Companies have recalls all the time. Consumers are used to it. If they gave recalls too much weight, no one would ever by a car again.
Aside from the Sony battery recall, can you name five other recalls in the last year? Can you name two? How about one? People have short memories unless they were personally affected, and often don't consider it an issue unless the effect hurt them in some way, like the fires you mentioned. Since the number personally hurt is usually a tiny percentage, the company doesn't have a lot to fear.
They have already started by essentially making all their machines Windows compatible, while still maintaining the OS X train.
That's the big news. I know it's not exactly "news" as in "new," but this is the only thing that will make many Windows shops even seriously consider Macs.
Outlook, web apps that need the Windows version of IE and IT ignorance about OSX were killers for bringing Macs into the enterprise in any large numbers. With Windows on Mac hardware, at least it looks possible.
Fanboy? I guess you'd have to define the word. I have a PS2, a PS3 and a PSP and I like them all quite a lot. But I don't thing that's enough to be considered a "fanboy". Maybe it would be easier to tell you what I don't do that I often attribute to "fanboys". I don't mod stuff down simply because I disagree with it. I don't call the competitor's equipment and games "crap" if they're not to my taste, but otherwise high quality. I don't judge other equipment and games unless I've actually played them or something similar, and I clearly note it if it's the latter
Probably most importantly, I don't ignore the fact that others are having fun with competing equipment and I'm not afraid to mention the flaws I see in my own. I also don't try to make up how my flaws are actually virtues or find a single flaw with the competition and then declare it to be unfit to use.
I've seen this behavior in quite a lot of people who'd I'd label "fanboys". Curiously, I see these traits far more often in Apple and Nintendo supporters and less often in Linux, Microsoft and Sony supporters. I'm not sure why.
The guy in the great grandparent quote was talking about general popularity and then threw in Japanese popularity as "proof". It's a valid criticism to point out that that's misleading and popularity in Japan says little about popularity in the US. You went ahead and gave some reasons why quoting Japanese figures still has some validity.
I consider this all to be reasonable discussion, but notice that I got modded down for my part of it. That's what I consider to be fanboy activity. Someone out there was so unhappy that I was not boosting his favorite product, that he's actually trying to shut me up. I might chock this down to some kind of rogue modder, but sadly this has happened to me three or four times over the last week when speaking on this subject and about 25% of any posts that disagrees with a Mac feature also get this fate. Interestingly, I never get this if I find fault with Microsoft, Sony or Linux equipment or software.
About the NPD numbers. In addition to the November numbers you cited, NPD also reported these numbers as found on Joystiq.com. If this is accurate, the DS has sold 7.6 million and the PSP has sold 5.7 million from launch through Nov 1, 2006. Especially when you consider the DS got a 5 month head start, this data shows the PSP has been nicely competitive in the US.
I can't tell you if the DS is pulling ahead in November, the PSP is falling behind, or even if November is a blip that will reverse itself. I can tell you that the install base of PSPs vs DSs shows that about 43% of next-gen console buyers in the US have chosen to be PSP owners and presumably they knew of the DSs existence when they made that choice.
I can also tell you that citing 4 to 1 Japanese sales figures as an example of handheld preferences is an amazing distortion of the US facts. My guess is that no matter how accurate the numbers are for Japan, US DS fans would almost never quote them if the situation was reversed. They would point out, as I have, that it doesn't reflect the US market.
If you're interested in saying the DS is "winning" overall, then go for it. I'm sure Nintendo stockholders are quite happy with that news. But if you want to use those numbers to say that people like the DS better than the PSP, you might want to keep in mind that in the US, that's not a very big preference.
I'm curious what the OS memory footprint is for the PS3 vs the 360.
I know MS can make a small footprint if they have to (Pocket PC), but if they feel they have the room, they'll use as much as they think they can get away with. Unfortunately that usually works out to about 25% to 50% more than or I would like.
On the other hand, Sony's OS looks nice and lite, but you never know how much they might be front loading to increase responsiveness.
Question for you (and all other PS3 owners who are/want to install YDL on their PS3): why?
I see a bunch of people have already pointed out that it's a dual-boot arrangement and you don't have to give up your nifty PS3 gaming capability. With that in mind, there are a few really good reasons to have Linux on your PS3.
- Firefox is much better than the PS3 web browser.
- You have many choices of players when you want to play MP3s and videos, or look at pictures with your family.
- When your family loves that one special pic of Junior, but wishes there was no red-eye, you can edit it on the spot.
- You can immediately email that picture to your aunt Betty.
- You can check your email from the couch while waiting for your favorite show to come on..
- It's an extra general computer in the house when you need it. You at least have an option if your boss needs you to send a quick document to your client at the same time you're replacing the video card on your PC.
- You can get data on and off your PS3 from the home LAN, thus making the sharing of those pictures, videos and MP3s much easier (the PS3 doesn't natively have this functionality at this time, and if someone knows better, PLEASE tell me, because this is the feature most important to me that I'm missing at the moment.)
Like a lot of dual boot options, this one isn't quite as smooth as it could be, based upon what I've read. Ideally, I'd never have to leave my couch, but I think this one requires me to hit a button (at least that's what I read, but I hope I'm wrong here too.). But considering all this great functionality is literally free, completely legal and actually encouraged, I feel like I'd be a fool to not take advantage of it.
I'm just getting familiar with my PS3 at the moment, but this is my next step. It's not a perfect solution, but with Linux on board I feel I'll have enough quality functionality that I won't need a separate PC in the living room any more.
There is no special cooling effect being harnessed that's any more complicated than blowing on your soup. All this does is move air. If the comparison of various air purifiers I read is at all accurate, it doesn't even do that very well (Ionic Breezes faired poorly due to poor air flow).
