I've been playing games for fun since 1985 also (I can still remember opening the NES at Christmas). I'm currently the proud owner of both a Gamecube and PS2. But that's not to say I'm immune to marketing hype, I just take a cynnical look at it.
Console manufacturers don't just make a system and hope the games will pull them through. They have to create an identity for the system, and then market it to get people interested. Sony and Microsoft both went with the overpowered (read some of the released specs & benchmarks) daunding black-box approach. Nintendo's specs & benchmarks were practically non-existant, and it's console looks like a toy. It's clear that they were marketing toward different audiences, but I can't say how much pull that has on consumers.
Sadly, I believe you're right.... Nintendo needs to market itself differently, or go in another direction all together. Either Nintendo needs to try to attract the more "mature" games (a.k.a. GTA, Silent Hill, Halo) to grab that 18-24 male gaming demographic by the short-hairs, or they need to start appealing to girl gamers and develop a new very loyal fanbase out of them.
There's something macho about the PS2 and the X-Box... both are daunting black boxes with sharp edges and the density of a brick. The PS2 controller is a nightmare for beginners, with 12 buttons and 3 directional mechanisms to master, and the x-box controller was just big and daunting. Everything about them is marketed as being macho, meaty, substansive, qantitative.
The Gamecube relies on smooth lines for its design, is light as a feather, and even has a "cute" carying handle. The controller is simple (when in doubt, hit the big obvious button), the games and the packaging are more colorful and less "gritty." The gamecube is the more stereotypically feminine console. It's experiental, qualitative.
So, Nintendo can follow both the PS2 and the X-Box, which, though not necessarily lacking in feminine games, market themselves as very masculine systems, or it can go the more feminine route and try to attract non-gamer girls to the market and make a fan base out of them.
After all, if you can get the neglected 52% of the market to all like your system, then you win.:)
SCO OWNZ EVERYTHING LOLOLOLOL THE X-BOX CONTROLLER IS HUGE!!!!!
Seriously, this is becoming the "take my wife, please" of Slashdot. Or possibly Slashdot's own "It's a trap" a la SA. It's a dead horse. Stop flogging it.
Re:Freedom of Speech anymore?
on
Linking Dangerously
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Whew! Calm down! Maybe I'm getting too old but I feel I should administer a minor reality check here.
First, I agree. Restrictions on his joining groups devoted to changing any part of government is a total crock and shouldn't be in there. That's knee-jerk reactionary and, considering this man's cooperation with the police, totally unnecessary. His taking a plea-bargain shows that he is a reasonable person with serious grievances, not a psychopath who just likes to blow stuff up.
But, you have to understand that he wasn't arrested for disseminating information. He was arrested because he was trying to incite a violent revolt. There's a fine line... You can tell someone how to make a bomb, as long as it's purely for non-violent pursuits. But, as soon as you package it along with anti-anybody messages and promote violence, you've become an instigator and an enabler, which are both very serious charges. The first ammendment gurantees us the right to "peacably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances." Listen to the wording. The framers of the constitutuion definitely intended for the ever-evolving government to be an intellectual and continuing revolution. Somehwere, the American public dropped the ball, though, and we forgot the fact that we have any say.
Since you're a high-school kid, which probably puts you left of center, you've probably read at least something about Michael Moore. If you can cheaply get a copy of Stupid White Men, read about the section where he became school superintendent (or something similar) while still in high school. You can make change in government at the local level with little effort. Just get your friends to vote for you. That's how you peacably redress grievences. Or you could march on Washington. At any rate, telling people that they need to use violent force is out of the question.
... or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The Constitution grants us the right to peaceably assemble and petition the government. Every American has the right to free speech, but not in certain circumstances. You can't slander a person (which is to make deliberately false statements about someone for the purpose of hurting their reputation), and we accept that limitation just fine.
We have to learn to come to terms with the 'clear and present danger' limitation, too. When speech is specifically used to incite violence, the government has legal cause to arrest the speaker. For example, a Vietnam protester who organizes a march and gives a speech is protected under the first ammendment. But a pro-lifer who organizes a march and gives a speech which could directly result in the death of an abortion doctor is liable for his/her speech.
