No one cares. It's a phone that caters to a particular consumer niche who only want a mobile phone for emergencies and traveling; or parents who prefer to give their children a non-smart or less-smart phone. The Nokia 3310 would be perfect for that, there's currently few options/competition in that niche, and this Nokia model has a recognizability/nostalgia edge over the few competitors.
For example my father bought a phone about 2 years ago that rarely leaves his car's glove box. He has a smartphone because it was the cheapest phone he could find and there were little to no non-smart phone options, but he doesn't use or want those "smart" features. He would gladly trade the ability to surf the net for a much longer battery.
It's pretty simple really: When the systems themselves reach a certain affordability threshold, sales of the games will increase dramatically. I don't know what that price threshold is, but I imagine it's much much lower than the Vive's current price.
Agreed, price is a major factor in adoption. However, there is evidence that VR prices could come down to much more affordable levels for people in the near future (maybe within 3-10 years?). For example, currently Google Cardboard VR is really cheap (assuming one already owns a compatible smartphone), but it's low-quality makes it little more than a novelty right now. However, it's a really cheap starting point and technology steadily improves over time. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe tech advances will allow VR systems priced similar to current Google Cardboard, but with quality more similar to current Vive, Oculus, etc.
Speaking of efficient distribution... Now big government and big pharma can create and spread their mind-control chemicals and diseases around the world than from orbit! AMIRITE?!?!? The conspiracy theorist blogs and fake news sites are going to use this stuff for years!
Your own source shows that there is very little change in the last 3 years in terms of actual percent. The biggest change is coal is down and natural gas is up because it's cheaper and can change to fit demands, like peak loads, far easier. If your electric car was getting 40mpg co2 equivelant as above it maybe went to 41.
People asked for data, I provided. Data is not political, it just is, and you can read from it as you please. Personally, I see a significant increase in renewables electric mostly across the board, which is a positive for electric cars, but to your point it's is not all roses and puppy tails.
I was admittedly beating around the bush some before, so here's the real point... Any claim of how green or dirty an electric cars are is fundamentally flawed if it does not account for the sources of the regional electric grid the car operates in. You can glance at the charts in my link and see that the environmental benefit of operating an electric car in Kentucky (grid sourced from 93% coal) is very different from operating it in Idaho (grid sourced from 62% hydro, 21% renewables, 17% NG).
P.S. I noticed you have no supporting citations or calculations for your claim that coal vs NG electricity is the difference of 40mpg to 41mpg. You can say and do whatever you want, but understand that to others you come off looking like someone who is a simple believer that ignores any facts that might get in the way of that belief.
Rich people for ambiance, not heat. Poor people who can't afford to live in the modern world.
I'm guessing you are in the angry subset of the second.
Not necessarily. My middle-class parents have a modern house heated by a wood-burning furnace in their basement with ducts that efficiently blow hot air around the whole house. They live in rural New England, so the wood furnace gets a lot of use in the winter. When they crunched the numbers vs other fuels wood was the most economical and renewable. They have a few back-up electric baseboard heaters to keep pipes from freezing if they have to leave the house in the winter for a few days. The rural area they live is relatively close to the forests that supply the wood, so wood a relatively cheap heat source, but wood costs increase in more urban areas such that other fuel types become better. The main drawback is the effort of stacking wood and hauling it to the furnace, which wasn't a problem for my parents for the last 40 or so years, but they are reaching retirement age and are looking into other heating options now.
It's true, natural gas combined cycles are far more efficient, produce much less CO2, require fewer operators and maintenance techs, and can be dispatched more easily with faster ramp rates. Design and construction times are much shorter, and the equipment is very robust after decades of optimization.
Another big advantage of Natural Gas is it can distributed more efficiently through pipelines.
...my diesel car, which is a 2 litre sporty car that delivers a lot more performance than a Leaf while delivering 45mpg. And that's taking the grid in those areas as a whole; it probably isn't 100% coal even in the worst places. So I'm afraid you're wrong.
For the consumer electric is a cheaper "fuel" than gas or diesel. Tree-huggers and climate-deniers can argue all they want about carbon footprints, but it doesn't matter because it's the green cash in people's wallets that will make EVs happen.
