Actually, three of those four examples have historical precedents. Depending on the winds coming from the surrounding areas, the Red Sea can part itself long enough for one to walk across. Also, manna exists, and the technology to make it was around in Biblical times. Finally, erosion patterns suggest that sometime within the past 5000 years there was a flood large enough to cover mountains.
I'm not saying that this stuff is supernatural or from divine intervention. I'm just saying that it's evidence that it could have happened. Attaching faith to it is your own prerogative.
Jesus existed. The Romans have logs of a man named Jesus from Nazareth being chosen for execution by crucifixion. Not the Christians, but the Romans.
Granted, these records could have been falsified. Even as a practicing Catholic, I have my doubts. But that's why its a _faith_ and not a _fact_. You can't prove faith scientifically. You can only say "something might have happened."
The real profits of Web2.0 come directly from the areas we don't think they're coming from. People are very likely, because of the supposed anonymity of the internet, to post things publicly that they normally would not discuss in person. Also, they are more willing to post their tastes publicly than would normally be discussed.
When was the last time you read someone's favorite books, movies, or TV shows off of a Facebook or Myspace profile? What about the comments on some recent product purchase in a blog (that's even what my blog is about)? What goods could you see in the background of the latest hot YouTube video? Ever wonder why your Gmail doesn't want you to delete old messages, even if they're useless, but instead "Archive" them?
"Web 1.0"'s advertising-driven model was about getting users to click on their ads. Companies would throw ads everywhere, with the hope that people would bite. Web 2.0 is more about gathering background on customers so that retailers and manufacturers can market more successfully to them. The ads on digg can look at what you've dugg in the past, so that they can have a more informed base for what they're going to pitch to you. It's one thing to say that a sporting goods company should advertise on ESPN.com and a software developer on Slashdot, but if you take your market research further than you can advertise for the perfect place to go after your team's next home game on ESPN.com or where you can find some good reference books for your language of choice on Slashdot.
It's not about getting in and getting out. It's about the data you collect. And if these companies are smart then they can bill on a subscription model for their customer information databases and be in business for quite some time. This is because background data is vital to marketers, and they will pay exorbitant amounts of money for the data. This should more than offset the operating costs of a website.
The Bible is a compendium of at least thirty different authors, all who were "inspired" by God rather than dictated to (as in the Qua'ran). Humans can and do fail to accurately record things, and even as a strict Catholic I've learned not tot fully trust the Bible. Even though the Christian Bible is an attempt at standardization, newer works such as the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that there is quite a bit more. You have to look at the whole picture with something like this, rather than just cherry-picking your passages.
Cherry-picking messages of hope and love, like you pointed out, are cherry-picking passages from the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John (Mark was written at the height of the Christian persecution, and as such its message is more of worldly power than of otherworldly hope). The Old Testament, or the Hebrew writings, is really a collection of the Torah and several prophetic books. These are the elements that are very violent, and usually confuse people. Not to say there isn't violent content in the New Testament (just look at the Crucifixion stories), but it is largely from a time when God had to fight to keep the fledgling nation of Israel faithful and organized.
When MS bought Bungie, Halo was nothing like it was today. First, it was going to be a Mac-exclusive game. Second, it was going to be a strategy game, on a squad level. If I remember correctly, the art style was mostly constant throughout development, but the gameplay changed considerably.
Still does, sad to say. My mom, over my arguments, still uses AOL. And on a recent software checkup, I noticed a computer that once was able to run a game like No One Lives Forever 2 at full resolution & effects now is burdened by 5 (!) AOL processes when the software itself isn't even going. Honestly, AOL needs to understand the concept of "bloatware," and quickly. The service itself isn't so bad for a dialup service, it's just that their software is so overdone it's quite frankly shit.
Mr. Zuckerberg actually worked on a site that already existed (I believe it was called ConnectU.com). Zuckerberg was hired to redisgn the site. However, after the three month contract was up, ConnectU releaunched with a rather shaky design (the site would sometimes crash its servers the coding was so bad) and Facebook was launched, as Zuckerberg's own project, around the same time. The two contain many elements in common, but because Facebook was more stable and happened to hit at the right time and have the right publicity (and name, even) it became the smash hit it is today.
When it first happened, there was a bit of controversy as to if Facebook might even contain some ConnectU code. It was a sticky situation for a bit.