This does have a place in mobile computing because fans have pretty strict size and shape limitations. Also, silence is golden to many. Other than that, a fan and heatsink should offer far superior performance.
Sounds like what I would consider the perfect episode in every way other than price. Slap a $20 price tag on that puppy and I'm guessing you'd feel pretty good about the purchase.
Um, WRONG. Look at the news. Listen to the radio. Plenty of people have used this exact argument. Yes, it's a fucked up argument so it doesn't seem like they should use it, but they do. "Global warming is not happening because there's no proof human activity is causing it." Stupid, eh? But I've heard it more times than I have fingers to count on.
Look at it another way. If they were admitting that global warming exists, then they'd have to agree that something should be done about it. Even if it's not human activity, if it exists it will cause all kinds of major problems so we should know as much about it as humanly possible. So how many billions of dollars of increased spending has the Republican controlled government spent to find the cause of this great scourge that they admit is a serious problem? Well, the truth is, if they admitted it was a serious problem, then they'd have to accept the findings of this great hunt for its cause. It's much easier to say the cause is unknown so we don't have a problem. And that's exactly what a lot of them do.
Dude, I don't cringe because I feel forced, I cringe for the same reason you might cringe when you see the sticker price on that cool car you had your eye on. It's not that it's not desirable, it simply costs to much (timewise) for me.
If you can afford it, more power to you. I hope you love it. But I'm going to have to keep looking for something less expensive.
"It is essential that 'cancer-causing' claims are based only on scientifically proven facts, not scaremongering."
"You're ignoring perfectly good science just because it's not comprehensive, while complaining that a scientist is dismissing unsupported claims by citing science that's at least peripherally related and demonstrates differing results. I hardly know where to begin"
My beef isn't with any science that may exist supporting his conclusion, or even with the assertion that (reading between the short lines) current studies don't find current food additives to be cancer causing.
My problem is that the scientist frames the discussion so that his side wins by default, even though there is no scientific justification to do so. He sets up barriers of "facts" and "proof" that real biologists very rarely claim, much less achieve, and then insists his opposition must meet them or be silent.
That doesn't mean his side is wrong. This doesn't mean his side has poor science. It just means that he's using an argument technique that simply isn't present in the proper application of the scientific method. He's saying that in the study of a new substance, like an additive, the default is predetermined in a single direction. Additives don't cause cancer until someone "proves" otherwise and any assertion prior to this "proof" is very wrong (fearmongering).
I know that many scientific principals are biased in a certain direction. You don't have to "prove" relativity or gravity are correct every time you cite it or use it in a discussion. Food additives are not like that. In fact, they're so much not like that that very often reputable scientists will spend a great deal of time, money and effort to make sure they're not harmful before sending them to market. They would most certainly not do that if the default was that they're harmless.
But that's not good enough for this guy. He's got to make sure to set up a very steep hill that others must climb in order to unseat his assertions. It's not logical, even though he frames it as such. He frames is as a scientific response, but it's really more of an attack on the opposition. This, in my opinion, harms this type of discussion by promoting this type of argument. I think scientists do more for their cause when they promote fact-based, rather than attack-based, discussion techniques.
I'm a busy guy who likes to game. Specifically, I like to game for a weekend or two, then I might not have time to game for anyware from a couple of weeks to maybe a month. Episodes help me to "finish" a game so I don't have to worry about where I left off when I finally have a chance to get back to it. I don't have to worry about my skills getting stale right at the time the game is hitting me with the really hard stuff because I'm able to "finish" it in one go.
When I here about how long Final Fantasy 12 is or Zelda Twilight Princess, I involuntarily cringe. It's not that I don't think it would be fun, it's just that I don't have time for that much fun in my life.
When creationism is taught as science, and evolution is merely a theory that can be easily discarded, then yes, I'd say the science curriculum in US schools is lacking.
It's worth pointing out that those were a tiny fraction of the schools in our country, they got very widespread condemnation for their actions, they lost every important court case and an entire school board was replaced by the voters because of this.
When I see any group with problems, I have less of a tendency to judge the group based on those problems than to judge the group based on how they deal with those problems. In this case, the problem was small (compared to the group as a whole) and it was dealt with swiftly. I know the media coverage made it seem bigger, but that's ok with me. It made the smack-down look bigger and left a big neon warning to anyone who tries again.
I gotta say as a scientist and professor that I agree completely with this position of reserving comment in the public spotlight until you have done a little homework. All too often we have celebrities and politicians using their status to manipulate science to bend to a political whim or will, or simply to just espouse a misunderstanding.
But it helps if the educated scientists give more reliable answers than the celebrities.
In the first example in the article, Melinda Messenger says she doesn't want man-made chemicals in her or her children's bodies. Though this does ignore the fact that most chemicals aren't very harmful in the doses we're likely to encounter, the scientists response actually seems to support her point.
Dr John Hoskins: "Most leave quickly but some stay: asbestos and silica in our lungs, dioxins in our blood. The most important thing is dose: one aspirin cures a headache, a hundred kills."
Sounds to me like he's almost completely supporting her point that putting a lot of chemicals in your body can be bad. His other points, in paragraph 1 and 3 point out that our routine exposure is probably small, but doesn't actually refute what she's saying, that we should be wary of introducing more chemicals unless we know what effect they'll have on us. His entire response is framed as pointing out the flaws in her arguments, but his actual arguments say otherwise.
The worst one was at the end. Joanna Lumley says we shouldn't be putting chemicals and growth stimulants in our cattle. She probably doesn't have any proof that these things can hurt people, and the scientist points that out.
But the scientist, Prof John Toy, uses these words: "It is essential that 'cancer-causing' claims are based only on scientifically proven facts, not scaremongering. There is no definitive evidence that controlled food additives cause cancer.