Also, you might be surprised at the performance of a Leaf (or any electric car)... it's worth a test drive at a dealer for curiosity's sake if nothing else. I own a Leaf, and while it's by no means a Tesla, it's still quite fast off the line as it has the electric advantage of instant power/torque. The acceleration curve flattens considerably above 45 mph, where ICE cars would still be accelerating well, but personally I don't feel the need for punchy acceleration at high speeds (your results may vary), and I can still get my Leaf going over 80mph, which is fast enough to get a speeding ticket most anywhere in the US. I'm not an EV zealot though... I acknowledge they aren't for everyone (yet) and are not perfect, but there are a lot of misconceptions about EVs, performance being one of them. Put it this way, Porshe isn't investing in EVs for their carbon footprint! ( http://www.businessinsider.com... )
I stopped reading your comment when it has no evidence of any kind. By the way, fossil fuel sources by region haven't changed much in 3 years and electric motors have almost no changes.
Then here is a link to a breakdown of each US state's energy grid sources (e.g. coal, nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, natural gas) by percentage and how the sources have changed from 2004 to 2014: http://www.npr.org/2015/09/10/...
How much of the electric grid is from "green" sources varies significantly by state, but renewables are improving across the board.
The study summary in the Nature.com link gives the analytical results, and yes the values very low, orders of magnitude lower than any human-health PCB standard in the US that I'm aware of (I'm an environmental consultant), so if we were eating seafood from the marianas trench (we do not) it's unlikely there would be any health risk to humans. However, it's very hard know what contaminant concentrations pose a risk to specific animal species and a lot more study would be needed. Don't hold your breath though, because full life-cycle ecological risk studies animals is hard enough to do at the surface, much less in Marianas Trench!
You're still not seeing my point. You're thinking with your emotions rather than your logic and reason.
I mentioned below that my main reason to support limiting blatantly illegal file-sharing activities is because transmitting large files strains ISPs forcing them to upgrade systems, the cost of which they pass on to me in my monthly bill. If a portion of those costs is due to illegal activities I don't support, then I don't want my internet service fee to pay for it. Why is it not reasonable and logical that I don't want to indirectly pay for someone else's access to illegal stuff? If ISPs charged internet usage based on the actual amount of data used, then I wouldn't care if someone wants to use their data on Pirate Bay, torrents, etc., but that's not the business model most [non-mobile] ISPs use.
Look, you make good points, I'm not saying you're completely wrong, and I certainly don't want the walled gardens, but you need a better argument than a fear of the slippery slope, because to me that fear looks more emotional than logical.
I do understand the slippery slope, but your examples of Hulu and Wells Fargo are ones of arbitrarily limiting the legal activities of competitors versus not facilitating blatantly illegal activities on Pirate Bay or similar sites. Those are far from equivalent activities.
They can make an argument about overall traffic and network stability. But it's not clear if that's actually at play.
I think that would be the main argument for blocking known pirate sites. Transmission of large files (like movies, programs, etc.) require resources necessitating ISPs to make network upgrades with demonstrable financial impacts, which ISPs of course will pass on to consumers. If certain sites are well-known for transmitting large illegal files, then blocking them could have a real financial benefit for everyone. There's also a moral argument here, because if ISPs pass on infrastructure upgrade costs to customers, that means we all help pay for someone to have access to illegal movies, music, programs, child porn, etc.
It not sound like it, but I'm actually pretty libertarian on many issues and generally support net neutrality... but I really do not like that any portion of my internet bill will supplement some asshole's illegal online activity. I live my life mostly above board, including my online activities, as the majority of people in our society do, and until we pay for internet access by actual usage (i.e. not flat connection fees) then I will support shutting down blatantly illegal file-sharing like this, because it does impact my wallet one way or another.
Do you want to retain common carrier status? Or do you want to be charged for every illegal piece of data flowing through your network? I am sure if you look hard enough you can find illegal porn, drug deals, terrorist communications, plans to commit crimes, insider trading.. etc.
The difference between your examples of illegal internet activity and illegal file sharing on Pirate Bay, Torrents, etc. is the latter typically hogs way more network resources, which someone has to pay eventually. ISPs will just pass the buck down to customers, which means you and I will supplement others illegal movies, music, child pornography, etc.
Would you protest if a physical store was shut down because it commonly sold or traded pirated media or other illegal items? Because I don't see much of a difference.
