The keyword is "versatile." Digital Versatile discs provide superb video, audio and data storage and access -- all on one disc.
The DVD Forum being the consortium of all parties involved in the standards for DVD, I'll take their word on it. That doesn't mean that DVD never meant Digital Video Disc, but it's unlikely (then again, they may not have thought up the name until after announcing the acronym anyway), as the original designs were intended for multimedia use (movies, music, and computer data/software).
GT3 was the first DVD game released for the PS2 in Japan, so you could probably assume that every game released in Japan before GT3 was on a CD, though they might have put the US versions on DVD.
There's no doubt in my mind that artists deserve better treatment. But idiots who quote out of context, and imply that recording companies pay artists nothing at all, end up destroying the credibility of those arguing for that better treatment. That's not good.
This is quite true, but then I'd say that, imo, Courtney Love is hardly the best spokesperson for artists' rights, either.
Anyone with enough clout can get a 'good enough' or even great deal from the majors, and the majors have gotten better (partly because they've gotten their asses handed to them in courts occasionally), but overall people need to educate themselves before going into business with them, and we all need to work harder at keeping the labels from being able to protect their industry as well as they have for so long. Furthermore, we need to recognize when they are doing something to protect their industry (and by 'their industry' I mean the big 5 labels rather than the industry of selling music to people, as the labels are only interested in letting people buy music if they're buying music from them).
Actually, if you look at most albums, you will see a publishing company next to the name of the song title...generally its some wierd name you've never heard of but always associated with that person.
Yes, I'm aware of this, and it's usually part of the deal they signed with the label.
For instance, as I strugle to think of one, I believe Nine Inch Nail's always uses the moniker of Leaving Hope Music as their publisher...its Reznor's personal publishing company. What do ya have to do to have a publishing company? Register it with Harry Fox or ASCAP or one of the others. I think its like $100 and they will collect the publishing fees for a small percentage. Hell, if you didn't have a publisher before and your songs were released, they will even look in places that collect these things and retrieve them for you...a friend did some work on an Anime series in the late 80s to get him through a dry spell. Payed up front BUT they released the music from the album after the series got popular. When he got his new record deal, he ended up starting up another publishing company and they went out and looked for uncollected royalties and found about $10k for him from the Asian Market from 10 years ago for stuff he'd completely forgotten about.
Leaving Hope sounds right for Reznor's company, don't forget that he also runs Nothing Records, which is a sub-label for Interscope, which is in turn for MCA, in turn part of Universal. I'd have to dig around to see if I have any of the stuff released on TVT to see if he had publishing rights under that deal. Creeping Death is another one, for Metallica, which they likely never would've gotten if it weren't for the fact that they had 2 fairly successful independant albums before signing a major deal, and they renegotiated after putting out the Live Shit boxed set. It's all a matter of how good of a deal you can get, and it's becoming more common for artists to get more out of their deals as these items become better known, but the average deal does not give the artist much of anything, including publishing and copy rights to the work the artists themselves wrote.
As I mentioned in another post, there is a reason most artists at least go for Co-Writting credit. Everyone knows Avril Lavine didn't write most of the songs off her last album, but anthing with her name on it is considered 50% her music (and the rest to 'The Matix' group) because she changed a word or a chord here or there...she was around this stuff before (I think her uncle was a MI attny or something) and wasn't stupid about this knowing that publishing is where the big bucks comes from a lot of times.
Exactly. Anyone can have the publishing rights to any given song on an album. Artists that know what's going on or can afford a good lawyer that knows the music industry well can get a decent deal without much work, but the average artist gets a loaded deal that's as likely to leave the artist bankrupt as anything else.
The publication royalties are VERY important and any musician that doesn't know this is an idiot. Any decent management would let the artist know this BEFORE they go into the studio...after all, the management generally gets 10% of the artists take (paid by the artist) and would be silly to let half the potential cash go unclaimed.
Except that many artists' management is given to them by the label that signs them, and the managers that the labels employ get their cuts paid out off the top, if they're smart (but then again, even with the cut coming out of the artists' pockets, they'll be managing enough artists to make it worthwhile).
But you are right...in Country and Western and pop, its not uncommon for the artists to never write their own songs...if they were smart, they'd do like Elvis and Sinatra did and demand 50% cuts for putting the song on the album in the first place -- even if the song was written 10 years ago and sat in a catalogue unused. But then we'd have to complain about artists abusing their power the same way labels did...