As with all ammendments, you're granted them on a probationary basis, and they are revoked or voided when they will infringe on the rights of another person. Ask a convicted felon, they'll tell you for sure that if you violate another persons' rights, you forfeit your own.
I don't know... Sony's delivered on promisses in the past. Both the PSX and the PS2 changed the gaming scene completley (for better or worse). I doubt this game will live up to the hype, but I don't think that anyone would believe in a Halo killer except for Halo 2 or Doom 3. Hopefully, it'll be a decent game, worth picking up off the used rack a few months after release.:)
It's been a long long while since a new artist came out that was actually talented.
Wrong.
Good bands like Jimmy Eats World and Weezer barely get played, drowned out by Brittany Spears and J.Lo.
I'm glad I managed to retroactively convince you.
Disorganized thoughts aside (after all, we all make mistakes in our posts... I'm sure there's a couple dozen in this on), you've hit the nail on the head. There are talented bands out there, and they're even being released into the mainstream.... but they're not Teen Pop Sensations, so you don't hear them on the radio. I've been getting into Weezer recently, and I plan to buy the stuff I downloaded (I'll get to it eventually, that is,... if I can find it).
Turn on MTV and watch for about an hour. Keep track with a pencil and paper, count how many of these pop artists actually play an instrument.
That would always be ZERO. MTV stopped showing videos a few years ago, but it all on M2. If you watch MTV for an hour you're likely to catch a Road Rules marathon or Osbournes marathon. What I don't get is, if they have all this time on a Sunday afternoon that they have to fill it with an Osbournes marathon, why the hell can't they show a couple of random music videos?
For an artist who's really making some interesting music (though I'm sure it's not for everybody) check out Yuki Kajiura's album Fiction, which was released in the US recently. Yuki Kajiura is responsible for the.hack//sign and Noir soundtracks, so it's good mellow stuff that's probably not affiliated with RIAA.
Exactly! $4 pirated CD's are no justification for reducing cd prices!
The recent class-action lawsuit against the music industry that found them guilty of price-fixing does.
The fact that an artist has to sell a million copies just to break even shows that the industry has gone to levels of gluttony that shouldn't be supported by our dollars.
And if you think the record industry is justified in taking that much for its operating expenses, hop over to The Onion, pick up a copy of The Tennacity of a Cockroach, and read the interview with Aimee Mann, an artist and industry insider who's one hell of a straight-shooter.
This sounds like when The Wiz shut down up by me. My friends and I went there to see if they had any cheap, old games, and I wanted to get some earphones. Earphones (in-ear buds, the cheapes they had) were "marked down" to $25, and I couldn't find a single N64 game under $40. I'm talking stuff that must've fallen behind a desk and been found years later as they were cleaning out. Superman was $40.
There's a certain equilibrium in economics. As you jack up the price, it decreases volume. As you reduce the price, it increases volum. the trick is to find the right balance between volume and price that will maximize sales. This is (very) conservative economic theory... so why are all these placed just jacking up prices until they sink?
"Of Montreal" is a great indie band that has an old-style feel to them. Their music is kinda like (IMHO) very old Pink Floyd (i.e., See Emily Play), but my DJ friend will fight me tooth-and-nail on it. It's definitely and old-style sound, but it's new stuff, not rehashed oldies. And, Bonus, their albums are usually around the $10 mark, so trying them out won't break the bank.
The FBI (or rather, the Secret Service, who's really in charge of enforcing copyrights and often works wirth RIAA on raids & stings) isn't raiding Chinatown because that's a complicated issue, and the last thing RIAA wants is for things to get complicated.
See, bootleg CD's aren't all that big here, so it's not as much of a market-threat. In China, Singapore, Taiwan, S. Korea, and other Asian marketplaces, it's dominant. It's hard to justify a chinatown raid when the actual crime is happening in china.
And regarding why RIAA won't "show me" these statistics about decreases in production, it's because that's too much for simple middle-america folk to think about. Mom & Pop Smallville can't handle statistics, but they sure do understand a villain and breaking the law.