Replace "cancer" with "global warming" and replace "controlled food additives" with "human activity" and you have almost exactly the argument used by oil companies and many conservatives to claim global warming does not exist. It's not a logical argument, it's an argument that insinuates that any possible error on her part, no matter how small, makes his argument correct. The words "definitive" and "fact" are the nasty ones in this case. The truth is, science is usually somewhat vague and full of additional questions and problems that must be solved, especially in answering new questions, like the kind that are constantly coming up in the rapidly changing field of food additives. He's not claiming he has any proof that she's wrong, he's just claiming that because she's not holding "definitive facts" in her hand, that makes him right.
Professor Toy then goes on to say, "We do know that half of cancers are caused by lifestyle factors such as being overweight." He's using this as an argument that the actress is incorrect. Once again, though it may sound like a refutation, it's just more false logic. Just because his statement may be true says absolutely nothing about the accuracy of her statement. In fact, half the factors being lifestyle related point very strongly to half of them being something else.
My whole long-winded point is that this kind of non-science repudiation of non-scientists may work just fine to convince average Joe that celebrity X is wrong, but it does very little to teach him the type of arguments that are valid. In fact, it cements in Joe's mind that since scientist use arguments based on logical falicies, that those kinds of arguments must be scientifically valid. It's a bad message to be sending.
BTW, the other two actually looked good to me. They're straight forward responses to reasonably straight forward comments.]
I was a journalist for about a year quite some time ago. I never personally witnessed an, "if you print something positive, we'll advertise with you," offer. However, I did witness, and participate in conversations in the newsroom where we debated whether a story was important enough to risk angering our advertising clients. I can not recall a single case where we didn't run a story, but the fact that we discussed it always concerned me.
Since then, very often when I pick up a magazine and read a glowing review of a product, I'll look further in the magazine for an advertisement from the company who sells it. Most often I'll find, at minimum, full page ads and often several of them. In fact, you'll probably notice that horrible reviews are rare in magazines. If you look even harder, you'll notice that the company involved almost never has an advertisement in the same issue.
But wait, you say, isn't Wikipedia is edited by the readership? Certainly they won't be influenced by the ads? Sadly, this is not true. The reason this is not true is that advertisers are readers as well. If they were putting money into the publication, they'd read that publication on a much more regular basis and they'd have a much larger motivation to influence the articles published. Since it's so easy to have direct influence over Wikipedia, I would find it hard to believe that advertisers would sit on their hands if they saw an opportunity to make their company or products look better.
Thanks for the numbers. They're quite illuminating. When you further break out Sony's numbers and only look at the game division, it gets even worse.
I compared operating revenue for 2005. Sony doesn't show net profitability per division, presumably because you can't properly account for the effect of corporate taxes, investments, etc on a per division basis. Also, operating income is commonly used by investors to get a truer picture of how the company is doing in it's core business practices minus one-time charges like restructuring, tax changes, etc.
I looked at 2005 because Sony 2006 operating revenue is dragged down by PS3 R&D so 2005 gives a better comparison of core game businesses as it stood before "next gen" started significantly changing numbers. That's not to say 2006 isn't valid. Nintendo had to do R&D on the Wii as well. However, adding next gen numbers only further muddles the comparison of GC to PS2 net profitability.
Sony: ~43 billion yen (game division operating income 2005) Nintendo: ~113 billion yen (company operating income 2005)
Nintendo appears to make close to three times as much "profit" as Sony. Clearly it's a juggernaut.
But even here the numbers don't quite add up. This is clearly not an apples to apples PS2 to Gamecube comparison.
According to the report, sales for the GBA and GBA software were massive (75 million and 328 million), far eclipsing both the Gamecube and DS combined (31 million and 249 million). Even so, DS sales for hardware was quite good, coming reasonably close to the Gamecube( 21 million to 17 million). On a per unit basis, the Gamecube only represented less than 20% of hardware sales and just under a third of software sales. It should also be noted that the price of GBA is only a little less than the Gamecube and that the DS is significantly more expensive. Though GBA games are about half the price of Gamecube games, DS games are just a little less.
For the same time period, though Sony doesn't break out unit sold numbers, It's easy to see that the PSP wasn't a major factor since it started sales in December 2004 and the physical year ended in March 2005. Therefore Sony's numbers predominantly reflect PS2 hardware and software sales.
With these factors are taken into account, Sony's numbers look much, much better. What are they? I don't know. Neither company broke out operating income by game platform and software. But based on the unit sales of the GBA and DS hardware and software, and also deleting any operating income associated with the PSP, it's likely the PS2 beat the Gamecube for both hardware and software operating income, and as far as operating income reflects sales minus costs to produce and sell the units, for the sake of this discussion, in total profit.
After you were so good as to give numbers, I hate to engage in guessing like this. But the GBA numbers were so staggering I think it's warranted. It's simply not a correct comparison if you add in profit for a market that Sony isn't even competing it. It would be like Sony adding in profits from TV sales.
That said, and after I've gone this far to point out that the PS2 was probably "more profitable" than the Gamecube, I think you'll be a little surprised by my conclusion. If I were a Nintendo stockholder, I'd be fairly well pleased by the performance of the Gamecube. The thing was very competitive considering it's distant third place finish in units sold. I'm personally surprised to see this, but aside from making me do some guessing about the breakout, I think these numbers are quite compelling. Furthermore, it makes me look at the Wii very differently. I've always assumed, and still do, that the PS3 will sell much better than the Wii in the long run. But I no longer think that's nearly as bad for Nintendo as I have in the past. These guys are proof that even if you lose, you can still win. They've done a superb job of keeping their eyes on what counts to a company, the profit, and I can't help but applaud them for it.
The DS Lite is more hackable than any 2.81+ firmware or TA-082 motherboard PSP [wikipedia.org]. All you need are a SuperCard, an SD card, an SD writer, a dollar store eyeglass screwdriver set (to remove the battery cover and bridge a pad on the motherboard behind it), and two minutes' use of a friend's NoPass card [pineight.com] to flash the firmware.
