Yeah, bogus tie-ins suck! Excuse me while I go play AMD/Crytek's 64-bit version of Far Cry, complete with added textures and graphics to trick gamers into thinking the game looks better on an Athlon64 even though such a thing is entirely GPU-dependent.
Careful, you're injecting logic and reasoning into an article where Apple-haters are trying to feel hip and enlightened by defending Microsoft and turning the tables by calling Apple the monopoly.
Sorry, kids, there are a ton of competing players at my local Wal-mart. That ain't true with Windows. Back the in 90s, Microsoft would pull your Windows license if you dared sell anything non-Microsoft. Hence, monopoly abuse charges.
With the iPod, Steve Jobs knows his little player is kicking everyone's butts because it's simply better. It's not Apple's fault the competition isn't up to snuff.
If Microsoft was the monopoly in this field and other companies (like the beloved Napster brand) were having trouble competing because they were having to "get by" without the Microsoft system, everyone would be up in arms and demanding MS used open standards, bashing DRM, preaching the name of the small, independent companies fighting against MS tyrany..
No, they wouldn't. If Microsoft behaved as Apple is right now--simply selling a product and a service that works on that product, as every company has the right to do--people would just point out that if someone wanted to make a better product, they could enter the market and try to do that. Apple isn't stopping anybody. If you don't like the fact their player runs its own service and happens to be the most popular, you still have the perfect right to choose a competing player and service. The iPod is completely opt-in.
If Apple was illegally coercing stores to only sell iPods, the way Microsoft illegally coerced OEMs to prevent them from shipping non-Microsoft software in the 90s, THEN you'd have a valid point here. But you don't.
Apple is using a proprietary DRM system - both bad words on slashdot - and the small companies are having trouble competing because of it.
Small companies are having trouble competing BECAUSE THEIR PRODUCTS SUCK. iPod is beating them fair and square, and it's driving Apple-haters crazy.
Why aren't we complaining? Oh yes... because no matter what the situation, Apple is always right and MS is always wrong. I forgot.
No, it's just that you don't like Apple, and you can't argue against the fact the iPod is kicking butt, so you need to bring out the tired "You're just biased against Microsoft" routine. No, sorry, it's just that the PlaysForSure-based players suck and fail in the market on their own lack of merits. It has little to do with Apple. If someone came out with something better than the iPod, people would switch over.
You should get +100000 Interesting because you're sooooo enlightened that you can point out criticism of Microsoft on Slashdot. After all, it's cool to like Microsoft now because you're going against the grain, you super-elite contrarian, you. You're just way too cool to like the iPod, because enough people like it that it's no longer esoteric and niche enough for you to enjoy it yourself.
The amusing part is that people complain about Apple's "closed" system, yet Apple's is the only cross-platform solution. PlaysForSure is NOTHING MORE than Microsoft's attempt to tie digital media to the Windows platform. Absolutely everything Microsoft does, from consoles to ugly tablet PCs, is to get people tied to the Windows platform in some way, shape, or form, regardless of resulting quality. There is no PlaysForSure for Mac, because PlaysForSure is all about Windows, not music.
As you pointed out, Apple has tried working with others, but people like HP cancel the deal and go running back to Microsoft, probably due to some backdoor coercion that involved increased Windows licensing fees or something.
Given a fixed monthly expense choose unlimited quantity over a limited duration vs limited quantity over an unlimited duration... and the limited duration only applies if you stop the monthly expense.
Exactly. So it's not unlimited. Stop paying Napster, and suddenly you've lost your entire music collection as if you never got anything at all. That makes consumers feel like they've been paying Napster all that time with nothing to show for it in the end. The albums I've bought over the years on iTunes will always be mine, even if I never buy another thing from Apple. It's not bad press; it's common sense reaction.
That's not a sketchy business practice. Businesses are 100% free to make products that tie into their other products.
It's when that company becomes a monopoly and then uses that position to coerce stores and manufacturers into preventing competing products from entering the market, the way Microsoft did in the 90s with computer OEMs. Apple isn't doing this; there are plenty of competing players at your local computer store. In fact, it would go against Steve Jobs' cocky attitude, since his perfect baby doesn't need such deals to crush the competition--it does all on its own. And that has made Apple-haters bitter.
Every time I see these "I will get modded down for criticizing Apple" posts, it never is. Would people stop with the whining about the Apple love on Slashdot?
Apple's "monopoly" is opt-in. Apple isn't signing illegal OEM deals to prevent the shipment of competing products, the way Microsoft did in the 90s. You're free to buy any player you want at the local Wal-mart.