Even though the city itself is only two square miles, many people have jobs that are outside of public transit (about half work in New York City, which is easily accessible through the PATH trains, and the other half work in northern New Jersey, which has little to no transit coverage coming from Hoboken). This is not counting the usual commercial vehicles that people use that you'll find in any major city.
As a Hoboken resident, I can tell you that the parking situation is horrendous. There are many times that the city's very narrow streets are either nearly impassible or just impassible because of the parking problems. At one point a few years ago, the mayor put the city under an illegal lockdown because the parking problems were just so severe.
There are a few major parking garages in the city, and parking is a high premium. Also, there is a college (Stevens Institute of Technology, where I attend classes) that takes up a large portion of the city with its own parking lots. There is a long-standing conflict over the parking the school would provide to the city in one of its new buildings.
The city is very small (approximately 2 square miles) and very dense (approximately 500,000 full-times residents). The reason for the size and density is the city's proximity to downtown Manhattan and the financial district (the city is quite literally directly across the Hudson River from downtown and midtown Manhattan). The road system dates back to the late 1600s and is mostly very narrow streets with limited parking. This is something that I can't stress enough, as its a cause of the traffic and parking problems.
These lots were designed as a means to try to get rid of some blockages and to provide parking to residents. Unfortunately, the effect was relatively limited. The garage was an extra fee on top of an already-required Hoboken-specific decal for parking four or more hours.
That said, with the problems that the city government has had in the past, it doesn't surprise me that something like this would be done. It's not so much an argument of open-source versus closed-source software, as it is about government responsibility. The city, to my knowledge, did not take account of the fact that the contract was to end in a few days, or that there were residents' cars in the lot. Instead of posting notices that the cars had to be emptied on this date (in order to remove the equipment, this just "happened."
City government and its poor planning is to blame for this, not software liscensing and F/LOSS vs. closed source.
I was just in my local game store today (a GameStop, to be specific) to pick up a WiFi USB Connector for the DS, and a copy of Metroid Prime: Hunters (the DS doesn't like my college's WiFi, especially the WPA authentication). I noticed that the DS stuff was off in a corner of the store, took up maybe 4 racks (all about 2 feet wide and vertical to each other), nowhere near the front. However, the PSP games were all right in the front, with signifcantly larger racks. They even had the audacity to fill out the DS racks with the cases for used games mixed in with the new games.
The biggest thing to take away from this is that the DS games were all the way in the back, almost like they were trying to hide them, mixed in with the near-absent PC, GameCube, and Xbox 1 games, and not one game was tilted so that you could see the front art (all were arranged so that you could read the spine). The PSP games, on the other hand, were in the very front of the store, each arranged so that someone walking by outside would be able to see the cover art clearly.
Yeah, this is off-topic, but I think Sony pays GameStop good money to have Nintendo's stuff all the way in the back and their PSP stuff put in the front.
"it's anticompetetive when the system is designed to detect competing software and prevent it from running properly. Until the second case is true, this is all bullshit and these lawyers need to find a new hobby." -bluefoxlucid
The last beta I played of RO, if you tried to reload, and rather than getting a message your avatar would simply put the clip back in if it was heavy. Please tell me this little bit wasn't changed! It was a nice way of doing it.
This might be one of the things that will change soon, with the rising rate of accidents among youth (going from the min. driving age to around 24). Car manufacturers want to stress safety, so there might finally be damage for cars.
The problem is that the RIAA typically goes after only those who cannot afford to fight back against them legally. This guarantees little or no chance of a legal fight, and consequently a nice, quick settlement for them. However, the RIAA still needs to be careful. If cases start to be fought, say by filing one against a monied Slashdotter, than a judge might very well see that the case is baseless or lacks enough evidence. This would set a precedent in the favor of the defendant, and by the US court system, this case would be referenced by all similar cases, and this precedent would render all these lawsuits useless.
The situation where a precedent is established against the RIAA is the worst possible situation for their lawsuits, so you can be pretty certain that they will try to avoid that situation as best they can.
I've seen it, but I haven't been able to find any more information about it, and one of the comments raises a concern (10fps video is not acceptable). A product like this smells fishy, especially since it doesn't have an audio chip like the P-Y, so it's mono output only.
For a while I've been looking into getting a new handheld (right now I have a pretty beat up GBA (original, with a custom made LED-backlight), but I haven't jumped yet. Why? Multimedia capabilities.
