You, a single person, possible a collection of a hundred or so similar people, are
1. Asking dozens of giant corporations to provide legal licenses to use their software on your system, in a way they haven't accounted for. 2. Expecting them to take the time out of their busy schedule to write over a license agreement, a copy of the software (which they don't have, unless they have copied the ROM themselves), and expect you to use the software in accordance with the license agreement (which if you ever sell or give away the arcade machine, would be in violation of the software license)
Understand that aside from the possible liabilities of releasing such software to parties which may not have the best interest of the companies at heart, what can the companies expect in return? You're looking a few hundred dollars for a few lawyers to come up with the agreement for each game, and then another few hundred for the software development time to make sure these "legal" roms aren't bundled in with all the other illegal software currently floating around the internet.
"More trouble than its worth" applies to serving a niche market just as well as it applies to serving a lawsuit against someone emulating.
Yes, all the security of a MMO without any of the monthly new content that paying $15 a month provides. Instead I get the luxury of an Auction house that uses real money and a PVP system that relies on Gear bought with real money.
If Diablo 3 was "Guild Wars" in the Diablo universe, I might reconsider. They have no incentive or responsibility to update or provide new content. And rest assured, even if they do go out of their way to update or provide content, they will not do so indefinitely. We can expect the authentication to be indefinite, however.
Personally, I don't think you should be worried about all the people who aren't going to buy it. The crackers of the world are quite adept at adapting to these petty game design choices, and just about anyone can run a private WOW server to play their game on. Diablo 3 wont stand a chance against pirates. Never would, really.
1. Wireless Keyboards and mice don't reach very far, despite what the name suggests. If you're looking to sit more than 10 feet away from your TV, you'll need a booster or a Blue tooth Mouse/Keyboard combo.
2. Blue tooth combos suck, they constantly lose connection, aren't very responsive, and the mouse can occasionally flip out while trying to use it. In essence, it sucks.
3. No TV box will do everything your browser,hard-drive, ram, video-card,keyboard,mouse, and dvd-rom will do. Make some compromises, or be prepared to spend thousands of dollars.
Its a tough business. If I were to go to a gamestop right now look at the used game section, besides the multitude of last years sports games, I see tons of games that tried to "take a chance" and fail. Of course, I only want the ones that were the best of the system.The ones made by companies who know their stuff are hard to find, and when you finally do, they cost 60-80% of a new game.
A company can do a re-issue of older titles for a used price and make a killing. They all do it, and it works well.
Money. Lots and lots of money. More so, than what they can aquire in their current state.
It reminds me of the World of Warcraft localization in China. Blizzard had to change a large portion of its content and put a timer on time spent playing it for the Chinese government to ok it. Blizzard changed its Chinese version, satisfied the government, and raked in a huge segment of players willing to fork over money.
I'm sure any amount of "regulation and taxation" would be outpaced by the huge revenue from the millions of new people looking to gamble online.
I don't like albums. I don't like artists. I like music. Particularly, I like catchy singles. The only reason I don't just listen to the radio for my fix is that I enjoy my music on my terms.
I used to by Albums for the Songs. Unfortunately not every song is good. Not every song captures the mood as well as the best one, nor do they capture the same mood. Why am I buying these again?
Some people enjoy the album experience as it is now. Artists, more-so, since most albums aren't done in a single night, nor in the same state of mind. It really lets you explore the different atmospheres that the group goes through when making an album, at least if you don't have it completely remixed and reorganized by some music industry wiz.
You do what any reasonable person would do. You assume it's private. Unless you are sure that it's not, dont connect. Autoconnect isn't your friend. It's like the dog that runs around and jumps on the nearest person it sees. You might want to reign it in, but you're liable for it.
I don't go entering apartments just because one of the set up a open invitation party sign outside.
routers are not public property. Cable modems are not public property. I don't care how many "waves" you send on public property, eventually you have to send them to private property to connect to the internet.
HDMI cables? Remotes? Cheaper than 10 bucks at most places. Including shipping.
Wifi really depends on the situation and whether or not you can string up a cable to your system or not.
And what the fuck? A butler? Are you high? God forbid you have to press a button when you turn on the system or change games. Other than that, you should never even know the button is there.
It doesn't even matter. None of this has any impact on anything but Apple's bottom line. Does it hurt Microsoft? No. They still paid the Windows tax.
