We don't even know the mechanism by which the brain stores memories, let alone how to read out the entire thing. Sure, we theorize that the closeness of synaptic pathways allowing for neurotransmitters to bridge more easily has something to do with it. There are also lovely brain models in computing that have all of the power of the human eye but none of the subtlety. But nobody knows how, for example, memories are stored in a non-localized fashion, or how higher processing functions take place. Furthermore, it is getting more and more apparent that storage and processing cannot be separated out as they are in computer systems... but as there isn't a coherent, accurate model of what constitutes thought it is difficult to see how such a thing would be relevant.
In short, you might as well take an article on extra powerful pogo sticks and muse on how far off human powered space flight could be. The musing here is virtually identical, except that human powered space flight would be an original concept.
Now if we could only combine the legendary accuracy of automatic translation software with the untouchable stability of voice recognition... Throw in the tremendously successful Israli-developed voice truth indicators and the completely weatherproof M16, and you have a formula for successful rule in Iraq.
As a wiser man once pointed out, stealing something does not change ownership. Buying something that was stolen does not make you the owner, as the person you bought the item from has no ownership rights to transfer.
If she could match the serial number on the unit, the woman should rightfully walk out of the store with her playstation. It is her possession every bit as much as if she had bought one from the cashier, and the store being defauded doesn't change that. The only thing that could stop her is if the store needed that as a form of evidence against the perpetrator. However, the store has already expressed a lack of interest in pursuing that avenue.
While Electronics Boutique is notorious for poor magement (pushing pre-orders at the expense of sales, for example), trafficing in stolen merchandise steps over quite a few lines. Somebody's head should roll for this.
It's illegal to use another person's equipment in a way that they don't approve of, why not another person's computer? Does it matter if your mechanic hands you a stack of papers that says, somewhere on page 25b, that your car will be used every tuesday by Stop and Shop? It's still flagrantly illegal. Windows update is understandable behavior for an operating system, whereas if Internet Explorer sent your surfing habits back to Microsoft it wouldn't be.
I'm all for technological solutions, but if I'm going to be legally banned from flamethrowing someone's servers I want some degree of protection in return. Malware is any software that performs activities significantly differently than those it presents to the user for the purpose of doing something the user probably wouldn't approve of. If someone releases a program to stop pop-up advertising, and it turns out to also replace every icon on the desktop with a link to an AOL signup page, I want justice.
The first thing that needs to be done is, of course, throwing out EULA's. EULA's are not a product of necessity for the internet age, but rather an old leech in new clothing. There are widely accepted practices for software usage and sales, and those should be considered the standard.
Everyone knows what "Spyware" is, the same way that everyone knows what "Sexual relations" means. Just because some lawyer may try to make it meaningless by envoking a draconian definition doesn't make it any less meaningful to the person on the street.
Fraunhofer was flagrantly unable to get MP3Pro out as a format of choice for illegal music distribution, but still makes a few dollars on streams from sites like Live 365. Now, eyeing the legal distro market, it would make sense to pander to where the money is (or was, by the time they get there) and sell to these other sites.
Yes, Microsoft could decide to upgrade your MP3 collection to DRMP3... but it could decide to jack everyone to WMA tomorrow anyway. And let's be frank, the more piracy there is in the world the more people they will sell their "secure" formats to.
The people here seem to be seeing a tempest in a teapot. Fraunhofer was unable to change the role of "their" format before... why should we expect any more now?
There might only be 10 to 15 people applauding during its unveiling at the E3, but they'll understand it once they touch it. At the least, it should serve as a hint towards [our] next-generation console.'
This is great! Finally a console that can connect to two television screens at once! I mean, a television and a computer monitor! Err... a DVD rom drive with two lazers? A DVD / Cart combo? Power lights on both sides?
Hmmm... Not much of a hint there, but if history is to be any indication, my guess would be this means the Cube2 will have a screen built into the controller, ALA Dreamcast. Likewise, the Cube Boy will be better integrated with the Cube 2, with the analog sticks so badly needed for Final Fantasy.
Still, Nintendo is known for experimenting with some outlandish ideas, so here we go again...
I remember Driver's engine assessed damage based upon how long you were in contact with another object, so that scraping the side of your car along a wall would at 5 mph would total you in about two seconds. Also, your car bounced up and down like some ridiculously over-sprung thing from a 70's show that had been tuned for jumping. Collisions between moving vehicles were handled with all of the realism of Rad Racer. And woe be to the driver who collided with the smallest twig.
