This is IT my friend. I don't know where you live but every country seems to have some big IT company that delivers custom software to goverments. Well eventually, sometimes, over budget and riddled with bugs and not doing at all what was promised.
In holland the company is Rocadde or whatever their name is now. They make MS look competent. My first job in IT was porting and old database to a new database build by them. It was a system for a temp agency and they hadn't put an index on the social security number of temps. 2.5 yrs of development and nobody had tested the system with more then 2-3 records in the database. Worse when I started pumping in the old data it was my fault that the system crawled to a halt (inserts of new records taking hours).
Yet this company gets the contract time and time again. Why?
Because nobody has ever been fired for buying "XXXXXX".
Now you need to know the whole reason behind it.
I am your senior manager. You hired company X for a project because I hired company X for a project (that went over time and budget). Your project goes over time and budget. Can I fire you?
Answer: No. If I fire you for hiring company X then the question should arise why I haven't been fired for doing the same especially since I already knew that my senior had hired them and gone over time and budget.
You can't be fired for making the same mistakes as your superiors.
Either that or people are just stupid. Or corrupt. Or both.
Will MS get away with it again and again? Only as long as there are stupid people. Last check suggests there are about 6 billion of them.
What the picture does scream is hardworking father and lazy son who still lives with his parent unemployed and useless.
If this is the image Apple wants then good luck.
Further into the site you get asked the question "Wich mac are you". Hmmm. Well lets expand, wich computer am I? A dell (cheap crap), a powerbook (expensive, tastefull, useless), a mac mini (expensive, underspecced).
None of the above. Me, I am a gray. HAL ain't got nothing on me baby.
Just sell a good product. Don't try to sell me a fucking lifestyle. I swear everytime I am just about to buy a hip product I see that ad and realise that if I am seen with it people think I want to have the image portrayed in the ad. Ewh.
Can't I own a mini mac because it is small, silent and nice without being an useless artsy guy sponging of his dad?
Cause this email sounds a lot like blackmail to me. This is no longer a unsollicited commericial email. This is a direct threath to force you take an action or they will damage you economically.
Last time I heard the FBI doesn't like that kinda thing. Oh and this time no direct mailing companies lawyers will jump in to defend the freedom of speech. This email is simply a blackmail letter. Treat it as such.
Only a kid would think that earning a profit is enough to stay in business.
What you need to do is earn enough to be able to afford to stay in business. For console companies that means making enough to fund research for the next generation.
Has Nintendo done that?
Fact. The Wii is NOT going to compete with the PS3 and 360 on hardware (has anyone mentioned yet that for all the sillyness of the name Wii is has the same 3 letter width and that it fits far better in game sites menu's then Revolution?).
Nintendo says they choose not too. Well fair enough but is it true. Can it be they cannot afford to add the same level of hardware as their competitors?
They are gambling that not enough people will have HDTV to object to the Wii not having HDTV output. This generation that might work. The next?
It don't matter to MS if they turn a profit or not on the console. They will be able to spend billions again and again and again. Sony is less capable but it still was able this time to come up with the money.
No just because it is less powerfull doesn't mean that the Wii is going to loose. It doesn't exactly give it a headstart either. Price may do so BUT if they sell only as many as the gamecube then not only won't they have the money to compete next time BUT 3rd party developers will be even less likely to bother.
Real world economy is more complex then simply selling your console at a profit.
Now granted IGN is huge BUT almost everyone who is serious about games avoids it like the plague. Their reviews are a bit, ehm what is the word, biased? no ah, bought. Yup that is it.
At best this "study" reflects the habits of IGN survey respondants (remember, no survey ever reflects the opinions of those who punch the surveyor) wich is a subsection of the gaming market.
What I find even more telling is that the PC ain't listed. IGN does cover PC gaming and although the 360 looked to be powerfull games like Oblivion show that the PC can still hold its own.
So this study don't matter shit. If anything it proves that console owners are sheeps when it comes to their taste in music. Or rather people who fill in surveys on websites are. Suprise suprise.
You say it is a pest. Well I am sure that real world snipers find it a pest that they got to account for wind, distance, differences in elevation etc etc. Yet do we prefer a game that attempts to simulate these OR do we prefer games were the bullet arrives instantly at the target in a straight line?
The anwer? Depends on the game.
Offcourse the bullet still ain't real and neither are the consequences. Were as spending real cash on speculation in a game can have some real consequences.
Frankly I think this is just a development of the gold farmers. Why lets a 3rd party earn all the money when the developer himself can get it instead.
Time is money. If I am not willing to spend the time in game to earn the virtual cash I can just spend real cash to aquire it instead.
The idea is not revolutionary. What do you think game guides are? Apperently there is a big enough market to actually print books that costs as much as the game to tell you how to safe time. Again, your cash to save your time.
