Microsoft sells Xbox 360's to stores. Thus, they've sold every one they ship. Most companies cite this metric, since it's the most direct relevant measurement they can get their hands on. (As opposed to calling up the store chains, etc.)
Of course, fan-bots will say: "They shipped 5 million, but only sold 1 million!" That is a highly unlikely scenario, however. I mean, if you ran some national department store chain, and you had stacks of a product lying around, why would you order more? The only real danger of overstock is right when a product launches.
So, while there is a number lag between when MS ships a unit and when it arrives in the hands of a consumer, it is not a statistical majority. If MS stops releasing new "X million boxes shipped!" statements, then you'll know they're in trouble. Otherwise, if they later announce "7 million boxes shipped", then it's reasonably safe to assume that at least 5 million have been purchased by end users.
Oddly enough, the Resident Evil (Biohazard) series has always been raised in difficulty for the Western versions. Apparently the Japanese like their survival horror to be a bit easier.
I was even more flabbergasted that they turned down SGI, whose chipset later became the N64.
So Sega could have rolled out a CD-based system as powerful as the N64, and also been first to market. Too bad about those childish execs at Sega Japan.
In Europe, for example, exposed breasts and related swear words, etc. may be acceptable in prime time, but the violence makes many action films that would slide past "Clean Flicks" completely unacceptable and not even obtainable at the video store without heavy editing.
Why are the Europeans so prudish about violence in the media?
In real life, violence is widespread phenomenon - it permeates everywhere from person-to-person to nation-to-nation, and everywhere in between. You could say that it's part of humanity. If protecting children from TV/movie sex doesn't stop them from being promiscuous, then why would protecting them from TV/movie violence be any different?
Also, is it safe to assume that France has stringent anti-violence media laws? Because I recall some very destructive nationwide riots a few months back...
One short-lived magazine that I liked was Gamer's Republic. I'd give a link, but there seems to be no decent page to link to anymore.
Game magazines, more than most other magazines, are really getting killed by the Internet. I mean, by the time news comes out in a monthly magazine, it's at least 1 or 2 months old. Even exclusives are scanned and leaked with regularity.
What we really need is a gaming weekly. Something with a fast turnaround time and is cheaper to produce. Heck, it wouldn't even have to be thick and glossy like current magazines. Hm...
Newspaper-quality is too coarse and grainy (and the color is kinda washed out). Supermarket flyers tend to be much sharper and more vibrant -- a good midway point between glossy mags and rough newspapers. It seems to me that such a publication could be widely successful. The only other questions are distribution and pricing.
Copyright is violated by making a copy even if the copyright holder doesn't lose money on the practice.
The entire point of Copyright is that the artists are compensated for their works. Expanding it out to some sort of "creator's rights" is a perverse interpretation, which is not backed up by the letter of the law.
Even if Cleanflicks (or another company) was misleadingly selling or labeling their product as the original version, they'd be guilty of defamation and untrue advertising. Not of copyright violation.
Failing to deliver the entirety of a work does not count as a "derivative work". Nothing was added or changed.
When a newspaper cuts down an Associated Press article, does that qualify as a "derivative work"? Not generally. The only difference between this and Cleanflicks is that a newspaper buys the right to distribute as many copies as they want, while Cleanflicks only buys the right to one copy (through the First Sale Doctrine).
When I purchase a copyrighted work, I buy the right to having that one copy, and I retain the right to resell my one copy. See the First Sale Doctrine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_sale
And in this era of purchasing digital content, in order to retain the traditional right to resell that content, we must allow for the fact that the resold item will technically be a copy. Do I, or do I not, have the legal right to resell an MP3 that I purchased?
If I do, then the copying of a DVD is immaterial, as long as I do not retain a copy after I sell it. Copyright does not cover what the Director's Guild wants it to cover.
Actually, I misspoke when I mentioned the MPAA. It's actually the Directors Guild of America that brought the lawsuit.
You see, if there was any actual violation of copyright law, the MPAA would have been all over this. But there isn't. It's simply that the Directors Guild want more protection than is afforded to them by law.
I should also note that "edits" is too vague of a term. Cleanflicks (and co.) are not adding or replacing content, simply removing it.
I believe it would be technically legal to sell a partial-photocopy of a book, as long as I could prove that I destroyed the original. If I recall, when buying an altered movie from Cleanflicks, the original DVD is bolted to the inside of the DVD case, ruining the disc and serving as proof that no illegal copying took place.