They still have PCs, just capable of running OSX. They paid 2 people instead of just one, and I know I would be pissed if I were going there and my Technology fees were wasted like this.
They didn't dump windows, they're all windows, and all macs. And the students don't get a new lab because of all the money spent.
Yes, lets take the US based price of two systems before tax and compare them to another system in a different continent with different taxes and hell lets even apply taxes to it without applying it to the original systems. Hell you might as well choose the Mideast prices since it's going to be around 850 in Israel.
In the US the Wii costs 289 dollars, and the 360 costs 328 dollars, and the PS3 costs 530 dollars.
I know because I own them all.
Facts people. They're not just for breakfast anymore.
Technically, practice helps. Homework is either practice or independent learning. The problem is, Teachers can't rely on 100% of the students to do it. I know I skipped a lot of homework in my day, now it seems as if it was a small thing. However, to parents and teachers, homework, practice, or independent learning is a huge tool to help kids grasp concepts that they might not have grasped in lecture or class time.
Personally I'm split on the issue. On the one hand, they're kids. You can't give them too much homework. At least culturally, there's backlash against having a student focus on coursework so much. On the other hand, they're there to learn, and if we can't reach them, we lose out.
Not to mention that the UMD had a competitor with more content that was easily transferable and free.
Just transfer movies on to your memory stick and play them. Hell, I spent $250 bucks on my Nintendo DS just to do that. (DS + GBA Movie player + 1GB flash card + card reader). Hard to compete with free.
Of course, now I just bring my laptop. Even better.
Another thing, don't attribute to malice what can easily be explained with stupidity.
Sony has a lot to learn and a lot to change from it's old ways, but I think they'll manage. It might not be till later on, but I think we can still see a cheap PS3 and a ton of good games for it.
"Five hundred bucks will buy a lot of stuff. It will almost pay my rent for the month (and I share a ~2000 sq.ft. house with a 400 sq.ft. addition on 12 ac. with my SO) and it's one-third of what I paid for my car, which is fuel-injected, has only minor dings, the paint is generally in good shape, and it has AWD and ABS.) That's a LOT of money! When you consider that consoles have tended to come out at $300 for some time now, $500 might as well be a thousand:P"
It's a hefty purchase, but not totally outrageous. People paid 400 for the 360, and then hundreds more for the extras, like live.
Some people care only about price. Others about value. I'm not going to convince you the machine is cheap. Relatively, it's not. The Wii is 250 dollars, and the 360 core pack is 299. All great systems if you're satisfied with their limitations.
"You ARE an apologist if you propose that there is any reason to buy a PS3 right now, when there are pratically no games. The price ain't going up between now and summer, or any other time. So why buy one now? Why not play with your existing console now, and buy a PS3 when there's actually games for it?"
I'll give you my reasons, perhaps you'll think I'm a fanboy, perhaps not.
1. It plays HD movies. 2. It will play next gen games, which at the time assumed would be better than their Xbox ports because of performance boasting. Currently, it looks like they'll play about the same. 3. It plays resistance, which I find to be a decent game. 4. It plays thousands of decent PS2 titles and I never bought the original PS2, nor do I have a PS1. I figure I can hold myself till new titles to come out. 5. It has downloadable demos, and can run linux if I get bored of just playing my old games. 6. Games that come out on the playstation are rarely, if ever ported to the PC. It's quite common with the 360.
It simply offered a better value to me at the time.
For some people there are no reasons to purchase a PS3. I am not those people.
I also own a Wii. It's another system that's going to have loads of exclusives that I'll enjoy.
Sorry, in my defense, I was trying to point out that while it's true right now, its not indicative of the console's success in the grand scheme of things. It's not uncommon for a console, It has good reason for it, and It's almost over.
"Anyway, my perception is that Sony is a terrible company that installs root kits on the computers of customers and files blanket lawsuits on legitimate companies in order to trounce consumer freedoms. I have the right of resale. Sony can take their lawsuits against lik-sang and stuff it. I will never buy a PS3."
Sony is a terrible company. I wont hide it, nor will I make excuses. But I've bought things from terrible companies before, and I'll probably do it again.
The problem is 50% perception, and 50% targeted market. Here's what I mean:
"Perception": People see 600 - 800 dollars and no games. They see a huge Sony ego and laughable selling numbers. No one's buying it, no one wants one.