You could ask yourselve why people spend time playing a game where aquiring money is as much as chore as real work but then you could ask that about a lot of peoples hobbies.
Hell billions of people go on holidays to live in conditions they would not tolerate at home. And pay for it!
People are weird and do weird stuff.
What really is the difference between paying for a game to grind gold coins vs grinding in the real world to get cash to buy gold coins vs saving up all year to go sit in a hotel room the size of your bathroom and be surrounded by people speaking foreign when at home you spend all your time trying to get the foreigners out?
We keep hearing that the hardcore gamers are not the core market anymore at least not in Nintendo's eyes. Is this smart?
Given that the Revolution will lauch together with the PS3 after the 360 in what may be considered a crowded market. Crowded? Well yes, if you happen to own either of the handhelds then you might realize that gone are the days of the Gameboy and even the GBA and you know can truly enjoy gaming on these without needing the eyesight of a 10 year old to make out the screen.
That means plenty of competition. Offcourse if you are certain that you could tap a different market then your competition is aiming for then good luck.
But does this market even exist?
I would very much like to know how many gamecube owners own only that console (I thinkt that any person owning more then 1 game platform could be considered harcore).
We all know the DS sells by the bucketload. Hell I overpaid to get a Lite from Lik-sang instead of waiting till the end of the year.
BUT I am a hardcore game. The Revolution intrests me. I used to think that console games were stupid, limited, crippled (PC gamer) and I am right but the GBA thought me that sometimes this can be enjoyable. I no longer always want to play a System Shock or a Baldur's Gate. Well I want too but I can't because there are so few of them and the light bubbly Nintendo games pass the time.
Say the DS sold 10 million units. Just for arguments sake say that an astounding 50% were bought by non-gamers. Girls who loved Nintendogs and Peach Princess (me a sexist pig?). That leaves 50% NON-non-gamers.
Now how many of the non-gamers bought these devices on the advice of gamers?
Who helped these non-gamers setup the wireless access of the DS? Told them in fact that you need a wireless router or access point to use it?
Attempting to reach new markets means running the risk of alienating your existing markets.
What I think may come as a shock to Nintendo is that there is no such thing as a non-gamer who games. Either a person plays games or they do not. The moment you get a non-gamer to game they either turning into a gamer OR a never-again-gamer. The last is harldy a market you want to enlarge.
The name itself is not important. What matters is if this is going to be the entire style of the launch. If all the games are going to be Wii too then I would very much like to congratulate Sony and MS on winning 1st and 2nd prize in this round of the console wars.
IP says very little. Dial-in users (yes they still exist) get a new one every time they dial-in.
I am a little puzzled by his assumption that DSL users get a new ip while cable users have a static one. I had a DSL account with a static ip and a cable with a changable one.
Also if you got a good ISP that doesn't drop your always on connection you won't be changing your IP all that often. Hell even my crap cable provider rarely changed my ip.
So no, for a "large" site you can't really determine unique visitors by ip. That only works for really small sites wich maybe get one visitor per ISP worldwide.
Even if IP was unique that still doesn't account for proxies. I have personally had to explain a couple of times to customers that no user X wasn't reloading the site constantly, that is the proxy for a university.
So my conclusion? Wake up and smell the coffee. Everyone who knows anything about measuring site metrics know that you can't make any claims based on ip's.
His 10:1 claim is just random guessing.
If you absolutly must know then you need to do what newspapers do when they study how many people read their newspaper (and therefore see the ads) vs how many newspapers are sold. Take a wild stab at it and choose the figure you think your are going to get away with.
Quality stuff LASTS! Further more it doesn't really wear. So a studio from 10-20 years ago can still use the majority of its equipment. Hell if you got really old stuff you can even charge more for it. Check rental prices for classic mics.
Anyway those costs are still there.
Music costs can be simple broken down as follows.
Risk/Aquiring new talent. What in other industries would be R&D. The music industry does however have a benefit. If a medicine company tried to threat a researcher the way the music industry treaths new talent you would have a revolt.
COST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE: 0
Producing of the master. You got your talent, now you need to get a song ready for production. This is salary, the cost of studio equipment you mention etc.
COST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE: 0
Advertising. A star has to be made. Commericials, ads, apperances.
COST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE: 0
Production of the sales medium. Now its gets intresting. What would you say the cost difference is between printing a load of CD's vs uploading it to iTunes? Rounded to the nearest million? I don't think the cost of putting a song on iTunes would even register on the bill. That is not even to count that to get the song ready to be distributed to a million people or a thousand doesn't cost anymore as far as iTunes is concerned.