Perhaps, but then we can't all be Elvis or Sinatra, and the labels aren't going to give those deals away if you aren't;)
Don't forget, though, that in most cases as much as 90% of the advance goes to the actual costs of making the record. So 900,000 goes to say studio time and various employees of the studio, plus whatever minor expenses are involved (equipment, for example). Most of the time the label books the artist into a label-owned studio, which means most of that advance comes back to the label. It's rare that artists get the chance to decide where their albums are recorded and with what people until they've already started making money, at least on a major label deal.
Am I supposed to feel sorry for J. Lo? How do you explain how even a mediocre artist like Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, or whatever he's called this week is so stinkin' rich?
J.Lo makes enough money elsewhere to pay the label to put her albums on shelves, if they weren't already selling well enough. She could probably also get some good lawyers to negotiate her record contract, too.
P.Diddly sells enough albums, but also pulls most of those other positions that get cuts from his cut of the album, which means the record labels take money from him to pay him, or take money from other artists (who he produces, publishes, whatever) to pay him. Oh, and if it turns out that he declares bankruptcy in 2 years, it's because he never was stinkin' rich, the record label just advanced him huge amounts of money on records he never could have sold. Not to mention that 90-something % of what you see these people throwing around in music videos is rented or owned by the label for that video.
While 12% is approximately the average royalty rate, there will still be other ways for them to take that money, besides the handful mentioned there. For instance, MP3 would be considered a new technology, and subject to the same kinds of fees that CDs were (and usually still are), which comes out of the artist's cut.
Not to mention advances, promotion, and production, though they're justifiable they're often over-inflated and hard to check (meaning the label will take the money whether they spent it or not). Also, they mention the 'Publishers Cut' on there, but forget to note that the label is usually the publisher (most will work very hard to keep the rights to any songs you write, they will also work hard to keep you from releasing covers of songs they didn't write; also, some genres, such as country and the more manufactured pop, employ numerous song writers for each label, and the label will do whatever they can to keep you from releasing any songs you wrote yourself).
The suits are suing people in particular to stop a method of distribution that would make it easier for the artists to distribute without the suits. If they scare enough people by winning enough big suits and taking in big settlements (I'm sorry, most people can't afford to settle for $2000, let alone lose a suit for the kind of money they're looking at), the P2P distribution method becomes useless, because there won't be enough material available.
That being said, there are still a lot of problems to work out in terms of getting artists actual money from P2P distribution. The most obvious thing is exposure, which leads to actual CD sales, but then you have to get some exposure for people to even download your music from P2P in the first place.
Any attempt at anything other than a pure top-down model with the big 5 of the music industry in control has been attacked by the RIAA, and that is pretty much the only job the RIAA has, anyway.
The music industry should be stressing the value added by CDs, rather than crippling CDs (by making it harder to make copies or create MP3s from them) and attempting to assign the same value to songs in MP3 format as songs on CDs (yes, I'm looking at 99 cent song downloads here). If I have 12 songs on a CD, each song on that CD is not worth 1/12th the price of a CD when distributed in a digital format that is lower quality and/or has more restrictions on use. Remember there's a package there, which should include some artwork, and the ability to use the purchased CD as a master for copies I use elsewhere should be worth something. No, I don't believe that CDs are in themselves worth what many of them currently cost, but neither do I believe that the industry should be able to assign something of lesser quality and value the same price as that which is sold in stores.
Someone else already pointed this out, but I wanted to clarify a bit:
Funny, we have George Harrison, as saying 'So far in 2003, Nintendo GameCube is the only home console showing an increase in unit sales compared to 2002.'
Nintendo says: We sold more consoles this year than we did last year. Sony and Microsoft did not sell more consoles than they did last year.... and then you have Gamebiz quoting Microsoft [gamesindustry.biz] 'Quoting statistics from US market research body NPD Funworld, the company claims that the Xbox is the only console which has continuously demonstrated positive market share growth in the past year,
Microsoft says: The percentage of XBoxs sold vs. GameCubes and PlayStation2s sold has increased throughout the year (meaning during no quarter has it decreased or stayed the same). Nintendo and Sony both saw at least one quarter in the last year in which they didn't increase their percentage of consoles sold.
Also:
while sales of software in August grew faster than either of its rivals and boosted the console's attach rate to 5.8.'
Translation: KOTOR broke XBox sales records by being the only game since Halo that everyone wants, and selling 250,000 copies in 4 days. Since everyone that owns an XBox owns Halo and KOTOR, and most owners of XBoxes bought the XMas XBox bundle from last year, which includes JSRF and Sega GT2000-something, and everyone bought 1 or 2 other games, usually multi-console titles, we have an attach rate of 5.8 games per console sold.
Yeah, like I would actually have SegaGT and JSRF if they hadn't come with my console. Then again, I own a few more games than 5.8 for the XBox.
