No business can survive anything and everything, they all have a breaking point. This might be the straw that breaks the camels back.
Good businesses are able to stand the test of time. Poor ones do not. If a glass causes you business to fail, god forbid one of your employees doesn't show up to work.
And at the end of the day, you ignored the point that the business owner didn't ask to have his window broken.
And we didn't choose to have a global crisis but we have one and in this case we have potential solutions. Very different than the broken window.
Frankly, your attitude is a really crappy one, you don't care about anyone but yourself
Really? Who do you think will survive this if we don't start paying up? The poor? You are out of your mind if you think that's how things will pan out.
which is ironic because you color yourself with the "but help the poor people" nonsense, but you really wish to hurt others to make yourself feel better.
So your suggesting that investing in our future is going to hurt people? It sounds to me like your understanding of the impact of government spending is flawed.
Your comment indicates you don't even understand the point I was making. The huge expense is trying to cut CO2 by 20-30%, while the planet needs 80%.
Electricity production accounts for 37% of man made CO2 and growing. This will increase with the move towards electric vehicles and the increased demand for power. https://www3.epa.gov/climatech...
The other issue is methane which is can occur in large quantities when fracking. Methane particle are significantly worst than CO2 in the same quantities.
The changes won't stop runaway global warming, but will still cost a huge sum of money.
You are only taking the portion of the equation that fits your arguments. In all your previous posts you never bring up the cost of doing nothing. The ongoing cost of doing nothing continues to increase and it doesn't come cheaper with time.
You tell me what cost of doing nothing is? I can tell you there are estimates in the 10s of trillions just to displace people from the coast due to rising sea levels.
Additionally, moving towards innovative technologies will promote growth in many other areas. There's a price for being pioneers but there's also a huge reward.
A poorly run business will eventually fail regardless of a broken window. The broken window will just cause it to happen earlier.
But if you want to talk about the economics of climate change then we can talk about the rising sea levels and the estimated 13 trillion dollars it will cost just to move the 13 million people on the shores. Combine this with current ongoing cost of dealing with these issues and all of a sudden you've got tones of money you can shift over to better power generating solutions which will better you population, your economy WHILE fixing the issue.
The government has already done that... to the tune of nearly $20 trillion dollars...
Irrelevant. The spending has to occur to gain the edge. The sooner you stop relying on non-renewable energies the quicker you will become competitive in the global economy. The ROI is long term but it's there. Most here only look at the difference in cost of producing energy but if you tack on the extra cost incurred to deal with health and environmental issues you quickly find out it's much better than it looked early on.
Meh, it is a minor benefit for a huge expense
I'm sure some said the same thing about the railroad system or even the telephone infrastructure.
Doesn't apply. You need to spend more time reading about the broken window fallacy. The concept is only applicable to scenarios where no innovation occurs. Say the boy breaks the glass window. The shop owner replaces the window with a better window which saves him energy cost and makes his business more attractive. The outcome is that his business will do better, not the other way around.
Same applies here. Moving toward renewable energies will remove existing issues while reducing cost of said energy long term. It's not a 5 year ROI, it's a 100 year ROI that must occur no matter what.
You fail to understand the global financial economy. Nations like Denmark and Canada can do that because they are a minor part of the overall picture. The US and China can't do it because someone has to buy all that coal, oil, and natural gas.
You might consider what the effects of a $20 trillion dollar write off would be if we decided to keep 80% of the fossil fuels in the ground, before you get in such a hurry to do it.
There is more to this than what is technically possible.
The size of the economy is not relevant as long as you aren't pulling the plug overnight. Nobody is asking the carpet to be pulled from under specific economies. Instead a progressive approach must be taken to shift money towards said solutions.
Doing nothing will result in your country being less competitive on a global market. Countries who will have moved towards these better technologies will eventually be rewarded with lower general cost of operation. This means cheaper manufacturing and lower cost of living which on it's own is an impact. If you tack the cost of dealing with local environmental and health issues the argument stands even more firm.
From the government standpoint they can still start spending the money ahead of time because they know it's coming regardless. This will allow the next generation to benefit from action taking today and paid for over 20-30 years.
