To begin, it might spare Take-Two and Rockstar a lot of grief if they had some social and political connection to the American inner city, however tenuous and fragile.
Secondly, the American game developer has an extraordinarily rich multicultural - multiracial - heritage on which to draw and new markets which he must learn how to reach.
But, for the most part, he is the John McCain of gaming. Much younger - and more aware and more adept at manipulating the technology available to him.
But his stories, themes, characters, and settings are endlessly recycled.
The exceptions prove the rule, of course.
Will Wright had the wit and imagination to see that domestic situation comedy and drama - the stuff of soap opera - could anchor a successful simulation game.
I still can't find a job. I'm willing to work for like 50k which is like chump change for what I can do.
The median household income in the states is $48,000.
You will excuse me, I trust, if I show scant sympathy for the geek who believes he is entitled to an upper middle class income from the day he graduates.
"What would you name a community-owned, cutting-edge, G-PON fiber-optic network covering every remote corner of two-dozen contiguous towns?"
"Roadkill."
Lesson Number 1:
Show some pity for the GIMP.
Never ask a geek to put a name to your project.
Lesson Number 2:
Read Parkinson's Laws.
You are thinking like a committee.
Giving your time to the least important question that needs to be asked and answered.
It is not an unimportant question. It is not an easy question. But it is not the question you should be asking here.
Your project is a complex, expensive, high-risk venture.
Nothing is more important right now than physical proof that you are up to this job..
If you haven't the money to hire a specialist in marketing - someone who knows and understands the rural and small town audience you must reach - you do not belong in this game.
Costs are $1 a foot to lengths of 100 ft.HDMI Cable
Alternative to Blu-Ray - DVD (which has laughable DRM)
The computer Geek thinks PC quality video.
The guy who puts $5-$25K into HT is thinking theatrical quality projection and sound.
Netflix isn't charging him a premium for the Blu-Ray rental. If he owns a PS3 he owns a Profile 2 Blu-Ray player. The Blu-Ray disk is 50 GB today and 100 GB tomorrow.
100 GB of professionally recorded mp4 video that doesn't have to be downloaded over a snail-slow and fragile P2P link. 100 GB that doesn't take a big bite out of his media server or DVR.
If DISH network has corrected the problem with a new software download, why do they need to pursue this to the US Supreme Court?
The appeal to the Supreme Court is routine. The denial of cert is also routine. The Supremes take on only the 150 or so cases each year that they think are genuinely worth their time.
Same how the Roman empire was invincible, really. And the British empire. And let's not even get started on the American empire, which is crumbling before our very eyes.
The Geek has an immature sense of time.
The Roman thought of his history as beginning in 440 BC with the founding of the city. The western empire fell ca 440 AD. The eastern empire had a 1000 year run beyond that.
The Roman Catholic Church is still a going concern after 2000 years.
One day soon the stockholders will ask why Microsoft is sinking so much money into XBox 360 or any of those other loss-making projects that Microsoft enjoys so much. They will start to wonder if profits wouldn't be higher if Office were in a separate company, not fettered to any particular operating system.
MS Office has the PC and Mac.
Linux on the desktop has a 0.61% market share.
In these web based stats, Vista is closing in on a 20% share of the desktop market and should have 50% by late summer or into the fall. Top Operating System Share Trend
The OS still matters and the OS is still Windows.
You are a little behind the times. The XBox division is profitable.
In retail sales, Office 2007/2008 for the PC and the Mac pummels their competition into oblivion.
Microsoft has been posting spectacular results in fiscal 2008. 60% of Microsoft's revenues come from outside the US - and those revenues have been growing 20%-30% each quarter.
.
On January 8, 2007, DirectX (specifically, Direct3D) earned a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for Microsoft and partners AMD and Nvidia Corporation "for pioneering work in near and real-time fully programmable shading via modern graphics processors.
Of course Windows is going to decline.