Don't hate a game because it's popular with the masses, and don't stereotype Myst lovers as "casual gamers".
If you don't have the patience to tackle Myst or are turned off by cerebral puzzles, just admit it! To each their own.
ok, I just feel an insane need to point out that 'popular with the masses' and 'cerebral' don't belong to the same item. Maybe I'll even actually play the copy of Riven that came with some DVD drive I no longer have just so I can say quite certainly that this is the case.
Then again, I've met people that think Tetris is cerebral.
If you want Metroid (one of the bundled games at the previous $150 price), check your local Blockbuster video. Many of them were selling it for $20 new. Other than that, try looking for the others used. All of the prices should be coming down once they stop bundling them at $150. Then again, it also makes the GB Player bundle pretty much an even deal (which it always seemed to be anyway, when the games were $50). As always, just look at the bundles offered to you and get the best deal you can. The EB I bought mine from offered 3 or 4 different deals, and the basic system/game deal was the best one they had, whereas the Super Mario Sunshine deal (with a memory card) actually was more expensive than buying the pieces individually if I picked up the game used and the larger memory card. I pre-ordered my GB Player as soon as I found out the Player bundle didn't include a game.
X-Box is still in a better position because it has a strong US presence, while the Gamecube has no real strong market. So game publishers are beginning to neglect it in favor of the market leaders
You're neglecting some issues, too, though. Nintendo is still a Japanese company, so their decisions turn primarily on 2 things: 1) profit 2) the Japanese market
Sega was the same way, and despite the DreamCast having a good start in the US, they dumped support because it did poorly in Japan. (Sega also had other issues because they relied much more heavily on the arcade market than Nintendo does, and Nintendo has an extremely profitable arm in the handheld market, with the GBA-SP selling more units than Sony sells PS2s).
Japanese developers are also looking at the Japanese market, and publishing accordingly. Soul Calibur 2, even in the US, is selling best on the GameCube, proving that something other than the platform was causing poor sales of previous multi-platform titles (in North America the week of Sept. 17th SC2 sold over 57,000 more units on the GC than the XBox, for $2.8 Million more in sales, and the PS2 version sold almost 2,000 fewer units than the XBox version, and these account for 3 of the top 6 games on the North American charts, with the PS2 version at #6, and Madden PS2/XBox at #1/2 (remember that Madden PS2 has online support while Madden XBox does not; Madden GC is #11, and I don't know why it doesn't have online support), and NCAA Football 2004 at #5). European charts don't break up sales per console, though I'm sure the developers know where the splits lie.
The GC is also the only console showing an increase in sales over the previous year. While a decrease is expected with the PS2, and generally accepted as saturation (with umpteen million consoles sold to date), the XBox isn't anywhere near the PS2's sales, nor far enough ahead that it could maintain a significant lead while losing sales if the GC continues to show increasing sales.
All of that being said, the real proof will be in the next year, especially during this holiday season. The next generation consoles are expected to be released in 2005/6, so the market will slow down in 2005, but people will most likely capitalize on low prices through 2004. Most people should not be expecting any of the three names to disappear before those consoles have been on the shelves a while.
I think he means that the technology wasn't even up to the specs of the GameCube a few years ago even if you wanted to spend just under 6 figures on it. That being said, a few years ago is a pretty arbitrary value, as you could've put a PC or Mac together with similar specs shortly before the release of the GameCube for much less than even $9000.
1. Okay, when I played Doom, I didn't notice much of a story. Just a lot of aliens running about in James Cameron-land.
2. Now, we're told that Doom _had_ a story. Seems that scientists were doing research that got out of hand, and suddenly creaturs from another planet began zapping in through the Dimensional Vortexes, or something.
Doom's story was told mostly through text between the major episodes. It had something to do with fighting monsters from Hell, and then (towards the end of the game) going into Hell to stop them from coming through.
3. Which was Half-Life's story.
It wasn't like it was hard to get the script, like I said, Doom's story was told through text on the screen. Pay someone to change Hell to Xen and pay some modelers to build some new creatures. Find a better way to tell the story than text on the screen, and turn all of the keys into scientists and security guards, who can easily be killed, thereby depriving you of the keys and forcing you to restart from an earlier save.
if you check here http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/219676.asp
You will see a ship date of Nov. 14th err... 2004. It has been that ship date for a few weeks. I have learned that retailers pull dates out of their ass.
Yes, I am still waiting for Valve to ship the second game they promised, rather than a game they never promised until this last E3.
Though I suppose it could be disqualified as the advertised danger apparently actually exists.