In Japan, the big "N" released the Play-Yan (and more recently, the Play-Yan Micro) for the GBA/GBA-SP/GBM (it also works on the DS, from what I've read). This is a cart that includes a headphone jack (it has a dedicated audio chip) and a slot for an SD card (up to 1GB). It can play movies and music (MPEG-4 video and MP3 audio). It isn't too much of a battery hog, either.
It's also not available outside of Japan.
Sony hit it right on the nose saying that people want a mutlifunction device. While the GBA/GBA-SP may not be the sexiest things out there, and the GBM has a small screen, they could fill that purpose with the Play-Yan. But Nintendo refuses to release it in North America, and it's pointless to import from Japan as I can't read the interface or software (it comes with a program to convert your DVDs to MPEG-4).
The PlayStation Portable is a good device, but it has a shorter battery life than the GBM, and also costs almost three times as much ($90 for a GBM, $250 for a PSP). For one PSP, I could buy a GBM, import a Play-Yan, and buy six or seven games. However, the added price does get you an amazing screen.
I really wish one of these companies would bend and make life easier. I don't suspect Sony will do so, they're probably already taking a loss on every PSP. Nintendo should bite the bullet and get around to releasing the Play-Yan in America. Maybe even release a bundle with the damn thing packaged in for $30 more. I'm sure people would go for it.
'Cult' movies may retain value long after their release, but are often times overlooked on release and there are certainly a large number of releases that failed to reach 'cult' status. For every 'Pi' there are a hundred independent movies that are only seen by a few hundred, sometimes failing to make back even their initial cost (usually under $30,000) and fall into disgrace (and irrelevance). The commonality among 'cult' movies is that they pass quickly through word-of-mouth and have modest box office success (just look at 'Donnie Darko'. Although the movie barely recouped it's cost in the theatres, it has done amazingly well on DVD, garnering a special director's cut as well as regular release).
You can make the same argument for games, that good but not amazing initial sales will keep people playing for long periods of time (look at games like Tribes 2's re-release). The difference is that there are no residuals once a game has been bought, and games move off of store shelves (if they ever make it on) very quickly. To further compound the problem, most people don't buy older games with very few exceptions (this is slowly starting to change, but is still only a small fraction of the market with little to no residuals going back to the developer). Movies continue to be rented and shown on television long after they are produced (even very old movies through the US cable TV channels TCM and AMC), and so studios continue to profit off of these residuals long after their release.
It's not that the electronics companies are going to be forced to stop producing DVDs, it's that "Big Content" wants them to stop producing DVDs. The electronics companies will happily go along for the ride, knowing that if the right amount of content is there, customers may very well follow, and they will enjoy a success similar to the one they had when people were switching from VHS to DVD (and like the RIAA had during the switch from audio cassette to CD).
The thing everyone has to worry about is market acceptance. Like someone mentioned earlier, the general public cares only about stuff working, not about the best quality possible (unless they have HDTVs, which is probably a sign that they're not in the general public anymore). HDTV penetration is very low in the US, which is seen as the most important market for consumer electronics (this is debatable, but that's how companies seem to act sometimes), to the point where almost ten years after introduction the market is still well below 10% HD.
As things progress, and prices continue to fall to the point where plasma and LCD screens are as expensive as normal CRT TVs are now, HD will have higher market penetration, but people may not feel the need to update from DVDs. I've seen a DVD on an HD set, and there isn't enough distortion to warrant buying all new movies & players.
That last part was the gist of what I'm trying to say.
They are unique in that they are also a major media corporation: they have a music division, a movie division, et cetera. While Microsoft and Nintendo do have game studios (and in the case of Microsoft, many other software divisions not dedicated to games), they don't have a large, non-technical content division breathing down their necks about something that they don't really understand (DRM). Sony Music is the part of the corporation that made Sony release its first crippled digital media player. Sony Pictures is probably a driving force behind the constant upgrades to the PSP so that it's hard for users to pirate the UMD movies available for the handheld, and therefore preventing the comapny from truly opening up the console.
Couldn't you also make the argument that because the Revolution is using a more current-gen hardware profile, that it's parts will be easier manufacture? Granted, ATi did create a new chip for the system (Hollywood, IIRC), but most technology should be more within the scope of current production methods, rather than something like a Cell processor (1 core vs. 8 cores).
