I agree with your question, though one has to be careful before attacking the 360 in the console space right now. Look at the top ten games on Gamespot right now and then criticize Microsoft's 360 strategies. As of today, it's 4 360, 3 PC, one Wii, and two PSP games. The game sales are a trailing indicator and show that the 360 was released a year earlier. As far as future sales go, they are dropping rapidly. The picture will be very different in 12 months.
Most revealing is the claim that Nintendo has been secretly 'waging war' on the likes of Sony and Microsoft by capitalizing on frustrations over cuts to the Xbox Live Arcade royalty rate (down from 70% to 35% for any game making under $4m in revenue) How do they get to capitalize on the likes of Sony from Microsoft cutting royalties to Xbox Live?
Also, with the 360's declining sales this is not a smart move from Microsoft.
We will know we are getting some where when we can gt a computer to changes it's mind on something from a conversation. That definitely would not pass the Turing test in my opinion.
If you no longer use something because it lacks newer features, then it is obsolete. Let's think of some examples of obsolescence together, shall we? The Commodore 64; wax cylinders; violent confrontation; car telephones. Does their obsolescence render them unusable? I'm not entirely sure, but I think that's what I was saying.
Some advice to the ostentatiously rich camp: You don't get adoption of a format by selling it only to the ostentatiously rich. That's how you end up with laser disc. I am far from ostentatiously rich. My wife works for the three days the nanny is here. She makes more than that so it is a net positive and she also enjoys getting out of the house.
Some advice to the Blu-Ray camp: You still haven't convinced us to buy, and raising prices ain't gonna help things. Some advice to the cheap-ass camp: You ain't an us. I pay my nanny more than $400 a week.
So here we are less than 1/5 into the year and still coming off the post-Christmas sales into the standard summer shopping lull and this article makes it sound like this is some sort of significant data point.
The joke being that almost all the Blu-ray players on the market right now are obsolete. Were all your DVD players obsolete when component video came out? What about when Surround Sound came out? Why does having an extra feature that is not required to watch the original movie make a player obsolete? How about DVD+/-R?
This isn't rocket science. You move the player to the bedroom or the kid's playroom or you give it to your Mom and you get a new one if you want the features so bad. If you don't, well then your player isn't obsolete, is it?.
I still have and use a DVD player I got in 1999. It still works perfectly fine.
It is attitudes like this that contribute to our garbage ridden throwaway society.
Yes, at the time WHV threw its weight behind Blu-ray, Blu-ray was both more expensive than HD DVD, and less powerful (capacity excepting.) So at the time, it was less powerful (except where it wasn't) and more expensive (because it wasn't being dumped below cost). Of course, BluRay had the greater capacity to improve, whereas a 3-layer HD-DVD was a tech demo pipe dream.
You went for the format that's out of most people's price range, that's unlikely to be in people's price range for a while, and which had less features (and thus less clear advantages over DVD) than HD DVD. In practice, I suspect you've doomed HD media to a niche, while the vast majority stick with DVD for movies they want to own, and PPV and the various download services for content they want to see in HD. You keep telling yourself that. The price jump is a minor glitch given that there is no longer a war going on and they aren't dumping them below cost. Do you think HD-DVD player prices would have stayed low if BluRay had thrown in the towel? They would have risen more. By Christmas they will be down to $200. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Why is it the same people who were convinced that HD-DVD was going to take off now suddenly think that download media is going to be the thing?
I still find the decision incomprehensible. The capacity of human beings for engaging in self-deception never ceases to amaze me.
Never ascribe to malice what could as easily be caused by incompetence, stupidity, or forgetfulness.
This is true in dealing with large corporations, and it is extra true in marriage. You obviously haven't met my ex-wife.
Well then "we" get to be elves while people who didn't get (technology-so-advanced-it's-indistinguishable-from) magic, quasi-immortality, and a distinct look get to be regular humans. It could happen! Perhaps it already has...
And Battlefield 2 is like a supermodel dressed in a paper bag. While I know exactly what you are trying to say about BF2 and exactly why you are trying to say it, I completely fail to see anything remotely undesirable about a supermodel dressed in a paper bag.;)
I'd say it's more like Britney Spears using a five year old photo on match.com.
back in 1999 (I think, don't remember it exactly), That'll teach you to use an exact year for something you were trying to remember which is going on a decade old! Next time try "a little less than 10 years ago"!!!