COST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE: INFINITE
Selling. Oops. Now we are talking. Getting the song out in the market and into peoples hands in exchange for cold hard cash. Lets see, CD's got to be packaged, shipped, unpackaged, repackaged for the stores, unpackaged, put in the stores, breakages thrown away wich account according to a recent article for 15/20% of the costs. Then you need to hope you got the distribution right with no store carrying to many and no store carrying to few CD's. Finally you need to deal with returns. Oh and a CD-shop needs to be staffed. Even on monday mornings. Online? Remember that 1 time upload to itunes. Well that won't be breaking, you will always have exactly enough copies for the store. No returns, no breakage, no shortage. Only the cost of bandwidth and server hosting. Not trivial BUT far more controlable with far less loss occurring. Oh and no staff and you can have it open 24/7/365.25 a year.
COST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE: AS CLOSE TO INFINITE AS MAKES NO DIFFERENCE.
So where does that leave us. With a online cost that can easily be higher per song then getting the stuff on a CD.
Something smells fishy. If iTunes was not a huge scam they could be selling the songs for a dime and would still be rolling in it. Granted you would then have to charge people the cost of the credit card transaction but perhaps this would finally spur those micro payments we have been hearing about.
The music industry is too greedy to realize one simple thing. Sell for as low as possible to gain as many sales as possible.
The dutch owner of Freerecordshop has wanted to install a system in his stores where you could order any song from a central database and have it burned to CD or uploaded to your mp3 player. He has been turned down time and time again. The benefits are obvious. An infinite catalog with no stocking issues. It is money in the bank but the music industry just can't get their heads around it.
Where is the fat. Mmmm, well you bring us 1 tail of a contest. Lets assume it is real for a second and lets assume that the C/C++ team was competent.
It don't sound like they were but still.
Let me know point you to some of the most demanding applications in existence that push hardware to its limits.
Yes, games.
Now how many of the BIG titles that have your CPU and GPU groaning and gobble memory like it is candy are written in C/C++ vs Java?
This is as fair as your story for showing wich is the superior language.
The fucking fact is that it don't matter shit. I bet you could do the application you describe in perl as long as the person doing it is competent.
For fun, look up code that checks wether an IP has a valid format. You get the weirdest examples. Some look really cumbersome but would translate to fast code while some of the smallest regex would choke you cpu like a java GUI (Sorry had to get a java jab in to keep my cool license)
Frankly I think the fat is for a large part still there from the days of java applets that you got on your pentium with 32mb that took ages to load and then crash.
Funny thing, you still get those. They still take ages to load and then crash.
Java applets are offcourse not server side java BUT most people don't care. Reputation matters sadly enough.
Don't expect sympathy however as long as every java programmer says PHP don't scale. We all got our prejudices.
He talks about the problems of deploying java on linux and the first link you give belongs to microsoft? Ewh.
So yeah I can download it. And? He doesn't say it is hard to download. It is hard to deploy. Meaning download AND install AND configure AND get it running without problems etc etc.
Your second point is so obviously written by a child I won't even comment.
Just that memory ain't cheap. The whole java == memory hog is more related to the GUI java programs then server programs but that doesn't mean memory is cheap. It is in fact very very expensive. Not just in price per gigabyte but also because a program that need 2x the ram probabaly also expect the CPU to do a lot more reading and writing to that ram.
It is not the same. The PSP is OFF while the DS remains on. Consuming less power to be sure but still draining the battery. The really big difference? If power fails because of an empty battery the PSP can resume where it left off as if nothing has happened. The DS loses its progress.
As for speed of writing and reading. No competition. Nintendo has chosen not to have onboard save. That no doubt saves them money meaning that Nintendo makes a profit on a cheaper console but now the save file has to be in the game catridge and it is not going to be top of the line because of again the cost issue.
AC:WW takes about 30 secs to load and 30 secs to save. Since I love the DS lite for its ease of use in those lost 5 minutes that is a bit too long. The PSP is a bit to large to carry in my pocket but it allows me to play faster and quit faster.
DS is a good console but I wish they had spend just a few more bucks on it. On the other hand, I wish the PSP had a touchscreen. No pleasing me I guess.
There are two points the taxman could become intrested. The first is when you convert you ingame assets to real world assets. That would be counted exactly
the same as normal income and for all the correct reasons. The amount to be taxed is the amount you gained in real world assets totally unrelated to the game value. If you pay me a million to mine 1 piece of gold in EQ2 then I would be taxed for 1 million. If I deliver you the holy armor of gnolls for 1 dollar then I would be taxed on 1 dollar regardless of the fact it costs a gazillion gold pieces in game.
To avoid this, simply do not convert your in game assets to real cash.
But what if so many people do it that the taxman decides to attribute a value to ingame assets. What if the taxman would say that a gold piece in game has value.
Well then it is very very easy. Just pay the taxman in goldpieces. IF they are supposed to have a realworld value then you should be able to pay in them.