True, in the same way you have the right to rape or murder anyone you want. Nothing is stopping you, after all... and it would sure be fun!
Um...the fact there's nothing stopping you doesn't mean you have the right to do something. Flawed comparison. Companies really do have the legal right to exist as a monopoly, like your local electric company.
Re:I hope the Revolution is successful
on
Flashback NES
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· Score: 1
I play all those games you mentioned. There should always be a place for them. My argument, though, is that the almost the entire industry now focuses solely on hardcore gamers like you, ignoring everyone else. Not everybody wants to sit down and play a 15 hour RPG or a sugar-induced twitchfest like Quake 3 deathmatch. Maybe I just want to explore new worlds and collect coins and throw turtle shells at stuff.
Oblivion is coming on PC and xbox 360, and THAT'S what a RPG should be. Not zelda crap. So many people think Final Fantasy and Zelda are RPG.. Ever played daggerfall and fallout ? that's that, a RPG. Nothing else.
Who's saying Zelda is an RPG? What is crap about Zelda? XBox 360 is a failed venture...even the Gamecube sold more units last quarter.
Re:I hope the Revolution is successful
on
Flashback NES
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· Score: 1
$177 versus $400 is a pretty big jump in price. I consider that much cheaper. Even $177 versus $300.
What does the "Bush Admin" have to do with this? Companies have every right to make content and to deliver content. They even have the right to be a monopoly. If they abuse it the way Microsoft did in the 90s (coercive license deals that prevented competing products from being pre-installed on OEM computers), that's different.
Sirius and XM can have exclusive content all they want. That's the free market. This kind of stuff happened on Clinton's watch, too. I guess you forgot the late 90s bubble that grew and grew until it burst just as Clinton was heading out the door.
I don't need to keep buying batteries for my iPod; it lasts 4-5 hours and charges on its own. Saves a ton of cash.
I hope the Revolution is successful
on
Flashback NES
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I hope Nintendo's Revolution system is successful in their goals of providing a universally accessible, cheap gaming machine, the way the NES was 21 years ago. Each year, gaming has become more and more targeted toward the "hardcore" gamers, so that you need more buttons, longer FMVs, more licensed rap songs, and much more expensive consoles. All that so you can ooh and awe over seeing glistening sweat shaders on the polygons of a basketball player. It's pretty sad.
I remember my dad playing Super Mario Bros. with me. Rad Racer and a few others, too. There's no way he'd pick up Halo or Final Fantasy today. Not only do these games require an extended commitment (which means only hardcore gamers with lives can truly enjoy them instead of the pick-up-and-play nature of older games), they've abandoned their simplicity and uniqueness in exchange for more shaders and polys.
Immersion is supposed to draw you in, yes; but when you're immersed, the game should be fun to play. A good example is Legend of Zelda, which still remains reasonably simple to play, though Windwaker did add some complexities. But perhaps the greatest example of a "modern" game that was as simple as the old games yet had the depth people demand today is Super Mario 64. Controlling that game is such a piece of cake, and I think Nintendo wants all their games to be that easy to control through their new controller (which an EA rep leaked will have touch sensitivity as well!).
Roland Piquepaille and Slashdot: Is there a connection?
I think most of you are aware of the controversy surrounding regular Slashdot article submitter Roland Piquepaille. For those of you who don't know, please allow me to bring forth all the facts. Roland Piquepaille has an online journal (I refuse to use the word "blog") located at www.primidi.com [primidi.com]. It is titled "Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends". It consists almost entirely of content, both text and pictures, taken from reputable news websites and online technical journals. He does give credit to the other websites, but it wasn't always so. Only after many complaints were raised by the Slashdot readership did he start giving credit where credit was due. However, this is not what the controversy is about.
Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends serves online advertisements through a service called Blogads, located at www.blogads.com. Blogads is not your traditional online advertiser; rather than base payments on click-throughs, Blogads pays a flat fee based on the level of traffic your online journal generates. This way Blogads can guarantee that an advertisement on a particular online journal will reach a particular number of users. So advertisements on high traffic online journals are appropriately more expensive to buy, but the advertisement is guaranteed to be seen by a large amount of people. This, in turn, encourages people like Roland Piquepaille to try their best to increase traffic to their journals in order to increase the going rates for advertisements on their web pages. But advertisers do have some flexibility. Blogads serves two classes of advertisements. The premium ad space that is seen at the top of the web page by all viewers is reserved for "Special Advertisers"; it holds only one advertisement. The secondary ad space is located near the bottom half of the page, so that the user must scroll down the window to see it. This space can contain up to four advertisements and is reserved for regular advertisers, or just "Advertisers". Visit Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends (www.primidi.com [primidi.com]) to see it for yourself.