Only if the advertised danger comes in the form of "terrorists can't get into the country if they were going to bother getting their visa through the US government rather than using the Canadian or Mexican border".
Oh no, the government can't issue visas, so now terrorists on the list can't get a visa, and terrorists not on the list can't get a visa.
Just wondering where the hell the price difference comes from. And please don't say thing like sales tax or wages. The tax difference ain't that big and the damn things are produced in china.
VAT and import duties can be something like 15-25%. The price difference, after currency exchange, between a GBA-SP on Amazon.co.uk and amazon.com is ~50%. I'd imagine there's also a difference in cost associated with producing 220 power adapters for the rechargable battery pack (and the batteries themselves may be different), if that is needed for units sold in the EU (since Japanese and US consoles sell with 110V power adapters). There may also be associated costs with getting the device approved for the EU, which would of course be passed on to the consumers in that area.
All of that being said, the device is priced based on the combination of costs for building the device and getting it approved and shipped to the location, as well as what the market would bear. Even if the exchange rates changed drastically, Nintendo's prices wouldn't react very quickly, which could work for or against you. (in fact, if Nintendo's prices did fluctuate with the exchange rates it would probably look bad to most consumers, though it would happen if the market could manage a more direct path from the producer to the consumer, especially since even the US price is subject to exchange rates and possibly import taxes).
First you said Sept 30, then denied when your parent company said the end of the year, then days before the deadline, you say you can't get it out.
Valve doesn't have a parent company...
As for respect for Valve going down over this, I'm amazed anyone is surprised. I've been waiting for one game from Valve for 5 years. TFC took my mind off of it for a while, but frankly Half-Life wasn't a product I wanted or even care about.
Until Valve releases any game on time I'll expect their releases to be late. In fact, the only reason I'm not waiting for them to scrap the game engine like they did with Half-Life and Team Fortress 2 is simply because they kept their mouths shut about HL2 for so long.
This is Microsoft here... the only reason they're not giving them away free in cereal boxes is that it would be egregious product dumping and found illegal. (Well, maybe not the only reason, there are issues of consumer expectations and such, but Microsoft has the cash and the apparent desire.)
Not to mention that a lot of parents might be pissed when the cereal box weighs more than their kids. Supermarkets might be a little irritated that the cereal boxes are taking up 250% of the space they were previously taking up, too. hmm, come to think of it, Microsoft might have a harder time giving them away in cereal boxes than they do selling them.
The network adapter is available, it's just a little hard to find in stores. You should be able to find it online fairly easily. (hey, how else are people supposed to play Phantasy Star Online?).
I've seen the modem adapter far more often than the network adapter, but that might be more of an indicator that the modem adapter isn't selling as well (since cable and DSL have pretty good subscriber numbers in my area).
It depends on when you got it. If you were a very early NES owner and got the package with the robot (the only one available at the start), it could have been as much as $400. My parents bought the bundle with the light gun (not the orange one) and Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros. cart. for $115, about 3-5 years after the system was released.
How much were NES games back in the day? I don't remember them being $50 each, the way GameCube games are now.
It depended on the game and when you bought it, just like it does today, except that some cartridges cost more to produce, and were therefore more expensive. Ultima:Exodus, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Warrior were each around $60 when they were first released. Most games started at $50. In the last 3 years before the SNES was released, games in the $20-35 range became much more common, though rarely for new games.
Microsoft seems to be competing more with PS2 then with Gamecube.
How is Microsoft competing more with PS2 than with GameCube when the XBox sales are much closer to the GameCube's sales than to the PS2's sales?
The simple fact is that Microsoft is #3 worldwide, and if Nintendo can get a decent increase in sales in the US, Microsoft will be #3 here, as well. Microsoft set their system up to compete with the PS2 (DVD playback, online capability, etc), but that's not what they are currently doing.
In short, you're right that MS isn't concerned over losing large amounts of money on the X-Box but they aren't going to just lose indiscriminate amounts.
I think their primary concern is keeping the amount coming in higher than the cost of the hardware. Even if they're losing money on the advertising and R&D, they won't take it below cost.
Frankly, I don't think Nintendo will be losing money at $100, either, at this point. They've been making money off the Cube from the start, and it's been selling at $150 with either a game or a $50 accessory for some time now.
Of course, at the moment the link in the GameSpot article is showing them as out of stock...
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.dvdforum.org/tech-dvdprimer.htm
The keyword is "versatile." Digital Versatile discs provide superb video, audio and data storage and access -- all on one disc.