All that would do is crush the economy, put millions out of work, destroy home values, and cause endless other problems
Why would it crush the economy? All your doing moving the money towards a problem that is costing the country lots of money. Shift the money towards updated power solution. Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro... This means tones of new construction which equal jobs and continued growth.
People replace cars, on average, every 11 years. Some every 3 years, others drive them 20+ years.
This means at least 10% of vehicles get replaced every year. That's significant especially if you can get greener solution to become available like the Volt and Tesla.
But houses get replaced far less often. My home was built in 2001, it is 3,800 sqft. It likely will be standing in the year 2100. You can't say "buy a more appropriate house" when someone else just has to buy mine.
Higher gas/coal prices means you'll be inclined in investing in solar panels, better insulation and more efficient heater to bring down the cost of ownership. That's the intent of taxing non environmentally friendly resources. If you can't afford to live in a 3800 sqft house you'll sell and move to an affordable one. It's nobody else's fault you purchase a much larger house than you needed or could afford to live in. And if you purchased the house thinking 5% disposable income was enough to cover for the future growth in cost of ownership then you were ill advised or didn't care about the long term consequences.
The truth is, the changes had to happen 30 years ago... Today, it is far too late to stop, you won't cut CO2 in the time we have left to do it in to stop global temps from running way past levels that the experts say is safe.
That statement right there is the problem. People have already quit on the problem before it's over. The tax money collected by the government can be used to build better plants and help with green energy R&D. That's where the biggest impact will come from.
The US only has 12% of it's energy as renewable. Canada has 64%. You don't think there's change needed? Only the public can fund it and it must come from the tax payers pockets.
When an extremely narrow interpretation of the law that is held by a small minority of judges can help the cops, they're all for the rule of law and the legal and judicial processes. When one of those damn criminals might get away with something through some technicality, the law is a liability and we can ignore it because we need to put all suspects in jail forever.
The lack of transparency with regards to authorities is the real problem, not leverage in court rooms. I'd be more than happy to see them work the court system in their favor if they have the best interest of the general population (hence the comment about transparency).
The authorities cannot do their work without the right amount of power in or out of court rooms. Miss handled power is the current state of authorities and that is why transparency is the equalizer we are all hoping for.
I find the vehicle useful, so the gas price doesn't bother me. Gas could be $8/gal and it wouldn't change the vehicle I drive.
See, that's the right attitude. I'm ok with that way of thinking because after all we work to have fun and part of that may require pollution of some sort. All I'm asking is for each to pay their portion of the solution by pay for their pollution. If we do that we will fund the government to implement better power plants, replace gas and coal plants while tapping into green energies like solar and wind.
One of the British talking heads actually gets this and has moved on to the "now what" part of the discussion.
You can't get to "now what" when you can't even get the majority to agree there's a problem coming (present for others).
Was it at the G20 that climate change was one of the most discussed topic? Maybe I have my summits all wrong but I do recall there being a discussion to get countries like China to work with the rest of the developed countries. Anyhow, the fact that the topic was seriously discussed more than before is a sign that "now what" may be in the process of being determined.
Personally, I think governments have to all agree to spend the future generation's money towards greener power plants. It's the only way we get out of this potential disaster quickly.
That is true, and that has zero chance of happening any time soon. You might *want* it to happen, but various forces are at work, largely political and economic, that will prevent it from happening within our lifetime.
Yes but it comes back to the fundamental issue. Most won't change the simplest thing in their life to allow things to get better. Instead they'd rather wait for the government to force their hand.
How many people do you know purchased a truck or high consumption vehicle because the gas prices were going in the shitter? I know at least 2. That's a small drop in the bucket but it starts with simple change which I don't believe will happen without government involvement. Sad isn't it?
It's the ignorant attitude towards the issue that's the most bothersome, the "I don't give a fuck" attitude. Since people won't act on their own lets hit their pocketbook. Add massive taxes on energy. See how much motivation people have to buy a more appropriate car, appliance, house... Let businesses build on greener ideas. This worked when the gas prices moved up. That's what motivated the solar industry to bloom and the car companies to become more efficient. Additionally more tax money hopefully means investments in greener energy sources.