Dude. I've never felt the need to go homebrew on my PSP. Not only was I satisfied with it's stock functionality, but firmware updates on other devices have given me mediocre experiences at best. But this paragraph takes the cake. Why you think anyone would prefer getting a SuperCard, an SD card, an SD writer, open up theier case to bridge a pad on the motherboard and then chase down a NoPass card instead of just finding a PSP with slightly older firmware is beyond me. It's bad enough that you're flashing a ROM, a procedure that's not famously fool-proof, but when you throw in the added risk of destroying your mobo after finding two pieces of specialized hardware, But then you're proclaiming the procedure "easier"? You've got some serious brass balls.
Though there's a small international community, Slashdot is hosted in America and the forums are all in English. So why do people love quoting Japanese DS sales figures so much?
US and European sales figures vs. the PSP are nothing like Japanese sales figures. They're not even close. Depending on the day of the week and who you ask, the local figures are anywhere from the DS winning 2 to 1 to the DS losing by a fair million units or so.
Some Americans' tastes track closely with Japanese tastes, but on a whole Japanese tastes in entertainment are very different than ours. To say the Japanese prefer the DS by a 4 to 1 margin says absolutely nothing about American and European preferences. It's like pointing out that 98% of Japanese prefer chopsticks. It's not going to influence my flatware buying decisions and it certainly isn't going to convince me that chopsticks are superior. It's merely a cultural curiosity.
Of course if you don't know all this, quoting these numbers does accomplish something. Though it's technically the truth, it insinuates that the DS is far more popular than it really is. It doesn't say, but it insinuates that people, in general, prefer the DS by a 4 to 1 margin. It's what I like to call a soft lie. Considering that the people I know who have a DS actually like it, I would think there are much more honest ways of making your point.
Also, while hardware does produce more revenue than software, software produces more profit. There is a reason that Nintendo is the most profitable of the console makers, and always has been. They concentrate on software, so have the smallest revenue of all, but still end up with the greatest profit.
If Nintendo sold one Gamecube for $100 and one game for $50, and it cost them only a $1 each to make the game and console, then they'd make a profit of $148. That's an extremely nice profit margin. I think this might have been what you meant by "most profitable," But I'm not too sure how accurate that wording is.
If Sony sold ten PS2s for $100 each and ten games for $50 each, and it cost them $50 each to make the consoles and $25 to make the games, then they'd make a profit of $750. Though this profit margin would be much smaller than Nintendo's, I think this would be the traditional definition of "most profitable."
I'm not trying to find fault with your assessment. Making a great profit margin is a big help if you want to make boatloads of money. But you still have to sell a whole lot of whatever it is you're selling. But Sony and Microsoft are shooting for the big pie. If they make more total profit, then it probably doesn't matter much if the percentage of profit per revenue dollar was small. If they sell enough units, they still take home the crown.
Who knows who'll win this round? Nintendo is off to a nice start with it's clearly more profitable machine. But we're a long way from seeing who will sell the most machines, games, services (in Microsoft's case) and movies (in Sony's case) in the long run. Only then will we see if the initial profitability was the deciding factor.
And I immediately thought LocoRoco. Man, I've been playing it all this time thinking it's the most unique game ever, now all these rolling blob games come out of the woodwork. It's whole freekin' genre!
Just out of curiosity, did you just see the boxes on the shelf or did you know them to be in stock and not selling because of a conversation with the retailer, like the guy you mentioned from EBGames?
I ask this because I saw them on the shelf of the local Toys R Us and they were just empty boxes for display. I'm not saying this is what you saw, just asking.
It's not a strawman, it's an obvious exaggeration for dramatic effect, and even then only the part about the Wii. But I'll cut you some slack because I noticed in your comment that you turned my "generally not wanting PS3s" into "nobody wanted a PS3" thus showing you have a good understanding of the usefulness of exageration.
Some Wii fans have been saying there's a general dislike of the PS3 and they have been saying that the PS3 returns are proof that people generally prefer Wiis to PS3s. I've read several posts stating this directly and the grandparent post clearly alludes to it. There's no numerical justification for this and really no justification at all other than a few anecdotal accounts and the desire for it to be true.
Some Wii fans obviously fall into this fantasy and I was just pointing out how incorrect this thinking is. It's not a strawman argument, it's a direct rebut.
I just finished Black. Great game with one major flaw that I hope they fix in any sequels. Black is the perfect game for mindless target practice. I could spend 30 min or so and then walk away with no problem. EXCEPT that the levels were so very, very long and the game wont let you save unless you complete an entire level. I'd have to leave the machine on and paused to use it for short bursts of gaming. If they let you save anywhere, or at least at checkpoints, it would be great.
People aren't returning Wiis because a) people like them, and b) you can sell them for more than the refund.
a) Nothing in the article suggests people don't like their PS3s. In fact, the article suggests the opposite conclusion. From my reading of the article, scalpers are returning them not because they don't like them, but because they're entrepreneurs who are only interested in the PS3 as an investment and that investment didn't pan out. However, as soon as the boxes get back in the stores, they're being snapped up again as soon as they arrive. Even on eBay, people are still buying them, they're just not paying as much over list price. I don't blame people for not wanting to pay thousands of dollars for a PS3, but people seem quite willing to pay the price marked on the box or a little bit more.
b) I looked at the SmartBuyer link from the article and found the average selling point for Wii's last week was $301. That's about a 20% markup over retail. SmartBuyer is listing an average selling price for PS3s of $788 for the same time period. That's about a $30 percent markup over retail. To be fair, glancing down the numbers it doesn't look like this weeks average will be the same. The Wii is getting more expensive and the PS3 less, but it's a far cry from selling them on eBay for a loss.