The DVD Forum being the consortium of all parties involved in the standards for DVD, I'll take their word on it. That doesn't mean that DVD never meant Digital Video Disc, but it's unlikely (then again, they may not have thought up the name until after announcing the acronym anyway), as the original designs were intended for multimedia use (movies, music, and computer data/software).
GT3 was the first DVD game released for the PS2 in Japan, so you could probably assume that every game released in Japan before GT3 was on a CD, though they might have put the US versions on DVD.
There's no doubt in my mind that artists deserve better treatment. But idiots who quote out of context, and imply that recording companies pay artists nothing at all, end up destroying the credibility of those arguing for that better treatment. That's not good.
This is quite true, but then I'd say that, imo, Courtney Love is hardly the best spokesperson for artists' rights, either.
Anyone with enough clout can get a 'good enough' or even great deal from the majors, and the majors have gotten better (partly because they've gotten their asses handed to them in courts occasionally), but overall people need to educate themselves before going into business with them, and we all need to work harder at keeping the labels from being able to protect their industry as well as they have for so long. Furthermore, we need to recognize when they are doing something to protect their industry (and by 'their industry' I mean the big 5 labels rather than the industry of selling music to people, as the labels are only interested in letting people buy music if they're buying music from them).
Actually, if you look at most albums, you will see a publishing company next to the name of the song title...generally its some wierd name you've never heard of but always associated with that person.
;)
Yes, I'm aware of this, and it's usually part of the deal they signed with the label.
For instance, as I strugle to think of one, I believe Nine Inch Nail's always uses the moniker of Leaving Hope Music as their publisher...its Reznor's personal publishing company. What do ya have to do to have a publishing company? Register it with Harry Fox or ASCAP or one of the others. I think its like $100 and they will collect the publishing fees for a small percentage. Hell, if you didn't have a publisher before and your songs were released, they will even look in places that collect these things and retrieve them for you...a friend did some work on an Anime series in the late 80s to get him through a dry spell. Payed up front BUT they released the music from the album after the series got popular. When he got his new record deal, he ended up starting up another publishing company and they went out and looked for uncollected royalties and found about $10k for him from the Asian Market from 10 years ago for stuff he'd completely forgotten about.
Leaving Hope sounds right for Reznor's company, don't forget that he also runs Nothing Records, which is a sub-label for Interscope, which is in turn for MCA, in turn part of Universal. I'd have to dig around to see if I have any of the stuff released on TVT to see if he had publishing rights under that deal. Creeping Death is another one, for Metallica, which they likely never would've gotten if it weren't for the fact that they had 2 fairly successful independant albums before signing a major deal, and they renegotiated after putting out the Live Shit boxed set. It's all a matter of how good of a deal you can get, and it's becoming more common for artists to get more out of their deals as these items become better known, but the average deal does not give the artist much of anything, including publishing and copy rights to the work the artists themselves wrote.
As I mentioned in another post, there is a reason most artists at least go for Co-Writting credit. Everyone knows Avril Lavine didn't write most of the songs off her last album, but anthing with her name on it is considered 50% her music (and the rest to 'The Matix' group) because she changed a word or a chord here or there...she was around this stuff before (I think her uncle was a MI attny or something) and wasn't stupid about this knowing that publishing is where the big bucks comes from a lot of times.
Exactly. Anyone can have the publishing rights to any given song on an album. Artists that know what's going on or can afford a good lawyer that knows the music industry well can get a decent deal without much work, but the average artist gets a loaded deal that's as likely to leave the artist bankrupt as anything else.
The publication royalties are VERY important and any musician that doesn't know this is an idiot. Any decent management would let the artist know this BEFORE they go into the studio...after all, the management generally gets 10% of the artists take (paid by the artist) and would be silly to let half the potential cash go unclaimed.
Except that many artists' management is given to them by the label that signs them, and the managers that the labels employ get their cuts paid out off the top, if they're smart (but then again, even with the cut coming out of the artists' pockets, they'll be managing enough artists to make it worthwhile).
But you are right...in Country and Western and pop, its not uncommon for the artists to never write their own songs...if they were smart, they'd do like Elvis and Sinatra did and demand 50% cuts for putting the song on the album in the first place -- even if the song was written 10 years ago and sat in a catalogue unused. But then we'd have to complain about artists abusing their power the same way labels did...
Perhaps, but then we can't all be Elvis or Sinatra, and the labels aren't going to give those deals away if you aren't
Don't forget, though, that in most cases as much as 90% of the advance goes to the actual costs of making the record. So 900,000 goes to say studio time and various employees of the studio, plus whatever minor expenses are involved (equipment, for example). Most of the time the label books the artist into a label-owned studio, which means most of that advance comes back to the label. It's rare that artists get the chance to decide where their albums are recorded and with what people until they've already started making money, at least on a major label deal.