I played for maybe 6-8 months when Warcraft was first released (never got into high-level stuff), then when the first expansion came out I played for about another year. It felt like the expansion just catered to twinks with completely over-powered drops and quest exp in expansion areas compared to similar level areas in the original, so the original areas became worthless ghost-towns. I never had an interest in going back.
I disagree. This gets at a very nerd-worthy discussion of real-world value of virtual game currencies; and how for-profit game companies can or even should try to create real-world revenue from them. It's more valid when you consider that World of Warcraft is one of the largest, oldest, and most significant games with a virtual currency.
At most it can be thought of as a loyalty reward for people who have been playing for years and are gold-capped - hey now you can turn some of that gold into other blizzard games.
Exactly. WoW is slowly but steadily losing players and Blizzard knows this ride will end someday, but would prefer players leaving WoW switch to another Blizzard game. Someone leaving WoW could auction all their gear and transfer some of the years of playing WoW into a new Blizzard game.
Kids today don't want a skill based game. It's not fair that the better player should win most of the time... Of course bringing your own team of 5 is being a social little snowflake and that will be rewarded with plenty of wins.
This argument falls apart at "kids today..." because the average age of gamers is 31. http://venturebeat.com/2014/04... The 25-35 age demographic also has more disposable income to spend on games than kids, so games are going to reflect their preferences. Gamers also tend to enjoy playing games with their friends and social groups, so it makes sense that team-based games would have appeal. The 25-35 year olds also usually have other responsibilities and interests in their life than games and don't have the spare time to practice the elite DM skills as when they were younger, but they still want to enjoy the time they spend gaming. I am 30-something gamer who has played a ton of Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, Rise of the Triad, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, etc. so I get the point to some degree, but blame your peers not "kids these days."
They should showcase it a bit more. Imagine someone (like me) who considers that Reddit has too poor a signal-to-noise ratio to bother with, where should I get to hear about this?
Agreed. It's hard for "average" people to hear what Valve is working on. I'm surprised Valve doesn't use Steam better to make announcements to the community of what they are working on. Although considering the snail's pace their projects move, maybe they don't have much to announce? I'm a pretty active PC gamer, but when I hear "Valve" my mind only associates them with the Steam store and some games I haven't played in many years.
For the first time I can remember, we've elected a President with no political experience, but a lot of business experience. Ross Perot got somewhat close in 1992 I suppose. It could spell doom, or, we might discover that most politicians are as full of shit as we always joked or suspected that they were, and things actually get better with a non-politician in charge.
There actually is a very recent example of an incredibly wealthy businessman involved in media and other businesses, questionable morals, and no prior political experience was elected to the most powerful position in government: Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.... It did not end well. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
I tend toward PC in principle, but sometimes I argue the other side to help keep both sides honest and help bring out both sides' strongest arguments.
OK
First, these non-gaming applications can be done with a cheap eight-year-old PC with a Core 2 Duo and Intel integrated graphics. I'm told just dropping a video card into a PC with a CPU that old isn't enough to run AAA games from the present generation (2014 and later), which would quickly become CPU-bound. Second, these can be done with a laptop, and I've seen no evidence that people routinely upgrade a laptop with a separately purchased MXM video card. Third, a console can be used while someone else is using the family PC.
Coincidentally, I recently upgraded my PC from a 7-8 year old Core 2 Duo, and even before that upgrade I was still playing AAA games, like Dying Light, just not at the highest settings. If you think about the age of the hardware in the current generation of consoles it's roughly equivalent to an 6-8 year old PC, although they are optimized and coded better for gaming than PCs, but AAA games with cross-platform support to PC still work quite well on older machines. As I said before the tech upgrade cycle for PCs has slowed considerably. I thought my old PC was around $800 when I bought it and the only non-original part was some really cheap RAM I added once, and I used it for more than just gaming.
The main reason I upgraded my PC was not because I felt lacking for games, but because I was running into compatibility issues with Win7. That may reinforce some people's belief that PC are inherently buggy and consoles are not, but mind you most people have a PC around for other uses anyway, and these can happen to any older PC regardless of its gaming use. For example my wife's parent's upgraded their laptop twice in the period of time I had my old PC, they are not gamers [or very tech savy] but they still spent more money than me on their PCs, irrespective of gaming usage.