The International Monetary Fund just announced that the sub-prime crisis has tipped the USA into the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s
The problem here is that 60% of Microsoft's revenues come from outside the US and have for years. The problem is that these revenues have been growing 20%-30% each quarter.
I think you may be missing the point here. MS has always lived on its revenue stream generated by OS and Office. Over the last half-decade or more, the market growth has dwindled to represent a small percentage of their streams; this was inevitable as the installed base grew. Without upgrades on installed machines, their revenue drops.
Microsoft's revenues are increasing at a pace that is difficult to grasp. 15% in the US. 20% in Europe. 30% in the emerging markets of Asia and Africa. Each quarter.
67 cents of every new retail dollar spent on PC software goes to MS Office.
Backward compatibility is a losing proposition for Microsoft; while it keeps people locked into Windows, it also often keeps them from upgrading
Finally somebody exposes the main reason Windows is not a cutting edge product, nor will it ever be
The reluctance to upgrade can be exaggerated: Top Operating System Share Trend In these web-based stats there seems to be little to stop Vista from reaching a 30% share in a month or two and 50% by late summer.
The geek who wants to dispute these numbers needs to explain why they track pretty damn well with the estimates you see posted for the Mac.
"Why do I have to search the web to find a piece of software to download? Why can't I just go to 'Add/Remove Programs', type in the name (or a keyword) and click install?"
Software for Windows is developed and distributed under a dozen different models.
You want subscription radio, a licensed Blu Ray player? The proprietary binary driver for your $400 video card. No problem.
Windows resources like Download.com target the non-technical user.
There will be editorial reviews, screen shots, tutorials, etc. Installing a program is easy. Choosing the right program to install is hard.
"Why can't I chose a different desktop environment when I log in?", "Why can't I use the command line to do even basic stuff?"
This is the Geek talking. The technical hobbyist. Linux has 0.61% share of the desktop market because - quite literally - almost no one else wants to do these things.
Broadband penetration in the US is under 50% of households. AOL's basic dial-up service is $10/mo. Your Mom & Pop ISP is probably not going to be able to beat that price.
The device is believed to be a stand-alone product akin to Apple TV as opposed to embedding a Blockbuster-branded service in such existing devices as Microsoft's Xbox 360 or TiVo. Blockbuster eyes streaming to TVs
It competes for shelf space, back panel connections and room on the power strip.
It competes with the services of your cable or internet provider.
Time-Warner owns Harry Potter. Why should it let Blockbuster in on the action?
It duplicates the functionality already built into your DVR, video game console, computer and home media server.
I'd not be surprised to see the same functionality built into the stand-alone Blu-Ray player, the HT receiver, or the HDTV itself.
Denon builds a Rhapsody subscription-compatible Internet radio player into its high end HT components today. Plug in a USB drive and you are more than halfway there.
No reason why the independent hardware manufacturer shouldn't let you purchase a la carte. From Amazon. The BBC. Disney and so on.
The little boys in Redmond have always been a bit delusional. If 90% of a market is held by one company in one market and that is anti-competitive then 90% of a market held by one company in the OS market is obviously anti-competitive.
Not delusional. Pragmatic.
"IBM and the Seven Dwarfs." Intel and AMD. Microsoft and Apple. Photoshop and "?" The tech sector has never been known for its competitive balance.
But to control 90% of the search based add market has very large implications.
It would be as if one newspaper published every classified add, every display add, every edition of the Yellow Pages.
It would be as if that same newspaper controlled the placement of every broadcast and radio add, every billboard and poster - and placement means everything to an advertiser.
The Redmond boys need to stick to copying software ideas and stay out of the big boy markets where they obviously are limited in mental maturity.
Redmond has been playing with the big boys for thirty years.
To save face, Sun's StarOffice reappears as a free download from Google. The premium in a box of Cracker Jacks.
While MS Office continues to rake in 67 cents of every new dollar spend on software at retail.
Microsoft's revenues are growing 15% each quarter in the states. 20% in Europe. 30% in the emerging markets of Asia and Africa.