Am I supposed to feel sorry for J. Lo? How do you explain how even a mediocre artist like Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, or whatever he's called this week is so stinkin' rich?
J.Lo makes enough money elsewhere to pay the label to put her albums on shelves, if they weren't already selling well enough. She could probably also get some good lawyers to negotiate her record contract, too.
P.Diddly sells enough albums, but also pulls most of those other positions that get cuts from his cut of the album, which means the record labels take money from him to pay him, or take money from other artists (who he produces, publishes, whatever) to pay him. Oh, and if it turns out that he declares bankruptcy in 2 years, it's because he never was stinkin' rich, the record label just advanced him huge amounts of money on records he never could have sold. Not to mention that 90-something % of what you see these people throwing around in music videos is rented or owned by the label for that video.
While 12% is approximately the average royalty rate, there will still be other ways for them to take that money, besides the handful mentioned there. For instance, MP3 would be considered a new technology, and subject to the same kinds of fees that CDs were (and usually still are), which comes out of the artist's cut.
Not to mention advances, promotion, and production, though they're justifiable they're often over-inflated and hard to check (meaning the label will take the money whether they spent it or not). Also, they mention the 'Publishers Cut' on there, but forget to note that the label is usually the publisher (most will work very hard to keep the rights to any songs you write, they will also work hard to keep you from releasing covers of songs they didn't write; also, some genres, such as country and the more manufactured pop, employ numerous song writers for each label, and the label will do whatever they can to keep you from releasing any songs you wrote yourself).
The suits are suing people in particular to stop a method of distribution that would make it easier for the artists to distribute without the suits. If they scare enough people by winning enough big suits and taking in big settlements (I'm sorry, most people can't afford to settle for $2000, let alone lose a suit for the kind of money they're looking at), the P2P distribution method becomes useless, because there won't be enough material available.
That being said, there are still a lot of problems to work out in terms of getting artists actual money from P2P distribution. The most obvious thing is exposure, which leads to actual CD sales, but then you have to get some exposure for people to even download your music from P2P in the first place.
Any attempt at anything other than a pure top-down model with the big 5 of the music industry in control has been attacked by the RIAA, and that is pretty much the only job the RIAA has, anyway.
The music industry should be stressing the value added by CDs, rather than crippling CDs (by making it harder to make copies or create MP3s from them) and attempting to assign the same value to songs in MP3 format as songs on CDs (yes, I'm looking at 99 cent song downloads here). If I have 12 songs on a CD, each song on that CD is not worth 1/12th the price of a CD when distributed in a digital format that is lower quality and/or has more restrictions on use. Remember there's a package there, which should include some artwork, and the ability to use the purchased CD as a master for copies I use elsewhere should be worth something. No, I don't believe that CDs are in themselves worth what many of them currently cost, but neither do I believe that the industry should be able to assign something of lesser quality and value the same price as that which is sold in stores.
Someone else already pointed this out, but I wanted to clarify a bit:
... and then you have Gamebiz quoting Microsoft [gamesindustry.biz] 'Quoting statistics from US market research body NPD Funworld, the company claims that the Xbox is the only console which has continuously demonstrated positive market share growth in the past year,
Funny, we have George Harrison, as saying 'So far in 2003, Nintendo GameCube is the only home console showing an increase in unit sales compared to 2002.'
Nintendo says: We sold more consoles this year than we did last year. Sony and Microsoft did not sell more consoles than they did last year.
Microsoft says: The percentage of XBoxs sold vs. GameCubes and PlayStation2s sold has increased throughout the year (meaning during no quarter has it decreased or stayed the same). Nintendo and Sony both saw at least one quarter in the last year in which they didn't increase their percentage of consoles sold.
Also:
while sales of software in August grew faster than either of its rivals and boosted the console's attach rate to 5.8.'
Translation: KOTOR broke XBox sales records by being the only game since Halo that everyone wants, and selling 250,000 copies in 4 days. Since everyone that owns an XBox owns Halo and KOTOR, and most owners of XBoxes bought the XMas XBox bundle from last year, which includes JSRF and Sega GT2000-something, and everyone bought 1 or 2 other games, usually multi-console titles, we have an attach rate of 5.8 games per console sold.
Yeah, like I would actually have SegaGT and JSRF if they hadn't come with my console. Then again, I own a few more games than 5.8 for the XBox.
Don't hate a game because it's popular with the masses, and don't stereotype Myst lovers as "casual gamers".
