Given the prices of the systems, I'd be really surprised if people would make a format choice because of a particular movie. My suspicion is that a lot of these Blu-Ray disks are sold to people going "Hey, I can play one of these new Blu-Ray things on my PS3...what the heck, I'll get that instead of the DVD". That's why Sony is winning this battle. Lots of people who aren't early adopters and so would never buy a standalone player can buy one in a $20 impulse. That beats the $620 impulse to buy HD-DVD.
There's a huge difference. CD quality is high enough that 99% of the population can't tell the difference between a CD and an SACD, even on high-end equipment. On the other hand, HD video is very obviously better looking to almost anyone. It is very likely that DVDs will hang around a long time because of the price of the TVs needed to watch them will keep most people from bothering for a while. But in the long term, when the majority of people have HDTVs, they will likely sell as there will be very visible differences.
One (or both) of these formats will represent 100% of the market, but it could well take two decades for it to happen. This is very much like the LP->CD transition, accept the players (including the TV) are much more expensive.
Format wars have nothing to do with quality and everything to do with marketting. Remember, Betamax was technically superior to VHS. If Blu-Ray succeeds, it will have little or nothing to do with video quality and lots to do with marketing, available movies and strategic choices like forcing Blu-Ray onto all PS3 customers.
Yes...and there are two competitive DRM schemes at the moment. There's Apple's closed DRM and Windows Media, which is available to anyone for licensing.
The music companies like WMA because it means that there are lots of competing online stores, which means that they retain control, rather than one big online store that has the clout to force things on them. And then there is, of course, Microsoft, who'd love to see WMA a "standard" that they collect royalties on.
It is a huge mistake to thing that the EU is attacking DRM in general. This couldn't be further from the truth. They're really just proxies for the music industry.
Yes...but it is a mistake to think this is an example of Apple vs. the EU. Governments don't get this hot under the collar about an issue like this unless there's serious contributor pressure. You can bet that this is really coming from the music industry. The music industry is terrified of losing control to Apple.
When selling something, it usually makes sense to start selling at a high price, to get the money of those willing to pay the high price, and then to later drop the price, to get the money of those who didn't want to pay the originally high price. Given the troubles Sony has had in manufacturing, and given that they are still likely trying to cut costs, they are probably better off not dropping the price. The last thing they need is to sell a lot of consoles at $500 to people willing to pay $600.
(And, of course, the last thing you want to do is tell people you're going to drop the price latter...you don't want all those fanboys willing to pay $600 to decide to wait a couple months for the price drop.)
That's not the weird part. The weird part is all the slashdot XBox fanboys who are "boycotting" the PS3 because the manufacturer is a poor corporate citizen.
"Hey man, you sucked on that other guy's gangrenous cock, why not mine?"
You forgot to include handhelds. Looking at what's out there, and being sold today, you'd be forced to conclude that the best bet is the DS-Lite, and the second best bet is the PSP, which "flopped". In other words, a poorly selling handheld outsells a best selling console. (Which is one reason why there are so many new PSP games despite it's "flopping").
The other thing you need to consider is that developing for two platforms is much cheaper than twice the cost of developing for one. The decision to develop is not based on which console has the most sales. It is based on whether or not the expected sales for the console gives more revenue for the development costs. Since the cost of porting is lower for the second, and even lower for the third, etc. it the decision to develop for the poorer selling platform is more likely once you've decided to develop for the more expensive one. If, for example, the cost of porting to the PS3 is 10% of the cost of the initial development for the XBox 360, then it makes perfect business sense to do both. That's why you see things like "Lego Star Wars II" being developed for pretty much every damn platform.
It's because only mediocre companies outsource to Bangalore.
What the best companies realize is that to get the best people, be they in Mountain View or Bangalore, you need to pay top wages. That's an attitude diametrically opposed to outsourcing.
Oddly enough, the San Francisco Bay Area probably has one of the better mass transit systems in the country. It is far, far from perfect, though, and is designed primarily to shuttle people into San Francisco. It's easy for people like me, in the East Bay, to commute to downtown San Francisco by train. But it'd be near impossible for me to do that to Silicon Valley as it'd require changing from one train to another, with the stations being two miles apart.
The other interesting thing is that what Google is doing only differs by scale from what others in the area are doing. Lots of companies run shuttles in downtown San Francisco to and from the local mass transit points.
bzzt...wrong. The government damn well does pass laws that mandate what things are called in grocery stores. That's why you see things like "cheez food" and "krab"...it's because those "products" can't legally be called "cheese" and "crab". Every time you buy something that is labelled "organic", you are relying on a government mandated definition.
There's a big difference. All those things describe bills asserting something that is blatantly untrue. The New Mexico bill defines what something is called. It's just about names. It's like saying "the constant 3.1415296 etc. shall now be known as "BoobleBobble" instead of pi. Silly, yes. Unscientific? Not really. No name is more "correct" than any other.
If the line between "planet" and "not planet" is vague and contrived, which is why the scientific community when from calling pluto "a planet" to calling it "not a planet", and why astronomers are still arguing about it. So if you were to say that this is a waste of the New Mexico legislature's time, and that they should be spending their time on more important business, I'd agree. But the bill is neither unscientific nor ignorant.