I think it would open up a can of worms if they would set a virtual to real exchange rate that could not be easily matched. I am not certain how the american tax system works but for instance the value of land is usually not an absolute. It greatly depends on what it is worth on the market and not some fictional market you use to brag about your wealth but what cold hard cash you can get for it today.
It would truly be a nightmare to setup. The goverment would have to constantly check what the real value is of cash in dozens of games. Not to mention that most games have an inflation that makes african countries look well adjusted.
It could happen in theory but I think that the taxman has better things to do. The only people who need to worry is those who make money off their in game wealth. The taxman taxing the money you receive. Wow, what a concept!
DS for the fun cartoony games that are nice to play but have you wondering how you can turn speech and FMV and other modern niceties on. Oh some of the games are fun BUT only on the go. In my house I keep missing all the stuff they added to games since the 386 days.
The PSP on the other astounds graphically. Very nice indeed. GTA Vice City is amazing that that can be played in your hand. Pity the hardware is so cheap (pixel problems), the interface is kinda bad (the joystick just isn't a joystick) and a lot of the games are boring and not really handheld games.
Then again, the PSP has one mobile advantage over the DS. Safe anywhere. Just briefly switch off the power and resume where you left off when you power back on.
Compared with Nintendo Animal Crossing slow slow save it shows that Nintendo can still learn a thing or two.
frankly the way things are going at the moment? I think we are going to see a repeat of the last generation. PS3 will still be the big console BUT Sony will still barely make any money of it. MS will still subsidize its losses through losses and Nintendo will survive because of the handheld and be the smallest player yet be the only one to actually turn a clear profit on their consoles.
The only thing that could change it is if the Revolution launches with a killer title. So far I am not aware of one being announced.
I sorta like those Discovery and National Geographic programs that explore things from the past. Like the recent Judas Gospel. Fascinating stuff.
What I however find most amusing are on the one hand the leaps of faith were assumption after assumption is made only to then conclude the end result to be fact. In this case it is assumed the document was found in a certain part of egypt. They then use the fact that the document is in a certain style/era to then claim that because they found another cave with artifacts in that style/era that it could very well be the cave.
WTF? First off, just because the document was from an era/style DOES NOT mean it has to have spend all the time in a cave of the era/style. It could have been picked up before an buried somewhere else. Second of all just because some cave contains stuff from the same era that does not mean that the object must have come from that region.
Oh look. A pair of mickey mouse ears. They must have come from florida!
Eh? No? They could have come not only from one of the other disney parks but they in fact never have come from a park at all.
Then there is the other side. The entire program is about how there are more gospels then there are known today. It is shown that a mere human decided wich gospels would be included in the new testament.
It is even clearly shown that very simple political and marketting reasons lay behind the choice.
So then what do people think about the Judas gospel. Well it is funny but the "real" gospels are somehow still more real and have something holy about them.
WTF? Just goes to show that facts and believes have nothing to do with each other.
But I suppose that if you have to answer the question why and how did the egyptians build the pyramids the answer "bored, lots and lots of people with no tv to watch" just doesn't cut it. Better to get some fantasy going. Star people! Yeah, never mind that amazing as the pyramids are they seem kinda primitive for a star faring civilization.
I just go with the old prove for the fact that we have been visited by intelligent aliens in the past. They ain't been back. Smart move.
Hot coffee, Whiskey, whipped cream a little decor maybe some cocao powder or those large sugar crystals and you got yourselve an a-bomb in the war of the sexes.
After all a martini is so obvious but this is safe. After all coffee sobers you up right? And the strong taste of the coffee makes it very easy to increase the amount of alcohol so the drink can easily be a tripple scotch. If that doesn't get her hot and bothered nothing will. Well nothing legal anyway.
Volleyball. Geez. What kind of twisted mind wants to see that.
Now Beach volleyball. That would be good. Two on Two action between bouncing eh balls. Yeah it is all about the ball.
Oh and it does seem to be in there. Wonder if there is going to be a nude patch. What do you mean real girls don't come with a nude patch. What are real girls?
Nope and in america owning a southern flag ain't illegal, if you are however on trail for hanging a nigger, eh fellow black human being, then it can be used to demonstrate motive. Or something. Ask a lawyer.
MS used to go to this event that promotes interoperability. Then it stopped. EXACTLY at the moment MS started to think it could make a mono-culture with its operating system. "Your honor, goes to show intent". Watch law and order sometime for the precise term.
The only difference between Apple and MS/Bill Gates and Steve Jobs is cash. If history had run differently and it had been Apple that gotten to be the giant then there really wouldn't be that much change.
The only saving grace for Apple/Steve Jobs is that even if he (if given the chance) would do exactly the same as MS/Bill Gates is that he can't and just by being there puts a tiny brake on the MS Juggernaut.
But make no mistake. If positions were reversed in terms of sales then MS would be just as an important a brake. Perhaps even more important.