Personally, I would love the Carmageddon engine, or something similar. Could you imagine jacking a dump truck, and getting money for smashing up all of the police cars? Or plumetting through mines outrunning rival drug dealers? Getting the turbo boost and ramming a barricade at the top of a hill to go sailing through the skies of Vice City?
I'd like to point out that people's main complaints about the Lynx and Game Gear was not a lack of good games (GG Sonic was a great ride), but about the quickly eaten battery life. After just 2 hours of play, your 5 dollar pack of AA batteries was gone, and you had little recourse but to buy more. A Game Boy could go for 10 hours on those same batteries... And would ensure that you spent more money on games than on Duracells. The second largest complaint was the cost of the systems. The Nomad was an awesome machine with the Genesis' entire library as a weapon, but at a hair over 200 dollars it was too much for the schoolchildren market to support.
Really, Nintendo's portables are in the place they are because Nintendo understands the market. They know that portable systems are sold to people who don't drive, don't work, and don't pay attention in class. They know that they need to keep costs down as much as possible, while still providing a comparatively passable gaming experience. Ruggedness beats elegance, satisfaction must be instant.
If it really was "all about" Nintendo's gaming lineup, the '64 and the 'Cube would have a much larger marketshare. Nintendo follows fundamentally the same strategy with all of their consoles. But their positioning of the GB, GBP, GBC, and the GBA in the market is truly exceptional, and a lesson that no other system manufacturer has yet to learn.
Sony is truly venturing into unmarked territory here with a $200 system for the 20+ crowd. GTA3 on that thing would be a AAA seller, and don't delude yourself into thinking Pokemon Chartreuse will stop that. Obviously it won't be competing to get under the desks of kids saving up their lunch money for a gaming fix, but not because Nintendo has better games.
Different processors,different architecture. They probably will be seeing lots of ports of PS1 and PS2 games, but none of that translation will be mechanical. One contains a 33 MHz R3000A, while the other contains a pair of R4000s at 333 MHz. One has a math co-proc capable of 66 MIPS, the other a whopping 2.6 Gigaflops. The PSP's graphics card is theoretically 100 times as powerful as the Ps1's (not counting screen size differences), and there is 3x the available memory.
Honestly, this thing beats the pants off of the old PS1, and isn't that far behind the PS2. The point, however, is that if someone were to translate an existing game for this new architecture, it would be a fully involved porting process... The kind you would see porting a game from the PS2 to the XBox. The process always takes longer than expected, and requires a lot of work.
Personally, I can't wait for a PSP version of Karaoke Revolution. The people on the Subway will love that one.
Let's not forget, Sega did that same thing with their surprise release of the Saturn, which turned out to be a big dud. The hype machine hadn't started, the word didn't really get around, and people just weren't emotionally ready for the new system yet. The hardcore ran to the stores, to be disappointed by a crop of games that wasn't going to be really ready for another 5 months. But the average person either didn't hear about its release or had heard from their hardcore friends that the good games weren't going to be released for another few months. The really casual gamers didn't hear any hype at all, and didn't realize it had been released until people started pronouncing it dead.
Japan, however, is more forgiving of a weak opening lineup. They tend to look at what a machine can do, rather than what it is doing. Releasing a stunningly powerful little portable unit there while there still isn't more than one killer app is appropriate for the market. Sales there will help offset the cost of the US launch. If they launched in the US market with only one good game, they would find their price slashed quickly and irreparably.
Even the walkman needed a lot of cassette tapes available before it could be a success.
all the hardware to do so is already there - memory sticks, audio chipset, headphone jack.
Most MP3 players use a dedicated MP3 chip for decoding the music stream. A standard audio controller just doesn't have the processing power, and main processors have to be pretty fast for a portable before they become fast enough for realtime vbr decoding. Let's not forget that even if it is using a fast enough chipset for MP3 decoding without additional hardware, there would be licensing fees to contend with.
Personally, I think they should be using MP3 as the music format of choice for these portables, and should include a chip for such purposes. But I also think Sony should pull a Gunpei Yokoi on whoever is responsible for the travesty that is the Memory Stick, so they obviously aren't listening to me.
Very few people can verify the security of security software. I can at least hack out a "hello world" program in 5 or 6 different languages, but I wouldn't have a clue how to verify the security of a GPL keyring app, nor would I have the inclination. Your app may be large enough that research institutions have done that work, but how many would bother to verify a memo pad application? or the security of a checkbook?