The consoles also last much longer. 11 years for a console is amazing. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are online which means content is available to this date. The ease at which game makers can publish to multiple platform is another reason the transition from one console to another is slow since many new games are still appearing on old consoles. I'm not a console guy but most of my friends are and most of them are still using their Xbox 360 or Ps3 because they don't feel they need to dish out more money to play the same game they still love.
UPDATE: Peter Carr, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, sent a statement.
“We are disappointed with the court’s decision and are reviewing our options. The decision highlights why the government supports the clarification of the rules of procedure currently pending before the Supreme Court to ensure that criminals using sophisticated anonymizing technologies to conceal their identities while they engage in crime over the Internet are able to be identified and apprehended.”
When I read this I understand that the criminals don't play by the rules so the rules need to change for enforcement. I'm happy to see this judge challenge the FBI but I'm worries it's become the popular thing to do. I tried to find the first name of this Judge Young but could not. I wanted to see if this guy is showing interest in going into politics. It wouldn't be the first time one uses his power to enhance one's public image (since it's the popular thing to do).
if Microsoft is smart, they will leave the 360 servers on until the XBox Two (or whatever it is called) comes out.
Good companies will sit with key people, asses current cost, ongoing revenue from services and estimate the marketing benefits of going beyond expectations. The marketing assessment is probably the most important part. They need to understand their demographic. If only 2% of their user base is still using the old servers, how many of them can we rally back in with the next gen Xbox?
They need to identify the following: - Server hosting cost (equipment, power, staff, engineers and software developers). It costs a lot more than most would think. Probably upwards of $1.5M / month just to keep it up and running and secured (minimal user base) - How many will buy a next gen Xbox because MS was nice by keeping servers up? - How many will buy a next gen Xbox because MS disconnected their old servers?
I suspect most Xbox 360 will be dysfunctional or collecting dust by the time the servers go down. I figure another 3-5 years at most. https://slashdot.org/comments....
There's also the thing where people are paying for those servers via live subscriptions. They can't disconnect them at all even if they wanted to.
When the forecast that the revenue from the subscriptions will be lower than (cost + minimum markup), then they will announce "end of service" and will prevent subscription renewals. They are allowed to do it and they will at some point. What I'm more interested in knowing is if they'll offer 3rd parties the opportunity to take it over.
Similar rate to the PS4 just lower number due to the foreign market favoring Japanese products over American. Reference: http://bgr.com/2015/02/18/ps4-...
with the stupid mandatory Kinect feature, and the "must phone-home" feature
For most buyers it was a bonus, not a downfall. I can't find the numbers but they got tones more female users than PS4. The main reason was the dance games available at release. WII obviously has the biggest female fan base.
The "must phone home was" more a/. complaint than a main stream complaint. Don't take me wrong, it did become concern for all because the tech users screamed loud enough to the media. It's important to note that the perception of phone home was never removed as most people I know to this point still think its part of the product. I'd argue that a cell phone is far worst than any game console one can plug in his house but to each his own fears.
They kept the X360s going to keep their revenue-stream going.
That's all it is. They kept publishers happy, their clients and their stock holders. It was a common sense decision considering the major R&D cost were behind them and the engineering and maintenance team striped down to bare minimum.
As long as it's lucrative. No company in the right mind would leave servers on at a loss. What I think is more important is what will they do when they decide to disconnect the servers. Will they offer 3rd parties to take it over or will they just let it die. I figure we will know within 5 years.
I was just trying to make it the most optimistic scenario possible. If it won't work with the most optimistic scenario it certainly won't work in a real world scenario. The number of subscriptions is probably going to look more like 30% of what I placed in my scenario.