I just wanted to let you know that you shouldn't buy Sony products because of rootkits and DRM. Instead you should buy open, hackable platforms like the Game Park GP2X and the Nintendo DS. Buy a Revolution, too.
Now then, if they were to include the updated source, that would be freaking sweet.
If Sony were to "wisen up" and open the platform of the PSP and PS3, the company would be killed by infighting. Sony is in the unique position of being both a device producer and a content producer. Sadly, in this case the content side of the business has almost total control over the device side of the business. This can be seen in the early digital media players that wouldn't play MP3s, and by exploit-laden CDs still in stores despite a recall. Indeed, the main problem for Sony is that the device side cannot pull itself out from the grip of the media side. Sony made a great piece of hardware with the PSP, but because of the content side's desire of creating a mobile video platform, the devices needs to stay locked-down and DRM'ed so that piracy is less of a worry.
The biggest problem Sony faces is itself, and it is a similar problem to what is faced by all device producers: Content producers understand neither the technology their content is played on nor the demands and wants of the buying public. It is not a question of "if" but "when" DRM methods will be cracked, and no movie or record executive will believe that fact. Until they do, we will continue to see DRM.
These two guys have repeatedly shown that they are more than respectable in circles outside of gaming. Although their comic is definitely one of the most offensive and obscene (and occasionally, funny) comics available, they still continue to donate to and organize charities.
The Child's Play charity (disclaimer: I have donated to this charity in the past, and will continue to do so) is a great idea, and is something surprisingly overlooked. In 2003-2004, I worked in a children's ward in a New York City hospital. The children were very well provided-for in terms of their treatment, but had nothing to do but sit around all day waiting to heal. You would be surprised how hard it is to get people to donate to a hospital for things other than medicine.
The two guys also (very controvertially) donated $10,000 over the summer in the name of Jack Thompson, Esq. Although the incident turned ugly (and Mr. Thompson explained his motivation in a recent interview), it is a good example of their interest in charities.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, three of those four examples have historical precedents. Depending on the winds coming from the surrounding areas, the Red Sea can part itself long enough for one to walk across. Also, manna exists, and the technology to make it was around in Biblical times. Finally, erosion patterns suggest that sometime within the past 5000 years there was a flood large enough to cover mountains. I'm not saying that this stuff is supernatural or from divine intervention. I'm just saying that it's evidence that it could have happened. Attaching faith to it is your own prerogative.
Jesus existed. The Romans have logs of a man named Jesus from Nazareth being chosen for execution by crucifixion. Not the Christians, but the Romans. Granted, these records could have been falsified. Even as a practicing Catholic, I have my doubts. But that's why its a _faith_ and not a _fact_. You can't prove faith scientifically. You can only say "something might have happened."
The real profits of Web2.0 come directly from the areas we don't think they're coming from. People are very likely, because of the supposed anonymity of the internet, to post things publicly that they normally would not discuss in person. Also, they are more willing to post their tastes publicly than would normally be discussed.
When was the last time you read someone's favorite books, movies, or TV shows off of a Facebook or Myspace profile? What about the comments on some recent product purchase in a blog (that's even what my blog is about)? What goods could you see in the background of the latest hot YouTube video? Ever wonder why your Gmail doesn't want you to delete old messages, even if they're useless, but instead "Archive" them?
"Web 1.0"'s advertising-driven model was about getting users to click on their ads. Companies would throw ads everywhere, with the hope that people would bite. Web 2.0 is more about gathering background on customers so that retailers and manufacturers can market more successfully to them. The ads on digg can look at what you've dugg in the past, so that they can have a more informed base for what they're going to pitch to you. It's one thing to say that a sporting goods company should advertise on ESPN.com and a software developer on Slashdot, but if you take your market research further than you can advertise for the perfect place to go after your team's next home game on ESPN.com or where you can find some good reference books for your language of choice on Slashdot.
It's not about getting in and getting out. It's about the data you collect. And if these companies are smart then they can bill on a subscription model for their customer information databases and be in business for quite some time. This is because background data is vital to marketers, and they will pay exorbitant amounts of money for the data. This should more than offset the operating costs of a website.