In some ways, this is an honest question. Aside from saying "we use X plugin from RSA" or "the university of wisconsin has verified us," how can one person ensure the security of what they work with?
A game needs a great engine to succeed. The re-use of an existing engine towards that purpose is more common than most people believe and, quite frankly, necessary with the increasing complexity of games these days. Writing a 3d library from scratch is about as difficult as writing a physics engine from scratch. Why not use existing resources and add to them the features you never got a chance to have the first time around?
The same thing goes for theme. Warcraft 3 dumped the engine from Warcraft 2 in a complete re-write, but kept the Orcs / Humans battle in a colorful mythical world. It resonated the first time, and it resonates today. Dungeon Seige 2, Warcraft 3, Thief 2, Super Mario Brothers 3,(world, 64) are some of the best games out there, yet they are sequels. They took what worked, threw out what didn't work, and built up a new experience. This is a good thing.
If you don't like sequels, feel free to buy any one of the thousands of games released every year that aren't a sequel. Quality is definitely not guarenteed, but sometimes you get a Savage or a Halo. Of course, we all know Halo is a sequel to Marathon... so much for that idea.
Really, what it comes down to is quickly and poorly made games vs really great games. Some sequels fall into the first category, and are particularly memorable because the first game was so good. But many sequels fall into the second category. Terminator 3 was a terrible milking of the franchise, but Terminator 2 was just awe-inspiring. Zelda 2 was a quirky game without much going for it, but Zelda 3 was a masterpiece.
Don't paint everyone with the same brush. There are many good reasons to make sequels, and many good reasons to enjoy them. In other words, well-made sequels deserve as much of a place in the gaming ecosphere as any other well-made games. Otherwise you are rejecting gems like the new Prince of Persia game, in favor of more original games like, oh, Daiktana.
It isn't obvious what will work or how best to do anything so you have to play it by ear a lot. Shoot from the hip. Stuff like that. I dunno.. it just excites me in some strange adventurous sort of way.
While it can be fun, exciting, etc, realize that your "shot from the hip" will generally be reviewed by your lead, the designers, the producer, the QA staff, and the owner. Your lead will think it's great but not quiiiiite what he was thinking of, the designers will think it's great but not quiiiiiiite what they can use (in a totally different way), the QA will point out the historical innacuracy of what you poured your heart and soul into, the producer will just nod and smile, and the owner will nod and smile, and six months later tell you it is crap and to redo it again.
You can have a lot of power over the outcome of a game, but you have to realize that everyone else does too. This leads to a lot of conservatism in an organization. Sure, the occasional canadian supermoose is added to the code without anyone noticing, but most of the time it is about doing something that will be signed off by everyone.
Still, if I didn't like the industry I wouldn't be here:). There sure as heck aren't golden handcuffs around anybody's wrists.
If the choice was between a hardware firewall or no firewall, most people would choose none. Having dozens of AV softwares running on a multitude of OS and hardware platforms would be the best solution overall for keeping viruses down, but we don't live in that world.
Integration problems aside (let's be honest, it's about as integrated as that in-dash radio the kid from Best Buy installed in you car... flush but separate) this means there will be a standard target for viruses to attack. In other words, this will never be as secure as a world with many players competing. But this will be more secure than a world where 90% of users have nothing installed at all. Back to the previous analogy, a standard doorlock is easier to pick than a doorlock with a multitude of key shapes and sizes, but a standard doorlock is still better than nothing. Since doors are usually installed by professionals, they know to put in a lock. Computers aren't like that, and so could use the help. If you don't like their door lock, you can always upgrade with a deadbolt.
It's a compromise, and probably a good one. I'd rather the Beast spend it's unnecessarily large rewards improving their product than, say, hyping a digital watch that can tell if it is raining. And if it will reduce the number of MyDoom variants that trickle into my inbox, I will be very happy.
Slashdot Mirror
We don't even know the mechanism by which the brain stores memories, let alone how to read out the entire thing. Sure, we theorize that the closeness of synaptic pathways allowing for neurotransmitters to bridge more easily has something to do with it. There are also lovely brain models in computing that have all of the power of the human eye but none of the subtlety. But nobody knows how, for example, memories are stored in a non-localized fashion, or how higher processing functions take place. Furthermore, it is getting more and more apparent that storage and processing cannot be separated out as they are in computer systems... but as there isn't a coherent, accurate model of what constitutes thought it is difficult to see how such a thing would be relevant.
