise would have purchased if not for WoW.
WoW has actually saved me money. I spend less on games than I used to, because I'm not buying new ones all the time.
Now, it would be interesting if there was a reliable way to put some evidence to these claims. Because, I'd like to know if other people are passing up on games, because they are too busy with WoW.
If they were smart they would hold off because there just isn't a market for a new system right now.
I'm sure Microsoft has done plenty of their own research on this. Not to mention the fact that new systems come out as the current generation begins to look primitive. About every 4 years.
What kind of information are you using to draw your conclusions?
Instead they added a component that just made it a lot more expensive to build. (And unlike the other components in the console, a hardrive's price doesn't drop over time. Capacities go up, but prices don't go down).
Actually, prices drop on hard drives all the time. Not only that, they drop significantly in price over time. Just over 2 years ago I bought a 120gb drive from newegg for $133. The exact same item (which they still stock) is now $75. That's almost 50% in about 2 years. Keep in mind that those are retail prices.
Microsoft is including a 20gb hard drive with the XBox 360 'fully loaded' bundle. Keep in mind that the prices I mentioned earlier were for a drive 100gb larger than what Microsoft is using. Also, the prices I mentioned were consumer prices. Microsoft will be putting them in the system for a whole lot cheaper. It's hardly going to cause them to "hemorage money" as you put it. Did you happen to see how much they are selling the drive if you buy it separately? It's $99, they're going to make a profit if anyone buys the drive as an add on. They are giving people a huge incentive to buy the $399 version.
Perhaps, but as you and I said, developers aren't going to use the hardrive.
I agree with you about that games themselves will work with either XBox. However, to say that developers won't be using the hard drive is going a little too far.
People who want extras, (downloadable content, Xbox 1 compatibility, probably some media options), will need the upgraded version. Many people don't care about these extras, so why should they pay for hardware to do it?
I highly doubt all of the downloadable content that was being touted at E3 this year means that people don't care about it. Most of the folks that I know that have an XBox love XBox Live and the content that is provided. The only complaint I've heard is that they wish there was more of it. You are right that there are also going to be a lot of people it doesn't matter for. The people who care about downloading new levels and new games will be buying the XBox with the hard drive. Those who don't will buy the core version.
To the original poster, I don't really see a reason why it as a problem for there to be two versions.
First off, I'll say that I agree completely that the death penalty is not a fitting punishment for this crime. However, your logic seems a bit flawed.
The article is pure flamebait. I don't even start telling about the collective responsibility of software makers and the lazy sysadmins. The sasser worm was like a polite burglar: if it found the front door open, it went in. If it found it closed, it went away.
So based on this logic someone should be able to walk in the front door of your house and (if it is open) start breaking your stuff, or just taking it? After all, they are being a polite burglar. It's the fault of the homeowner that they left the front door unlocked.
Guess what... the burglar is still guilty, and that's just one house...
Blaming it on software vendors is a cop out. It is certainly necessary, and extremely important to have your computer protected. Just as it is important to keep your house locked when you aren't there. However, I'm sure the lock on your house isn't perfect. If someone really wanted in, they could get in. Especially if that person was an experience burglar. The same applies for people who write viruses.
For the time being, it is possible to exploit a flaw in an OS or some program to allow a virus to cause havok on a computer. There isn't an OS that is completely bulletproof. Yes, software developers have a responsibilty to provide security. They should be able to make it strong enough keep out the 95% of virus writers, who don't write them at all, but are just script kiddies. Other than that, until we have a truly secure model to use as a foundation, this stuff is still evolving.
People who exploit the flaws are criminals, whether the sysadmins or developers are lazy doesn't change the fact that the virus writer has committed a crime. I think the penalties for this should be extremely harsh. Definitely NOT the death penalty, however.
Well, newsflash dear analysts: until you start paying attention to security there always will be a guy who writes a crappy virus (95% of them is _crude_) which wreaks havoc only because users and vendors like Microsoft of ignoring security.
Finally, do you honestly think that Microsoft is ignoring security? Maybe users are, sure. But Microsoft? Come on... wake up.