The Bible is a compendium of at least thirty different authors, all who were "inspired" by God rather than dictated to (as in the Qua'ran). Humans can and do fail to accurately record things, and even as a strict Catholic I've learned not tot fully trust the Bible. Even though the Christian Bible is an attempt at standardization, newer works such as the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that there is quite a bit more. You have to look at the whole picture with something like this, rather than just cherry-picking your passages. Cherry-picking messages of hope and love, like you pointed out, are cherry-picking passages from the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John (Mark was written at the height of the Christian persecution, and as such its message is more of worldly power than of otherworldly hope). The Old Testament, or the Hebrew writings, is really a collection of the Torah and several prophetic books. These are the elements that are very violent, and usually confuse people. Not to say there isn't violent content in the New Testament (just look at the Crucifixion stories), but it is largely from a time when God had to fight to keep the fledgling nation of Israel faithful and organized.
When MS bought Bungie, Halo was nothing like it was today. First, it was going to be a Mac-exclusive game. Second, it was going to be a strategy game, on a squad level. If I remember correctly, the art style was mostly constant throughout development, but the gameplay changed considerably.
Still does, sad to say. My mom, over my arguments, still uses AOL. And on a recent software checkup, I noticed a computer that once was able to run a game like No One Lives Forever 2 at full resolution & effects now is burdened by 5 (!) AOL processes when the software itself isn't even going. Honestly, AOL needs to understand the concept of "bloatware," and quickly. The service itself isn't so bad for a dialup service, it's just that their software is so overdone it's quite frankly shit.
Mr. Zuckerberg actually worked on a site that already existed (I believe it was called ConnectU.com). Zuckerberg was hired to redisgn the site. However, after the three month contract was up, ConnectU releaunched with a rather shaky design (the site would sometimes crash its servers the coding was so bad) and Facebook was launched, as Zuckerberg's own project, around the same time. The two contain many elements in common, but because Facebook was more stable and happened to hit at the right time and have the right publicity (and name, even) it became the smash hit it is today.
When it first happened, there was a bit of controversy as to if Facebook might even contain some ConnectU code. It was a sticky situation for a bit.
Even though the city itself is only two square miles, many people have jobs that are outside of public transit (about half work in New York City, which is easily accessible through the PATH trains, and the other half work in northern New Jersey, which has little to no transit coverage coming from Hoboken). This is not counting the usual commercial vehicles that people use that you'll find in any major city.
As a Hoboken resident, I can tell you that the parking situation is horrendous. There are many times that the city's very narrow streets are either nearly impassible or just impassible because of the parking problems. At one point a few years ago, the mayor put the city under an illegal lockdown because the parking problems were just so severe.
There are a few major parking garages in the city, and parking is a high premium. Also, there is a college (Stevens Institute of Technology, where I attend classes) that takes up a large portion of the city with its own parking lots. There is a long-standing conflict over the parking the school would provide to the city in one of its new buildings.
The city is very small (approximately 2 square miles) and very dense (approximately 500,000 full-times residents). The reason for the size and density is the city's proximity to downtown Manhattan and the financial district (the city is quite literally directly across the Hudson River from downtown and midtown Manhattan). The road system dates back to the late 1600s and is mostly very narrow streets with limited parking. This is something that I can't stress enough, as its a cause of the traffic and parking problems.
These lots were designed as a means to try to get rid of some blockages and to provide parking to residents. Unfortunately, the effect was relatively limited. The garage was an extra fee on top of an already-required Hoboken-specific decal for parking four or more hours.
That said, with the problems that the city government has had in the past, it doesn't surprise me that something like this would be done. It's not so much an argument of open-source versus closed-source software, as it is about government responsibility. The city, to my knowledge, did not take account of the fact that the contract was to end in a few days, or that there were residents' cars in the lot. Instead of posting notices that the cars had to be emptied on this date (in order to remove the equipment, this just "happened."
City government and its poor planning is to blame for this, not software liscensing and F/LOSS vs. closed source.
I was just in my local game store today (a GameStop, to be specific) to pick up a WiFi USB Connector for the DS, and a copy of Metroid Prime: Hunters (the DS doesn't like my college's WiFi, especially the WPA authentication). I noticed that the DS stuff was off in a corner of the store, took up maybe 4 racks (all about 2 feet wide and vertical to each other), nowhere near the front. However, the PSP games were all right in the front, with signifcantly larger racks. They even had the audacity to fill out the DS racks with the cases for used games mixed in with the new games. The biggest thing to take away from this is that the DS games were all the way in the back, almost like they were trying to hide them, mixed in with the near-absent PC, GameCube, and Xbox 1 games, and not one game was tilted so that you could see the front art (all were arranged so that you could read the spine). The PSP games, on the other hand, were in the very front of the store, each arranged so that someone walking by outside would be able to see the cover art clearly. Yeah, this is off-topic, but I think Sony pays GameStop good money to have Nintendo's stuff all the way in the back and their PSP stuff put in the front.