Think about this. How many of you believe that is the media part of Sony that has been crippling the company by insisting on DRM that hardware consumers don't want?
Right, so now exactly how do you think Steve "Disney" Jobs would be on the subject of DRM if he had MS like control off the desktop.
A lot of people argue that iTunes limited DRM was the maximum he could get away with in his negotiotations with the record labels. This is true. The records labels are insane and would have chosen DRM that would be unaccaptable to the consumer.
Steve Jobs isn't insane but I am convinced that the Limited DRM for iTunes is also what he thinks is the maximum he could get away with.
Put more simply, I don't he was trying to get the least drm. I think he was trying to get the maximum DRM he could get consumers to swallow and then convince the record labels (who wanted even more) that it was this or nothing.
If you look at other parts of Apples business practices you really don't get the idea they are the mythical good guy. There support sucks, their warrenties got more loopholes then US wiretapping laws and they are as sue happy as the RIAA.
Just that Apple is for now to small to really make an impact. Doesn't mean that they don't want too.
So I am not at all suprised that Apple sounds exactly the same when it comes to dealing with flaws in their products wich leave their customers vulnerable.
Business as usual. Everybody does it. Only opensource can afford to say "oops, yeah that is a HUGE risk we are going to patch it right now so every single one of our users needs to get of their ass now".
Opensource does indeed patch much faster BUT it is a lot more work and worry for the user.
What sells better. You car manufacturer pulling you over with flashing lights to impound your car to have your brakes fixed OR having it quietly fixed when you next bring it in for service. WRONG. Don't fix it all, just settle with the dozen or so families of the person killed in the crash. That is good business.
Slashdot Mirror
Wii had to be explained. Worse the explenation is one of new age crap about i and i coming together and taking a piss or something.
The name on its own I can live with. It is the whole "meaning" thing that gets up my nose.
In holland the company is Rocadde or whatever their name is now. They make MS look competent. My first job in IT was porting and old database to a new database build by them. It was a system for a temp agency and they hadn't put an index on the social security number of temps. 2.5 yrs of development and nobody had tested the system with more then 2-3 records in the database. Worse when I started pumping in the old data it was my fault that the system crawled to a halt (inserts of new records taking hours).
Yet this company gets the contract time and time again. Why?
Because nobody has ever been fired for buying "XXXXXX".
Now you need to know the whole reason behind it.
I am your senior manager. You hired company X for a project because I hired company X for a project (that went over time and budget). Your project goes over time and budget. Can I fire you?
Answer: No. If I fire you for hiring company X then the question should arise why I haven't been fired for doing the same especially since I already knew that my senior had hired them and gone over time and budget.
You can't be fired for making the same mistakes as your superiors.
Either that or people are just stupid. Or corrupt. Or both.
Will MS get away with it again and again? Only as long as there are stupid people. Last check suggests there are about 6 billion of them.
What the picture does scream is hardworking father and lazy son who still lives with his parent unemployed and useless.
If this is the image Apple wants then good luck.
Further into the site you get asked the question "Wich mac are you". Hmmm. Well lets expand, wich computer am I? A dell (cheap crap), a powerbook (expensive, tastefull, useless), a mac mini (expensive, underspecced).
None of the above. Me, I am a gray. HAL ain't got nothing on me baby.
Just sell a good product. Don't try to sell me a fucking lifestyle. I swear everytime I am just about to buy a hip product I see that ad and realise that if I am seen with it people think I want to have the image portrayed in the ad. Ewh.
Can't I own a mini mac because it is small, silent and nice without being an useless artsy guy sponging of his dad?
Last time I heard the FBI doesn't like that kinda thing. Oh and this time no direct mailing companies lawyers will jump in to defend the freedom of speech. This email is simply a blackmail letter. Treat it as such.
What you need to do is earn enough to be able to afford to stay in business. For console companies that means making enough to fund research for the next generation.
Has Nintendo done that?
Fact. The Wii is NOT going to compete with the PS3 and 360 on hardware (has anyone mentioned yet that for all the sillyness of the name Wii is has the same 3 letter width and that it fits far better in game sites menu's then Revolution?).
Nintendo says they choose not too. Well fair enough but is it true. Can it be they cannot afford to add the same level of hardware as their competitors?
They are gambling that not enough people will have HDTV to object to the Wii not having HDTV output. This generation that might work. The next?
It don't matter to MS if they turn a profit or not on the console. They will be able to spend billions again and again and again. Sony is less capable but it still was able this time to come up with the money.
No just because it is less powerfull doesn't mean that the Wii is going to loose. It doesn't exactly give it a headstart either. Price may do so BUT if they sell only as many as the gamecube then not only won't they have the money to compete next time BUT 3rd party developers will be even less likely to bother.
Real world economy is more complex then simply selling your console at a profit.