With my MP3 player, I'm extremely pleased when audiobooks come out on CD. If the book isn't on iTunes, then I can get the CD version and rip it in short order.
I know you can rip tapes too, but it is a much slower and inconvenient endeavour.
Generally iTunes has a great selection, but there are still a bunch of books that have yet to make it there. The entire Harry Potter series is not there, which is quite surprising.
That is the only reason I'll shop at GameStop (if the EB I go to takes on the crap service trend I've seen with GameStop). And that is for niche titles that Best Buy won't carry, and that I can't get off of Amazon.
I've had the exact same experience. I've gone into the GameStop near me, and everyone there was extremely unhelpful, and pretty much they bordered on being jerks.
The EB near me has a great staff. Everyone I've run into there is helpful, likes to chat about the new stuff coming out, etc...
Depending on what happens, this could mark the start of me only shopping at Best Buy or Fry's. I have a hard time believing that GameStop is going to change its ways. They would have been better off buying EB and keeping the EB name, instead of blacklisting it with the GameStop name.
I couldn't agree more. But there are MMOs like this. Camping for items in Everquest was a massive timesink. I think that for the most part, as long as players are enjoying themselves they won't feel the need to purchase in game items or currency with real world cash. There are always going to be exceptions of course. There are people whose goal is to get to the end, and they don't take the time to enjoy the journey.
It's when the tedium sets in that people look for alternative means to acquire these items and currency.
Doesn't it cheapen the game and reduce the impact of skill if any PvP or vaguely competitive aspect of the game can be decided by the fact that one player can afford to buy a sword of death+10?
I think it depends on the currency being used to purchase tho sword of death+10. What do you value more, time or dollars?
Let's say it would take you 30 hours of playtime to attain the amount of virtual currency necessary to purchase said sword. Let's also say that you could exchange $30 of real life currency for the amount of virtual currency necessary to purchase the sword. Which would you rather choose to do?
Maybe one person can afford 30 hours of time to get a sword, but not $30. Maybe another person can afford $30, but 30 hours of time.
Now, let's add to that the fact that during that 30 hours you are doing something monotonous over and over again in order to get the money you need. As soon as any kind of monotony (grinding) enters into the equation, it becomes more appealing to just purchase the sword with real life currency so you can get on with the fun parts of the game you are playing. This doesn't reduce the impact of skill, because generally when a player is forced to grind they are not relying on skill. They are relying on patience.
So really, it comes down to a personal preference. If a player is having fun while acheiving the virtual money necessary to buy a sword, then there's no problem really. If a player is bored out of there mind trying to obtain the virutal money, then they'll be more likely to exchange real money for virtual.
I'm not saying that what IGE does is right. However, hopefully the problem is making game developers evaluate what makes a game fun. Endless grinding for gold, plat, gil, adena, etc... is just not fun. Thus, a market is created for IGE.
I think the farming services have the potential to ruin the economy, and even worse ruin the game experience for the 'true players.' I've heard stories about how things work on Lineage 2, and how the farmers harass people. In my opinion this is the thing that will cause serious problems for the game developers.
This is a very interesting way of looking at the problem. I haven't really thought of it in this way before.
I think for some MMOs what you are presenting holds true, but for some it does not. (I'm not saying that what IGE does is right, just pointing something out)
The thing about a real life farm, is that they are taking your potatoes from your land. However in some games, I believe that WoW does this, the monster spawns (potatoes) are proportionate to the number of people in the area (on the farm). The greater the number of people in an area, the greater the number of monsters that are spawned.
So, imagine a farm that had X number of potatoes. Another person shows up to grab some potatoes, and now all of a sudden there X * 2 potatoes available. This was done in WoW to prevent overcrowding of areas.
Now, your example holds true 100% for those MMOs that do not dynamically control the density of the monster or resource population based on the concentration of players in that area.
In that case, the 'services' like IGE are in fact stealing currency and items that could have otherwise been had by players.
Also, to an extent the example still holds true in a game like WoW. Since there is certainly an upper limit on the number of monster spawns. When that limit is hit, farmers are again taking away from what players could otherwise be collecting.