Reality: It can be bought here in the US for as little as 499 if you want the 20GB model, and if you're patient by summer we'll have a healthy injection of new games on the PS3. They even have more demos and movie trailers available in the PS3 network for free. Games are coming, and patience is key. I'm not an apologist. This is just how new consoles tend to work.
As for the ego, it's there. But it's not contempt for consumers, as most detractors would have you believe. It's confidence. They're saying, "we're number 1". Sony needs to be seen as confident in this console outing. You want them to say "Yeah it sucks, get an Xbox?"
The price is out of necessity, not arrogance. They're definitely losing more per console than Microsoft. Blu-ray was a risk, but not a totally harmful one. Prices will come down and the complaining will slowly go away
"Target market" is the other aspect that's hurting the PS3.
Not only do people not want to drop 500-600-800 dollars on a game system, they certainly don't want to pay more for the same games. That's the problem most 360 owners see with the PS3. They can't envy it any. Pay tons more for some future exclusives? Laughable.
The PS3 is for people who want blu-ray, PS3, PS2, and don't have a 360 already, and are willing to spend at least 500 bucks for it, probably more. That's not a great subset of people.
With all of that, it's a testimony to the power of Sony and its future exclusives that so many people are buying the thing.
I'm interested in what you see your CS grads doing that you'd call the responsibility of an electrical engineer. I mean, Computer Engineers would definitely fall under a "confused major" listing, but as far as my experiences, we stayed pretty far away from the EEs at our school.
I'd also like to hear what kind of work you're doing that business majors would grasp it easier than CS majors.
Maybe. But the concept of treating piracy as free publicity only works when you don't have an enormous stake in the current offerings, as many game companies do.
Slashdot Mirror
You, a single person, possible a collection of a hundred or so similar people, are
1. Asking dozens of giant corporations to provide legal licenses to use their software on your system, in a way they haven't accounted for.
2. Expecting them to take the time out of their busy schedule to write over a license agreement, a copy of the software (which they don't have, unless they have copied the ROM themselves), and expect you to use the software in accordance with the license agreement (which if you ever sell or give away the arcade machine, would be in violation of the software license)
Understand that aside from the possible liabilities of releasing such software to parties which may not have the best interest of the companies at heart, what can the companies expect in return? You're looking a few hundred dollars for a few lawyers to come up with the agreement for each game, and then another few hundred for the software development time to make sure these "legal" roms aren't bundled in with all the other illegal software currently floating around the internet.
"More trouble than its worth" applies to serving a niche market just as well as it applies to serving a lawsuit against someone emulating.
Yes, all the security of a MMO without any of the monthly new content that paying $15 a month provides. Instead I get the luxury of an Auction house that uses real money and a PVP system that relies on Gear bought with real money.
If Diablo 3 was "Guild Wars" in the Diablo universe, I might reconsider. They have no incentive or responsibility to update or provide new content. And rest assured, even if they do go out of their way to update or provide content, they will not do so indefinitely. We can expect the authentication to be indefinite, however.
Personally, I don't think you should be worried about all the people who aren't going to buy it. The crackers of the world are quite adept at adapting to these petty game design choices, and just about anyone can run a private WOW server to play their game on. Diablo 3 wont stand a chance against pirates. Never would, really.
The problem with books is that if the parent is a religious fundamentalist type, you end up donating to the local circular file.
Oh come on, there's a link on Slashdot right now to become a fan on facebook!
Goddammit to hell.
1. Wireless Keyboards and mice don't reach very far, despite what the name suggests. If you're looking to sit more than 10 feet away from your TV, you'll need a booster or a Blue tooth Mouse/Keyboard combo.
2. Blue tooth combos suck, they constantly lose connection, aren't very responsive, and the mouse can occasionally flip out while trying to use it. In essence, it sucks.
3. No TV box will do everything your browser,hard-drive, ram, video-card,keyboard,mouse, and dvd-rom will do. Make some compromises, or be prepared to spend thousands of dollars.
Its a tough business. If I were to go to a gamestop right now look at the used game section, besides the multitude of last years sports games, I see tons of games that tried to "take a chance" and fail. Of course, I only want the ones that were the best of the system.The ones made by companies who know their stuff are hard to find, and when you finally do, they cost 60-80% of a new game.