The big picture here is that the Wii is in high demand and so is the PS3. Any talk right now of people generally not wanting PS3s or that the whole world wants to switch to Wiis is only coming from folks who let their emotions run wild instead of looking at the facts. Who knows what the future will hold. It's possible there will be Wii in every household by Christmas 2007. But we're not there yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Companies have recalls all the time. Consumers are used to it. If they gave recalls too much weight, no one would ever by a car again.
Aside from the Sony battery recall, can you name five other recalls in the last year? Can you name two? How about one? People have short memories unless they were personally affected, and often don't consider it an issue unless the effect hurt them in some way, like the fires you mentioned. Since the number personally hurt is usually a tiny percentage, the company doesn't have a lot to fear.
TW
That's the big news. I know it's not exactly "news" as in "new," but this is the only thing that will make many Windows shops even seriously consider Macs.
Outlook, web apps that need the Windows version of IE and IT ignorance about OSX were killers for bringing Macs into the enterprise in any large numbers. With Windows on Mac hardware, at least it looks possible.
TW
Fanboy? I guess you'd have to define the word. I have a PS2, a PS3 and a PSP and I like them all quite a lot. But I don't thing that's enough to be considered a "fanboy". Maybe it would be easier to tell you what I don't do that I often attribute to "fanboys". I don't mod stuff down simply because I disagree with it. I don't call the competitor's equipment and games "crap" if they're not to my taste, but otherwise high quality. I don't judge other equipment and games unless I've actually played them or something similar, and I clearly note it if it's the latter
Probably most importantly, I don't ignore the fact that others are having fun with competing equipment and I'm not afraid to mention the flaws I see in my own. I also don't try to make up how my flaws are actually virtues or find a single flaw with the competition and then declare it to be unfit to use.
I've seen this behavior in quite a lot of people who'd I'd label "fanboys". Curiously, I see these traits far more often in Apple and Nintendo supporters and less often in Linux, Microsoft and Sony supporters. I'm not sure why.
The guy in the great grandparent quote was talking about general popularity and then threw in Japanese popularity as "proof". It's a valid criticism to point out that that's misleading and popularity in Japan says little about popularity in the US. You went ahead and gave some reasons why quoting Japanese figures still has some validity.
I consider this all to be reasonable discussion, but notice that I got modded down for my part of it. That's what I consider to be fanboy activity. Someone out there was so unhappy that I was not boosting his favorite product, that he's actually trying to shut me up. I might chock this down to some kind of rogue modder, but sadly this has happened to me three or four times over the last week when speaking on this subject and about 25% of any posts that disagrees with a Mac feature also get this fate. Interestingly, I never get this if I find fault with Microsoft, Sony or Linux equipment or software.
About the NPD numbers. In addition to the November numbers you cited, NPD also reported these numbers as found on Joystiq.com. If this is accurate, the DS has sold 7.6 million and the PSP has sold 5.7 million from launch through Nov 1, 2006. Especially when you consider the DS got a 5 month head start, this data shows the PSP has been nicely competitive in the US.
I can't tell you if the DS is pulling ahead in November, the PSP is falling behind, or even if November is a blip that will reverse itself. I can tell you that the install base of PSPs vs DSs shows that about 43% of next-gen console buyers in the US have chosen to be PSP owners and presumably they knew of the DSs existence when they made that choice.
I can also tell you that citing 4 to 1 Japanese sales figures as an example of handheld preferences is an amazing distortion of the US facts. My guess is that no matter how accurate the numbers are for Japan, US DS fans would almost never quote them if the situation was reversed. They would point out, as I have, that it doesn't reflect the US market.
If you're interested in saying the DS is "winning" overall, then go for it. I'm sure Nintendo stockholders are quite happy with that news. But if you want to use those numbers to say that people like the DS better than the PSP, you might want to keep in mind that in the US, that's not a very big preference.
TW
I'm curious what the OS memory footprint is for the PS3 vs the 360.
I know MS can make a small footprint if they have to (Pocket PC), but if they feel they have the room, they'll use as much as they think they can get away with. Unfortunately that usually works out to about 25% to 50% more than or I would like.
On the other hand, Sony's OS looks nice and lite, but you never know how much they might be front loading to increase responsiveness.
I guess you can file this under "just curious."
TW
Yes. Here are some links to videos of a fighting game and some Nintendo games.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsQOr-vNDsg&mode=r
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIWwcGCI_nY
They're all 2D, but they seem quite responsive.
TW
I see a bunch of people have already pointed out that it's a dual-boot arrangement and you don't have to give up your nifty PS3 gaming capability. With that in mind, there are a few really good reasons to have Linux on your PS3.
- Firefox is much better than the PS3 web browser.
- You have many choices of players when you want to play MP3s and videos, or look at pictures with your family.
- When your family loves that one special pic of Junior, but wishes there was no red-eye, you can edit it on the spot.
- You can immediately email that picture to your aunt Betty.
- You can check your email from the couch while waiting for your favorite show to come on..
- It's an extra general computer in the house when you need it. You at least have an option if your boss needs you to send a quick document to your client at the same time you're replacing the video card on your PC.
- You can get data on and off your PS3 from the home LAN, thus making the sharing of those pictures, videos and MP3s much easier (the PS3 doesn't natively have this functionality at this time, and if someone knows better, PLEASE tell me, because this is the feature most important to me that I'm missing at the moment.)
Like a lot of dual boot options, this one isn't quite as smooth as it could be, based upon what I've read. Ideally, I'd never have to leave my couch, but I think this one requires me to hit a button (at least that's what I read, but I hope I'm wrong here too.). But considering all this great functionality is literally free, completely legal and actually encouraged, I feel like I'd be a fool to not take advantage of it.