In short, you might as well take an article on extra powerful pogo sticks and muse on how far off human powered space flight could be. The musing here is virtually identical, except that human powered space flight would be an original concept.
Now if we could only combine the legendary accuracy of automatic translation software with the untouchable stability of voice recognition... Throw in the tremendously successful Israli-developed voice truth indicators and the completely weatherproof M16, and you have a formula for successful rule in Iraq.
As a wiser man once pointed out, stealing something does not change ownership. Buying something that was stolen does not make you the owner, as the person you bought the item from has no ownership rights to transfer.
If she could match the serial number on the unit, the woman should rightfully walk out of the store with her playstation. It is her possession every bit as much as if she had bought one from the cashier, and the store being defauded doesn't change that. The only thing that could stop her is if the store needed that as a form of evidence against the perpetrator. However, the store has already expressed a lack of interest in pursuing that avenue.
While Electronics Boutique is notorious for poor magement (pushing pre-orders at the expense of sales, for example), trafficing in stolen merchandise steps over quite a few lines. Somebody's head should roll for this.
First SCO Sues a Linux user, now Microsoft makes a product that doesn't crash every hour.
How gullible do the Slashdot editors think we are?
Ahem.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but Scientific-Atlanta just promised to give you comparable performance to existing gaming platforms.
Becase we all know that, historically, inferior hardware performance is what sells game consoles.
Bob from accounting: "My kids really love their Xbox thingie, and we already use Windows in our boxes. Why not make a hybrid box?"
James the CEO: "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"
Bob from accounting: "That doesn't make any sense."
James the CEO: "Then they'll never see it coming."
MyDoom reduced our productivity by 10%.
It's illegal to use another person's equipment in a way that they don't approve of, why not another person's computer? Does it matter if your mechanic hands you a stack of papers that says, somewhere on page 25b, that your car will be used every tuesday by Stop and Shop? It's still flagrantly illegal. Windows update is understandable behavior for an operating system, whereas if Internet Explorer sent your surfing habits back to Microsoft it wouldn't be.
I'm all for technological solutions, but if I'm going to be legally banned from flamethrowing someone's servers I want some degree of protection in return. Malware is any software that performs activities significantly differently than those it presents to the user for the purpose of doing something the user probably wouldn't approve of. If someone releases a program to stop pop-up advertising, and it turns out to also replace every icon on the desktop with a link to an AOL signup page, I want justice.
The first thing that needs to be done is, of course, throwing out EULA's. EULA's are not a product of necessity for the internet age, but rather an old leech in new clothing. There are widely accepted practices for software usage and sales, and those should be considered the standard.
Everyone knows what "Spyware" is, the same way that everyone knows what "Sexual relations" means. Just because some lawyer may try to make it meaningless by envoking a draconian definition doesn't make it any less meaningful to the person on the street.
Lol! Now if they could only find a system V user to compare the source against...
they plan on suing a company that is neither Internet Service Providers nor technology companies
Ah, so going after their own are they?
...WordPerfecTeX
What, like hitching a well loved but outdated product line to an underappreciated open source project has never been done before?
Personally I'm guessing they wanted to sell phone support...
Fraunhofer was flagrantly unable to get MP3Pro out as a format of choice for illegal music distribution, but still makes a few dollars on streams from sites like Live 365. Now, eyeing the legal distro market, it would make sense to pander to where the money is (or was, by the time they get there) and sell to these other sites.
Yes, Microsoft could decide to upgrade your MP3 collection to DRMP3... but it could decide to jack everyone to WMA tomorrow anyway. And let's be frank, the more piracy there is in the world the more people they will sell their "secure" formats to.
The people here seem to be seeing a tempest in a teapot. Fraunhofer was unable to change the role of "their" format before... why should we expect any more now?
There might only be 10 to 15 people applauding during its unveiling at the E3, but they'll understand it once they touch it. At the least, it should serve as a hint towards [our] next-generation console.'
This is great! Finally a console that can connect to two television screens at once! I mean, a television and a computer monitor! Err... a DVD rom drive with two lazers? A DVD / Cart combo? Power lights on both sides?
Hmmm... Not much of a hint there, but if history is to be any indication, my guess would be this means the Cube2 will have a screen built into the controller, ALA Dreamcast. Likewise, the Cube Boy will be better integrated with the Cube 2, with the analog sticks so badly needed for Final Fantasy.
Still, Nintendo is known for experimenting with some outlandish ideas, so here we go again...