What I don't get is, if CD sales are down 16% (I think the article said) and CD production is down 25%, doesn't that mean that per CD, sales are up? With your releases down 25%, shouldn't your total expendatures be down as well, and with the incresed sales/release, profits should be increasing. If the RIAA's members are hemoraging money, it can only be due to internal incompetence and waste.
The thing is that, we're willing to pay for it to a point. At RCNJ, we pay a $100 per-semester internet access fee, which breaks down to about $25 per month. Heap an entertainment fee on top of that, and then fees for any online subscription service we want, and that really really starts to add up.
It's worse for friends with cable modems. It's a kick in the face for them when RIAA complains about people getting their music for "free" when they have to pay $30-$40 per month for internet access. Even at highly inflated prices, that should entitle them to at least 2 albums a month.
Maybe I'd be willing to sign on for an online pay-subscription service, if I weren't already paying for the access. To me, it seems like a double-charge, and that's just not right. A 100% markup (after all costs are totaled) is enough to keep any buisness going happily. There is no way that running the internet service at this school costs $100 per semester*5500 students/2 ($275,000 per semester).
Feel free to mod me down for being off topic, but I have to defend myself here.
I'm not just a member, I'm the president.:) The Ramapo College Sci-Fi Club is around 50 members strong, making it the largest club on campus. We hold 5 meetings per week (anime viewing, tv viewing, movie viewing, and 2 role-playing sessions) as well as at least 3 events per month and 1 community service event each month. This past year we won an award for outstanding community service achievments. Our members typically have (a) larger circles of friends due to the club, and (b) higher GPA's due to the support of those friends than other Ramapo College students.
So, uh... yeah... we're real winners, thanks for noticing.:)
macrovision doesn't affect audio, to my knowledge, but as the reciever starts to lose video signal completely, it tends to cut the audio too. Quite a hassle.
(1) RealONE tries really really really hard to eat your system alive. (i.e., it tries to take over all RSTP streams, become the default plugin for every media file type, and become the default player for every media file type)
(2) If you leave it open in your system tray, it reports your actions to RealNetworks.
(3) After every file played (online or offline) it contacts RealNetworks to tell them what you just watched/listened to. If you have ZoneAlarm, you can usually prevent it.
Most of the problems with RealONE come from it being a horrible piece of bloat-ware trying to take over your entire system. Still, though, I'll take RealVideo over WMV any day of the week.
Speaking as a Nerd, I don't want Apple Music Store to survive either. Even though it's attempts at DRM are half-hearted, I would rather see a world without it.
Does anyone know if Fourier (or the person who invented DCT) is alive today? I wonder if these mathemetitians ever thought that their algorithms would someday lead to college students getting sued en masse by large corporations for listening to music. If any of them are still alive, I'd love to hear their opinions.
They don't support Macs, so there goes me even reading up on their service from here. Is their plan to make it so that you can never directly compare it to iTunes?
They're doing better than the dot-coms of previous years, though. I think they actually have a business model now. (1) make product, (2) start website, (3) magic, (4) success!
I think them introducing their own client would introduce a whole host of other problems. You think Media Player has issues? Try RealONE. It's been my experience that proprietary media players often suck, hard core. They usually suffer from lackluster performance, not to mention a lack of options and a confusing interface. At least with media player, there's a somewhat familiar interface for users.
I think the problem with DRM is that you need a proprietary format that has its own proprietary methods. I say we need something that doesn't contact a server, and that allows you to use your music anywhere. How about a new media format that is an RSA-encrypted mp3? Then, you would have to enter a username & key to your player, and all your music would be good to go. As far as sharing, you would be able to share with whomever you feel comfortable sharing your RSA key. (keep in mind, the username and key would be used to log in and buy music, also, so you'd be leary about giving it out)
Actually, as/. has pointed out time and time again, the record companies are fools. But, they're depending on a little something here called DMCA to scare people away.