A company can do a re-issue of older titles for a used price and make a killing. They all do it, and it works well.
Money. Lots and lots of money. More so, than what they can aquire in their current state.
It reminds me of the World of Warcraft localization in China. Blizzard had to change a large portion of its content and put a timer on time spent playing it for the Chinese government to ok it. Blizzard changed its Chinese version, satisfied the government, and raked in a huge segment of players willing to fork over money.
I'm sure any amount of "regulation and taxation" would be outpaced by the huge revenue from the millions of new people looking to gamble online.
Jimmy Doolittle would also be an excellent name for a toilet. Just sayin.
Clearly not thinking things through.
We require more vespian gas!
I don't like albums. I don't like artists. I like music. Particularly, I like catchy singles. The only reason I don't just listen to the radio for my fix is that I enjoy my music on my terms.
I used to by Albums for the Songs. Unfortunately not every song is good. Not every song captures the mood as well as the best one, nor do they capture the same mood. Why am I buying these again?
Some people enjoy the album experience as it is now. Artists, more-so, since most albums aren't done in a single night, nor in the same state of mind. It really lets you explore the different atmospheres that the group goes through when making an album, at least if you don't have it completely remixed and reorganized by some music industry wiz.
You do what any reasonable person would do. You assume it's private. Unless you are sure that it's not, dont connect. Autoconnect isn't your friend. It's like the dog that runs around and jumps on the nearest person it sees. You might want to reign it in, but you're liable for it.
I don't go entering apartments just because one of the set up a open invitation party sign outside.
routers are not public property. Cable modems are not public property. I don't care how many "waves" you send on public property, eventually you have to send them to private property to connect to the internet.
I love the FUD.
HDMI cables? Remotes? Cheaper than 10 bucks at most places. Including shipping.
Wifi really depends on the situation and whether or not you can string up a cable to your system or not.
And what the fuck? A butler? Are you high? God forbid you have to press a button when you turn on the system or change games. Other than that, you should never even know the button is there.
It doesn't even matter. None of this has any impact on anything but Apple's bottom line. Does it hurt Microsoft? No. They still paid the Windows tax.
They still have PCs, just capable of running OSX. They paid 2 people instead of just one, and I know I would be pissed if I were going there and my Technology fees were wasted like this.
They didn't dump windows, they're all windows, and all macs. And the students don't get a new lab because of all the money spent.
Yes, lets take the US based price of two systems before tax and compare them to another system in a different continent with different taxes and hell lets even apply taxes to it without applying it to the original systems. Hell you might as well choose the Mideast prices since it's going to be around 850 in Israel.
In the US the Wii costs 289 dollars, and the 360 costs 328 dollars, and the PS3 costs 530 dollars.
I know because I own them all.
Facts people. They're not just for breakfast anymore.
They have developers for that. Let them stick to the PS3.
Technically, practice helps. Homework is either practice or independent learning. The problem is, Teachers can't rely on 100% of the students to do it. I know I skipped a lot of homework in my day, now it seems as if it was a small thing. However, to parents and teachers, homework, practice, or independent learning is a huge tool to help kids grasp concepts that they might not have grasped in lecture or class time.
Personally I'm split on the issue. On the one hand, they're kids. You can't give them too much homework. At least culturally, there's backlash against having a student focus on coursework so much. On the other hand, they're there to learn, and if we can't reach them, we lose out.
Not to mention that the UMD had a competitor with more content that was easily transferable and free.
Just transfer movies on to your memory stick and play them. Hell, I spent $250 bucks on my Nintendo DS just to do that. (DS + GBA Movie player + 1GB flash card + card reader). Hard to compete with free.
Of course, now I just bring my laptop. Even better.
Another thing, don't attribute to malice what can easily be explained with stupidity.
Sony has a lot to learn and a lot to change from it's old ways, but I think they'll manage. It might not be till later on, but I think we can still see a cheap PS3 and a ton of good games for it.
"Five hundred bucks will buy a lot of stuff. It will almost pay my rent for the month (and I share a ~2000 sq.ft. house with a 400 sq.ft. addition on 12 ac. with my SO) and it's one-third of what I paid for my car, which is fuel-injected, has only minor dings, the paint is generally in good shape, and it has AWD and ABS.) That's a LOT of money! When you consider that consoles have tended to come out at $300 for some time now, $500 might as well be a thousand :P"
It's a hefty purchase, but not totally outrageous. People paid 400 for the 360, and then hundreds more for the extras, like live.