Heh... think oldschool! Seriously, ripping audio from a 90 minute cassette tape. Definitely painful, but there are a bunch of older audiobooks that only come on cassette. I guess you could break them up manually, into smaller chunks. But it already takes a ton of time going from cassette to.wav to.mp3.
I listen to a lot of audio books during my commute. However, when I get to work I like to listen to music.
Granted, it probably isn't a very common scenario. The iPod actually has the ability to bookmark files from audible.com, just not plain vanilla MP3 files.
But the iPod can't bookmark tracks. I had the option to get an iPod, but I chose the Nomad instead. Cost wasn't an issue. The 40 gig nomade is the same price as the 20 gig iPod. 20 Gb is fine for my purposes. However, I need a player that can bookmark MP3s. When you get an audio track that's around 45 minutes long, the last thing you want to do is have to find where you left off.
Thanks! This was what I'd been looking for. Looks like Creative has lost a customer due to this thread. I'm going to have a friend try it out on his iPod. If it works well, I'm sold.
Notice that they said that until 4th gen iPods you couldn't do this at all. So at least I wasn't completely missing the obvious.
Here is a key feature that the iPod is missing: Bookmarks! I could be wrong in that, but so far from the searching I've done it appears to be true.
My current Zen is on the fritz, and a replacement plan that I have will allow me to get a new player. If the iPod had bookmarks, I would get an iPod instead of a Zen.
I listen to a ton of audiobooks. One thing about audiobooks is that you want to be able to bookmark the track, and track position when you have to stop listening to it. The Nomad Zen can do this on any MP3 file. As far as I've been able to find, the iPod can only do this for audiobooks that have been downloaded through iTunes.
I have a bunch of books on CD that I have ripped to MP3. I continue to get books on CD, many of which are not on iTunes. In the case of these books I am out of luck with an iPod.
As far as hardware design, other features, usability... the iPod wins. But in my case this is a crucial feature that is missing from the iPod and present in the Nomad.
I have had friends try to bookmark MP3 tracks on their iPod and they were unable to do it. So, is there a way, or am I relegated to getting another Zen?
Re:Best EQ feature was discontinued a long time ag
on
Everquest 2 NDA Lifted
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· Score: 1
Now that is something that sounds extremely fun! It's too bad they didn't work on trying to fix the exploitation instead of just discarding the idea.
I think SoE has come up with a novel way of dealing with crowded zones by creating multiple instances.
Actually SOE didn't really come up with anything novel here. City of Heroes has done this since the day it came out. I don't know if CoH was the first one or not, but SOE definitely wasn't first.
The other poster how you missed the boat about being able to burn a song as much as you liked to a CD that you can play anywhere.
Sure, I realize that this is possible. So I can download a song from iTunes, burn it to a CD, and re-rip it to MP3. However why go through all that hassle? What hassle you ask?
I use my MP3 player for music, but I also use it extensively to listen to unabridged audiobooks. So for an unabridged book, I need to download the tracks, burn to approximately 30 CDs, rip the 30 CDs to MP3, then put it all on my MP3 player. That takes quite awhile, not to mention wasting 30 CDs that I will never use again. And yes, I realize I could use CD/RW as well, but the time factor to do all this is really my main complaint.
(As a note, 30 CDs may be on the high end, but I've listened to books that have gone up to 39 CDs.)
Granted, for a music CD, it's not quite so extreme. I'm also probably in the minority using my MP3 player in such a way. But hopefully you can see where I'm coming from when I say I'd rather not have to go through all of that just to get my music and books in MP3 format.
In that sense, I would say that I'm not "terribly uninformed."
However, you did bring something to my attention that I was indeed ignorant of.
But you also seen to forget that Hymn exists, which lets you remove the DRM and use the file as you like.
I'll look into this. And if it works pretty well, then iTunes would indeed be a viable music service for me. Thanks for letting me know about this.
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So by your logic people with less expensive cars should pay more for gas? I guess the folks with hybrids should pay around $6.00 per gallon, right?
Oblivion for the XBox 360 is $59.99 retail.
Oblivion for the PC is $49.99 retail.