Before we talk about money, let's talk about the service that Roland Piquepaille provides in his journal. He goes out and looks for interesting articles about new and emerging technologies. He provides a very brief overview of the articles, then copies a few choice paragraphs and the occasional picture from each article and puts them up on his web page. Finally, he adds a minimal amount of original content between the copied-and-pasted text in an effort to make the journal entry coherent and appear to add value to the original articles. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now let's talk about money. Visit http://www.blogads.com/order_html?adstrip_category =tech&politics= to check the following facts for yourself. As of today, December XX 2004, the going rate for the premium advertisement space on Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends is $375 for one month. One of the four standard advertisements costs $150 for one month. So, the maximum advertising space brings in $375 x 1 + $150 x 4 = $975 for one month. Obviously not all $975 will go directly to Roland Piquepaille, as Blogads gets a portion of that as a service fee, but he will receive the majority of it. According to the FAQ [blogads.com], Blogads takes 20%. So Roland Piquepaille gets 80% of $975, a maximum of $780 each month. www.primidi.com is hosted by clara.net (look it up at http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index. jhtml). Browsing clara.net's hosting solutions, the most expensive hosting service is their Clarahost Advanced (http://www.uk.clara.net/clarahost/advanced.php) priced at £69.99 GBP. This is roughly, at the time of this wri
A 51% market share for one product is taking Japan by storm. Maybe you should take a look at the market share figures of all the competitors sometime, who together equal 49% compared to Apple owning half the market to just themselves.
Claiming the title could have been renamed "iPod slips in Japan" is just stupid; for it to have slipped requires it to have achieved a higher amount in Japan and then dropped. iPods just came out last year and already have half the market.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, bogus tie-ins suck! Excuse me while I go play AMD/Crytek's 64-bit version of Far Cry, complete with added textures and graphics to trick gamers into thinking the game looks better on an Athlon64 even though such a thing is entirely GPU-dependent.
And yet Skype has absolutely every single right in the world to do it. Just because it makes AMD fanboys cry doesn't mean they can't do it.
Careful, you're injecting logic and reasoning into an article where Apple-haters are trying to feel hip and enlightened by defending Microsoft and turning the tables by calling Apple the monopoly.
Sorry, kids, there are a ton of competing players at my local Wal-mart. That ain't true with Windows. Back the in 90s, Microsoft would pull your Windows license if you dared sell anything non-Microsoft. Hence, monopoly abuse charges.
With the iPod, Steve Jobs knows his little player is kicking everyone's butts because it's simply better. It's not Apple's fault the competition isn't up to snuff.
If Microsoft was the monopoly in this field and other companies (like the beloved Napster brand) were having trouble competing because they were having to "get by" without the Microsoft system, everyone would be up in arms and demanding MS used open standards, bashing DRM, preaching the name of the small, independent companies fighting against MS tyrany..
No, they wouldn't. If Microsoft behaved as Apple is right now--simply selling a product and a service that works on that product, as every company has the right to do--people would just point out that if someone wanted to make a better product, they could enter the market and try to do that. Apple isn't stopping anybody. If you don't like the fact their player runs its own service and happens to be the most popular, you still have the perfect right to choose a competing player and service. The iPod is completely opt-in.
If Apple was illegally coercing stores to only sell iPods, the way Microsoft illegally coerced OEMs to prevent them from shipping non-Microsoft software in the 90s, THEN you'd have a valid point here. But you don't.
Apple is using a proprietary DRM system - both bad words on slashdot - and the small companies are having trouble competing because of it.
Small companies are having trouble competing BECAUSE THEIR PRODUCTS SUCK. iPod is beating them fair and square, and it's driving Apple-haters crazy.
Why aren't we complaining? Oh yes... because no matter what the situation, Apple is always right and MS is always wrong. I forgot.
No, it's just that you don't like Apple, and you can't argue against the fact the iPod is kicking butt, so you need to bring out the tired "You're just biased against Microsoft" routine. No, sorry, it's just that the PlaysForSure-based players suck and fail in the market on their own lack of merits. It has little to do with Apple. If someone came out with something better than the iPod, people would switch over.