If you don't have the patience to tackle Myst or are turned off by cerebral puzzles, just admit it! To each their own.
ok, I just feel an insane need to point out that 'popular with the masses' and 'cerebral' don't belong to the same item. Maybe I'll even actually play the copy of Riven that came with some DVD drive I no longer have just so I can say quite certainly that this is the case.
Then again, I've met people that think Tetris is cerebral.
As for the computer, sometimes using the latest technology is just a headache, so a Holley 750cfm four-barrel carb works fine, thanks
hence the 8-10 mpg on an engine that can get twice that with the same horsepower.
umm I think it was Snow Crash, but it's been a while since I read it.
On the other hand, I haven't read Idoru yet, though it's on my bookshelf, waiting for me to get around to it.
If you want Metroid (one of the bundled games at the previous $150 price), check your local Blockbuster video. Many of them were selling it for $20 new. Other than that, try looking for the others used. All of the prices should be coming down once they stop bundling them at $150. Then again, it also makes the GB Player bundle pretty much an even deal (which it always seemed to be anyway, when the games were $50). As always, just look at the bundles offered to you and get the best deal you can. The EB I bought mine from offered 3 or 4 different deals, and the basic system/game deal was the best one they had, whereas the Super Mario Sunshine deal (with a memory card) actually was more expensive than buying the pieces individually if I picked up the game used and the larger memory card. I pre-ordered my GB Player as soon as I found out the Player bundle didn't include a game.
X-Box is still in a better position because it has a strong US presence, while the Gamecube has no real strong market. So game publishers are beginning to neglect it in favor of the market leaders
You're neglecting some issues, too, though. Nintendo is still a Japanese company, so their decisions turn primarily on 2 things:
1) profit
2) the Japanese market
Sega was the same way, and despite the DreamCast having a good start in the US, they dumped support because it did poorly in Japan. (Sega also had other issues because they relied much more heavily on the arcade market than Nintendo does, and Nintendo has an extremely profitable arm in the handheld market, with the GBA-SP selling more units than Sony sells PS2s).
Japanese developers are also looking at the Japanese market, and publishing accordingly. Soul Calibur 2, even in the US, is selling best on the GameCube, proving that something other than the platform was causing poor sales of previous multi-platform titles (in North America the week of Sept. 17th SC2 sold over 57,000 more units on the GC than the XBox, for $2.8 Million more in sales, and the PS2 version sold almost 2,000 fewer units than the XBox version, and these account for 3 of the top 6 games on the North American charts, with the PS2 version at #6, and Madden PS2/XBox at #1/2 (remember that Madden PS2 has online support while Madden XBox does not; Madden GC is #11, and I don't know why it doesn't have online support), and NCAA Football 2004 at #5). European charts don't break up sales per console, though I'm sure the developers know where the splits lie.
The GC is also the only console showing an increase in sales over the previous year. While a decrease is expected with the PS2, and generally accepted as saturation (with umpteen million consoles sold to date), the XBox isn't anywhere near the PS2's sales, nor far enough ahead that it could maintain a significant lead while losing sales if the GC continues to show increasing sales.
All of that being said, the real proof will be in the next year, especially during this holiday season. The next generation consoles are expected to be released in 2005/6, so the market will slow down in 2005, but people will most likely capitalize on low prices through 2004. Most people should not be expecting any of the three names to disappear before those consoles have been on the shelves a while.
I think he means that the technology wasn't even up to the specs of the GameCube a few years ago even if you wanted to spend just under 6 figures on it. That being said, a few years ago is a pretty arbitrary value, as you could've put a PC or Mac together with similar specs shortly before the release of the GameCube for much less than even $9000.
1. Okay, when I played Doom, I didn't notice much of a story. Just a lot of aliens running about in James Cameron-land.
2. Now, we're told that Doom _had_ a story. Seems that scientists were doing research that got out of hand, and suddenly creaturs from another planet began zapping in through the Dimensional Vortexes, or something.
Doom's story was told mostly through text between the major episodes. It had something to do with fighting monsters from Hell, and then (towards the end of the game) going into Hell to stop them from coming through.
3. Which was Half-Life's story.
It wasn't like it was hard to get the script, like I said, Doom's story was told through text on the screen. Pay someone to change Hell to Xen and pay some modelers to build some new creatures. Find a better way to tell the story than text on the screen, and turn all of the keys into scientists and security guards, who can easily be killed, thereby depriving you of the keys and forcing you to restart from an earlier save.
No, I didn't like Half-Life.
if you check here http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/219676.asp
You will see a ship date of Nov. 14th err... 2004. It has been that ship date for a few weeks. I have learned that retailers pull dates out of their ass.