Actually, it's not a matter of whether PS3s are widely available on store shelves. Sony obviously wants there always to be a PS3 on a store shelf whenever a customer attempts to buy one. It is a matter of how long those PS3s are sitting on those shelves. Are they sitting there for months, or are the stores running out the same day the next shipment arrives?
As an example, if you go to a supermarket, you will almost certainly find milk. This does not mean that the supply of milk exceeds the demand. This means that the supermarket knows the demand well enough to keep milk in stock.
So perhaps the PS3 is overpriced, but whether or not you can find one at the local Best Buy has no bearing on the question.
I find the rest of your comment confusing...you are mad because they're giving you a casual gaming environment in addition to the more traditional big blockbuster game model. I didn't see anything about a requirement that you use "PS3 Home" to play all games. Seems to me that you can just not download "PS3 Home" and "pop in a game and waste a few hours to unwind". Seems to me that if all you want to do is "slap hos", you can just buy GTA4 when it comes out and ignore the whole "online experience"
Does it occur to you that perhaps they want to appeal to a variety of different markets? Does it occur to you that perhaps they want to give different consumers different things, and that perhaps they are attempting to use multiple revenue models to support different sorts of costumers?
Seems to me that they showed a shiny new toy you can have for free, but only if you want and you said "OMFG! YOU FUCKING BASTARDS! I DON'T WANT THAT SO YOU SUCK!" It's like screaming that Toyata sucks because they make SUVs and you want a hatchback hybrid.
I worked in San Diego in the early nineties. The employment market was worse there in 1990-1991 when all the defense contractors started laying of people due to the "peace dividend" then anything I've seen post-2000. 2001-2005 was little different than 1992-1995. (Speaking as someone who actively looked for programming work in both time periods.)
Well, first, I'd hope that you'd be able to write a recursive algorithm given how damn trivial they are. (The particular task was "find the nth fibonacci number recursively". If they asked (which they sadly usually did) we explained what a fibonacci number was.)
Second, a long rant about recursion followed by a non-recursive implementation of the task would count for more than just implementing it recursively. Part of the whole point was the follow up "can you tell me when you'd use a recursive function?" We wanted to see who was smart enough to say "almost never". The best interview questions are the ones geared not toward hearing the right answer, but are geared towards determining how much the interviewee knows.
The real issue was that most of the technical applicants got a blank "deer in the headlights" look and clearly didn't even know what the concept of recursion was. Given your comments here, you almost certainly *would* have made it through that bit of the interview. "Having to stop and think" is far, far better than most of the candidates we got. One guy, with a CS degree and two years experience (supposedly), couldn't even write could after having the entire algorithm verbally explained to him.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it does not say a third of all console owners are adults. It says 37% of all adults who are online have consoles.
Jesus Christ, the article is barely longer than the summary...you'd think you guys could actually parse the damn thing.
Note: "we" implies more than one person, therefore the Lisa doesn't count.
We didn't have desktops in the early 80's. We had command prompts.
Given the prices of the systems, I'd be really surprised if people would make a format choice because of a particular movie. My suspicion is that a lot of these Blu-Ray disks are sold to people going "Hey, I can play one of these new Blu-Ray things on my PS3...what the heck, I'll get that instead of the DVD". That's why Sony is winning this battle. Lots of people who aren't early adopters and so would never buy a standalone player can buy one in a $20 impulse. That beats the $620 impulse to buy HD-DVD.
One (or both) of these formats will represent 100% of the market, but it could well take two decades for it to happen. This is very much like the LP->CD transition, accept the players (including the TV) are much more expensive.
Format wars have nothing to do with quality and everything to do with marketting. Remember, Betamax was technically superior to VHS. If Blu-Ray succeeds, it will have little or nothing to do with video quality and lots to do with marketing, available movies and strategic choices like forcing Blu-Ray onto all PS3 customers.
The music companies like WMA because it means that there are lots of competing online stores, which means that they retain control, rather than one big online store that has the clout to force things on them. And then there is, of course, Microsoft, who'd love to see WMA a "standard" that they collect royalties on.
It is a huge mistake to thing that the EU is attacking DRM in general. This couldn't be further from the truth. They're really just proxies for the music industry.
Yes...but it is a mistake to think this is an example of Apple vs. the EU. Governments don't get this hot under the collar about an issue like this unless there's serious contributor pressure. You can bet that this is really coming from the music industry. The music industry is terrified of losing control to Apple.
(And, of course, the last thing you want to do is tell people you're going to drop the price latter...you don't want all those fanboys willing to pay $600 to decide to wait a couple months for the price drop.)
"Hey man, you sucked on that other guy's gangrenous cock, why not mine?"
You forgot to include handhelds. Looking at what's out there, and being sold today, you'd be forced to conclude that the best bet is the DS-Lite, and the second best bet is the PSP, which "flopped". In other words, a poorly selling handheld outsells a best selling console. (Which is one reason why there are so many new PSP games despite it's "flopping").