No they haven't. The period in my life where I bought the most CDs and spent the most money on music was also the period when I stole the most music. Odd thing was that the sound quality was abominable by any reasonable standard, and the tags were in most cases incorrect. If I had been downloading full quality well tagged music, I might not have bought the albums, but as it was the labels were making far more money off of me than they ever had or likely will. So, in fact, you did not own what they were selling. You owned a poor facsimile. While that may also have been illegal, it is not the case myself and the original poster were discussing.
I recognize that it's unpopular to say so in some circles, but the reality is that if the founding fathers had meant for the situation that we are presently in with perpetual post mortem copyright and tightly controled access to art, they wouldn't have limited the term for a copyright to require the creator renew the copyright periodically. Again, this is not what was being discussed. If we wish to discuss the utility of the law and the original intents of the framers, that is also another conversation.
How, exactly? If I don't want to buy a song and decide to either not consume it at all or consume it in ways that do not give them money but are otherwise not forbidden by law (listening to friends' CDs, listening to the radio and turning it off while the ads are playing, etc.), how does that not prevent them from selling it to me? Lack of desire for you to purchase their product in a format which you do not already possess and lack of ability to provide you with their product in a format which you do not already possess are two different things.
I listen to a song on the radio and decide that it sucks or otherwise isn't worth my money. That also prevents them from selling it to me. No, no it does not.
If you were to download a song or software program off of a p2p network, you haven't prevented the bits from being sold to other people, But you have prevented them from selling it to you.
the business is no better, or worse, off than it would have been had you chosen to not use it at all. In some ways, the company might even be better off for you having done it, because if you've downloaded an installed their program in that manner you haven't joined a competitors install base, and they can use the install as an indication of prevalence anyways. Perhaps we should let them decide that for themselves, rather than deciding what is convenient for us.
Sometimes you can not agree with something, but still have to put up with it to do business. Don't you think every member of the RIAA and indeed every employee of every record company in existence tells themselves the same thing?
Sasha just recently came down with an illness from breathing in so many of the contaminated spores. I also suspect I may be missing a bit of work due to Spore.
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Also, with the 360's declining sales this is not a smart move from Microsoft.
So here we are less than 1/5 into the year and still coming off the post-Christmas sales into the standard summer shopping lull and this article makes it sound like this is some sort of significant data point.
Call me in six months and report numbers then.
This isn't rocket science. You move the player to the bedroom or the kid's playroom or you give it to your Mom and you get a new one if you want the features so bad. If you don't, well then your player isn't obsolete, is it?.
I still have and use a DVD player I got in 1999. It still works perfectly fine.
It is attitudes like this that contribute to our garbage ridden throwaway society. Yes, at the time WHV threw its weight behind Blu-ray, Blu-ray was both more expensive than HD DVD, and less powerful (capacity excepting.) So at the time, it was less powerful (except where it wasn't) and more expensive (because it wasn't being dumped below cost). Of course, BluRay had the greater capacity to improve, whereas a 3-layer HD-DVD was a tech demo pipe dream. You went for the format that's out of most people's price range, that's unlikely to be in people's price range for a while, and which had less features (and thus less clear advantages over DVD) than HD DVD. In practice, I suspect you've doomed HD media to a niche, while the vast majority stick with DVD for movies they want to own, and PPV and the various download services for content they want to see in HD. You keep telling yourself that. The price jump is a minor glitch given that there is no longer a war going on and they aren't dumping them below cost. Do you think HD-DVD player prices would have stayed low if BluRay had thrown in the towel? They would have risen more. By Christmas they will be down to $200. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Why is it the same people who were convinced that HD-DVD was going to take off now suddenly think that download media is going to be the thing? I still find the decision incomprehensible. The capacity of human beings for engaging in self-deception never ceases to amaze me.
...would make our whole lives more efficient.
But what fun would that be?
I thought it said 7.6 million at first.
They say in 20 years we'll be up to the level of humans. What will happen then?
I'd say it's more like Britney Spears using a five year old photo on match.com.
Kudos on an excellent post. I made this exact point to a friend of mine in 2006.
When there is a clear choice at the low-end and the high-end, the middle choice dies even if it is at a middle price point.
BluRay "losing" could have tilted things but it wasn't going to. They only sold 30K players in Japan for chrissakes!