Either your numbers are completely wrong, or MSN is over 6 times as popular in Turkey as the average for Internet users. Either way, they are completely useless as proof of total MSN usage in the world.
Internet users aren't always to be found in the Cafe:
Cenk Serder, was very visible at the recent Mobile World Congress, spending a lot of time talking to the press about his company's approach to a host of services. On instant messaging, he was making the point that in Turkey, where there are millions of Windows Live Messenger users, there is little point in trying to start up a specific, mobile operator focused service.
"We're the pioneer of IM, and actually started with a PIM based approach back in early 2006, but we changed horses at the end of 2007, and the reason is that it brings more internet services into play." Serdar said. "It's hard to ride against the tide, and MSN usage in Turkey is the third largest in the world, with 23 million accounts. MSN is so widespread that it was very hard to start something else and that's what we saw over the last two years." And Turkcell is not alone in Turkey in targeting those 23 million MSN/ Windows Live users with a gateway product.
Neustar's biggest rival as a technology enabler of mobile instant messaging, Colibria, is providing its technology to Avea, the fastest growing mobile operator in Turkey, which has launched a Windows Live Messenger service to its ten million mobile subscribers.Next generation messaging - Care of the community [March 13, 2008]
These stats are somewhat dated but still suggestive:
comScore Networks...released the results of an analysis of instant messenger (IM) usage in various parts of the world. According to the study, eighty-two million people, or 49 percent of the European online population, used IM applications to communicate online in February. In comparison, sixty-nine million people in North America, or only 37 percent of the online population, used IM during the same timeframe. Interestingly, the analysis showed that IM is most heavily used in the Latin American region, with 64 percent of the online population using IM in February. The MSN Messenger application has the strongest penetration worldwide, with 61 percent of worldwide IM users utilizing the application in February. MSN Messenger is also dominant in Latin America, reaching more than 90 percent of IM users, and in Europe and Asia Pacific, reaching more than 70 percent of IM users in each region. North America is the most competitive IM market, with MSN Messenger, AOL/Aim and Yahoo! Messenger each garnering between 27 percent and 37 percent of IM users in February.
Additional IM programs are gaining ground, especially outside of North America. Skype is now used by 14 percent of IM users worldwide, although this application is used by only 3 percent of the online population in North America. Skype appears most popular in Asia Pacific, reaching 26 percent of the region's IM user population.Europe Surpasses North America In Instant Messenger Users [April 10, 2006]
I personally know many friends switching from Hotmail to something else for pathetic services. I do not have a single contact with Hotmail address today.
The geek would live a freer, happier, life if he could surrender the delusion that he counts for much in Microsoft's world:
Here are up-to-date numbers for a single country, Turkey:
Turkey has a population of about 75 million.
Of the 300 million MSN users worldwide, 25 million are Turkish.
Turkey ranks third in using MSN Messenger.
Turkey ranks first in the world in using video-chat and Windows Live services. Turkey ranks fifth in the world with 19 million hotmail user accounts.
Half the users are below the age of 35, and 65 percent are men. Women users made up around 22 percent some time ago, but their share keeps getting larger. Three years ago the rate of users aged above 50 was almost nil, but now it was over 5 percent.
I can see MS doing nothing but destroying what little is left of them. Yes, MS, cash out everyone still hanging on to that sinking tub! The faster MS runs out of cash, the sooner we get to enjoy a world without them.
Modded up to +5, Insightful.
Living proof that the Geek needs to move out of Grandma's basement.
Microsoft's revenues are growing so fast that the numbers are difficult to grasp. 15% in the US. 20% in Europe. 30% in the new markets of Asia and Africa. Each quarter.
All of these devices lack features such as optical drives and large amounts of storage space, yet demand for them is very high
I would like to see some actual numbers here and not just marketing hype.
In the last five years, how many budget PCs touted on Slashdot have been left behind as roadkill - or simply faded out of sight? WalMart has tried a dozen variations on this theme and none has gone the distance.