If you pirate music, that's copyright violation and it means that you may be liable for punitive damages if the copyright holder takes up a civil suit. If you circumvent Apple's pathetic DRM, then that's a DMCA violation, a federal crime. If you tell people how to circumvent Apple's pathetic DRM, then that's a DMCA violation.
DMCA is saying to developers "don't try very hard with DRM, because if someone finds an easy way around it, then you can press charges in federal court." Of course, when you tell programmers that they (a) don't have to do a great job, and (b) they have a deadline, they tend to do a terrible job just to rush it out.:)
I know, as it's been my policy for years as a coder. "you want rushed crap? you got it!"
I know what you mean.... in my school's sci-fi club, we get to watch movies on some of the projectors that the school owns. Unfortunately, the high-quality professional-grade amplifiers the school gets don't understand macrovision (since they're not for home entertainment but specifically for rack-mounted systems), so any time we watch a DVD the picture fades in and out and the audio goes haywire.
And before you go and say that a public re-broadcast is exactly what they're trying to prevent, it's closed to members only, making it a private showing (like if you watched with a bunch of your friends). The only difference is that we get to borrow some of the school's swank viewing equipment.
I gotta admit, I don't know much about Nintendo's financial situation, but they have stated on record that they've got enough to go at least a couple more rounds in the console wars.
At any rate, when you see that much Pokemon merchandise flying around, you've got to believe that they're making some sort of money off of it. A backpack with Ash & Pikachu on it probably costs them $0.25 to make, but they can sell them to distributors for at least $5 a pop. Smells like profit to me.
Sony would do well to have a real mascot they could milk, but the PS2 is successful without one, so I guess they don't need it.
Seriously, though, why didn't they sue Nintendo? Did Nintendo license this technology already to avoid such a suit?
And you'll never play Mario 128 on the PS2 (or PS3). After Sega went to 3rd party, Nintendo publically announced that if they ever got to the point where they couldn't make their own console, they'd get out of the business all together.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been playing games for fun since 1985 also (I can still remember opening the NES at Christmas). I'm currently the proud owner of both a Gamecube and PS2. But that's not to say I'm immune to marketing hype, I just take a cynnical look at it.
Console manufacturers don't just make a system and hope the games will pull them through. They have to create an identity for the system, and then market it to get people interested. Sony and Microsoft both went with the overpowered (read some of the released specs & benchmarks) daunding black-box approach. Nintendo's specs & benchmarks were practically non-existant, and it's console looks like a toy. It's clear that they were marketing toward different audiences, but I can't say how much pull that has on consumers.
zing!
Sadly, I believe you're right.... Nintendo needs to market itself differently, or go in another direction all together. Either Nintendo needs to try to attract the more "mature" games (a.k.a. GTA, Silent Hill, Halo) to grab that 18-24 male gaming demographic by the short-hairs, or they need to start appealing to girl gamers and develop a new very loyal fanbase out of them.
:)
There's something macho about the PS2 and the X-Box... both are daunting black boxes with sharp edges and the density of a brick. The PS2 controller is a nightmare for beginners, with 12 buttons and 3 directional mechanisms to master, and the x-box controller was just big and daunting. Everything about them is marketed as being macho, meaty, substansive, qantitative.
The Gamecube relies on smooth lines for its design, is light as a feather, and even has a "cute" carying handle. The controller is simple (when in doubt, hit the big obvious button), the games and the packaging are more colorful and less "gritty." The gamecube is the more stereotypically feminine console. It's experiental, qualitative.
So, Nintendo can follow both the PS2 and the X-Box, which, though not necessarily lacking in feminine games, market themselves as very masculine systems, or it can go the more feminine route and try to attract non-gamer girls to the market and make a fan base out of them.
After all, if you can get the neglected 52% of the market to all like your system, then you win.
SCO OWNZ EVERYTHING LOLOLOLOL THE X-BOX CONTROLLER IS HUGE!!!!!
Seriously, this is becoming the "take my wife, please" of Slashdot. Or possibly Slashdot's own "It's a trap" a la SA. It's a dead horse. Stop flogging it.
Whew! Calm down! Maybe I'm getting too old but I feel I should administer a minor reality check here.