Where is this said? In many countries ISPs were forced to allow 3rd parties to piggy back off their network at a reasonable price determined by the cost of upkeep and expansion.
get subsidised to install lines and have a captive audience
Although I know there are states and provinces that have offered subsidies for expansion in less dense areas, these areas still end up last on the list to handle. I worked closely with a large Canadian ISP (Telus) and installations in rural areas are often far more complicated than just putting equipment in closed boxes. For one, until about 2006, DSL modems didn't too well in ranges exceeding 5km. Even 3km runs could be difficult to tune properly. Cable modems had a bit more range but I'm not sure how much more.
Where in hell are you getting a 100+year ROI? Are you dense?
In Canada rural areas are defined as having 150 people per square kilometer. This means a DSL system that covers 5KM can handle about 25 SQKM. This means a population of 3750. If you assume at least 3 people (right from census Canada) live in one household. That leaves you with a potential of 1250 connections. If you get 50% of these house holds to connect that leaves you with 625 connections.
The cost alone to bring fiber to the service center to serve those 25 SQKM is between $300k and $500k. Add $100k for the hardware and general setup. If we base it at $400k total install, it's $6400 per household. This means it will take almost 14 years just to pay for the initial installations at $40/month. Now if add maintenance cost, home installation cost (which is usually amortized in the monthly), tech support and running cost you are at least looking at 20 years before you make profit.
This is assuming cost/month doesn't go down because that will drive up the number of years to break even. Additionally the numbers we used are probably too optimistic since not all rural areas will have the maximum of 150 / SQKM.
His figure of 100 is exaggerated but his point was valid. The ROI isn't appealing by any means which is why government often subsidies the installation and makes it mandatory for installations to occur within a set period.
Slashdot Mirror
Because it wasn't the fact that he was putting it together last minute and didn't save frequently (which MS Word and Excel do for you anyway).
Ah, human nature. It's never their fault for screwing up.
MS has become the entity to point for all failures related to computer. Getting old and redundant!
One problem with media reporting today is the perceived need to get emotional involvement
But its the viewers fault. The way news media has become is the same reason shows like honey boo boo, the kardasians and other equivalent crap exists.
I honestly don't know how this gets changed in our lifetime.
By definition you could argue that toilet paper is niche, staplers are niche that sun glasses are niche yet nobody discards them because of that.
Transparent screens can become just as important as some of those items listed.
In their current form factor they are but the tech is sound and useful for many things such as heads up displays and window blinds (down the road)
No business can survive anything and everything, they all have a breaking point. This might be the straw that breaks the camels back.
Good businesses are able to stand the test of time. Poor ones do not. If a glass causes you business to fail, god forbid one of your employees doesn't show up to work.
And at the end of the day, you ignored the point that the business owner didn't ask to have his window broken.
And we didn't choose to have a global crisis but we have one and in this case we have potential solutions. Very different than the broken window.
Frankly, your attitude is a really crappy one, you don't care about anyone but yourself
Really? Who do you think will survive this if we don't start paying up? The poor? You are out of your mind if you think that's how things will pan out.
which is ironic because you color yourself with the "but help the poor people" nonsense, but you really wish to hurt others to make yourself feel better.
So your suggesting that investing in our future is going to hurt people? It sounds to me like your understanding of the impact of government spending is flawed.
Your comment indicates you don't even understand the point I was making.
The huge expense is trying to cut CO2 by 20-30%, while the planet needs 80%.
Electricity production accounts for 37% of man made CO2 and growing. This will increase with the move towards electric vehicles and the increased demand for power.
https://www3.epa.gov/climatech...
The other issue is methane which is can occur in large quantities when fracking. Methane particle are significantly worst than CO2 in the same quantities.
The changes won't stop runaway global warming, but will still cost a huge sum of money.
You are only taking the portion of the equation that fits your arguments. In all your previous posts you never bring up the cost of doing nothing. The ongoing cost of doing nothing continues to increase and it doesn't come cheaper with time.
You tell me what cost of doing nothing is? I can tell you there are estimates in the 10s of trillions just to displace people from the coast due to rising sea levels.
Additionally, moving towards innovative technologies will promote growth in many other areas. There's a price for being pioneers but there's also a huge reward.
You assume he will remain in business
A poorly run business will eventually fail regardless of a broken window. The broken window will just cause it to happen earlier.
