I think you have merely overlooked a significant segment of the market which is mobile gaming. As far as I am aware, Nintendo has a super successful mobile gaming device called the Gameboy or DS/3DS that still accepts cartridges. I guess 'cartridge' applies in every way, since its not specifically a 'memory device' like a USB stick, as certain regions are Read Only. There is even a market for new Super Nintendo Games; http://kotaku.com/5889091/new-game-for-1991s-favorite-console-arriving-in-2013, not to mention NeoGeo/MVS style cartridge systems. I personally feel that cartidge-based gaming hasn't yet been surpassed by a better storage medium in terms of resilience.
I would assume that your company adheres to a basic ITIL management infrastructure. Who knows? Your post is incredibly vague. Surely ITIL allows you to quantify successes vs. failures / overtime / overbudget results? Can a root cause analysis be performed on these projects to see where fault lies? Maybe I'm telling you how to do your job here, but this seems like it should be easy to quantify.
Its amusing that Windows 8 Metro is easier to liken to Windows 1.0 than Windows 2.0-7. Sure, Windows 1.0 was handy. It had a calculator, write program and calendar. Now it seems to include an app-store, a more complex control panel, and a weather app, but we've sacrificed the evolved Windowing part of the system. The concept of the 'desktop' is being retired in favour of a more primitive paradigm. How does that make any sense?
... is that Blizzard have often touted the very reason the game carries an always connected requirement is so that they can ensure the economy works correctly and to limit exploits through 3rd party applications. It seems rather clear, however, that the 1st party application is the only one you need to exploit the system. And, as usual, the question must be asked "does this make the game more fun?".
As I see it, this has been Blizzard's only metric for success with Diablo 3, not profitability, as we will see later. They claimed that by breaking the existing mould, they were providing a 'more fun' experience. So, the question then becomes, does the AH or RMAH make the game more fun? Interestingly, Blizzard don't appear to be packaging these components with the Playstation 3 edition. Is that because it turns out all of the changes to Diablo 3 were 'not fun', or is it because Playstation 3 users don't deserve 'as much fun', or is playing with a controller rather than a mouse and keyboard 'so much more fun' that their combination with the AH/RMAH turned into a 'fun overload' that had to be dialled back in order not to blow our puny little minds?
It also asks another important question about the business model. Is always-on net requirements 'more fun', particularly when they don't add anything to play beyond what a direct/lan connection might provide. When you try to enumerate the pros/cons, you see something like:
Pros: Everyone uses the latest version all the time if they want to play
Everyone playing has to have a working key
Cons: Internet Connection must be working to play
Need a server farm in every retail country so that paying customers can play (well, they don't even now, and charge people in those countries more money per copy so that they can have a game that they don't have local server access play)
Servers have to be working in order to play
User account has to be working in order to play
If we rolled out a dodgy patch, everyone will be broken at once
We have to know the product life-cycle prior to release in order to cost all of our servers' TCO correctly.
We have to keep talking to everyone to make sure the game is working to their expectations and forever hear about shortcomings
Economically, I don't understand how game companies are able to turn a profit on a title with those kinds of restrictions and ongoing costs. As a small example, lets say one of your servers can host 200 users at a time, but the server cost $20k, thats $100 per concurrent user before you turn the thing on. Maybe it can host 2000 users at a time, sure but thats still $10 per concurrent user before you turn it on or pay any support personnel, or for space on the floor. Surely, over the life of your product, you would be operating a negative margin without some sort of subscription service. I have read other places that, while you can't place a cost on piracy, you can place a cost and a metric on product returns. Diablo 3 is one of the few games I've ever returned, it was unusable for the first week, and is still, in most parts of the world (outside the US/EU/ASIA) mostly unplayable. Despite that, the parts of the game that were modified to provide 'more fun' actually provided, for me, a fan of the Diablo franchise, 'a lot less fun'.
So, to say that another way, by insisting on Always-Connected, Blizzard not only have to pay a bunch of additional ongoing expenses to run (apparently) necessary infrastructure, its also alienating their core user-base which must be very costly to their bottom line. I don't understand how this course of action renders any kind of net commercial advantage.
Gentlemen, I wouldn't trust this overgrown pile of microchips any further than I could throw it. And I don't know if you want to trust the safety of our country to some silicon diode - General Beringer
Very true, however, Nintendo may have had a few things going for it:
* Well known IP
* Instalments in popular series
* a unique interface
Additionally, the Wii was berated by supporters of the competition for being underpowered... the very kinds of systems that this seems to be emulating given the form factor of the controller.