Not quite. You own the physical book. You can do what you want with it... including tearing out pages, burning it, or blacking out all instances of the word "the" if you choose. What you can't do is type the contents of the book into a word processor, remove certain sections of it, reprint the modified book, and then sell that bound inside the original cover. That's the difference.
Except that the copying of content to a new disc isn't what this ruling is about. That part is legal. It's the editing of the content that was deemed illegal. The Director's Guild would have you believe that the "artist" has an intrinsic right to see that his work is only displayed in approved forms. Such a right does not exist in law. (Not in the United States, anyway.)
The only potentially illegal thing these companies could have done is misrepresented their edited versions as the original versions. There are quotes in the article that insinuate that, but I highly doubt the edited discs weren't clearly labeled.
From what I understand from this ruling, it would be illegal for me to buy a book, tear out every other page, and sell it to someone else. That's a pretty close analogy, seeing as both my actions and Cleanflicks' third-party video cutting are not authorized by the copyright holder.
Something tells me the MPAA has an ideal court case for extending their powers, here. I mean, 99% of the population would glance at this case and declare: "Cutting the naughty bits out of movies is bad!" or "Hur hur hur, take dat you stupid rednecks!"
Final Fantasy...I have a love/hate relationship, but my sense from the hard core fans are that it's played out.
The new real-time-ish battle system in FF12 will either revitalize the series, or alienate the remaining fanbase. I'm highly curious as to how it'll turn out.
I've heard that many times, but it still makes no sense. 8 and 9 were not similar. If anything, 8 and 10 are closer in style to each other.
There are (or at least were at the time) two devteams inside Square that make Final Fantasy games. They staggered the releases, so the team that made FF7 also made FF9. The team that made FF8 made FF10. FF11 kinda screwed up the pattern, but there you go.
Well, the Sega Genesis had a bit of a resurgence in Japan, if I recall. The console's popularity in the U.S. boosted its popularity in Japan.
Also, the Nintendo DS itself has had somewhat of a resurgence. If you look at the weekly charts, the DS had a strong launch, but was slowly declining to PSP-level sales. Then, around the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006, it really started to catch on.
If they had released a PS3 with exactly the same or slightly less power than the XBox 360
But, the upcoming PS3 does have exactly or slightly less power than the Xbox 360. At least, according to every analysis and benchmarking I've seen.
The only thing delaying the PS3, and driving up the price, are CPU yields and Blu-Ray drives. Overall this is still a console whose design was finalized around the same time as the Xbox 360.
Are you saying that we should have cheaply carpet bombed the place, as opposed to using all these costly high-tech weapons?
And it seems a bit insensitive to lump all "Iraqis" together. Most Iraqis do support the new government, for example. And most terrorist organizations operating in Iraq are not run by Iraqis.
refuse to allow the full range of stem cell research
No kind of stem cell research is blocked. Just a certain type doesn't recieve federal (as opposed to state) funding. This is due to some controversy over a philosophical question.
More fundamentally, why does the American government send soldiers off to sacrifice their lives in Iraq when most Americans, including American politicians, refuse to make any sacrifice for the sake of that war? No one is sacrificing. Only the soldiers are sacrificing -- their lives.
Huh? The war is being paid for, either directly or through loans. There are also many organizations through which citizens send care packages (and other such stuff) to soldiers. This isn't World War II where most of the nation's industrial output was redirected to the war effort.
Or are you saying that we should send people other than soldiers to fight in wars?
the average American refuses to support a surcharge on gasoline (to bring its cost to $4.00 per gallon) to pay for the bloody war in Iraq
Perhaps taxes should be raised to pay down the national debt, but why put a surcharge on gasoline? The price of gas pretty directly affects the economy. Cheaper gas fuels a better economy, and thus more tax revenue from existing taxes.
And referring to the Gulf War as "bloody" is a bit historically myopic. It is quite possibly the most bloodless and humane large-scale war ever waged.
There hasn't been any updates for Lineage 1 or 2 for a while. I don't play either game, but I'm interested in their subscriber numbers, which spiked so high and now seem to be on a downward slope.
Sony showed a movie of Killzone over a year ago at E3 2005.
People seem to forget that it was a video for Killzone 2. It's important to remember that there was an original Killzone for the PS2, and that it kinda sucked.
this legislation was meant to appeal to: fearful idiots.
Told he had the support of all thinking voters, Stevenson replied: "That's not enough, I need a majority."
All sides of the political spectrum play with hot button issues, and/or try to play to people's misplaced beliefs.
The proper way to respond to such tactics is education, not condescension.