But if you want to talk about the economics of climate change then we can talk about the rising sea levels and the estimated 13 trillion dollars it will cost just to move the 13 million people on the shores. Combine this with current ongoing cost of dealing with these issues and all of a sudden you've got tones of money you can shift over to better power generating solutions which will better you population, your economy WHILE fixing the issue.
The government has already done that... to the tune of nearly $20 trillion dollars...
Irrelevant. The spending has to occur to gain the edge. The sooner you stop relying on non-renewable energies the quicker you will become competitive in the global economy. The ROI is long term but it's there. Most here only look at the difference in cost of producing energy but if you tack on the extra cost incurred to deal with health and environmental issues you quickly find out it's much better than it looked early on.
Meh, it is a minor benefit for a huge expense
I'm sure some said the same thing about the railroad system or even the telephone infrastructure.
Read up on the broken window fallacy.
Doesn't apply. You need to spend more time reading about the broken window fallacy. The concept is only applicable to scenarios where no innovation occurs. Say the boy breaks the glass window. The shop owner replaces the window with a better window which saves him energy cost and makes his business more attractive. The outcome is that his business will do better, not the other way around.
Same applies here. Moving toward renewable energies will remove existing issues while reducing cost of said energy long term. It's not a 5 year ROI, it's a 100 year ROI that must occur no matter what.
You fail to understand the global financial economy. Nations like Denmark and Canada can do that because they are a minor part of the overall picture. The US and China can't do it because someone has to buy all that coal, oil, and natural gas.
You might consider what the effects of a $20 trillion dollar write off would be if we decided to keep 80% of the fossil fuels in the ground, before you get in such a hurry to do it.
There is more to this than what is technically possible.
The size of the economy is not relevant as long as you aren't pulling the plug overnight. Nobody is asking the carpet to be pulled from under specific economies. Instead a progressive approach must be taken to shift money towards said solutions.
Doing nothing will result in your country being less competitive on a global market. Countries who will have moved towards these better technologies will eventually be rewarded with lower general cost of operation. This means cheaper manufacturing and lower cost of living which on it's own is an impact. If you tack the cost of dealing with local environmental and health issues the argument stands even more firm.
Absolutely agree.
From the government standpoint they can still start spending the money ahead of time because they know it's coming regardless. This will allow the next generation to benefit from action taking today and paid for over 20-30 years.
All that would do is crush the economy, put millions out of work, destroy home values, and cause endless other problems
Why would it crush the economy? All your doing moving the money towards a problem that is costing the country lots of money. Shift the money towards updated power solution. Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro... This means tones of new construction which equal jobs and continued growth.
People replace cars, on average, every 11 years. Some every 3 years, others drive them 20+ years.
This means at least 10% of vehicles get replaced every year. That's significant especially if you can get greener solution to become available like the Volt and Tesla.
But houses get replaced far less often. My home was built in 2001, it is 3,800 sqft. It likely will be standing in the year 2100. You can't say "buy a more appropriate house" when someone else just has to buy mine.
Higher gas/coal prices means you'll be inclined in investing in solar panels, better insulation and more efficient heater to bring down the cost of ownership. That's the intent of taxing non environmentally friendly resources. If you can't afford to live in a 3800 sqft house you'll sell and move to an affordable one. It's nobody else's fault you purchase a much larger house than you needed or could afford to live in. And if you purchased the house thinking 5% disposable income was enough to cover for the future growth in cost of ownership then you were ill advised or didn't care about the long term consequences.
The truth is, the changes had to happen 30 years ago... Today, it is far too late to stop, you won't cut CO2 in the time we have left to do it in to stop global temps from running way past levels that the experts say is safe.
That statement right there is the problem. People have already quit on the problem before it's over. The tax money collected by the government can be used to build better plants and help with green energy R&D. That's where the biggest impact will come from.
The US only has 12% of it's energy as renewable. Canada has 64%. You don't think there's change needed? Only the public can fund it and it must come from the tax payers pockets.
When an extremely narrow interpretation of the law that is held by a small minority of judges can help the cops, they're all for the rule of law and the legal and judicial processes. When one of those damn criminals might get away with something through some technicality, the law is a liability and we can ignore it because we need to put all suspects in jail forever.