I think when I see a certain crowd prefers Nirvana that they are old farts
I think when I see a person who thinks people that like Nirvana count as old I am talking to a kid of about 10. Am I right?
He just got the first version. The sad bit is that it probably got more memory then any of the next-gen consoles. Life is weird.
At best this "study" reflects the habits of IGN survey respondants (remember, no survey ever reflects the opinions of those who punch the surveyor) wich is a subsection of the gaming market.
What I find even more telling is that the PC ain't listed. IGN does cover PC gaming and although the 360 looked to be powerfull games like Oblivion show that the PC can still hold its own.
So this study don't matter shit. If anything it proves that console owners are sheeps when it comes to their taste in music. Or rather people who fill in surveys on websites are. Suprise suprise.
You say it is a pest. Well I am sure that real world snipers find it a pest that they got to account for wind, distance, differences in elevation etc etc. Yet do we prefer a game that attempts to simulate these OR do we prefer games were the bullet arrives instantly at the target in a straight line?
The anwer? Depends on the game.
Offcourse the bullet still ain't real and neither are the consequences. Were as spending real cash on speculation in a game can have some real consequences.
Frankly I think this is just a development of the gold farmers. Why lets a 3rd party earn all the money when the developer himself can get it instead.
Time is money. If I am not willing to spend the time in game to earn the virtual cash I can just spend real cash to aquire it instead.
The idea is not revolutionary. What do you think game guides are? Apperently there is a big enough market to actually print books that costs as much as the game to tell you how to safe time. Again, your cash to save your time.
You could ask yourselve why people spend time playing a game where aquiring money is as much as chore as real work but then you could ask that about a lot of peoples hobbies.
Hell billions of people go on holidays to live in conditions they would not tolerate at home. And pay for it!
People are weird and do weird stuff.
What really is the difference between paying for a game to grind gold coins vs grinding in the real world to get cash to buy gold coins vs saving up all year to go sit in a hotel room the size of your bathroom and be surrounded by people speaking foreign when at home you spend all your time trying to get the foreigners out?
Given that the Revolution will lauch together with the PS3 after the 360 in what may be considered a crowded market. Crowded? Well yes, if you happen to own either of the handhelds then you might realize that gone are the days of the Gameboy and even the GBA and you know can truly enjoy gaming on these without needing the eyesight of a 10 year old to make out the screen.
That means plenty of competition. Offcourse if you are certain that you could tap a different market then your competition is aiming for then good luck.
But does this market even exist?
I would very much like to know how many gamecube owners own only that console (I thinkt that any person owning more then 1 game platform could be considered harcore).
We all know the DS sells by the bucketload. Hell I overpaid to get a Lite from Lik-sang instead of waiting till the end of the year.
BUT I am a hardcore game. The Revolution intrests me. I used to think that console games were stupid, limited, crippled (PC gamer) and I am right but the GBA thought me that sometimes this can be enjoyable. I no longer always want to play a System Shock or a Baldur's Gate. Well I want too but I can't because there are so few of them and the light bubbly Nintendo games pass the time.
Say the DS sold 10 million units. Just for arguments sake say that an astounding 50% were bought by non-gamers. Girls who loved Nintendogs and Peach Princess (me a sexist pig?). That leaves 50% NON-non-gamers.
Now how many of the non-gamers bought these devices on the advice of gamers?
Who helped these non-gamers setup the wireless access of the DS? Told them in fact that you need a wireless router or access point to use it?
Attempting to reach new markets means running the risk of alienating your existing markets.
What I think may come as a shock to Nintendo is that there is no such thing as a non-gamer who games. Either a person plays games or they do not. The moment you get a non-gamer to game they either turning into a gamer OR a never-again-gamer. The last is harldy a market you want to enlarge.
The name itself is not important. What matters is if this is going to be the entire style of the launch. If all the games are going to be Wii too then I would very much like to congratulate Sony and MS on winning 1st and 2nd prize in this round of the console wars.
I am a little puzzled by his assumption that DSL users get a new ip while cable users have a static one. I had a DSL account with a static ip and a cable with a changable one.
Also if you got a good ISP that doesn't drop your always on connection you won't be changing your IP all that often. Hell even my crap cable provider rarely changed my ip.
So no, for a "large" site you can't really determine unique visitors by ip. That only works for really small sites wich maybe get one visitor per ISP worldwide.
Even if IP was unique that still doesn't account for proxies. I have personally had to explain a couple of times to customers that no user X wasn't reloading the site constantly, that is the proxy for a university.
So my conclusion? Wake up and smell the coffee. Everyone who knows anything about measuring site metrics know that you can't make any claims based on ip's.
His 10:1 claim is just random guessing.