You should say, "I understand your fears, but I feel [insert rebuttal here]"
You shouldn't say, "You people are stupid! You're all fearful idiots!"
That, in a nutshell, is why the Democratic Party can't make any headway in "red states". (Which, by the way, used to be blue states. Do you think the population of Texas changed in any measurable way when they swung from Democrat to Republican? No.)
Slashdot Mirror
Shipped = Sold
Microsoft sells Xbox 360's to stores. Thus, they've sold every one they ship. Most companies cite this metric, since it's the most direct relevant measurement they can get their hands on. (As opposed to calling up the store chains, etc.)
Of course, fan-bots will say: "They shipped 5 million, but only sold 1 million!" That is a highly unlikely scenario, however. I mean, if you ran some national department store chain, and you had stacks of a product lying around, why would you order more? The only real danger of overstock is right when a product launches.
So, while there is a number lag between when MS ships a unit and when it arrives in the hands of a consumer, it is not a statistical majority. If MS stops releasing new "X million boxes shipped!" statements, then you'll know they're in trouble. Otherwise, if they later announce "7 million boxes shipped", then it's reasonably safe to assume that at least 5 million have been purchased by end users.
Oddly enough, the Resident Evil (Biohazard) series has always been raised in difficulty for the Western versions. Apparently the Japanese like their survival horror to be a bit easier.
"The Crowd" still hasn't left World of Warcraft. And it seems they're quite unlikely to in the near future.
I was even more flabbergasted that they turned down SGI, whose chipset later became the N64.
So Sega could have rolled out a CD-based system as powerful as the N64, and also been first to market. Too bad about those childish execs at Sega Japan.
You might want to check actual sources sometime.
Why are the Europeans so prudish about violence in the media?
In real life, violence is widespread phenomenon - it permeates everywhere from person-to-person to nation-to-nation, and everywhere in between. You could say that it's part of humanity. If protecting children from TV/movie sex doesn't stop them from being promiscuous, then why would protecting them from TV/movie violence be any different?
Also, is it safe to assume that France has stringent anti-violence media laws? Because I recall some very destructive nationwide riots a few months back...
Good point about the state of modern parenting, though I'm not 100% sure it's that bad across the whole nation.
So, what can prevent PS3s from getting into the hands of whiny kids? Hardware shortages.
One short-lived magazine that I liked was Gamer's Republic. I'd give a link, but there seems to be no decent page to link to anymore.
Game magazines, more than most other magazines, are really getting killed by the Internet. I mean, by the time news comes out in a monthly magazine, it's at least 1 or 2 months old. Even exclusives are scanned and leaked with regularity.
What we really need is a gaming weekly. Something with a fast turnaround time and is cheaper to produce. Heck, it wouldn't even have to be thick and glossy like current magazines. Hm...
Newspaper-quality is too coarse and grainy (and the color is kinda washed out). Supermarket flyers tend to be much sharper and more vibrant -- a good midway point between glossy mags and rough newspapers. It seems to me that such a publication could be widely successful. The only other questions are distribution and pricing.
The entire point of Copyright is that the artists are compensated for their works. Expanding it out to some sort of "creator's rights" is a perverse interpretation, which is not backed up by the letter of the law.
Even if Cleanflicks (or another company) was misleadingly selling or labeling their product as the original version, they'd be guilty of defamation and untrue advertising. Not of copyright violation.
Failing to deliver the entirety of a work does not count as a "derivative work". Nothing was added or changed.
When a newspaper cuts down an Associated Press article, does that qualify as a "derivative work"? Not generally. The only difference between this and Cleanflicks is that a newspaper buys the right to distribute as many copies as they want, while Cleanflicks only buys the right to one copy (through the First Sale Doctrine).
When I purchase a copyrighted work, I buy the right to having that one copy, and I retain the right to resell my one copy. See the First Sale Doctrine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_sale
And in this era of purchasing digital content, in order to retain the traditional right to resell that content, we must allow for the fact that the resold item will technically be a copy. Do I, or do I not, have the legal right to resell an MP3 that I purchased?
If I do, then the copying of a DVD is immaterial, as long as I do not retain a copy after I sell it. Copyright does not cover what the Director's Guild wants it to cover.
Actually, I misspoke when I mentioned the MPAA. It's actually the Directors Guild of America that brought the lawsuit.
You see, if there was any actual violation of copyright law, the MPAA would have been all over this. But there isn't. It's simply that the Directors Guild want more protection than is afforded to them by law.
I should also note that "edits" is too vague of a term. Cleanflicks (and co.) are not adding or replacing content, simply removing it.