The lack of transparency with regards to authorities is the real problem, not leverage in court rooms. I'd be more than happy to see them work the court system in their favor if they have the best interest of the general population (hence the comment about transparency).
The authorities cannot do their work without the right amount of power in or out of court rooms. Miss handled power is the current state of authorities and that is why transparency is the equalizer we are all hoping for.
I find the vehicle useful, so the gas price doesn't bother me. Gas could be $8/gal and it wouldn't change the vehicle I drive.
See, that's the right attitude. I'm ok with that way of thinking because after all we work to have fun and part of that may require pollution of some sort. All I'm asking is for each to pay their portion of the solution by pay for their pollution. If we do that we will fund the government to implement better power plants, replace gas and coal plants while tapping into green energies like solar and wind.
One of the British talking heads actually gets this and has moved on to the "now what" part of the discussion.
You can't get to "now what" when you can't even get the majority to agree there's a problem coming (present for others).
Was it at the G20 that climate change was one of the most discussed topic? Maybe I have my summits all wrong but I do recall there being a discussion to get countries like China to work with the rest of the developed countries. Anyhow, the fact that the topic was seriously discussed more than before is a sign that "now what" may be in the process of being determined.
Personally, I think governments have to all agree to spend the future generation's money towards greener power plants. It's the only way we get out of this potential disaster quickly.
That is true, and that has zero chance of happening any time soon. You might *want* it to happen, but various forces are at work, largely political and economic, that will prevent it from happening within our lifetime.
Yes but it comes back to the fundamental issue. Most won't change the simplest thing in their life to allow things to get better. Instead they'd rather wait for the government to force their hand.
How many people do you know purchased a truck or high consumption vehicle because the gas prices were going in the shitter? I know at least 2. That's a small drop in the bucket but it starts with simple change which I don't believe will happen without government involvement. Sad isn't it?
It's the ignorant attitude towards the issue that's the most bothersome, the "I don't give a fuck" attitude. Since people won't act on their own lets hit their pocketbook. Add massive taxes on energy. See how much motivation people have to buy a more appropriate car, appliance, house... Let businesses build on greener ideas. This worked when the gas prices moved up. That's what motivated the solar industry to bloom and the car companies to become more efficient. Additionally more tax money hopefully means investments in greener energy sources.
But the 10 million Xbox mark is wrong. They are at 20 million sold since its launch:
http://n4g.com/news/1877256/ps...
The consoles also last much longer. 11 years for a console is amazing. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are online which means content is available to this date. The ease at which game makers can publish to multiple platform is another reason the transition from one console to another is slow since many new games are still appearing on old consoles. I'm not a console guy but most of my friends are and most of them are still using their Xbox 360 or Ps3 because they don't feel they need to dish out more money to play the same game they still love.
This is from the article:
UPDATE: Peter Carr, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, sent a statement.
“We are disappointed with the court’s decision and are reviewing our options. The decision highlights why the government supports the clarification of the rules of procedure currently pending before the Supreme Court to ensure that criminals using sophisticated anonymizing technologies to conceal their identities while they engage in crime over the Internet are able to be identified and apprehended.”
When I read this I understand that the criminals don't play by the rules so the rules need to change for enforcement. I'm happy to see this judge challenge the FBI but I'm worries it's become the popular thing to do. I tried to find the first name of this Judge Young but could not. I wanted to see if this guy is showing interest in going into politics. It wouldn't be the first time one uses his power to enhance one's public image (since it's the popular thing to do).
So I guess XBox360 users have good times to look forward to considering games for windows live is still up for those who own games on that platform.
if Microsoft is smart, they will leave the 360 servers on until the XBox Two (or whatever it is called) comes out.
Good companies will sit with key people, asses current cost, ongoing revenue from services and estimate the marketing benefits of going beyond expectations.
The marketing assessment is probably the most important part. They need to understand their demographic. If only 2% of their user base is still using the old servers, how many of them can we rally back in with the next gen Xbox?