Some people care only about price. Others about value. I'm not going to convince you the machine is cheap. Relatively, it's not. The Wii is 250 dollars, and the 360 core pack is 299. All great systems if you're satisfied with their limitations.
"You ARE an apologist if you propose that there is any reason to buy a PS3 right now, when there are pratically no games. The price ain't going up between now and summer, or any other time. So why buy one now? Why not play with your existing console now, and buy a PS3 when there's actually games for it?"
I'll give you my reasons, perhaps you'll think I'm a fanboy, perhaps not.
1. It plays HD movies.
2. It will play next gen games, which at the time assumed would be better than their Xbox ports because of performance boasting. Currently, it looks like they'll play about the same.
3. It plays resistance, which I find to be a decent game.
4. It plays thousands of decent PS2 titles and I never bought the original PS2, nor do I have a
PS1. I figure I can hold myself till new titles to come out.
5. It has downloadable demos, and can run linux if I get bored of just playing my old games.
6. Games that come out on the playstation are rarely, if ever ported to the PC. It's quite common with the 360.
It simply offered a better value to me at the time.
For some people there are no reasons to purchase a PS3. I am not those people.
I also own a Wii. It's another system that's going to have loads of exclusives that I'll enjoy.
Sorry, in my defense, I was trying to point out that while it's true right now, its not indicative of the console's success in the grand scheme of things. It's not uncommon for a console, It has good reason for it, and It's almost over.
"Anyway, my perception is that Sony is a terrible company that installs root kits on the computers of customers and files blanket lawsuits on legitimate companies in order to trounce consumer freedoms. I have the right of resale. Sony can take their lawsuits against lik-sang and stuff it. I will never buy a PS3."
Sony is a terrible company. I wont hide it, nor will I make excuses. But I've bought things from terrible companies before, and I'll probably do it again.
The problem is 50% perception, and 50% targeted market. Here's what I mean:
"Perception": People see 600 - 800 dollars and no games. They see a huge Sony ego and laughable selling numbers. No one's buying it, no one wants one.
Reality: It can be bought here in the US for as little as 499 if you want the 20GB model, and if you're patient by summer we'll have a healthy injection of new games on the PS3. They even have more demos and movie trailers available in the PS3 network for free. Games are coming, and patience is key. I'm not an apologist. This is just how new consoles tend to work.
As for the ego, it's there. But it's not contempt for consumers, as most detractors would have you believe. It's confidence. They're saying, "we're number 1". Sony needs to be seen as confident in this console outing. You want them to say "Yeah it sucks, get an Xbox?"
The price is out of necessity, not arrogance. They're definitely losing more per console than Microsoft. Blu-ray was a risk, but not a totally harmful one. Prices will come down and the complaining will slowly go away
"Target market" is the other aspect that's hurting the PS3.
Not only do people not want to drop 500-600-800 dollars on a game system, they certainly don't want to pay more for the same games. That's the problem most 360 owners see with the PS3. They can't envy it any. Pay tons more for some future exclusives? Laughable.
The PS3 is for people who want blu-ray, PS3, PS2, and don't have a 360 already, and are willing to spend at least 500 bucks for it, probably more. That's not a great subset of people.
With all of that, it's a testimony to the power of Sony and its future exclusives that so many people are buying the thing.
I'm interested in what you see your CS grads doing that you'd call the responsibility of an electrical engineer. I mean, Computer Engineers would definitely fall under a "confused major" listing, but as far as my experiences, we stayed pretty far away from the EEs at our school.
I'd also like to hear what kind of work you're doing that business majors would grasp it easier than CS majors.
The unknown is a scary place. People don't have time to mess with "solutions" that aren't widely used and developed for.
I say solutions because Macs are total computing solutions. Not some little box you can get and put on your PC.
That, and getting enough knowledge to be proficient in Linux would probably qualify you for college credit nowadays, Ubuntu or otherwise.
I think ignorance on most people's part is willful. There are those who choose the path less traveled, and are happier for it.
Maybe. But the concept of treating piracy as free publicity only works when you don't have an enormous stake in the current offerings, as many game companies do.