Third, a console can be used while someone else is using the family PC.
Of course, but the original assertion was only that a console (singular) is much cheaper than a gaming PC (singular). If a family desires two devices over one despite the PC's versatility to do both, that's their issue not the PC.
First, though Steam has sales. PlayStation Store also has sales. Second, console games have historically been more likely than PC games to support same-screen multiplayer with two to four gamepads, and if you have more than one gamer in the house, one copy of a $60 game that supports multiple gamepads is cheaper than three copies of a $30 game that requires a separate copy per player. Third, if everybody were to wait for the sale instead of buying in release month at full price, publishers would have no money to continue to fund development of high-production-value games.
Sure, one $60 game and sitting on the couch together is cheaper than two or three PC games. but similar to my last response I think that's changing the parameters of the original assertion that consoles are always cheaper than gaming PCs. I will give this, consoles can be cheaper depending on the specific use.
PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold cost $60 per year. But in addition to online matchmaking, this includes rental of a rotating selection of games (PlayStation Plus Free Games and Games with Gold respectively). What's the analogous way to try PC games?
Consoles make you pay that yearly subscription if you want to get full use out of your games and PCs do not. If you want to compare apples to apples then you have add those costs in. If you own a console with a $60/year subscription for 6 years you'd have an extra $360 to off-set the additional PC sticker price, subsequent PC upgrades (if needed), or pocket it.
The main reason to own a console is that it's much cheaper than a gaming PC. Many families can't justify the cost of more than one gaming PC, and besides,
I don't believe the claim that game consoles are cheaper than gaming PCs for a few reasons:
1) Most families still need or want a computer at home for reasons besides gaming (e.g. internet, word processing, tracking finances, online banking, digital storage, remote connections to workplaces). This is particularly true for families with children because many school homework assignments today require or are greatly assisted by online research. So, if a family will have a home computer anyway, but buys a separate console for gaming at nearly the same price as the PC, where's the savings?
2) The price of games should be factored into the cost of a game system and games are cheaper on PC through digital distributors like Steam, Origin, etc., which over time off-sets the initial cost of the PC.
3) If you want to play games online (which many people do) you have to add the life-time cost of an online subscription to a console.
4) You don't need an expensive PC to play games. A $500 PC (which is comparable to a new PS4+accessories) will play ~98% of the PC games. If you have to buy a new monitor a PC is a little more expensive, but it is a more versatile device (see point 1). PC tech upgrades cycles are much slower than they were years ago it shouldn't become obsolete right away either.
Yes, the initial sticker price of a console is very likely cheaper than a PC, but if you add up life-cycle costs and versatility it's much harder to justify a console over a PC based on price. Consoles used to have a cost advantage in that they double as DVD/Blueray players, but that is less of factor as more people view movies/shows in digital streaming formats.
...life's too short to deal with driver incompatibility.
10+ years ago this would be a valid argument, but it's not the norm anymore. As long as you are tech savy enough to connect your computer to online, from there most peripherals and programs search and install their own drivers in seconds.
This seems to run against the common talking point that people won't pay for content if they can't find it for free. If people really are buying the physical discs and revenues are going up when they can't find it online for free. (or nearly free, comparatively)
To figure out if DVDs or streaming is better you really have to evaluate the full media life-cycle, which is much longer than the 3 months cited in the summary. It makes sense there would be an initial jump in physical sales when media is released or goes off streaming, probably to more "hardcore" or dedicated fans, but those sales will eventually taper off leaving companies with physical inventory that is harder and harder to sell. On the other hand, streaming doesn't have the physical inventory costs and it may generate more "casual" viewing over the long-term, but for less profit on each view. So, I think a 3-month study would be heavily biased to the DVD format.
If you read the full article it does say this:
"...The research above has its limitations. It only focused on DVD sales and not on other physical and digital revenue sources, for example. That said, the present data clearly suggests that content owners might be wise to keep titles off Netflix for a while, especially the blockbusters. Similarly, it affirms that there’s little harm in putting their older back catalogs on the streaming service."
So, media makers who want to maximize profits should do a little of both and carefully time when to switch formats.
Slashdot Mirror
It depends on the area for sure. In rural Vermont AT&T definitely has the best coverage, and Verizon's is just OK.