You should get +100000 Interesting because you're sooooo enlightened that you can point out criticism of Microsoft on Slashdot. After all, it's cool to like Microsoft now because you're going against the grain, you super-elite contrarian, you. You're just way too cool to like the iPod, because enough people like it that it's no longer esoteric and niche enough for you to enjoy it yourself.
I thought PlaysForSure was a standard consisting of hardware and software that was essentially uniform, in DRM implementation terms at least.
Close. PlaysForSure is an attempt by Microsoft to tie digital media to the Windows platform.
The amusing part is that people complain about Apple's "closed" system, yet Apple's is the only cross-platform solution. PlaysForSure is NOTHING MORE than Microsoft's attempt to tie digital media to the Windows platform. Absolutely everything Microsoft does, from consoles to ugly tablet PCs, is to get people tied to the Windows platform in some way, shape, or form, regardless of resulting quality. There is no PlaysForSure for Mac, because PlaysForSure is all about Windows, not music.
As you pointed out, Apple has tried working with others, but people like HP cancel the deal and go running back to Microsoft, probably due to some backdoor coercion that involved increased Windows licensing fees or something.
Given a fixed monthly expense choose unlimited quantity over a limited duration vs limited quantity over an unlimited duration... and the limited duration only applies if you stop the monthly expense.
Exactly. So it's not unlimited. Stop paying Napster, and suddenly you've lost your entire music collection as if you never got anything at all. That makes consumers feel like they've been paying Napster all that time with nothing to show for it in the end. The albums I've bought over the years on iTunes will always be mine, even if I never buy another thing from Apple. It's not bad press; it's common sense reaction.
That's not a sketchy business practice. Businesses are 100% free to make products that tie into their other products.
It's when that company becomes a monopoly and then uses that position to coerce stores and manufacturers into preventing competing products from entering the market, the way Microsoft did in the 90s with computer OEMs. Apple isn't doing this; there are plenty of competing players at your local computer store. In fact, it would go against Steve Jobs' cocky attitude, since his perfect baby doesn't need such deals to crush the competition--it does all on its own. And that has made Apple-haters bitter.
Every time I see these "I will get modded down for criticizing Apple" posts, it never is. Would people stop with the whining about the Apple love on Slashdot?
Apple's "monopoly" is opt-in. Apple isn't signing illegal OEM deals to prevent the shipment of competing products, the way Microsoft did in the 90s. You're free to buy any player you want at the local Wal-mart.
Last I checked, the iPod Hifi does support AirTunes.
I'm overwhelmed by your citation of sources and real-world examples proving your claim of Ruby's slowness!
True, in the same way you have the right to rape or murder anyone you want. Nothing is stopping you, after all... and it would sure be fun!
Um...the fact there's nothing stopping you doesn't mean you have the right to do something. Flawed comparison. Companies really do have the legal right to exist as a monopoly, like your local electric company.
I play all those games you mentioned. There should always be a place for them. My argument, though, is that the almost the entire industry now focuses solely on hardcore gamers like you, ignoring everyone else. Not everybody wants to sit down and play a 15 hour RPG or a sugar-induced twitchfest like Quake 3 deathmatch. Maybe I just want to explore new worlds and collect coins and throw turtle shells at stuff.
Oblivion is coming on PC and xbox 360, and THAT'S what a RPG should be. Not zelda crap. So many people think Final Fantasy and Zelda are RPG.. Ever played daggerfall and fallout ? that's that, a RPG. Nothing else.
Who's saying Zelda is an RPG? What is crap about Zelda? XBox 360 is a failed venture...even the Gamecube sold more units last quarter.
$177 versus $400 is a pretty big jump in price. I consider that much cheaper. Even $177 versus $300.
Mighty Mouse!
What does the "Bush Admin" have to do with this? Companies have every right to make content and to deliver content. They even have the right to be a monopoly. If they abuse it the way Microsoft did in the 90s (coercive license deals that prevented competing products from being pre-installed on OEM computers), that's different.
Sirius and XM can have exclusive content all they want. That's the free market. This kind of stuff happened on Clinton's watch, too. I guess you forgot the late 90s bubble that grew and grew until it burst just as Clinton was heading out the door.
I don't need to keep buying batteries for my iPod; it lasts 4-5 hours and charges on its own. Saves a ton of cash.
I hope Nintendo's Revolution system is successful in their goals of providing a universally accessible, cheap gaming machine, the way the NES was 21 years ago. Each year, gaming has become more and more targeted toward the "hardcore" gamers, so that you need more buttons, longer FMVs, more licensed rap songs, and much more expensive consoles. All that so you can ooh and awe over seeing glistening sweat shaders on the polygons of a basketball player. It's pretty sad.