In hard times, the poor aren't buying laptops at any price.
Those with a little more to spend tend to step up to something better. The market for the budget system is perhaps more typically the free-spending Geek looking for a new high-tech toy.
Slashdot Mirror
To begin, it might spare Take-Two and Rockstar a lot of grief if they had some social and political connection to the American inner city, however tenuous and fragile.
Secondly, the American game developer has an extraordinarily rich multicultural - multiracial - heritage on which to draw and new markets which he must learn how to reach.
But, for the most part, he is the John McCain of gaming. Much younger - and more aware and more adept at manipulating the technology available to him.
But his stories, themes, characters, and settings are endlessly recycled.
The exceptions prove the rule, of course.
Will Wright had the wit and imagination to see that domestic situation comedy and drama - the stuff of soap opera - could anchor a successful simulation game.
The median household income in the states is $48,000.
You will excuse me, I trust, if I show scant sympathy for the geek who believes he is entitled to an upper middle class income from the day he graduates.
Household income in the United States
"Roadkill."
Lesson Number 1:
Show some pity for the GIMP.
Never ask a geek to put a name to your project.
Lesson Number 2:
Read Parkinson's Laws.
You are thinking like a committee.
Giving your time to the least important question that needs to be asked and answered.
It is not an unimportant question. It is not an easy question. But it is not the question you should be asking here.
Your project is a complex, expensive, high-risk venture.
Nothing is more important right now than physical proof that you are up to this job..
If you haven't the money to hire a specialist in marketing - someone who knows and understands the rural and small town audience you must reach - you do not belong in this game.
the horse maxes out at 25 miles a day.
the Pony Express rider changed horses every 10 to 15 miles - an insanely expensive proposition even in the 1850s.
I'll take that to mean you can't let go of that Packard Bell PC and 12" monitor from the Win 3.1 days.
The alternatives are not as good and not as cheap as the geek makes them out to be.
HDMI is one cable for digital audio and video. HDMI 1.3 has a bandwidth of 340 MHz. High-Definition Multimedia Interface
Costs are $1 a foot to lengths of 100 ft.HDMI Cable
Alternative to Blu-Ray - DVD (which has laughable DRM)
The computer Geek thinks PC quality video.
The guy who puts $5-$25K into HT is thinking theatrical quality projection and sound.
Netflix isn't charging him a premium for the Blu-Ray rental. If he owns a PS3 he owns a Profile 2 Blu-Ray player. The Blu-Ray disk is 50 GB today and 100 GB tomorrow.
100 GB of professionally recorded mp4 video that doesn't have to be downloaded over a snail-slow and fragile P2P link. 100 GB that doesn't take a big bite out of his media server or DVR.
The appeal to the Supreme Court is routine. The denial of cert is also routine. The Supremes take on only the 150 or so cases each year that they think are genuinely worth their time.
Anyone who has ever worked around a stable will tell you that a horse is not a low maintenance vehicle.
The new Slashdot mantra.
But one you won't hear repeated when the talk turns to the iPod, Firefox or Linux in the back office.
The Geek has an immature sense of time.
The Roman thought of his history as beginning in 440 BC with the founding of the city. The western empire fell ca 440 AD. The eastern empire had a 1000 year run beyond that.
The Roman Catholic Church is still a going concern after 2000 years.
One day soon the stockholders will ask why Microsoft is sinking so much money into XBox 360 or any of those other loss-making projects that Microsoft enjoys so much. They will start to wonder if profits wouldn't be higher if Office were in a separate company, not fettered to any particular operating system.
MS Office has the PC and Mac.
Linux on the desktop has a 0.61% market share.
In these web based stats, Vista is closing in on a 20% share of the desktop market and should have 50% by late summer or into the fall. Top Operating System Share Trend
The OS still matters and the OS is still Windows.
You are a little behind the times. The XBox division is profitable.