And if its for playing emulated titles, wouldn't you provide a more emulator friendly controller? Something that looked like a SNES or an Arcade controller? Maybe a cool bit of tech modders could use, like an Mattel's RF Reader/Writer? A cool RF gun? No, maybe some crappy capacitive track-pad, because those feel great to use, said nobody who has used a notebook in the past 25 years.
To me, Windows XP really refined the Windows experience. I think the way they are forking their UI to Metro or whatever it is, may be taking the usability angle a little too far. I see far too many similarities between the Nintendo Wii OS and Windows 8 to possibly be coincidence, and the Wii has one of the most poorly thought-through UIs of all time. To be honest, I don't think the ribbon system works in Office very well, either - rather than de-cluttering menus it leads to hieroglyphic overload.
.... it had better at least update my peeps any time I'm watching pr0n on the tubes. I require constant automatic updates on my status, so people can track my highly intriguing life-style. [scratches balls]
I find its easier to think of Windows 8 as a slight upgrade to the Wii standard operating system. Think of it like an improvement where you can resize aspects of your Wii menu.
If there is nothing mechanical going on in the device, you are probably causing more harm than anything. I've electrostatically killed functional (well... kinda) computers blasting them out with air. Doesn't always happen, and those computers were caked with welding soot so the periodic blasting was the only thing keeping the parts turning. Normally in an office or home environment I wouldn't bother, since sealed devices without fans tend not to accumulate anything significant. For example, I wouldn't bother opening a monitor from that same manufacturing environment, I'd just clean the casing as you would find they typically break from a fist-through-the-screen rather than old-age.
.... all the internals of your printers, on the other hand, do require constant cleaning and care to avoid damaging any of their multiple friggin sensor points. Also, iPhones and mechanical buttons there-in don't mind a spirit clean.
The correct place to do this is with some kind of in-line web appliance if you want to do things 'hands off'. You can delegate what users should be able to view, according to group policy or IP range or something, and all your web traffic will be handled via that, preferably between your main switch and your modem. As for what performance impact you will get off running it on a home router... who knows, but the service will probably be rubbish unless it hooks into some large OSS database.
The problem you will always have is 'what should be blocked'. In the past, I've found most 3rd party filters to be a little 'hyperactive', and do more harm blocking content than allowing users to do their damn job. A good one is 'chat sites'. A lot of filters will consider any URL with 'forum' in it to be a 'chat site'. A legit example is MrExcel, and hints on how to write working proprietary VB into your spreadsheet. If you can switch it to minimal settings and just block porn and gambling, life becomes a bit easier... but then you always get people going to golfing or football websites to play hypothetical games which break those filters as well.
I think it tends to be on the side of company moderated forums, such as the comments sometimes allowed at the bottom of NYTIMES style articles. Its a thin line to tread when it comes to corporate comment censorship, and you run a risk of alienating readers.
That said, many user-moderated or self-moderated forums work rather well, since, despite the contention of the article, *some* troll comments make accurate points, and the masses are typically able to smell bullshit.
So are the trolls really winning? Maybe...in older-style forums.
I've run enterprise email servers before, and every now and then a connector will break. For example, piping email traffic to Exchange via Mail Marshal will infrequently result in mail delivery failures because something is broken. It gets fixed shortly after its reported, but it isn't always reported in a timely fashion. So, isn't this fairly common?
Isn't an armistice a cease-fire agreement (like a 'putting war on hold' agreement, rather than officially signifying the end of aggressions)? The article states that an armistice cannot be unilaterally dissolved, yet doesn't direct action by NK against any US troops signify the end of the cease-fire?
Clearly your not a fan of Wu Tang or Shaq.... and you know what? I'm glad that these two equally talentless groups of people are now the benchmark for hetrosexuality. Keep it classy, Facebook Analytics!
I think Cliff misses the point about why a lot of people hate EA. Its not just that they seem to produce very lack-lustre releases, diddled with DRM and DLC, its that EA throws their money around the industry in order to obtain a significant number of development houses and their IP. Then, once they have that IP, they don't do anything with it!
Loyalty to EA typically comes about because someone is loyal to a fun product which EA later absorbs.... then lost when future release are steaming piles of crap or simply non-existent
Then you have companies like Steam that seem to encourage development and innovation, and don't employ armies of ham-fisted employees that typically answer questions with dumber questions. Is it any wonder that gamers respond well to Steam's approach?
You can almost be sure the bricked SSD was from Kingston. You'd be lucky to get an entire day's worth of light-usage out of them before bricking. I believe Kingston are aware of this, because its about the only memory product they don't seem to have any kind of warranty on, even if returned on the same day they're purchased.