First, I agree. Restrictions on his joining groups devoted to changing any part of government is a total crock and shouldn't be in there. That's knee-jerk reactionary and, considering this man's cooperation with the police, totally unnecessary. His taking a plea-bargain shows that he is a reasonable person with serious grievances, not a psychopath who just likes to blow stuff up.
But, you have to understand that he wasn't arrested for disseminating information. He was arrested because he was trying to incite a violent revolt. There's a fine line... You can tell someone how to make a bomb, as long as it's purely for non-violent pursuits. But, as soon as you package it along with anti-anybody messages and promote violence, you've become an instigator and an enabler, which are both very serious charges. The first ammendment gurantees us the right to "peacably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances." Listen to the wording. The framers of the constitutuion definitely intended for the ever-evolving government to be an intellectual and continuing revolution. Somehwere, the American public dropped the ball, though, and we forgot the fact that we have any say.
Since you're a high-school kid, which probably puts you left of center, you've probably read at least something about Michael Moore. If you can cheaply get a copy of Stupid White Men, read about the section where he became school superintendent (or something similar) while still in high school. You can make change in government at the local level with little effort. Just get your friends to vote for you. That's how you peacably redress grievences. Or you could march on Washington. At any rate, telling people that they need to use violent force is out of the question.
... or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The Constitution grants us the right to peaceably assemble and petition the government. Every American has the right to free speech, but not in certain circumstances. You can't slander a person (which is to make deliberately false statements about someone for the purpose of hurting their reputation), and we accept that limitation just fine.
We have to learn to come to terms with the 'clear and present danger' limitation, too. When speech is specifically used to incite violence, the government has legal cause to arrest the speaker. For example, a Vietnam protester who organizes a march and gives a speech is protected under the first ammendment. But a pro-lifer who organizes a march and gives a speech which could directly result in the death of an abortion doctor is liable for his/her speech.
As with all ammendments, you're granted them on a probationary basis, and they are revoked or voided when they will infringe on the rights of another person. Ask a convicted felon, they'll tell you for sure that if you violate another persons' rights, you forfeit your own.
You can disagree with the government, just as long as you don't disagree with Bush. Don't mess with Texas!
Sony's cynical hype should be especially ignored.
:)
I don't know... Sony's delivered on promisses in the past. Both the PSX and the PS2 changed the gaming scene completley (for better or worse). I doubt this game will live up to the hype, but I don't think that anyone would believe in a Halo killer except for Halo 2 or Doom 3. Hopefully, it'll be a decent game, worth picking up off the used rack a few months after release.
It's been a long long while since a new artist came out that was actually talented.
.hack//sign and Noir soundtracks, so it's good mellow stuff that's probably not affiliated with RIAA.
Wrong.
Good bands like Jimmy Eats World and Weezer barely get played, drowned out by Brittany Spears and J.Lo.
I'm glad I managed to retroactively convince you.
Disorganized thoughts aside (after all, we all make mistakes in our posts... I'm sure there's a couple dozen in this on), you've hit the nail on the head. There are talented bands out there, and they're even being released into the mainstream.... but they're not Teen Pop Sensations, so you don't hear them on the radio. I've been getting into Weezer recently, and I plan to buy the stuff I downloaded (I'll get to it eventually, that is,... if I can find it).
Turn on MTV and watch for about an hour. Keep track with a pencil and paper, count how many of these pop artists actually play an instrument.
That would always be ZERO. MTV stopped showing videos a few years ago, but it all on M2. If you watch MTV for an hour you're likely to catch a Road Rules marathon or Osbournes marathon. What I don't get is, if they have all this time on a Sunday afternoon that they have to fill it with an Osbournes marathon, why the hell can't they show a couple of random music videos?
For an artist who's really making some interesting music (though I'm sure it's not for everybody) check out Yuki Kajiura's album Fiction, which was released in the US recently. Yuki Kajiura is responsible for the
Exactly! $4 pirated CD's are no justification for reducing cd prices!
The recent class-action lawsuit against the music industry that found them guilty of price-fixing does.