Mod parent up. Seems like a great idea!
Well, at least there is writing on The Simpsons. That alone means its one of the best prime-time shows on network TV.
"it's anticompetetive when the system is designed to detect competing software and prevent it from running properly. Until the second case is true, this is all bullshit and these lawyers need to find a new hobby."
2 /microsoft_antispyware_deleting_1.html
-bluefoxlucid
Umm, you don't use Norton software, do you? http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/0
The last beta I played of RO, if you tried to reload, and rather than getting a message your avatar would simply put the clip back in if it was heavy. Please tell me this little bit wasn't changed! It was a nice way of doing it.
This might be one of the things that will change soon, with the rising rate of accidents among youth (going from the min. driving age to around 24). Car manufacturers want to stress safety, so there might finally be damage for cars.
(Take that, Need for Speed!)
The problem is that the RIAA typically goes after only those who cannot afford to fight back against them legally. This guarantees little or no chance of a legal fight, and consequently a nice, quick settlement for them. However, the RIAA still needs to be careful. If cases start to be fought, say by filing one against a monied Slashdotter, than a judge might very well see that the case is baseless or lacks enough evidence. This would set a precedent in the favor of the defendant, and by the US court system, this case would be referenced by all similar cases, and this precedent would render all these lawsuits useless.
The situation where a precedent is established against the RIAA is the worst possible situation for their lawsuits, so you can be pretty certain that they will try to avoid that situation as best they can.
That's Crisco. Mmm. Crisco. Makes everything sizzle.
I've seen it, but I haven't been able to find any more information about it, and one of the comments raises a concern (10fps video is not acceptable). A product like this smells fishy, especially since it doesn't have an audio chip like the P-Y, so it's mono output only.
For a while I've been looking into getting a new handheld (right now I have a pretty beat up GBA (original, with a custom made LED-backlight), but I haven't jumped yet. Why? Multimedia capabilities.
In Japan, the big "N" released the Play-Yan (and more recently, the Play-Yan Micro) for the GBA/GBA-SP/GBM (it also works on the DS, from what I've read). This is a cart that includes a headphone jack (it has a dedicated audio chip) and a slot for an SD card (up to 1GB). It can play movies and music (MPEG-4 video and MP3 audio). It isn't too much of a battery hog, either.
It's also not available outside of Japan.
Sony hit it right on the nose saying that people want a mutlifunction device. While the GBA/GBA-SP may not be the sexiest things out there, and the GBM has a small screen, they could fill that purpose with the Play-Yan. But Nintendo refuses to release it in North America, and it's pointless to import from Japan as I can't read the interface or software (it comes with a program to convert your DVDs to MPEG-4).
The PlayStation Portable is a good device, but it has a shorter battery life than the GBM, and also costs almost three times as much ($90 for a GBM, $250 for a PSP). For one PSP, I could buy a GBM, import a Play-Yan, and buy six or seven games. However, the added price does get you an amazing screen.
I really wish one of these companies would bend and make life easier. I don't suspect Sony will do so, they're probably already taking a loss on every PSP. Nintendo should bite the bullet and get around to releasing the Play-Yan in America. Maybe even release a bundle with the damn thing packaged in for $30 more. I'm sure people would go for it.
'Cult' movies may retain value long after their release, but are often times overlooked on release and there are certainly a large number of releases that failed to reach 'cult' status. For every 'Pi' there are a hundred independent movies that are only seen by a few hundred, sometimes failing to make back even their initial cost (usually under $30,000) and fall into disgrace (and irrelevance). The commonality among 'cult' movies is that they pass quickly through word-of-mouth and have modest box office success (just look at 'Donnie Darko'. Although the movie barely recouped it's cost in the theatres, it has done amazingly well on DVD, garnering a special director's cut as well as regular release).