No one cares. It's a phone that caters to a particular consumer niche who only want a mobile phone for emergencies and traveling; or parents who prefer to give their children a non-smart or less-smart phone. The Nokia 3310 would be perfect for that, there's currently few options/competition in that niche, and this Nokia model has a recognizability/nostalgia edge over the few competitors.
For example my father bought a phone about 2 years ago that rarely leaves his car's glove box. He has a smartphone because it was the cheapest phone he could find and there were little to no non-smart phone options, but he doesn't use or want those "smart" features. He would gladly trade the ability to surf the net for a much longer battery.
It's pretty simple really: When the systems themselves reach a certain affordability threshold, sales of the games will increase dramatically. I don't know what that price threshold is, but I imagine it's much much lower than the Vive's current price.
Agreed, price is a major factor in adoption. However, there is evidence that VR prices could come down to much more affordable levels for people in the near future (maybe within 3-10 years?). For example, currently Google Cardboard VR is really cheap (assuming one already owns a compatible smartphone), but it's low-quality makes it little more than a novelty right now. However, it's a really cheap starting point and technology steadily improves over time. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe tech advances will allow VR systems priced similar to current Google Cardboard, but with quality more similar to current Vive, Oculus, etc.
Speaking of efficient distribution... Now big government and big pharma can create and spread their mind-control chemicals and diseases around the world than from orbit! AMIRITE?!?!? The conspiracy theorist blogs and fake news sites are going to use this stuff for years!
Your own source shows that there is very little change in the last 3 years in terms of actual percent. The biggest change is coal is down and natural gas is up because it's cheaper and can change to fit demands, like peak loads, far easier. If your electric car was getting 40mpg co2 equivelant as above it maybe went to 41.
People asked for data, I provided. Data is not political, it just is, and you can read from it as you please. Personally, I see a significant increase in renewables electric mostly across the board, which is a positive for electric cars, but to your point it's is not all roses and puppy tails.
I was admittedly beating around the bush some before, so here's the real point... Any claim of how green or dirty an electric cars are is fundamentally flawed if it does not account for the sources of the regional electric grid the car operates in. You can glance at the charts in my link and see that the environmental benefit of operating an electric car in Kentucky (grid sourced from 93% coal) is very different from operating it in Idaho (grid sourced from 62% hydro, 21% renewables, 17% NG).
P.S. I noticed you have no supporting citations or calculations for your claim that coal vs NG electricity is the difference of 40mpg to 41mpg. You can say and do whatever you want, but understand that to others you come off looking like someone who is a simple believer that ignores any facts that might get in the way of that belief.
Two types of people burn wood fires in a house.
Rich people for ambiance, not heat.
Poor people who can't afford to live in the modern world.
I'm guessing you are in the angry subset of the second.
Not necessarily. My middle-class parents have a modern house heated by a wood-burning furnace in their basement with ducts that efficiently blow hot air around the whole house. They live in rural New England, so the wood furnace gets a lot of use in the winter. When they crunched the numbers vs other fuels wood was the most economical and renewable. They have a few back-up electric baseboard heaters to keep pipes from freezing if they have to leave the house in the winter for a few days. The rural area they live is relatively close to the forests that supply the wood, so wood a relatively cheap heat source, but wood costs increase in more urban areas such that other fuel types become better. The main drawback is the effort of stacking wood and hauling it to the furnace, which wasn't a problem for my parents for the last 40 or so years, but they are reaching retirement age and are looking into other heating options now.
It's true, natural gas combined cycles are far more efficient, produce much less CO2, require fewer operators and maintenance techs, and can be dispatched more easily with faster ramp rates. Design and construction times are much shorter, and the equipment is very robust after decades of optimization.
Another big advantage of Natural Gas is it can distributed more efficiently through pipelines.
...my diesel car, which is a 2 litre sporty car that delivers a lot more performance than a Leaf while delivering 45mpg. And that's taking the grid in those areas as a whole; it probably isn't 100% coal even in the worst places. So I'm afraid you're wrong.
For the consumer electric is a cheaper "fuel" than gas or diesel. Tree-huggers and climate-deniers can argue all they want about carbon footprints, but it doesn't matter because it's the green cash in people's wallets that will make EVs happen.