In retail sales, Office 2007/2008 for the PC and the Mac pummels their competition into oblivion.
Microsoft has been posting spectacular results in fiscal 2008. 60% of Microsoft's revenues come from outside the US - and those revenues have been growing 20%-30% each quarter. .
OpenGL is tiny for reference. The core of it is 0.7MB on my computer.
OGL is graphics. DirectX is more than graphics.
DirectX is a set of APIs for damn near everything you'll need or want in the programming of multimedia and games.
DirectX
On January 8, 2007, DirectX (specifically, Direct3D) earned a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for Microsoft and partners AMD and Nvidia Corporation "for pioneering work in near and real-time fully programmable shading via modern graphics processors.
The International Monetary Fund just announced that the sub-prime crisis has tipped the USA into the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s
The problem here is that 60% of Microsoft's revenues come from outside the US and have for years. The problem is that these revenues have been growing 20%-30% each quarter.
Microsoft's revenues are increasing at a pace that is difficult to grasp. 15% in the US. 20% in Europe. 30% in the emerging markets of Asia and Africa. Each quarter.
67 cents of every new retail dollar spent on PC software goes to MS Office.
Finally somebody exposes the main reason Windows is not a cutting edge product, nor will it ever be
But this also exposes the reason why Microsoft has 90% of the market. Operating System Market Share
The reluctance to upgrade can be exaggerated: Top Operating System Share Trend In these web-based stats there seems to be little to stop Vista from reaching a 30% share in a month or two and 50% by late summer.
The geek who wants to dispute these numbers needs to explain why they track pretty damn well with the estimates you see posted for the Mac.
Software for Windows is developed and distributed under a dozen different models.
You want subscription radio, a licensed Blu Ray player? The proprietary binary driver for your $400 video card. No problem.
Windows resources like Download.com target the non-technical user.
There will be editorial reviews, screen shots, tutorials, etc. Installing a program is easy. Choosing the right program to install is hard.
"Why can't I chose a different desktop environment when I log in?", "Why can't I use the command line to do even basic stuff?"
This is the Geek talking. The technical hobbyist. Linux has 0.61% share of the desktop market because - quite literally - almost no one else wants to do these things.
Broadband penetration in the US is under 50% of households. AOL's basic dial-up service is $10/mo. Your Mom & Pop ISP is probably not going to be able to beat that price.
It competes for shelf space, back panel connections and room on the power strip.
It competes with the services of your cable or internet provider.
Time-Warner owns Harry Potter. Why should it let Blockbuster in on the action?
It duplicates the functionality already built into your DVR, video game console, computer and home media server.
I'd not be surprised to see the same functionality built into the stand-alone Blu-Ray player, the HT receiver, or the HDTV itself.
Denon builds a Rhapsody subscription-compatible Internet radio player into its high end HT components today. Plug in a USB drive and you are more than halfway there.
No reason why the independent hardware manufacturer shouldn't let you purchase a la carte. From Amazon. The BBC. Disney and so on.
Not delusional. Pragmatic.
"IBM and the Seven Dwarfs." Intel and AMD. Microsoft and Apple. Photoshop and "?" The tech sector has never been known for its competitive balance.
But to control 90% of the search based add market has very large implications.
It would be as if one newspaper published every classified add, every display add, every edition of the Yellow Pages.
It would be as if that same newspaper controlled the placement of every broadcast and radio add, every billboard and poster - and placement means everything to an advertiser.
The Redmond boys need to stick to copying software ideas and stay out of the big boy markets where they obviously are limited in mental maturity.
Redmond has been playing with the big boys for thirty years.
To save face, Sun's StarOffice reappears as a free download from Google. The premium in a box of Cracker Jacks.
While MS Office continues to rake in 67 cents of every new dollar spend on software at retail.
Microsoft's revenues are growing 15% each quarter in the states. 20% in Europe. 30% in the emerging markets of Asia and Africa.