I remember my dad playing Super Mario Bros. with me. Rad Racer and a few others, too. There's no way he'd pick up Halo or Final Fantasy today. Not only do these games require an extended commitment (which means only hardcore gamers with lives can truly enjoy them instead of the pick-up-and-play nature of older games), they've abandoned their simplicity and uniqueness in exchange for more shaders and polys.
Immersion is supposed to draw you in, yes; but when you're immersed, the game should be fun to play. A good example is Legend of Zelda, which still remains reasonably simple to play, though Windwaker did add some complexities. But perhaps the greatest example of a "modern" game that was as simple as the old games yet had the depth people demand today is Super Mario 64. Controlling that game is such a piece of cake, and I think Nintendo wants all their games to be that easy to control through their new controller (which an EA rep leaked will have touch sensitivity as well!).
My NIB files are laughing at you.
And you don't have to read my posts.
Roland Piquepaille and Slashdot: Is there a connection?
I think most of you are aware of the controversy surrounding regular Slashdot article submitter Roland Piquepaille. For those of you who don't know, please allow me to bring forth all the facts. Roland Piquepaille has an online journal (I refuse to use the word "blog") located at www.primidi.com [primidi.com]. It is titled "Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends". It consists almost entirely of content, both text and pictures, taken from reputable news websites and online technical journals. He does give credit to the other websites, but it wasn't always so. Only after many complaints were raised by the Slashdot readership did he start giving credit where credit was due. However, this is not what the controversy is about.
Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends serves online advertisements through a service called Blogads, located at www.blogads.com. Blogads is not your traditional online advertiser; rather than base payments on click-throughs, Blogads pays a flat fee based on the level of traffic your online journal generates. This way Blogads can guarantee that an advertisement on a particular online journal will reach a particular number of users. So advertisements on high traffic online journals are appropriately more expensive to buy, but the advertisement is guaranteed to be seen by a large amount of people. This, in turn, encourages people like Roland Piquepaille to try their best to increase traffic to their journals in order to increase the going rates for advertisements on their web pages. But advertisers do have some flexibility. Blogads serves two classes of advertisements. The premium ad space that is seen at the top of the web page by all viewers is reserved for "Special Advertisers"; it holds only one advertisement. The secondary ad space is located near the bottom half of the page, so that the user must scroll down the window to see it. This space can contain up to four advertisements and is reserved for regular advertisers, or just "Advertisers". Visit Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends (www.primidi.com [primidi.com]) to see it for yourself.
Before we talk about money, let's talk about the service that Roland Piquepaille provides in his journal. He goes out and looks for interesting articles about new and emerging technologies. He provides a very brief overview of the articles, then copies a few choice paragraphs and the occasional picture from each article and puts them up on his web page. Finally, he adds a minimal amount of original content between the copied-and-pasted text in an effort to make the journal entry coherent and appear to add value to the original articles. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now let's talk about money. Visit http://www.blogads.com/order_html?adstrip_category =tech&politics= to check the following facts for yourself. As of today, December XX 2004, the going rate for the premium advertisement space on Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends is $375 for one month. One of the four standard advertisements costs $150 for one month. So, the maximum advertising space brings in $375 x 1 + $150 x 4 = $975 for one month. Obviously not all $975 will go directly to Roland Piquepaille, as Blogads gets a portion of that as a service fee, but he will receive the majority of it. According to the FAQ [blogads.com], Blogads takes 20%. So Roland Piquepaille gets 80% of $975, a maximum of $780 each month. www.primidi.com is hosted by clara.net (look it up at http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index. jhtml). Browsing clara.net's hosting solutions, the most expensive hosting service is their Clarahost Advanced (http://www.uk.clara.net/clarahost/advanced.php) priced at £69.99 GBP. This is roughly, at the time of this wri
A 51% market share for one product is taking Japan by storm. Maybe you should take a look at the market share figures of all the competitors sometime, who together equal 49% compared to Apple owning half the market to just themselves.
Claiming the title could have been renamed "iPod slips in Japan" is just stupid; for it to have slipped requires it to have achieved a higher amount in Japan and then dropped. iPods just came out last year and already have half the market.
What-the-fuck-ever. Arstechnica threw their nano onto the street and drove over the damn thing with a car, and it still kept playing.
The money you'll waste on AAA batteries over the years will be enough to buy a new 1GB iPod nano.