I believe it would be technically legal to sell a partial-photocopy of a book, as long as I could prove that I destroyed the original. If I recall, when buying an altered movie from Cleanflicks, the original DVD is bolted to the inside of the DVD case, ruining the disc and serving as proof that no illegal copying took place.
Except that the copying of content to a new disc isn't what this ruling is about. That part is legal. It's the editing of the content that was deemed illegal. The Director's Guild would have you believe that the "artist" has an intrinsic right to see that his work is only displayed in approved forms. Such a right does not exist in law. (Not in the United States, anyway.)
The only potentially illegal thing these companies could have done is misrepresented their edited versions as the original versions. There are quotes in the article that insinuate that, but I highly doubt the edited discs weren't clearly labeled.
From what I understand from this ruling, it would be illegal for me to buy a book, tear out every other page, and sell it to someone else. That's a pretty close analogy, seeing as both my actions and Cleanflicks' third-party video cutting are not authorized by the copyright holder.
Something tells me the MPAA has an ideal court case for extending their powers, here. I mean, 99% of the population would glance at this case and declare: "Cutting the naughty bits out of movies is bad!" or "Hur hur hur, take dat you stupid rednecks!"
The new real-time-ish battle system in FF12 will either revitalize the series, or alienate the remaining fanbase. I'm highly curious as to how it'll turn out.
I've heard that many times, but it still makes no sense. 8 and 9 were not similar. If anything, 8 and 10 are closer in style to each other.
There are (or at least were at the time) two devteams inside Square that make Final Fantasy games. They staggered the releases, so the team that made FF7 also made FF9. The team that made FF8 made FF10. FF11 kinda screwed up the pattern, but there you go.
Well, the Sega Genesis had a bit of a resurgence in Japan, if I recall. The console's popularity in the U.S. boosted its popularity in Japan.
e =0
Also, the Nintendo DS itself has had somewhat of a resurgence. If you look at the weekly charts, the DS had a strong launch, but was slowly declining to PSP-level sales. Then, around the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006, it really started to catch on.
See: http://vgcharts.org/japconscomps.php?name1=DS&typ
It's really hard to predict where cultural phenomena will happen.
Even without racism, the ads have too much violence and aggression.
They should put out one final ad where the two models kiss and make up.
But, the upcoming PS3 does have exactly or slightly less power than the Xbox 360. At least, according to every analysis and benchmarking I've seen.
The only thing delaying the PS3, and driving up the price, are CPU yields and Blu-Ray drives. Overall this is still a console whose design was finalized around the same time as the Xbox 360.
Are you saying that we should have cheaply carpet bombed the place, as opposed to using all these costly high-tech weapons?
And it seems a bit insensitive to lump all "Iraqis" together. Most Iraqis do support the new government, for example. And most terrorist organizations operating in Iraq are not run by Iraqis.
No kind of stem cell research is blocked. Just a certain type doesn't recieve federal (as opposed to state) funding. This is due to some controversy over a philosophical question.
Huh? The war is being paid for, either directly or through loans. There are also many organizations through which citizens send care packages (and other such stuff) to soldiers. This isn't World War II where most of the nation's industrial output was redirected to the war effort.
Or are you saying that we should send people other than soldiers to fight in wars?
Perhaps taxes should be raised to pay down the national debt, but why put a surcharge on gasoline? The price of gas pretty directly affects the economy. Cheaper gas fuels a better economy, and thus more tax revenue from existing taxes.
And referring to the Gulf War as "bloody" is a bit historically myopic. It is quite possibly the most bloodless and humane large-scale war ever waged.
There hasn't been any updates for Lineage 1 or 2 for a while. I don't play either game, but I'm interested in their subscriber numbers, which spiked so high and now seem to be on a downward slope.
People seem to forget that it was a video for Killzone 2.
It's important to remember that there was an original Killzone for the PS2, and that it kinda sucked.
Counterarguments and criticism are the same as censorship and stifling of free speech.
At least, to a certain segment of the political spectrum.
Interesting sig.
You know, I think you might be slightly biased on any subject involving America.
All sides of the political spectrum play with hot button issues, and/or try to play to people's misplaced beliefs.
The proper way to respond to such tactics is education, not condescension.
You should say, "I understand your fears, but I feel [insert rebuttal here]"
You shouldn't say, "You people are stupid! You're all fearful idiots!"
That, in a nutshell, is why the Democratic Party can't make any headway in "red states". (Which, by the way, used to be blue states. Do you think the population of Texas changed in any measurable way when they swung from Democrat to Republican? No.)