The other thing you need to consider is that developing for two platforms is much cheaper than twice the cost of developing for one. The decision to develop is not based on which console has the most sales. It is based on whether or not the expected sales for the console gives more revenue for the development costs. Since the cost of porting is lower for the second, and even lower for the third, etc. it the decision to develop for the poorer selling platform is more likely once you've decided to develop for the more expensive one. If, for example, the cost of porting to the PS3 is 10% of the cost of the initial development for the XBox 360, then it makes perfect business sense to do both. That's why you see things like "Lego Star Wars II" being developed for pretty much every damn platform.
"Sensible World of Soccer"?
What the fuck are you talking about? Because of this lame-ass DST, I had to start get up in the dark again.
Yes, and the route BART takes to get there is at least 20 minutes out of the way.
It's because only mediocre companies outsource to Bangalore.
What the best companies realize is that to get the best people, be they in Mountain View or Bangalore, you need to pay top wages. That's an attitude diametrically opposed to outsourcing.
Yes...and 80% of their employees would not follow, but would instead take jobs at Yahoo.
Oddly enough, the San Francisco Bay Area probably has one of the better mass transit systems in the country. It is far, far from perfect, though, and is designed primarily to shuttle people into San Francisco. It's easy for people like me, in the East Bay, to commute to downtown San Francisco by train. But it'd be near impossible for me to do that to Silicon Valley as it'd require changing from one train to another, with the stations being two miles apart.
The other interesting thing is that what Google is doing only differs by scale from what others in the area are doing. Lots of companies run shuttles in downtown San Francisco to and from the local mass transit points.
bzzt...wrong. The government damn well does pass laws that mandate what things are called in grocery stores. That's why you see things like "cheez food" and "krab"...it's because those "products" can't legally be called "cheese" and "crab". Every time you buy something that is labelled "organic", you are relying on a government mandated definition.
If the line between "planet" and "not planet" is vague and contrived, which is why the scientific community when from calling pluto "a planet" to calling it "not a planet", and why astronomers are still arguing about it. So if you were to say that this is a waste of the New Mexico legislature's time, and that they should be spending their time on more important business, I'd agree. But the bill is neither unscientific nor ignorant.
Actually, it's not a matter of whether PS3s are widely available on store shelves. Sony obviously wants there always to be a PS3 on a store shelf whenever a customer attempts to buy one. It is a matter of how long those PS3s are sitting on those shelves. Are they sitting there for months, or are the stores running out the same day the next shipment arrives?
As an example, if you go to a supermarket, you will almost certainly find milk. This does not mean that the supply of milk exceeds the demand. This means that the supermarket knows the demand well enough to keep milk in stock.
So perhaps the PS3 is overpriced, but whether or not you can find one at the local Best Buy has no bearing on the question.
"Then neither will the sales figures."
FYI: The PS3 has sold slightly more units then the XBOX 360 sold in its first three months.
I find the rest of your comment confusing...you are mad because they're giving you a casual gaming environment in addition to the more traditional big blockbuster game model. I didn't see anything about a requirement that you use "PS3 Home" to play all games. Seems to me that you can just not download "PS3 Home" and "pop in a game and waste a few hours to unwind". Seems to me that if all you want to do is "slap hos", you can just buy GTA4 when it comes out and ignore the whole "online experience"
Does it occur to you that perhaps they want to appeal to a variety of different markets? Does it occur to you that perhaps they want to give different consumers different things, and that perhaps they are attempting to use multiple revenue models to support different sorts of costumers?
Seems to me that they showed a shiny new toy you can have for free, but only if you want and you said "OMFG! YOU FUCKING BASTARDS! I DON'T WANT THAT SO YOU SUCK!" It's like screaming that Toyata sucks because they make SUVs and you want a hatchback hybrid.
I worked in San Diego in the early nineties. The employment market was worse there in 1990-1991 when all the defense contractors started laying of people due to the "peace dividend" then anything I've seen post-2000. 2001-2005 was little different than 1992-1995. (Speaking as someone who actively looked for programming work in both time periods.)
Well, first, I'd hope that you'd be able to write a recursive algorithm given how damn trivial they are. (The particular task was "find the nth fibonacci number recursively". If they asked (which they sadly usually did) we explained what a fibonacci number was.)
Second, a long rant about recursion followed by a non-recursive implementation of the task would count for more than just implementing it recursively. Part of the whole point was the follow up "can you tell me when you'd use a recursive function?" We wanted to see who was smart enough to say "almost never". The best interview questions are the ones geared not toward hearing the right answer, but are geared towards determining how much the interviewee knows.
The real issue was that most of the technical applicants got a blank "deer in the headlights" look and clearly didn't even know what the concept of recursion was. Given your comments here, you almost certainly *would* have made it through that bit of the interview. "Having to stop and think" is far, far better than most of the candidates we got. One guy, with a CS degree and two years experience (supposedly), couldn't even write could after having the entire algorithm verbally explained to him.
Not a problem. I label them "$BOSS's files".
The follow up question (which, alas, almost never got asked) was "how can you know make this non-recursive, and why would you?"
The point was not that recursion is good...the point was that any CS graduate should know what it is.