I remember Driver's engine assessed damage based upon how long you were in contact with another object, so that scraping the side of your car along a wall would at 5 mph would total you in about two seconds. Also, your car bounced up and down like some ridiculously over-sprung thing from a 70's show that had been tuned for jumping. Collisions between moving vehicles were handled with all of the realism of Rad Racer. And woe be to the driver who collided with the smallest twig.
Personally, I would love the Carmageddon engine, or something similar. Could you imagine jacking a dump truck, and getting money for smashing up all of the police cars? Or plumetting through mines outrunning rival drug dealers? Getting the turbo boost and ramming a barricade at the top of a hill to go sailing through the skies of Vice City?
Looking at the specs, I see that it does contain a an MP3/AAC/ATRAC3 Sony Special. You were right.
That doesn't change my complaint about hobbling it with badly undersized and overpriced memory sticks...
I'd like to point out that people's main complaints about the Lynx and Game Gear was not a lack of good games (GG Sonic was a great ride), but about the quickly eaten battery life. After just 2 hours of play, your 5 dollar pack of AA batteries was gone, and you had little recourse but to buy more. A Game Boy could go for 10 hours on those same batteries... And would ensure that you spent more money on games than on Duracells. The second largest complaint was the cost of the systems. The Nomad was an awesome machine with the Genesis' entire library as a weapon, but at a hair over 200 dollars it was too much for the schoolchildren market to support.
Really, Nintendo's portables are in the place they are because Nintendo understands the market. They know that portable systems are sold to people who don't drive, don't work, and don't pay attention in class. They know that they need to keep costs down as much as possible, while still providing a comparatively passable gaming experience. Ruggedness beats elegance, satisfaction must be instant.
If it really was "all about" Nintendo's gaming lineup, the '64 and the 'Cube would have a much larger marketshare. Nintendo follows fundamentally the same strategy with all of their consoles. But their positioning of the GB, GBP, GBC, and the GBA in the market is truly exceptional, and a lesson that no other system manufacturer has yet to learn.
Sony is truly venturing into unmarked territory here with a $200 system for the 20+ crowd. GTA3 on that thing would be a AAA seller, and don't delude yourself into thinking Pokemon Chartreuse will stop that. Obviously it won't be competing to get under the desks of kids saving up their lunch money for a gaming fix, but not because Nintendo has better games.
Different processors, different architecture. They probably will be seeing lots of ports of PS1 and PS2 games, but none of that translation will be mechanical. One contains a 33 MHz R3000A, while the other contains a pair of R4000s at 333 MHz. One has a math co-proc capable of 66 MIPS, the other a whopping 2.6 Gigaflops. The PSP's graphics card is theoretically 100 times as powerful as the Ps1's (not counting screen size differences), and there is 3x the available memory.
Honestly, this thing beats the pants off of the old PS1, and isn't that far behind the PS2. The point, however, is that if someone were to translate an existing game for this new architecture, it would be a fully involved porting process... The kind you would see porting a game from the PS2 to the XBox. The process always takes longer than expected, and requires a lot of work.
Personally, I can't wait for a PSP version of Karaoke Revolution. The people on the Subway will love that one.
Let's not forget, Sega did that same thing with their surprise release of the Saturn, which turned out to be a big dud. The hype machine hadn't started, the word didn't really get around, and people just weren't emotionally ready for the new system yet. The hardcore ran to the stores, to be disappointed by a crop of games that wasn't going to be really ready for another 5 months. But the average person either didn't hear about its release or had heard from their hardcore friends that the good games weren't going to be released for another few months. The really casual gamers didn't hear any hype at all, and didn't realize it had been released until people started pronouncing it dead.
Japan, however, is more forgiving of a weak opening lineup. They tend to look at what a machine can do, rather than what it is doing. Releasing a stunningly powerful little portable unit there while there still isn't more than one killer app is appropriate for the market. Sales there will help offset the cost of the US launch. If they launched in the US market with only one good game, they would find their price slashed quickly and irreparably.
Even the walkman needed a lot of cassette tapes available before it could be a success.
all the hardware to do so is already there - memory sticks, audio chipset, headphone jack.
Most MP3 players use a dedicated MP3 chip for decoding the music stream. A standard audio controller just doesn't have the processing power, and main processors have to be pretty fast for a portable before they become fast enough for realtime vbr decoding. Let's not forget that even if it is using a fast enough chipset for MP3 decoding without additional hardware, there would be licensing fees to contend with.