Yes, I am still waiting for Valve to ship the second game they promised, rather than a game they never promised until this last E3.
Though I suppose it could be disqualified as the advertised danger apparently actually exists.
Only if the advertised danger comes in the form of "terrorists can't get into the country if they were going to bother getting their visa through the US government rather than using the Canadian or Mexican border".
Oh no, the government can't issue visas, so now terrorists on the list can't get a visa, and terrorists not on the list can't get a visa.
Just wondering where the hell the price difference comes from. And please don't say thing like sales tax or wages. The tax difference ain't that big and the damn things are produced in china.
VAT and import duties can be something like 15-25%. The price difference, after currency exchange, between a GBA-SP on Amazon.co.uk and amazon.com is ~50%. I'd imagine there's also a difference in cost associated with producing 220 power adapters for the rechargable battery pack (and the batteries themselves may be different), if that is needed for units sold in the EU (since Japanese and US consoles sell with 110V power adapters). There may also be associated costs with getting the device approved for the EU, which would of course be passed on to the consumers in that area.
All of that being said, the device is priced based on the combination of costs for building the device and getting it approved and shipped to the location, as well as what the market would bear. Even if the exchange rates changed drastically, Nintendo's prices wouldn't react very quickly, which could work for or against you. (in fact, if Nintendo's prices did fluctuate with the exchange rates it would probably look bad to most consumers, though it would happen if the market could manage a more direct path from the producer to the consumer, especially since even the US price is subject to exchange rates and possibly import taxes).
First you said Sept 30, then denied when your parent company said the end of the year, then days before the deadline, you say you can't get it out.
Valve doesn't have a parent company...
As for respect for Valve going down over this, I'm amazed anyone is surprised. I've been waiting for one game from Valve for 5 years. TFC took my mind off of it for a while, but frankly Half-Life wasn't a product I wanted or even care about.
Until Valve releases any game on time I'll expect their releases to be late. In fact, the only reason I'm not waiting for them to scrap the game engine like they did with Half-Life and Team Fortress 2 is simply because they kept their mouths shut about HL2 for so long.
This is Microsoft here... the only reason they're not giving them away free in cereal boxes is that it would be egregious product dumping and found illegal. (Well, maybe not the only reason, there are issues of consumer expectations and such, but Microsoft has the cash and the apparent desire.)
Not to mention that a lot of parents might be pissed when the cereal box weighs more than their kids. Supermarkets might be a little irritated that the cereal boxes are taking up 250% of the space they were previously taking up, too. hmm, come to think of it, Microsoft might have a harder time giving them away in cereal boxes than they do selling them.
The network adapter is available, it's just a little hard to find in stores. You should be able to find it online fairly easily. (hey, how else are people supposed to play Phantasy Star Online?).
I've seen the modem adapter far more often than the network adapter, but that might be more of an indicator that the modem adapter isn't selling as well (since cable and DSL have pretty good subscriber numbers in my area).
the original NES was $99 if I remember correctly.
It depends on when you got it. If you were a very early NES owner and got the package with the robot (the only one available at the start), it could have been as much as $400. My parents bought the bundle with the light gun (not the orange one) and Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros. cart. for $115, about 3-5 years after the system was released.
How much were NES games back in the day? I don't remember them being $50 each, the way GameCube games are now.
It depended on the game and when you bought it, just like it does today, except that some cartridges cost more to produce, and were therefore more expensive. Ultima:Exodus, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Warrior were each around $60 when they were first released. Most games started at $50. In the last 3 years before the SNES was released, games in the $20-35 range became much more common, though rarely for new games.
Microsoft seems to be competing more with PS2 then with Gamecube.
How is Microsoft competing more with PS2 than with GameCube when the XBox sales are much closer to the GameCube's sales than to the PS2's sales?
The simple fact is that Microsoft is #3 worldwide, and if Nintendo can get a decent increase in sales in the US, Microsoft will be #3 here, as well. Microsoft set their system up to compete with the PS2 (DVD playback, online capability, etc), but that's not what they are currently doing.
In short, you're right that MS isn't concerned over losing large amounts of money on the X-Box but they aren't going to just lose indiscriminate amounts.
I think their primary concern is keeping the amount coming in higher than the cost of the hardware. Even if they're losing money on the advertising and R&D, they won't take it below cost.
Frankly, I don't think Nintendo will be losing money at $100, either, at this point. They've been making money off the Cube from the start, and it's been selling at $150 with either a game or a $50 accessory for some time now.
Of course, at the moment the link in the GameSpot article is showing them as out of stock...