If you absolutly must know then you need to do what newspapers do when they study how many people read their newspaper (and therefore see the ads) vs how many newspapers are sold. Take a wild stab at it and choose the figure you think your are going to get away with.
Anyway those costs are still there.
Music costs can be simple broken down as follows.
COST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE: 0
COST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE: 0
COST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE: 0
COST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE: INFINITE
COST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OFFLINE AND ONLINE: AS CLOSE TO INFINITE AS MAKES NO DIFFERENCE.
So where does that leave us. With a online cost that can easily be higher per song then getting the stuff on a CD.
Something smells fishy. If iTunes was not a huge scam they could be selling the songs for a dime and would still be rolling in it. Granted you would then have to charge people the cost of the credit card transaction but perhaps this would finally spur those micro payments we have been hearing about.
The music industry is too greedy to realize one simple thing. Sell for as low as possible to gain as many sales as possible.
The dutch owner of Freerecordshop has wanted to install a system in his stores where you could order any song from a central database and have it burned to CD or uploaded to your mp3 player. He has been turned down time and time again. The benefits are obvious. An infinite catalog with no stocking issues. It is money in the bank but the music industry just can't get their heads around it.
It don't sound like they were but still.
Let me know point you to some of the most demanding applications in existence that push hardware to its limits.
Yes, games.
Now how many of the BIG titles that have your CPU and GPU groaning and gobble memory like it is candy are written in C/C++ vs Java?
This is as fair as your story for showing wich is the superior language.
The fucking fact is that it don't matter shit. I bet you could do the application you describe in perl as long as the person doing it is competent.
For fun, look up code that checks wether an IP has a valid format. You get the weirdest examples. Some look really cumbersome but would translate to fast code while some of the smallest regex would choke you cpu like a java GUI (Sorry had to get a java jab in to keep my cool license)
Frankly I think the fat is for a large part still there from the days of java applets that you got on your pentium with 32mb that took ages to load and then crash.
Funny thing, you still get those. They still take ages to load and then crash.
Java applets are offcourse not server side java BUT most people don't care. Reputation matters sadly enough.
Don't expect sympathy however as long as every java programmer says PHP don't scale. We all got our prejudices.
So yeah I can download it. And? He doesn't say it is hard to download. It is hard to deploy. Meaning download AND install AND configure AND get it running without problems etc etc.
Your second point is so obviously written by a child I won't even comment.
Just that memory ain't cheap. The whole java == memory hog is more related to the GUI java programs then server programs but that doesn't mean memory is cheap. It is in fact very very expensive. Not just in price per gigabyte but also because a program that need 2x the ram probabaly also expect the CPU to do a lot more reading and writing to that ram.
As for speed of writing and reading. No competition. Nintendo has chosen not to have onboard save. That no doubt saves them money meaning that Nintendo makes a profit on a cheaper console but now the save file has to be in the game catridge and it is not going to be top of the line because of again the cost issue.
AC:WW takes about 30 secs to load and 30 secs to save. Since I love the DS lite for its ease of use in those lost 5 minutes that is a bit too long. The PSP is a bit to large to carry in my pocket but it allows me to play faster and quit faster.
DS is a good console but I wish they had spend just a few more bucks on it. On the other hand, I wish the PSP had a touchscreen. No pleasing me I guess.
It is what you get when your beer gut extends so far you laptop now rest on it instead of your lap. It is an american thing.
To avoid this, simply do not convert your in game assets to real cash.
But what if so many people do it that the taxman decides to attribute a value to ingame assets. What if the taxman would say that a gold piece in game has value.
Well then it is very very easy. Just pay the taxman in goldpieces. IF they are supposed to have a realworld value then you should be able to pay in them.
I think it would open up a can of worms if they would set a virtual to real exchange rate that could not be easily matched. I am not certain how the american tax system works but for instance the value of land is usually not an absolute. It greatly depends on what it is worth on the market and not some fictional market you use to brag about your wealth but what cold hard cash you can get for it today.
It would truly be a nightmare to setup. The goverment would have to constantly check what the real value is of cash in dozens of games. Not to mention that most games have an inflation that makes african countries look well adjusted.
It could happen in theory but I think that the taxman has better things to do. The only people who need to worry is those who make money off their in game wealth. The taxman taxing the money you receive. Wow, what a concept!
The PSP on the other astounds graphically. Very nice indeed. GTA Vice City is amazing that that can be played in your hand. Pity the hardware is so cheap (pixel problems), the interface is kinda bad (the joystick just isn't a joystick) and a lot of the games are boring and not really handheld games.
Then again, the PSP has one mobile advantage over the DS. Safe anywhere. Just briefly switch off the power and resume where you left off when you power back on.