Also, you might be surprised at the performance of a Leaf (or any electric car)... it's worth a test drive at a dealer for curiosity's sake if nothing else. I own a Leaf, and while it's by no means a Tesla, it's still quite fast off the line as it has the electric advantage of instant power/torque. The acceleration curve flattens considerably above 45 mph, where ICE cars would still be accelerating well, but personally I don't feel the need for punchy acceleration at high speeds (your results may vary), and I can still get my Leaf going over 80mph, which is fast enough to get a speeding ticket most anywhere in the US. I'm not an EV zealot though... I acknowledge they aren't for everyone (yet) and are not perfect, but there are a lot of misconceptions about EVs, performance being one of them. Put it this way, Porshe isn't investing in EVs for their carbon footprint! ( http://www.businessinsider.com... )
I stopped reading your comment when it has no evidence of any kind. By the way, fossil fuel sources by region haven't changed much in 3 years and electric motors have almost no changes.
Then here is a link to a breakdown of each US state's energy grid sources (e.g. coal, nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, natural gas) by percentage and how the sources have changed from 2004 to 2014: http://www.npr.org/2015/09/10/...
How much of the electric grid is from "green" sources varies significantly by state, but renewables are improving across the board.
The study summary in the Nature.com link gives the analytical results, and yes the values very low, orders of magnitude lower than any human-health PCB standard in the US that I'm aware of (I'm an environmental consultant), so if we were eating seafood from the marianas trench (we do not) it's unlikely there would be any health risk to humans. However, it's very hard know what contaminant concentrations pose a risk to specific animal species and a lot more study would be needed. Don't hold your breath though, because full life-cycle ecological risk studies animals is hard enough to do at the surface, much less in Marianas Trench!
There, I think I've pared it down to...
...strawman arguments.
You're still not seeing my point. You're thinking with your emotions rather than your logic and reason.
I mentioned below that my main reason to support limiting blatantly illegal file-sharing activities is because transmitting large files strains ISPs forcing them to upgrade systems, the cost of which they pass on to me in my monthly bill. If a portion of those costs is due to illegal activities I don't support, then I don't want my internet service fee to pay for it. Why is it not reasonable and logical that I don't want to indirectly pay for someone else's access to illegal stuff? If ISPs charged internet usage based on the actual amount of data used, then I wouldn't care if someone wants to use their data on Pirate Bay, torrents, etc., but that's not the business model most [non-mobile] ISPs use.
Look, you make good points, I'm not saying you're completely wrong, and I certainly don't want the walled gardens, but you need a better argument than a fear of the slippery slope, because to me that fear looks more emotional than logical.
I do understand the slippery slope, but your examples of Hulu and Wells Fargo are ones of arbitrarily limiting the legal activities of competitors versus not facilitating blatantly illegal activities on Pirate Bay or similar sites. Those are far from equivalent activities.
They can make an argument about overall traffic and network stability. But it's not clear if that's actually at play.
I think that would be the main argument for blocking known pirate sites. Transmission of large files (like movies, programs, etc.) require resources necessitating ISPs to make network upgrades with demonstrable financial impacts, which ISPs of course will pass on to consumers. If certain sites are well-known for transmitting large illegal files, then blocking them could have a real financial benefit for everyone. There's also a moral argument here, because if ISPs pass on infrastructure upgrade costs to customers, that means we all help pay for someone to have access to illegal movies, music, programs, child porn, etc.
It not sound like it, but I'm actually pretty libertarian on many issues and generally support net neutrality... but I really do not like that any portion of my internet bill will supplement some asshole's illegal online activity. I live my life mostly above board, including my online activities, as the majority of people in our society do, and until we pay for internet access by actual usage (i.e. not flat connection fees) then I will support shutting down blatantly illegal file-sharing like this, because it does impact my wallet one way or another.
Do you want to retain common carrier status? Or do you want to be charged for every illegal piece of data flowing through your network? I am sure if you look hard enough you can find illegal porn, drug deals, terrorist communications, plans to commit crimes, insider trading.. etc.
The difference between your examples of illegal internet activity and illegal file sharing on Pirate Bay, Torrents, etc. is the latter typically hogs way more network resources, which someone has to pay eventually. ISPs will just pass the buck down to customers, which means you and I will supplement others illegal movies, music, child pornography, etc.