You can make the same argument for games, that good but not amazing initial sales will keep people playing for long periods of time (look at games like Tribes 2's re-release). The difference is that there are no residuals once a game has been bought, and games move off of store shelves (if they ever make it on) very quickly. To further compound the problem, most people don't buy older games with very few exceptions (this is slowly starting to change, but is still only a small fraction of the market with little to no residuals going back to the developer). Movies continue to be rented and shown on television long after they are produced (even very old movies through the US cable TV channels TCM and AMC), and so studios continue to profit off of these residuals long after their release.
It's not that the electronics companies are going to be forced to stop producing DVDs, it's that "Big Content" wants them to stop producing DVDs. The electronics companies will happily go along for the ride, knowing that if the right amount of content is there, customers may very well follow, and they will enjoy a success similar to the one they had when people were switching from VHS to DVD (and like the RIAA had during the switch from audio cassette to CD).
The thing everyone has to worry about is market acceptance. Like someone mentioned earlier, the general public cares only about stuff working, not about the best quality possible (unless they have HDTVs, which is probably a sign that they're not in the general public anymore). HDTV penetration is very low in the US, which is seen as the most important market for consumer electronics (this is debatable, but that's how companies seem to act sometimes), to the point where almost ten years after introduction the market is still well below 10% HD.
As things progress, and prices continue to fall to the point where plasma and LCD screens are as expensive as normal CRT TVs are now, HD will have higher market penetration, but people may not feel the need to update from DVDs. I've seen a DVD on an HD set, and there isn't enough distortion to warrant buying all new movies & players.
That last part was the gist of what I'm trying to say.
They are unique in that they are also a major media corporation: they have a music division, a movie division, et cetera. While Microsoft and Nintendo do have game studios (and in the case of Microsoft, many other software divisions not dedicated to games), they don't have a large, non-technical content division breathing down their necks about something that they don't really understand (DRM). Sony Music is the part of the corporation that made Sony release its first crippled digital media player. Sony Pictures is probably a driving force behind the constant upgrades to the PSP so that it's hard for users to pirate the UMD movies available for the handheld, and therefore preventing the comapny from truly opening up the console.
Couldn't you also make the argument that because the Revolution is using a more current-gen hardware profile, that it's parts will be easier manufacture? Granted, ATi did create a new chip for the system (Hollywood, IIRC), but most technology should be more within the scope of current production methods, rather than something like a Cell processor (1 core vs. 8 cores).
I just wanted to let you know that you shouldn't buy Sony products because of rootkits and DRM. Instead you should buy open, hackable platforms like the Game Park GP2X and the Nintendo DS. Buy a Revolution, too.
Although I agree with your point, the GP2X isn't the isn't the best example to use right now.
Now then, if they were to include the updated source, that would be freaking sweet.
If Sony were to "wisen up" and open the platform of the PSP and PS3, the company would be killed by infighting. Sony is in the unique position of being both a device producer and a content producer. Sadly, in this case the content side of the business has almost total control over the device side of the business. This can be seen in the early digital media players that wouldn't play MP3s, and by exploit-laden CDs still in stores despite a recall. Indeed, the main problem for Sony is that the device side cannot pull itself out from the grip of the media side. Sony made a great piece of hardware with the PSP, but because of the content side's desire of creating a mobile video platform, the devices needs to stay locked-down and DRM'ed so that piracy is less of a worry.
The biggest problem Sony faces is itself, and it is a similar problem to what is faced by all device producers: Content producers understand neither the technology their content is played on nor the demands and wants of the buying public. It is not a question of "if" but "when" DRM methods will be cracked, and no movie or record executive will believe that fact. Until they do, we will continue to see DRM.
These two guys have repeatedly shown that they are more than respectable in circles outside of gaming. Although their comic is definitely one of the most offensive and obscene (and occasionally, funny) comics available, they still continue to donate to and organize charities.
The Child's Play charity (disclaimer: I have donated to this charity in the past, and will continue to do so) is a great idea, and is something surprisingly overlooked. In 2003-2004, I worked in a children's ward in a New York City hospital. The children were very well provided-for in terms of their treatment, but had nothing to do but sit around all day waiting to heal. You would be surprised how hard it is to get people to donate to a hospital for things other than medicine.
The two guys also (very controvertially) donated $10,000 over the summer in the name of Jack Thompson, Esq. Although the incident turned ugly (and Mr. Thompson explained his motivation in a recent interview), it is a good example of their interest in charities.
The Penny-Arcade haters may now mod me down.