Compared with Nintendo Animal Crossing slow slow save it shows that Nintendo can still learn a thing or two.
frankly the way things are going at the moment? I think we are going to see a repeat of the last generation. PS3 will still be the big console BUT Sony will still barely make any money of it. MS will still subsidize its losses through losses and Nintendo will survive because of the handheld and be the smallest player yet be the only one to actually turn a clear profit on their consoles.
The only thing that could change it is if the Revolution launches with a killer title. So far I am not aware of one being announced.
What I however find most amusing are on the one hand the leaps of faith were assumption after assumption is made only to then conclude the end result to be fact. In this case it is assumed the document was found in a certain part of egypt. They then use the fact that the document is in a certain style/era to then claim that because they found another cave with artifacts in that style/era that it could very well be the cave.
WTF? First off, just because the document was from an era/style DOES NOT mean it has to have spend all the time in a cave of the era/style. It could have been picked up before an buried somewhere else. Second of all just because some cave contains stuff from the same era that does not mean that the object must have come from that region.
Oh look. A pair of mickey mouse ears. They must have come from florida!
Eh? No? They could have come not only from one of the other disney parks but they in fact never have come from a park at all.
Then there is the other side. The entire program is about how there are more gospels then there are known today. It is shown that a mere human decided wich gospels would be included in the new testament.
It is even clearly shown that very simple political and marketting reasons lay behind the choice.
So then what do people think about the Judas gospel. Well it is funny but the "real" gospels are somehow still more real and have something holy about them.
WTF? Just goes to show that facts and believes have nothing to do with each other.
But I suppose that if you have to answer the question why and how did the egyptians build the pyramids the answer "bored, lots and lots of people with no tv to watch" just doesn't cut it. Better to get some fantasy going. Star people! Yeah, never mind that amazing as the pyramids are they seem kinda primitive for a star faring civilization.
I just go with the old prove for the fact that we have been visited by intelligent aliens in the past. They ain't been back. Smart move.
After all a martini is so obvious but this is safe. After all coffee sobers you up right? And the strong taste of the coffee makes it very easy to increase the amount of alcohol so the drink can easily be a tripple scotch. If that doesn't get her hot and bothered nothing will. Well nothing legal anyway.
Now Beach volleyball. That would be good. Two on Two action between bouncing eh balls. Yeah it is all about the ball.
Oh and it does seem to be in there. Wonder if there is going to be a nude patch. What do you mean real girls don't come with a nude patch. What are real girls?
MS used to go to this event that promotes interoperability. Then it stopped. EXACTLY at the moment MS started to think it could make a mono-culture with its operating system. "Your honor, goes to show intent". Watch law and order sometime for the precise term.
The only saving grace for Apple/Steve Jobs is that even if he (if given the chance) would do exactly the same as MS/Bill Gates is that he can't and just by being there puts a tiny brake on the MS Juggernaut.
But make no mistake. If positions were reversed in terms of sales then MS would be just as an important a brake. Perhaps even more important.
Think about this. How many of you believe that is the media part of Sony that has been crippling the company by insisting on DRM that hardware consumers don't want?
Right, so now exactly how do you think Steve "Disney" Jobs would be on the subject of DRM if he had MS like control off the desktop.
A lot of people argue that iTunes limited DRM was the maximum he could get away with in his negotiotations with the record labels. This is true. The records labels are insane and would have chosen DRM that would be unaccaptable to the consumer.
Steve Jobs isn't insane but I am convinced that the Limited DRM for iTunes is also what he thinks is the maximum he could get away with.
Put more simply, I don't he was trying to get the least drm. I think he was trying to get the maximum DRM he could get consumers to swallow and then convince the record labels (who wanted even more) that it was this or nothing.
If you look at other parts of Apples business practices you really don't get the idea they are the mythical good guy. There support sucks, their warrenties got more loopholes then US wiretapping laws and they are as sue happy as the RIAA.
Just that Apple is for now to small to really make an impact. Doesn't mean that they don't want too.
So I am not at all suprised that Apple sounds exactly the same when it comes to dealing with flaws in their products wich leave their customers vulnerable.
Business as usual. Everybody does it. Only opensource can afford to say "oops, yeah that is a HUGE risk we are going to patch it right now so every single one of our users needs to get of their ass now".
Opensource does indeed patch much faster BUT it is a lot more work and worry for the user.
What sells better. You car manufacturer pulling you over with flashing lights to impound your car to have your brakes fixed OR having it quietly fixed when you next bring it in for service. WRONG. Don't fix it all, just settle with the dozen or so families of the person killed in the crash. That is good business.
Now you only get steam above 100 degrees celcius. Meaning you chip must be literally cooking before this effect sets in.
A bit too late perhaps?
Well offcourse you could use liqueds with lower boiling temps but then it wouldn't be water flowing up hill anymore now would it.
Nice idea but I think I just use a pump rather then waiting for the cooling to set in only after my cpu is glowing red.
In unreal tournament. HEADSHOT!!!