Would you protest if a physical store was shut down because it commonly sold or traded pirated media or other illegal items? Because I don't see much of a difference.
I played for maybe 6-8 months when Warcraft was first released (never got into high-level stuff), then when the first expansion came out I played for about another year. It felt like the expansion just catered to twinks with completely over-powered drops and quest exp in expansion areas compared to similar level areas in the original, so the original areas became worthless ghost-towns. I never had an interest in going back.
I disagree. This gets at a very nerd-worthy discussion of real-world value of virtual game currencies; and how for-profit game companies can or even should try to create real-world revenue from them. It's more valid when you consider that World of Warcraft is one of the largest, oldest, and most significant games with a virtual currency.
At most it can be thought of as a loyalty reward for people who have been playing for years and are gold-capped - hey now you can turn some of that gold into other blizzard games.
Exactly. WoW is slowly but steadily losing players and Blizzard knows this ride will end someday, but would prefer players leaving WoW switch to another Blizzard game. Someone leaving WoW could auction all their gear and transfer some of the years of playing WoW into a new Blizzard game.
Kids today don't want a skill based game. It's not fair that the better player should win most of the time... Of course bringing your own team of 5 is being a social little snowflake and that will be rewarded with plenty of wins.
This argument falls apart at "kids today..." because the average age of gamers is 31. http://venturebeat.com/2014/04... The 25-35 age demographic also has more disposable income to spend on games than kids, so games are going to reflect their preferences. Gamers also tend to enjoy playing games with their friends and social groups, so it makes sense that team-based games would have appeal. The 25-35 year olds also usually have other responsibilities and interests in their life than games and don't have the spare time to practice the elite DM skills as when they were younger, but they still want to enjoy the time they spend gaming. I am 30-something gamer who has played a ton of Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, Rise of the Triad, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, etc. so I get the point to some degree, but blame your peers not "kids these days."
They should showcase it a bit more. Imagine someone (like me) who considers that Reddit has too poor a signal-to-noise ratio to bother with, where should I get to hear about this?
Agreed. It's hard for "average" people to hear what Valve is working on. I'm surprised Valve doesn't use Steam better to make announcements to the community of what they are working on. Although considering the snail's pace their projects move, maybe they don't have much to announce? I'm a pretty active PC gamer, but when I hear "Valve" my mind only associates them with the Steam store and some games I haven't played in many years.
For the first time I can remember, we've elected a President with no political experience, but a lot of business experience. Ross Perot got somewhat close in 1992 I suppose. It could spell doom, or, we might discover that most politicians are as full of shit as we always joked or suspected that they were, and things actually get better with a non-politician in charge.
There actually is a very recent example of an incredibly wealthy businessman involved in media and other businesses, questionable morals, and no prior political experience was elected to the most powerful position in government: Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi .... It did not end well. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
We'll see.
Yes, we shall see.
I tend toward PC in principle, but sometimes I argue the other side to help keep both sides honest and help bring out both sides' strongest arguments.
OK
First, these non-gaming applications can be done with a cheap eight-year-old PC with a Core 2 Duo and Intel integrated graphics. I'm told just dropping a video card into a PC with a CPU that old isn't enough to run AAA games from the present generation (2014 and later), which would quickly become CPU-bound. Second, these can be done with a laptop, and I've seen no evidence that people routinely upgrade a laptop with a separately purchased MXM video card. Third, a console can be used while someone else is using the family PC.
Coincidentally, I recently upgraded my PC from a 7-8 year old Core 2 Duo, and even before that upgrade I was still playing AAA games, like Dying Light, just not at the highest settings. If you think about the age of the hardware in the current generation of consoles it's roughly equivalent to an 6-8 year old PC, although they are optimized and coded better for gaming than PCs, but AAA games with cross-platform support to PC still work quite well on older machines. As I said before the tech upgrade cycle for PCs has slowed considerably. I thought my old PC was around $800 when I bought it and the only non-original part was some really cheap RAM I added once, and I used it for more than just gaming.
The main reason I upgraded my PC was not because I felt lacking for games, but because I was running into compatibility issues with Win7. That may reinforce some people's belief that PC are inherently buggy and consoles are not, but mind you most people have a PC around for other uses anyway, and these can happen to any older PC regardless of its gaming use. For example my wife's parent's upgraded their laptop twice in the period of time I had my old PC, they are not gamers [or very tech savy] but they still spent more money than me on their PCs, irrespective of gaming usage.