It costs more for the 360. End of story.
Remember VHS? That wasn't too long ago. 3 or 4 years down the road, standard DVD isn't going to cut it for Netflix. They're going to need to keep up with the times.
If you use Netflix now, would you still use it if all they offered was VHS? I know I wouldn't. In a few years people will be asking themselves that very question, only replace VHS with DVD.
When I get an HD DVD player, I'll be buying/renting HD DVDs. Why else would I buy the player in the first place? Everyone won't just stop renting DVDs, not for a long time. But when HD formats come out, you can bet that some people will stop. Netflix is going to need to offer HD formats for when people upgrade. Because when they do upgrade, they're going to want the HD format discs.
I know that with rise of nations I was able to put the CD in one computer, load the game, take the cd out, put it in computer #2, and voila multiplayer goodness.
Actually, you are incorrect. I for one have intentionally passed up on new games because of the fact that I'm playing WoW. It's not because the new games wouldn't be fun, it's just that WoW is MORE fun.
Granted, I am only 1 out of 4,000,000 players, but I also know that 2 of my RL friends have passed up on games they otherwise would have purchased if not for WoW.
WoW has actually saved me money. I spend less on games than I used to, because I'm not buying new ones all the time.
Now, it would be interesting if there was a reliable way to put some evidence to these claims. Because, I'd like to know if other people are passing up on games, because they are too busy with WoW.
I'm sure Microsoft has done plenty of their own research on this. Not to mention the fact that new systems come out as the current generation begins to look primitive. About every 4 years.
What kind of information are you using to draw your conclusions?
Actually, prices drop on hard drives all the time. Not only that, they drop significantly in price over time. Just over 2 years ago I bought a 120gb drive from newegg for $133. The exact same item (which they still stock) is now $75. That's almost 50% in about 2 years. Keep in mind that those are retail prices.
Microsoft is including a 20gb hard drive with the XBox 360 'fully loaded' bundle. Keep in mind that the prices I mentioned earlier were for a drive 100gb larger than what Microsoft is using. Also, the prices I mentioned were consumer prices. Microsoft will be putting them in the system for a whole lot cheaper. It's hardly going to cause them to "hemorage money" as you put it. Did you happen to see how much they are selling the drive if you buy it separately? It's $99, they're going to make a profit if anyone buys the drive as an add on. They are giving people a huge incentive to buy the $399 version.
I agree with you about that games themselves will work with either XBox. However, to say that developers won't be using the hard drive is going a little too far.
I highly doubt all of the downloadable content that was being touted at E3 this year means that people don't care about it. Most of the folks that I know that have an XBox love XBox Live and the content that is provided. The only complaint I've heard is that they wish there was more of it. You are right that there are also going to be a lot of people it doesn't matter for. The people who care about downloading new levels and new games will be buying the XBox with the hard drive. Those who don't will buy the core version.
To the original poster, I don't really see a reason why it as a problem for there to be two versions.
So based on this logic someone should be able to walk in the front door of your house and (if it is open) start breaking your stuff, or just taking it? After all, they are being a polite burglar. It's the fault of the homeowner that they left the front door unlocked.
Guess what... the burglar is still guilty, and that's just one house...
Blaming it on software vendors is a cop out. It is certainly necessary, and extremely important to have your computer protected. Just as it is important to keep your house locked when you aren't there. However, I'm sure the lock on your house isn't perfect. If someone really wanted in, they could get in. Especially if that person was an experience burglar. The same applies for people who write viruses.
For the time being, it is possible to exploit a flaw in an OS or some program to allow a virus to cause havok on a computer. There isn't an OS that is completely bulletproof. Yes, software developers have a responsibilty to provide security. They should be able to make it strong enough keep out the 95% of virus writers, who don't write them at all, but are just script kiddies. Other than that, until we have a truly secure model to use as a foundation, this stuff is still evolving.
People who exploit the flaws are criminals, whether the sysadmins or developers are lazy doesn't change the fact that the virus writer has committed a crime. I think the penalties for this should be extremely harsh. Definitely NOT the death penalty, however.