The fact that an artist has to sell a million copies just to break even shows that the industry has gone to levels of gluttony that shouldn't be supported by our dollars.
And if you think the record industry is justified in taking that much for its operating expenses, hop over to The Onion, pick up a copy of The Tennacity of a Cockroach, and read the interview with Aimee Mann, an artist and industry insider who's one hell of a straight-shooter.
This sounds like when The Wiz shut down up by me. My friends and I went there to see if they had any cheap, old games, and I wanted to get some earphones. Earphones (in-ear buds, the cheapes they had) were "marked down" to $25, and I couldn't find a single N64 game under $40. I'm talking stuff that must've fallen behind a desk and been found years later as they were cleaning out. Superman was $40.
There's a certain equilibrium in economics. As you jack up the price, it decreases volume. As you reduce the price, it increases volum. the trick is to find the right balance between volume and price that will maximize sales. This is (very) conservative economic theory... so why are all these placed just jacking up prices until they sink?
"Of Montreal" is a great indie band that has an old-style feel to them. Their music is kinda like (IMHO) very old Pink Floyd (i.e., See Emily Play), but my DJ friend will fight me tooth-and-nail on it. It's definitely and old-style sound, but it's new stuff, not rehashed oldies. And, Bonus, their albums are usually around the $10 mark, so trying them out won't break the bank.
I don't know if they have a website, but here'a a link To a review of their recent album, aldhills arboretum.
The FBI (or rather, the Secret Service, who's really in charge of enforcing copyrights and often works wirth RIAA on raids & stings) isn't raiding Chinatown because that's a complicated issue, and the last thing RIAA wants is for things to get complicated.
See, bootleg CD's aren't all that big here, so it's not as much of a market-threat. In China, Singapore, Taiwan, S. Korea, and other Asian marketplaces, it's dominant. It's hard to justify a chinatown raid when the actual crime is happening in china.
And regarding why RIAA won't "show me" these statistics about decreases in production, it's because that's too much for simple middle-america folk to think about. Mom & Pop Smallville can't handle statistics, but they sure do understand a villain and breaking the law.
What I don't get is, if CD sales are down 16% (I think the article said) and CD production is down 25%, doesn't that mean that per CD, sales are up? With your releases down 25%, shouldn't your total expendatures be down as well, and with the incresed sales/release, profits should be increasing. If the RIAA's members are hemoraging money, it can only be due to internal incompetence and waste.
The thing is that, we're willing to pay for it to a point. At RCNJ, we pay a $100 per-semester internet access fee, which breaks down to about $25 per month. Heap an entertainment fee on top of that, and then fees for any online subscription service we want, and that really really starts to add up.
It's worse for friends with cable modems. It's a kick in the face for them when RIAA complains about people getting their music for "free" when they have to pay $30-$40 per month for internet access. Even at highly inflated prices, that should entitle them to at least 2 albums a month.
Maybe I'd be willing to sign on for an online pay-subscription service, if I weren't already paying for the access. To me, it seems like a double-charge, and that's just not right. A 100% markup (after all costs are totaled) is enough to keep any buisness going happily. There is no way that running the internet service at this school costs $100 per semester*5500 students/2 ($275,000 per semester).
Feel free to mod me down for being off topic, but I have to defend myself here.
:) The Ramapo College Sci-Fi Club is around 50 members strong, making it the largest club on campus. We hold 5 meetings per week (anime viewing, tv viewing, movie viewing, and 2 role-playing sessions) as well as at least 3 events per month and 1 community service event each month. This past year we won an award for outstanding community service achievments. Our members typically have (a) larger circles of friends due to the club, and (b) higher GPA's due to the support of those friends than other Ramapo College students.
:)
I'm not just a member, I'm the president.
So, uh... yeah... we're real winners, thanks for noticing.
macrovision doesn't affect audio, to my knowledge, but as the reciever starts to lose video signal completely, it tends to cut the audio too. Quite a hassle.
problems with real player:
(1) RealONE tries really really really hard to eat your system alive. (i.e., it tries to take over all RSTP streams, become the default plugin for every media file type, and become the default player for every media file type)
(2) If you leave it open in your system tray, it reports your actions to RealNetworks.