Third, a console can be used while someone else is using the family PC.
Of course, but the original assertion was only that a console (singular) is much cheaper than a gaming PC (singular). If a family desires two devices over one despite the PC's versatility to do both, that's their issue not the PC.
First, though Steam has sales. PlayStation Store also has sales. Second, console games have historically been more likely than PC games to support same-screen multiplayer with two to four gamepads, and if you have more than one gamer in the house, one copy of a $60 game that supports multiple gamepads is cheaper than three copies of a $30 game that requires a separate copy per player. Third, if everybody were to wait for the sale instead of buying in release month at full price, publishers would have no money to continue to fund development of high-production-value games.
Sure, one $60 game and sitting on the couch together is cheaper than two or three PC games. but similar to my last response I think that's changing the parameters of the original assertion that consoles are always cheaper than gaming PCs. I will give this, consoles can be cheaper depending on the specific use.
PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold cost $60 per year. But in addition to online matchmaking, this includes rental of a rotating selection of games (PlayStation Plus Free Games and Games with Gold respectively). What's the analogous way to try PC games?
Consoles make you pay that yearly subscription if you want to get full use out of your games and PCs do not. If you want to compare apples to apples then you have add those costs in. If you own a console with a $60/year subscription for 6 years you'd have an extra $360 to off-set the additional PC sticker price, subsequent PC upgrades (if needed), or pocket it.
If you want to rent ga
The main reason to own a console is that it's much cheaper than a gaming PC. Many families can't justify the cost of more than one gaming PC, and besides,
I don't believe the claim that game consoles are cheaper than gaming PCs for a few reasons:
1) Most families still need or want a computer at home for reasons besides gaming (e.g. internet, word processing, tracking finances, online banking, digital storage, remote connections to workplaces). This is particularly true for families with children because many school homework assignments today require or are greatly assisted by online research. So, if a family will have a home computer anyway, but buys a separate console for gaming at nearly the same price as the PC, where's the savings?
2) The price of games should be factored into the cost of a game system and games are cheaper on PC through digital distributors like Steam, Origin, etc., which over time off-sets the initial cost of the PC.
3) If you want to play games online (which many people do) you have to add the life-time cost of an online subscription to a console.
4) You don't need an expensive PC to play games. A $500 PC (which is comparable to a new PS4+accessories) will play ~98% of the PC games. If you have to buy a new monitor a PC is a little more expensive, but it is a more versatile device (see point 1). PC tech upgrades cycles are much slower than they were years ago it shouldn't become obsolete right away either.
Yes, the initial sticker price of a console is very likely cheaper than a PC, but if you add up life-cycle costs and versatility it's much harder to justify a console over a PC based on price. Consoles used to have a cost advantage in that they double as DVD/Blueray players, but that is less of factor as more people view movies/shows in digital streaming formats.
...life's too short to deal with driver incompatibility.
10+ years ago this would be a valid argument, but it's not the norm anymore. As long as you are tech savy enough to connect your computer to online, from there most peripherals and programs search and install their own drivers in seconds.
This seems to run against the common talking point that people won't pay for content if they can't find it for free. If people really are buying the physical discs and revenues are going up when they can't find it online for free. (or nearly free, comparatively)
To figure out if DVDs or streaming is better you really have to evaluate the full media life-cycle, which is much longer than the 3 months cited in the summary. It makes sense there would be an initial jump in physical sales when media is released or goes off streaming, probably to more "hardcore" or dedicated fans, but those sales will eventually taper off leaving companies with physical inventory that is harder and harder to sell. On the other hand, streaming doesn't have the physical inventory costs and it may generate more "casual" viewing over the long-term, but for less profit on each view. So, I think a 3-month study would be heavily biased to the DVD format.
If you read the full article it does say this:
"...The research above has its limitations. It only focused on DVD sales and not on other physical and digital revenue sources, for example. That said, the present data clearly suggests that content owners might be wise to keep titles off Netflix for a while, especially the blockbusters. Similarly, it affirms that there’s little harm in putting their older back catalogs on the streaming service."
So, media makers who want to maximize profits should do a little of both and carefully time when to switch formats.