Finally, do you honestly think that Microsoft is ignoring security? Maybe users are, sure. But Microsoft? Come on... wake up.
While this is true, we can be fairly certain that they will cost FAR less than high end or even mid range gaming computers.
I think that was the point of the '... you get what you pay for' statement.
Go ahead and price out an Alienware or a Dell XPS and see if you think the PS3 or XBox 360 will even come close to gaming computer prices.
What was the FX53 renamed to? I was wondering why they all but disappeared when the FX55 came out.
With my MP3 player, I'm extremely pleased when audiobooks come out on CD. If the book isn't on iTunes, then I can get the CD version and rip it in short order.
I know you can rip tapes too, but it is a much slower and inconvenient endeavour.
Generally iTunes has a great selection, but there are still a bunch of books that have yet to make it there. The entire Harry Potter series is not there, which is quite surprising.
That is the only reason I'll shop at GameStop (if the EB I go to takes on the crap service trend I've seen with GameStop). And that is for niche titles that Best Buy won't carry, and that I can't get off of Amazon.
I've had the exact same experience. I've gone into the GameStop near me, and everyone there was extremely unhelpful, and pretty much they bordered on being jerks.
The EB near me has a great staff. Everyone I've run into there is helpful, likes to chat about the new stuff coming out, etc...
Depending on what happens, this could mark the start of me only shopping at Best Buy or Fry's. I have a hard time believing that GameStop is going to change its ways. They would have been better off buying EB and keeping the EB name, instead of blacklisting it with the GameStop name.
I couldn't agree more. But there are MMOs like this. Camping for items in Everquest was a massive timesink. I think that for the most part, as long as players are enjoying themselves they won't feel the need to purchase in game items or currency with real world cash. There are always going to be exceptions of course. There are people whose goal is to get to the end, and they don't take the time to enjoy the journey.
It's when the tedium sets in that people look for alternative means to acquire these items and currency.
I think it depends on the currency being used to purchase tho sword of death+10. What do you value more, time or dollars?
Let's say it would take you 30 hours of playtime to attain the amount of virtual currency necessary to purchase said sword. Let's also say that you could exchange $30 of real life currency for the amount of virtual currency necessary to purchase the sword. Which would you rather choose to do?
Maybe one person can afford 30 hours of time to get a sword, but not $30. Maybe another person can afford $30, but 30 hours of time.
Now, let's add to that the fact that during that 30 hours you are doing something monotonous over and over again in order to get the money you need. As soon as any kind of monotony (grinding) enters into the equation, it becomes more appealing to just purchase the sword with real life currency so you can get on with the fun parts of the game you are playing. This doesn't reduce the impact of skill, because generally when a player is forced to grind they are not relying on skill. They are relying on patience.
So really, it comes down to a personal preference. If a player is having fun while acheiving the virtual money necessary to buy a sword, then there's no problem really. If a player is bored out of there mind trying to obtain the virutal money, then they'll be more likely to exchange real money for virtual.
I'm not saying that what IGE does is right. However, hopefully the problem is making game developers evaluate what makes a game fun. Endless grinding for gold, plat, gil, adena, etc... is just not fun. Thus, a market is created for IGE.
I think the farming services have the potential to ruin the economy, and even worse ruin the game experience for the 'true players.' I've heard stories about how things work on Lineage 2, and how the farmers harass people. In my opinion this is the thing that will cause serious problems for the game developers.
This is a very interesting way of looking at the problem. I haven't really thought of it in this way before.
I think for some MMOs what you are presenting holds true, but for some it does not. (I'm not saying that what IGE does is right, just pointing something out)
The thing about a real life farm, is that they are taking your potatoes from your land. However in some games, I believe that WoW does this, the monster spawns (potatoes) are proportionate to the number of people in the area (on the farm). The greater the number of people in an area, the greater the number of monsters that are spawned.
So, imagine a farm that had X number of potatoes. Another person shows up to grab some potatoes, and now all of a sudden there X * 2 potatoes available. This was done in WoW to prevent overcrowding of areas.
Now, your example holds true 100% for those MMOs that do not dynamically control the density of the monster or resource population based on the concentration of players in that area.