Personally, I think they should be using MP3 as the music format of choice for these portables, and should include a chip for such purposes. But I also think Sony should pull a Gunpei Yokoi on whoever is responsible for the travesty that is the Memory Stick, so they obviously aren't listening to me.
At this point, it doesn't look like the DS is competition to much of anything.
Very few people can verify the security of security software. I can at least hack out a "hello world" program in 5 or 6 different languages, but I wouldn't have a clue how to verify the security of a GPL keyring app, nor would I have the inclination. Your app may be large enough that research institutions have done that work, but how many would bother to verify a memo pad application? or the security of a checkbook?
In some ways, this is an honest question. Aside from saying "we use X plugin from RSA" or "the university of wisconsin has verified us," how can one person ensure the security of what they work with?
A game needs a great engine to succeed. The re-use of an existing engine towards that purpose is more common than most people believe and, quite frankly, necessary with the increasing complexity of games these days. Writing a 3d library from scratch is about as difficult as writing a physics engine from scratch. Why not use existing resources and add to them the features you never got a chance to have the first time around?
The same thing goes for theme. Warcraft 3 dumped the engine from Warcraft 2 in a complete re-write, but kept the Orcs / Humans battle in a colorful mythical world. It resonated the first time, and it resonates today. Dungeon Seige 2, Warcraft 3, Thief 2, Super Mario Brothers 3,(world, 64) are some of the best games out there, yet they are sequels. They took what worked, threw out what didn't work, and built up a new experience. This is a good thing.
If you don't like sequels, feel free to buy any one of the thousands of games released every year that aren't a sequel. Quality is definitely not guarenteed, but sometimes you get a Savage or a Halo. Of course, we all know Halo is a sequel to Marathon... so much for that idea.
Really, what it comes down to is quickly and poorly made games vs really great games. Some sequels fall into the first category, and are particularly memorable because the first game was so good. But many sequels fall into the second category. Terminator 3 was a terrible milking of the franchise, but Terminator 2 was just awe-inspiring. Zelda 2 was a quirky game without much going for it, but Zelda 3 was a masterpiece.
Don't paint everyone with the same brush. There are many good reasons to make sequels, and many good reasons to enjoy them. In other words, well-made sequels deserve as much of a place in the gaming ecosphere as any other well-made games. Otherwise you are rejecting gems like the new Prince of Persia game, in favor of more original games like, oh, Daiktana.
It isn't obvious what will work or how best to do anything so you have to play it by ear a lot. Shoot from the hip. Stuff like that. I dunno.. it just excites me in some strange adventurous sort of way.
:). There sure as heck aren't golden handcuffs around anybody's wrists.
While it can be fun, exciting, etc, realize that your "shot from the hip" will generally be reviewed by your lead, the designers, the producer, the QA staff, and the owner. Your lead will think it's great but not quiiiiite what he was thinking of, the designers will think it's great but not quiiiiiiite what they can use (in a totally different way), the QA will point out the historical innacuracy of what you poured your heart and soul into, the producer will just nod and smile, and the owner will nod and smile, and six months later tell you it is crap and to redo it again.
You can have a lot of power over the outcome of a game, but you have to realize that everyone else does too. This leads to a lot of conservatism in an organization. Sure, the occasional canadian supermoose is added to the code without anyone noticing, but most of the time it is about doing something that will be signed off by everyone.
Still, if I didn't like the industry I wouldn't be here
If the choice was between a hardware firewall or no firewall, most people would choose none. Having dozens of AV softwares running on a multitude of OS and hardware platforms would be the best solution overall for keeping viruses down, but we don't live in that world.
Integration problems aside (let's be honest, it's about as integrated as that in-dash radio the kid from Best Buy installed in you car... flush but separate) this means there will be a standard target for viruses to attack. In other words, this will never be as secure as a world with many players competing. But this will be more secure than a world where 90% of users have nothing installed at all. Back to the previous analogy, a standard doorlock is easier to pick than a doorlock with a multitude of key shapes and sizes, but a standard doorlock is still better than nothing. Since doors are usually installed by professionals, they know to put in a lock. Computers aren't like that, and so could use the help. If you don't like their door lock, you can always upgrade with a deadbolt.
It's a compromise, and probably a good one. I'd rather the Beast spend it's unnecessarily large rewards improving their product than, say, hyping a digital watch that can tell if it is raining. And if it will reduce the number of MyDoom variants that trickle into my inbox, I will be very happy.