(3) After every file played (online or offline) it contacts RealNetworks to tell them what you just watched/listened to. If you have ZoneAlarm, you can usually prevent it.
Most of the problems with RealONE come from it being a horrible piece of bloat-ware trying to take over your entire system. Still, though, I'll take RealVideo over WMV any day of the week.
Speaking as a Nerd, I don't want Apple Music Store to survive either. Even though it's attempts at DRM are half-hearted, I would rather see a world without it.
Does anyone know if Fourier (or the person who invented DCT) is alive today? I wonder if these mathemetitians ever thought that their algorithms would someday lead to college students getting sued en masse by large corporations for listening to music. If any of them are still alive, I'd love to hear their opinions.
They don't support Macs, so there goes me even reading up on their service from here. Is their plan to make it so that you can never directly compare it to iTunes?
They're doing better than the dot-coms of previous years, though. I think they actually have a business model now. (1) make product, (2) start website, (3) magic, (4) success!
I think them introducing their own client would introduce a whole host of other problems. You think Media Player has issues? Try RealONE. It's been my experience that proprietary media players often suck, hard core. They usually suffer from lackluster performance, not to mention a lack of options and a confusing interface. At least with media player, there's a somewhat familiar interface for users.
I think the problem with DRM is that you need a proprietary format that has its own proprietary methods. I say we need something that doesn't contact a server, and that allows you to use your music anywhere. How about a new media format that is an RSA-encrypted mp3? Then, you would have to enter a username & key to your player, and all your music would be good to go. As far as sharing, you would be able to share with whomever you feel comfortable sharing your RSA key. (keep in mind, the username and key would be used to log in and buy music, also, so you'd be leary about giving it out)
Actually, as /. has pointed out time and time again, the record companies are fools. But, they're depending on a little something here called DMCA to scare people away.
:)
If you pirate music, that's copyright violation and it means that you may be liable for punitive damages if the copyright holder takes up a civil suit. If you circumvent Apple's pathetic DRM, then that's a DMCA violation, a federal crime. If you tell people how to circumvent Apple's pathetic DRM, then that's a DMCA violation.
DMCA is saying to developers "don't try very hard with DRM, because if someone finds an easy way around it, then you can press charges in federal court." Of course, when you tell programmers that they (a) don't have to do a great job, and (b) they have a deadline, they tend to do a terrible job just to rush it out.
I know, as it's been my policy for years as a coder. "you want rushed crap? you got it!"
How long before music has EULA's,... your investment's not in Jeopardy, you didn't own it in the first place!
Of course, my question to the whole licensing thing is, if I have a license, why won't you send me a new CD for free as long as I prove my license?
I know what you mean.... in my school's sci-fi club, we get to watch movies on some of the projectors that the school owns. Unfortunately, the high-quality professional-grade amplifiers the school gets don't understand macrovision (since they're not for home entertainment but specifically for rack-mounted systems), so any time we watch a DVD the picture fades in and out and the audio goes haywire.
And before you go and say that a public re-broadcast is exactly what they're trying to prevent, it's closed to members only, making it a private showing (like if you watched with a bunch of your friends). The only difference is that we get to borrow some of the school's swank viewing equipment.
I gotta admit, I don't know much about Nintendo's financial situation, but they have stated on record that they've got enough to go at least a couple more rounds in the console wars.
At any rate, when you see that much Pokemon merchandise flying around, you've got to believe that they're making some sort of money off of it. A backpack with Ash & Pikachu on it probably costs them $0.25 to make, but they can sell them to distributors for at least $5 a pop. Smells like profit to me.
Sony would do well to have a real mascot they could milk, but the PS2 is successful without one, so I guess they don't need it.
Yay! Flame war time! I live for this!
Seriously, though, why didn't they sue Nintendo? Did Nintendo license this technology already to avoid such a suit?
And you'll never play Mario 128 on the PS2 (or PS3). After Sega went to 3rd party, Nintendo publically announced that if they ever got to the point where they couldn't make their own console, they'd get out of the business all together.