Internet users aren't always to be found in the Cafe:
Cenk Serder, was very visible at the recent Mobile World Congress, spending a lot of time talking to the press about his company's approach to a host of services. On instant messaging, he was making the point that in Turkey, where there are millions of Windows Live Messenger users, there is little point in trying to start up a specific, mobile operator focused service.
"We're the pioneer of IM, and actually started with a PIM based approach back in early 2006, but we changed horses at the end of 2007, and the reason is that it brings more internet services into play." Serdar said. "It's hard to ride against the tide, and MSN usage in Turkey is the third largest in the world, with 23 million accounts. MSN is so widespread that it was very hard to start something else and that's what we saw over the last two years." And Turkcell is not alone in Turkey in targeting those 23 million MSN/ Windows Live users with a gateway product.
Neustar's biggest rival as a technology enabler of mobile instant messaging, Colibria, is providing its technology to Avea, the fastest growing mobile operator in Turkey, which has launched a Windows Live Messenger service to its ten million mobile subscribers. Next generation messaging - Care of the community [March 13, 2008]
These stats are somewhat dated but still suggestive:
comScore Networks...released the results of an analysis of instant messenger (IM) usage in various parts of the world. According to the study, eighty-two million people, or 49 percent of the European online population, used IM applications to communicate online in February. In comparison, sixty-nine million people in North America, or only 37 percent of the online population, used IM during the same timeframe. Interestingly, the analysis showed that IM is most heavily used in the Latin American region, with 64 percent of the online population using IM in February.
The MSN Messenger application has the strongest penetration worldwide, with 61 percent of worldwide IM users utilizing the application in February. MSN Messenger is also dominant in Latin America, reaching more than 90 percent of IM users, and in Europe and Asia Pacific, reaching more than 70 percent of IM users in each region. North America is the most competitive IM market, with MSN Messenger, AOL/Aim and Yahoo! Messenger each garnering between 27 percent and 37 percent of IM users in February.
Additional IM programs are gaining ground, especially outside of North America. Skype is now used by 14 percent of IM users worldwide, although this application is used by only 3 percent of the online population in North America. Skype appears most popular in Asia Pacific, reaching 26 percent of the region's IM user population. Europe Surpasses North America In Instant Messenger Users [April 10, 2006]
and your source for this stat is to found where, exactly?
When your carefully nurtured trademark enters popular usage as a generic term for your product or service you are in deep shit.
The geek would live a freer, happier, life if he could surrender the delusion that he counts for much in Microsoft's world:
Here are up-to-date numbers for a single country, Turkey:
Turkey has a population of about 75 million.
Of the 300 million MSN users worldwide, 25 million are Turkish.
Turkey ranks third in using MSN Messenger.
Turkey ranks first in the world in using video-chat and Windows Live services.
Turkey ranks fifth in the world with 19 million hotmail user accounts.
Half the users are below the age of 35, and 65 percent are men. Women users made up around 22 percent some time ago, but their share keeps getting larger. Three years ago the rate of users aged above 50 was almost nil, but now it was over 5 percent.
Clicking grannies clock an e-record [April 3, 2008]
Operating System Market Share for March 2008
Top Operating System Share Trend for May, 2007 to March, 2008
Operating System Market Share Trend for 'Linux' for May, 2007 to March, 2008
Modded up to +5, Insightful.
Living proof that the Geek needs to move out of Grandma's basement.
Microsoft's revenues are growing so fast that the numbers are difficult to grasp. 15% in the US. 20% in Europe. 30% in the new markets of Asia and Africa. Each quarter.
I would like to see some actual numbers here and not just marketing hype.
In the last five years, how many budget PCs touted on Slashdot have been left behind as roadkill - or simply faded out of sight? WalMart has tried a dozen variations on this theme and none has gone the distance.
In hard times, the poor aren't buying laptops at any price.
Those with a little more to spend tend to step up to something better. The market for the budget system is perhaps more typically the free-spending Geek looking for a new high-tech toy.