I'm just getting familiar with my PS3 at the moment, but this is my next step. It's not a perfect solution, but with Linux on board I feel I'll have enough quality functionality that I won't need a separate PC in the living room any more.
TW
Per what volume of air? Fans can move a very large volume of air for that 3W.
TW
There is no special cooling effect being harnessed that's any more complicated than blowing on your soup. All this does is move air. If the comparison of various air purifiers I read is at all accurate, it doesn't even do that very well (Ionic Breezes faired poorly due to poor air flow).
This does have a place in mobile computing because fans have pretty strict size and shape limitations. Also, silence is golden to many. Other than that, a fan and heatsink should offer far superior performance.
TW
Sounds like what I would consider the perfect episode in every way other than price. Slap a $20 price tag on that puppy and I'm guessing you'd feel pretty good about the purchase.
TW
Um, WRONG. Look at the news. Listen to the radio. Plenty of people have used this exact argument. Yes, it's a fucked up argument so it doesn't seem like they should use it, but they do. "Global warming is not happening because there's no proof human activity is causing it." Stupid, eh? But I've heard it more times than I have fingers to count on.
Look at it another way. If they were admitting that global warming exists, then they'd have to agree that something should be done about it. Even if it's not human activity, if it exists it will cause all kinds of major problems so we should know as much about it as humanly possible. So how many billions of dollars of increased spending has the Republican controlled government spent to find the cause of this great scourge that they admit is a serious problem? Well, the truth is, if they admitted it was a serious problem, then they'd have to accept the findings of this great hunt for its cause. It's much easier to say the cause is unknown so we don't have a problem. And that's exactly what a lot of them do.
TW
Dude, I don't cringe because I feel forced, I cringe for the same reason you might cringe when you see the sticker price on that cool car you had your eye on. It's not that it's not desirable, it simply costs to much (timewise) for me.
If you can afford it, more power to you. I hope you love it. But I'm going to have to keep looking for something less expensive.
TW
"It is essential that 'cancer-causing' claims are based only on scientifically proven facts, not scaremongering."
"You're ignoring perfectly good science just because it's not comprehensive, while complaining that a scientist is dismissing unsupported claims by citing science that's at least peripherally related and demonstrates differing results. I hardly know where to begin"
My beef isn't with any science that may exist supporting his conclusion, or even with the assertion that (reading between the short lines) current studies don't find current food additives to be cancer causing.
My problem is that the scientist frames the discussion so that his side wins by default, even though there is no scientific justification to do so. He sets up barriers of "facts" and "proof" that real biologists very rarely claim, much less achieve, and then insists his opposition must meet them or be silent.
That doesn't mean his side is wrong. This doesn't mean his side has poor science. It just means that he's using an argument technique that simply isn't present in the proper application of the scientific method. He's saying that in the study of a new substance, like an additive, the default is predetermined in a single direction. Additives don't cause cancer until someone "proves" otherwise and any assertion prior to this "proof" is very wrong (fearmongering).
I know that many scientific principals are biased in a certain direction. You don't have to "prove" relativity or gravity are correct every time you cite it or use it in a discussion. Food additives are not like that. In fact, they're so much not like that that very often reputable scientists will spend a great deal of time, money and effort to make sure they're not harmful before sending them to market. They would most certainly not do that if the default was that they're harmless.
But that's not good enough for this guy. He's got to make sure to set up a very steep hill that others must climb in order to unseat his assertions. It's not logical, even though he frames it as such. He frames is as a scientific response, but it's really more of an attack on the opposition. This, in my opinion, harms this type of discussion by promoting this type of argument. I think scientists do more for their cause when they promote fact-based, rather than attack-based, discussion techniques.
TW
I'm a busy guy who likes to game. Specifically, I like to game for a weekend or two, then I might not have time to game for anyware from a couple of weeks to maybe a month. Episodes help me to "finish" a game so I don't have to worry about where I left off when I finally have a chance to get back to it. I don't have to worry about my skills getting stale right at the time the game is hitting me with the really hard stuff because I'm able to "finish" it in one go.
When I here about how long Final Fantasy 12 is or Zelda Twilight Princess, I involuntarily cringe. It's not that I don't think it would be fun, it's just that I don't have time for that much fun in my life.
TW
It's worth pointing out that those were a tiny fraction of the schools in our country, they got very widespread condemnation for their actions, they lost every important court case and an entire school board was replaced by the voters because of this.
When I see any group with problems, I have less of a tendency to judge the group based on those problems than to judge the group based on how they deal with those problems. In this case, the problem was small (compared to the group as a whole) and it was dealt with swiftly. I know the media coverage made it seem bigger, but that's ok with me. It made the smack-down look bigger and left a big neon warning to anyone who tries again.
TW
But it helps if the educated scientists give more reliable answers than the celebrities.
In the first example in the article, Melinda Messenger says she doesn't want man-made chemicals in her or her children's bodies. Though this does ignore the fact that most chemicals aren't very harmful in the doses we're likely to encounter, the scientists response actually seems to support her point.
Dr John Hoskins: "Most leave quickly but some stay: asbestos and silica in our lungs, dioxins in our blood. The most important thing is dose: one aspirin cures a headache, a hundred kills."
Sounds to me like he's almost completely supporting her point that putting a lot of chemicals in your body can be bad. His other points, in paragraph 1 and 3 point out that our routine exposure is probably small, but doesn't actually refute what she's saying, that we should be wary of introducing more chemicals unless we know what effect they'll have on us. His entire response is framed as pointing out the flaws in her arguments, but his actual arguments say otherwise.
The worst one was at the end. Joanna Lumley says we shouldn't be putting chemicals and growth stimulants in our cattle. She probably doesn't have any proof that these things can hurt people, and the scientist points that out.
But the scientist, Prof John Toy, uses these words: "It is essential that 'cancer-causing' claims are based only on scientifically proven facts, not scaremongering. There is no definitive evidence that controlled food additives cause cancer.