In that case, the 'services' like IGE are in fact stealing currency and items that could have otherwise been had by players.
Also, to an extent the example still holds true in a game like WoW. Since there is certainly an upper limit on the number of monster spawns. When that limit is hit, farmers are again taking away from what players could otherwise be collecting.
Heh... think oldschool! Seriously, ripping audio from a 90 minute cassette tape. Definitely painful, but there are a bunch of older audiobooks that only come on cassette. I guess you could break them up manually, into smaller chunks. But it already takes a ton of time going from cassette to .wav to .mp3.
I listen to a lot of audio books during my commute. However, when I get to work I like to listen to music.
Granted, it probably isn't a very common scenario. The iPod actually has the ability to bookmark files from audible.com, just not plain vanilla MP3 files.
But the iPod can't bookmark tracks. I had the option to get an iPod, but I chose the Nomad instead. Cost wasn't an issue. The 40 gig nomade is the same price as the 20 gig iPod. 20 Gb is fine for my purposes. However, I need a player that can bookmark MP3s. When you get an audio track that's around 45 minutes long, the last thing you want to do is have to find where you left off.
Thanks! This was what I'd been looking for. Looks like Creative has lost a customer due to this thread. I'm going to have a friend try it out on his iPod. If it works well, I'm sold.
Notice that they said that until 4th gen iPods you couldn't do this at all. So at least I wasn't completely missing the obvious.
Here is a key feature that the iPod is missing: Bookmarks! I could be wrong in that, but so far from the searching I've done it appears to be true.
My current Zen is on the fritz, and a replacement plan that I have will allow me to get a new player. If the iPod had bookmarks, I would get an iPod instead of a Zen.
I listen to a ton of audiobooks. One thing about audiobooks is that you want to be able to bookmark the track, and track position when you have to stop listening to it. The Nomad Zen can do this on any MP3 file. As far as I've been able to find, the iPod can only do this for audiobooks that have been downloaded through iTunes.
I have a bunch of books on CD that I have ripped to MP3. I continue to get books on CD, many of which are not on iTunes. In the case of these books I am out of luck with an iPod.
As far as hardware design, other features, usability... the iPod wins. But in my case this is a crucial feature that is missing from the iPod and present in the Nomad.
I have had friends try to bookmark MP3 tracks on their iPod and they were unable to do it. So, is there a way, or am I relegated to getting another Zen?
Now that is something that sounds extremely fun! It's too bad they didn't work on trying to fix the exploitation instead of just discarding the idea.
I think SoE has come up with a novel way of dealing with crowded zones by creating multiple instances.
Actually SOE didn't really come up with anything novel here. City of Heroes has done this since the day it came out. I don't know if CoH was the first one or not, but SOE definitely wasn't first.
Read my reply to SuperKendall's post. I wasn't trying to spread FUD, I honestly didn't know about Hymn.
Kind of defeats the purpose of the MP3 player... no? If I wanted a CD, I'd buy a CD.
Sure, I realize that this is possible. So I can download a song from iTunes, burn it to a CD, and re-rip it to MP3. However why go through all that hassle? What hassle you ask?
I use my MP3 player for music, but I also use it extensively to listen to unabridged audiobooks. So for an unabridged book, I need to download the tracks, burn to approximately 30 CDs, rip the 30 CDs to MP3, then put it all on my MP3 player. That takes quite awhile, not to mention wasting 30 CDs that I will never use again. And yes, I realize I could use CD/RW as well, but the time factor to do all this is really my main complaint.
(As a note, 30 CDs may be on the high end, but I've listened to books that have gone up to 39 CDs.)
Granted, for a music CD, it's not quite so extreme. I'm also probably in the minority using my MP3 player in such a way. But hopefully you can see where I'm coming from when I say I'd rather not have to go through all of that just to get my music and books in MP3 format.
In that sense, I would say that I'm not "terribly uninformed."
However, you did bring something to my attention that I was indeed ignorant of.
I'll look into this. And if it works pretty well, then iTunes would indeed be a viable music service for me. Thanks for letting me know about this.