They need to identify the following:
- Server hosting cost (equipment, power, staff, engineers and software developers). It costs a lot more than most would think. Probably upwards of $1.5M / month just to keep it up and running and secured (minimal user base)
- How many will buy a next gen Xbox because MS was nice by keeping servers up?
- How many will buy a next gen Xbox because MS disconnected their old servers?
I suspect most Xbox 360 will be dysfunctional or collecting dust by the time the servers go down. I figure another 3-5 years at most.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
There's also the thing where people are paying for those servers via live subscriptions. They can't disconnect them at all even if they wanted to.
When the forecast that the revenue from the subscriptions will be lower than (cost + minimum markup), then they will announce "end of service" and will prevent subscription renewals. They are allowed to do it and they will at some point. What I'm more interested in knowing is if they'll offer 3rd parties the opportunity to take it over.
Adoption of XBox Ones was rather slow
Similar rate to the PS4 just lower number due to the foreign market favoring Japanese products over American.
Reference: http://bgr.com/2015/02/18/ps4-...
with the stupid mandatory Kinect feature, and the "must phone-home" feature
For most buyers it was a bonus, not a downfall. I can't find the numbers but they got tones more female users than PS4. The main reason was the dance games available at release. WII obviously has the biggest female fan base.
The "must phone home was" more a /. complaint than a main stream complaint. Don't take me wrong, it did become concern for all because the tech users screamed loud enough to the media. It's important to note that the perception of phone home was never removed as most people I know to this point still think its part of the product. I'd argue that a cell phone is far worst than any game console one can plug in his house but to each his own fears.
They kept the X360s going to keep their revenue-stream going.
That's all it is. They kept publishers happy, their clients and their stock holders. It was a common sense decision considering the major R&D cost were behind them and the engineering and maintenance team striped down to bare minimum.
As long as it's lucrative. No company in the right mind would leave servers on at a loss. What I think is more important is what will they do when they decide to disconnect the servers. Will they offer 3rd parties to take it over or will they just let it die. I figure we will know within 5 years.
I was just trying to make it the most optimistic scenario possible. If it won't work with the most optimistic scenario it certainly won't work in a real world scenario. The number of subscriptions is probably going to look more like 30% of what I placed in my scenario.
They have a monopoly
Where is this said? In many countries ISPs were forced to allow 3rd parties to piggy back off their network at a reasonable price determined by the cost of upkeep and expansion.
get subsidised to install lines and have a captive audience
Although I know there are states and provinces that have offered subsidies for expansion in less dense areas, these areas still end up last on the list to handle. I worked closely with a large Canadian ISP (Telus) and installations in rural areas are often far more complicated than just putting equipment in closed boxes. For one, until about 2006, DSL modems didn't too well in ranges exceeding 5km. Even 3km runs could be difficult to tune properly. Cable modems had a bit more range but I'm not sure how much more.
Where in hell are you getting a 100+year ROI? Are you dense?
In Canada rural areas are defined as having 150 people per square kilometer. This means a DSL system that covers 5KM can handle about 25 SQKM. This means a population of 3750. If you assume at least 3 people (right from census Canada) live in one household. That leaves you with a potential of 1250 connections. If you get 50% of these house holds to connect that leaves you with 625 connections.
The cost alone to bring fiber to the service center to serve those 25 SQKM is between $300k and $500k. Add $100k for the hardware and general setup. If we base it at $400k total install, it's $6400 per household. This means it will take almost 14 years just to pay for the initial installations at $40/month. Now if add maintenance cost, home installation cost (which is usually amortized in the monthly), tech support and running cost you are at least looking at 20 years before you make profit.
This is assuming cost/month doesn't go down because that will drive up the number of years to break even. Additionally the numbers we used are probably too optimistic since not all rural areas will have the maximum of 150 / SQKM.
His figure of 100 is exaggerated but his point was valid. The ROI isn't appealing by any means which is why government often subsidies the installation and makes it mandatory for installations to occur within a set period.
It's a non-profit org as he specified in this comments. You do with what you have when there's no money rolling in or allocated to your department.