Replace "cancer" with "global warming" and replace "controlled food additives" with "human activity" and you have almost exactly the argument used by oil companies and many conservatives to claim global warming does not exist. It's not a logical argument, it's an argument that insinuates that any possible error on her part, no matter how small, makes his argument correct. The words "definitive" and "fact" are the nasty ones in this case. The truth is, science is usually somewhat vague and full of additional questions and problems that must be solved, especially in answering new questions, like the kind that are constantly coming up in the rapidly changing field of food additives. He's not claiming he has any proof that she's wrong, he's just claiming that because she's not holding "definitive facts" in her hand, that makes him right.
Professor Toy then goes on to say, "We do know that half of cancers are caused by lifestyle factors such as being overweight." He's using this as an argument that the actress is incorrect. Once again, though it may sound like a refutation, it's just more false logic. Just because his statement may be true says absolutely nothing about the accuracy of her statement. In fact, half the factors being lifestyle related point very strongly to half of them being something else.
My whole long-winded point is that this kind of non-science repudiation of non-scientists may work just fine to convince average Joe that celebrity X is wrong, but it does very little to teach him the type of arguments that are valid. In fact, it cements in Joe's mind that since scientist use arguments based on logical falicies, that those kinds of arguments must be scientifically valid. It's a bad message to be sending.
BTW, the other two actually looked good to me. They're straight forward responses to reasonably straight forward comments.]
TW
I was a journalist for about a year quite some time ago. I never personally witnessed an, "if you print something positive, we'll advertise with you," offer. However, I did witness, and participate in conversations in the newsroom where we debated whether a story was important enough to risk angering our advertising clients. I can not recall a single case where we didn't run a story, but the fact that we discussed it always concerned me.
Since then, very often when I pick up a magazine and read a glowing review of a product, I'll look further in the magazine for an advertisement from the company who sells it. Most often I'll find, at minimum, full page ads and often several of them. In fact, you'll probably notice that horrible reviews are rare in magazines. If you look even harder, you'll notice that the company involved almost never has an advertisement in the same issue.
But wait, you say, isn't Wikipedia is edited by the readership? Certainly they won't be influenced by the ads? Sadly, this is not true. The reason this is not true is that advertisers are readers as well. If they were putting money into the publication, they'd read that publication on a much more regular basis and they'd have a much larger motivation to influence the articles published. Since it's so easy to have direct influence over Wikipedia, I would find it hard to believe that advertisers would sit on their hands if they saw an opportunity to make their company or products look better.
TW
Thanks for the numbers. They're quite illuminating. When you further break out Sony's numbers and only look at the game division, it gets even worse.
I compared operating revenue for 2005. Sony doesn't show net profitability per division, presumably because you can't properly account for the effect of corporate taxes, investments, etc on a per division basis. Also, operating income is commonly used by investors to get a truer picture of how the company is doing in it's core business practices minus one-time charges like restructuring, tax changes, etc.
I looked at 2005 because Sony 2006 operating revenue is dragged down by PS3 R&D so 2005 gives a better comparison of core game businesses as it stood before "next gen" started significantly changing numbers. That's not to say 2006 isn't valid. Nintendo had to do R&D on the Wii as well. However, adding next gen numbers only further muddles the comparison of GC to PS2 net profitability.
Sony: ~43 billion yen (game division operating income 2005)
Nintendo: ~113 billion yen (company operating income 2005)
Nintendo appears to make close to three times as much "profit" as Sony. Clearly it's a juggernaut.
But even here the numbers don't quite add up. This is clearly not an apples to apples PS2 to Gamecube comparison.
According to the report, sales for the GBA and GBA software were massive (75 million and 328 million), far eclipsing both the Gamecube and DS combined (31 million and 249 million). Even so, DS sales for hardware was quite good, coming reasonably close to the Gamecube( 21 million to 17 million). On a per unit basis, the Gamecube only represented less than 20% of hardware sales and just under a third of software sales. It should also be noted that the price of GBA is only a little less than the Gamecube and that the DS is significantly more expensive. Though GBA games are about half the price of Gamecube games, DS games are just a little less.
For the same time period, though Sony doesn't break out unit sold numbers, It's easy to see that the PSP wasn't a major factor since it started sales in December 2004 and the physical year ended in March 2005. Therefore Sony's numbers predominantly reflect PS2 hardware and software sales.
With these factors are taken into account, Sony's numbers look much, much better. What are they? I don't know. Neither company broke out operating income by game platform and software. But based on the unit sales of the GBA and DS hardware and software, and also deleting any operating income associated with the PSP, it's likely the PS2 beat the Gamecube for both hardware and software operating income, and as far as operating income reflects sales minus costs to produce and sell the units, for the sake of this discussion, in total profit.
After you were so good as to give numbers, I hate to engage in guessing like this. But the GBA numbers were so staggering I think it's warranted. It's simply not a correct comparison if you add in profit for a market that Sony isn't even competing it. It would be like Sony adding in profits from TV sales.
That said, and after I've gone this far to point out that the PS2 was probably "more profitable" than the Gamecube, I think you'll be a little surprised by my conclusion. If I were a Nintendo stockholder, I'd be fairly well pleased by the performance of the Gamecube. The thing was very competitive considering it's distant third place finish in units sold. I'm personally surprised to see this, but aside from making me do some guessing about the breakout, I think these numbers are quite compelling. Furthermore, it makes me look at the Wii very differently. I've always assumed, and still do, that the PS3 will sell much better than the Wii in the long run. But I no longer think that's nearly as bad for Nintendo as I have in the past. These guys are proof that even if you lose, you can still win. They've done a superb job of keeping their eyes on what counts to a company, the profit, and I can't help but applaud them for it.
TW
Dude. I've never felt the need to go homebrew on my PSP. Not only was I satisfied with it's stock functionality, but firmware updates on other devices have given me mediocre experiences at best. But this paragraph takes the cake. Why you think anyone would prefer getting a SuperCard, an SD card, an SD writer, open up theier case to bridge a pad on the motherboard and then chase down a NoPass card instead of just finding a PSP with slightly older firmware is beyond me. It's bad enough that you're flashing a ROM, a procedure that's not famously fool-proof, but when you throw in the added risk of destroying your mobo after finding two pieces of specialized hardware, But then you're proclaiming the procedure "easier"? You've got some serious brass balls.
TW
Though there's a small international community, Slashdot is hosted in America and the forums are all in English. So why do people love quoting Japanese DS sales figures so much?
US and European sales figures vs. the PSP are nothing like Japanese sales figures. They're not even close. Depending on the day of the week and who you ask, the local figures are anywhere from the DS winning 2 to 1 to the DS losing by a fair million units or so.
Some Americans' tastes track closely with Japanese tastes, but on a whole Japanese tastes in entertainment are very different than ours. To say the Japanese prefer the DS by a 4 to 1 margin says absolutely nothing about American and European preferences. It's like pointing out that 98% of Japanese prefer chopsticks. It's not going to influence my flatware buying decisions and it certainly isn't going to convince me that chopsticks are superior. It's merely a cultural curiosity.
Of course if you don't know all this, quoting these numbers does accomplish something. Though it's technically the truth, it insinuates that the DS is far more popular than it really is. It doesn't say, but it insinuates that people, in general, prefer the DS by a 4 to 1 margin. It's what I like to call a soft lie. Considering that the people I know who have a DS actually like it, I would think there are much more honest ways of making your point.
TW
If Nintendo sold one Gamecube for $100 and one game for $50, and it cost them only a $1 each to make the game and console, then they'd make a profit of $148. That's an extremely nice profit margin. I think this might have been what you meant by "most profitable," But I'm not too sure how accurate that wording is.
If Sony sold ten PS2s for $100 each and ten games for $50 each, and it cost them $50 each to make the consoles and $25 to make the games, then they'd make a profit of $750. Though this profit margin would be much smaller than Nintendo's, I think this would be the traditional definition of "most profitable."
I'm not trying to find fault with your assessment. Making a great profit margin is a big help if you want to make boatloads of money. But you still have to sell a whole lot of whatever it is you're selling. But Sony and Microsoft are shooting for the big pie. If they make more total profit, then it probably doesn't matter much if the percentage of profit per revenue dollar was small. If they sell enough units, they still take home the crown.
Who knows who'll win this round? Nintendo is off to a nice start with it's clearly more profitable machine. But we're a long way from seeing who will sell the most machines, games, services (in Microsoft's case) and movies (in Sony's case) in the long run. Only then will we see if the initial profitability was the deciding factor.
TW
And I immediately thought LocoRoco. Man, I've been playing it all this time thinking it's the most unique game ever, now all these rolling blob games come out of the woodwork. It's whole freekin' genre!
Oh well, it's still mighty fun.
TW
Just out of curiosity, did you just see the boxes on the shelf or did you know them to be in stock and not selling because of a conversation with the retailer, like the guy you mentioned from EBGames?
I ask this because I saw them on the shelf of the local Toys R Us and they were just empty boxes for display. I'm not saying this is what you saw, just asking.
Thanks,
TW
It's not a strawman, it's an obvious exaggeration for dramatic effect, and even then only the part about the Wii. But I'll cut you some slack because I noticed in your comment that you turned my "generally not wanting PS3s" into "nobody wanted a PS3" thus showing you have a good understanding of the usefulness of exageration.
Some Wii fans have been saying there's a general dislike of the PS3 and they have been saying that the PS3 returns are proof that people generally prefer Wiis to PS3s. I've read several posts stating this directly and the grandparent post clearly alludes to it. There's no numerical justification for this and really no justification at all other than a few anecdotal accounts and the desire for it to be true.
Some Wii fans obviously fall into this fantasy and I was just pointing out how incorrect this thinking is. It's not a strawman argument, it's a direct rebut.
TW
I just finished Black. Great game with one major flaw that I hope they fix in any sequels. Black is the perfect game for mindless target practice. I could spend 30 min or so and then walk away with no problem. EXCEPT that the levels were so very, very long and the game wont let you save unless you complete an entire level. I'd have to leave the machine on and paused to use it for short bursts of gaming. If they let you save anywhere, or at least at checkpoints, it would be great.
a) Nothing in the article suggests people don't like their PS3s. In fact, the article suggests the opposite conclusion. From my reading of the article, scalpers are returning them not because they don't like them, but because they're entrepreneurs who are only interested in the PS3 as an investment and that investment didn't pan out. However, as soon as the boxes get back in the stores, they're being snapped up again as soon as they arrive. Even on eBay, people are still buying them, they're just not paying as much over list price. I don't blame people for not wanting to pay thousands of dollars for a PS3, but people seem quite willing to pay the price marked on the box or a little bit more.
b) I looked at the SmartBuyer link from the article and found the average selling point for Wii's last week was $301. That's about a 20% markup over retail. SmartBuyer is listing an average selling price for PS3s of $788 for the same time period. That's about a $30 percent markup over retail. To be fair, glancing down the numbers it doesn't look like this weeks average will be the same. The Wii is getting more expensive and the PS3 less, but it's a far cry from selling them on eBay for a loss.
The big picture here is that the Wii is in high demand and so is the PS3. Any talk right now of people generally not wanting PS3s or that the whole world wants to switch to Wiis is only coming from folks who let their emotions run wild instead of looking at the facts. Who knows what the future will hold. It's possible there will be Wii in every household by Christmas 2007. But we're not there yet.
TW