I concur with this coward! I often use Kingston flash memory... its a solid state device... technically. I can have Linux installed to one of those bad-boys for about a week before the thing cannot be accessed ever again. I've used more reliable floppy disks in the past. It frequently amazes me at how a device with no moving parts can be so unreliable.... or maybe Kingston make the worlds worst memory devices. I've asked Kingston support this same question a number of times now, but they are mysteriously quiet on the issue.
I like your way of thinking Mr.Smith. I am starting to use Windows 8 as the benchmark for incompetent implementations, and everything surrounding it. I can't even recommend these to friends to own. 4GB of memory? No lounging around with a bit of Solidworks. Does Microsoft understand why people use their OS? Its profound how out of touch Execs are with the desires of the masses. MS keeps trying to baby-down operating systems while simultaneously misunderstanding that people want visual complexity. Its fine to redefine computing, but less is sometimes not more - look at Powerpoint!
The other odd thing is that, MS are still offering these products as 'general solutions'. Look at this stupid thing! "Surface Pro". Professional What!? Professional "it looks like your trying to write a letter with that stupid little keyboard as you are leaning off your couch to reach me on the coffee table"? Maybe Microsoft, if they are so interested in redefining interfaces, look at redefining purchasing practices. "Hey! I'm an artist! I want wicked stylus action and a computer with enough f&%#ing memory to run Photoshop!", or "Hey! I'm a journalist! I want a wicked keyboard, spell checker, audio recorder, possibly OK video recorder that I can fold into my pocket but use on my lap!", or "Hey! I'm an audio engineer, and I actually want one of these stupid f$&$ing touch interfaces, because it makes logical sense for my applications, but I also need a high performance audio IO and midi interfaces. WTF dude? Why don't u sell a pro model bro?"
Microsoft needs to realise that people want to be able to tear it up or actually buy something designed for their needs... approximately. Microsoft's OS's have been great in the past because of the lack of wall to develop for them and distribute your code. I mean, lets be honest, MS kills *nix on interoperability between versions and hardware configurations... at least in a traditional world where the majority used x86. Lets have a focus on getting under the hood rather than barring it off, and more specialization in what MS does well, which is provide a standardized platform that allows you to dick around with everything as if its what is supposed to be done!
I think this is the base level functionality for most systems. They'll only record information when the lighting in the frame changes or something passes in front of the camera. Even your basic Swann security system will do that, and let you watch highlights from your iJunk. Typical on Enterprise grade CCTV products as well, with export options to various USB devices or email. Better packages will print activity reports as well. Dalmiere is another Enterprise grade device I've used - plug it in with its cameras and let it do its thing. Records about 2 years worth of data from about 8 cameras at a time. Remote access to the box, etc. We'd shoot through days of footage in the space of a few minutes, and most places will have security systems in place to give you a better idea if your perimeter has been compromised.
I have a Sony MiniDisc player/recorder right here. It was given to me because I work with bands who occasionally throw it at my face as one of the worst things I've ever tried to freely give to them. It highlights how out-of-touch Sony is with consumers and producers. The fact that they are still being manufactured surprises me no end.
Slashdot Mirror
We're HIV Positive
I think you have merely overlooked a significant segment of the market which is mobile gaming. As far as I am aware, Nintendo has a super successful mobile gaming device called the Gameboy or DS/3DS that still accepts cartridges. I guess 'cartridge' applies in every way, since its not specifically a 'memory device' like a USB stick, as certain regions are Read Only. There is even a market for new Super Nintendo Games; http://kotaku.com/5889091/new-game-for-1991s-favorite-console-arriving-in-2013, not to mention NeoGeo/MVS style cartridge systems. I personally feel that cartidge-based gaming hasn't yet been surpassed by a better storage medium in terms of resilience.
I would assume that your company adheres to a basic ITIL management infrastructure. Who knows? Your post is incredibly vague. Surely ITIL allows you to quantify successes vs. failures / overtime / overbudget results? Can a root cause analysis be performed on these projects to see where fault lies? Maybe I'm telling you how to do your job here, but this seems like it should be easy to quantify.
Its amusing that Windows 8 Metro is easier to liken to Windows 1.0 than Windows 2.0-7. Sure, Windows 1.0 was handy. It had a calculator, write program and calendar. Now it seems to include an app-store, a more complex control panel, and a weather app, but we've sacrificed the evolved Windowing part of the system. The concept of the 'desktop' is being retired in favour of a more primitive paradigm. How does that make any sense?
... is that Blizzard have often touted the very reason the game carries an always connected requirement is so that they can ensure the economy works correctly and to limit exploits through 3rd party applications. It seems rather clear, however, that the 1st party application is the only one you need to exploit the system. And, as usual, the question must be asked "does this make the game more fun?".
As I see it, this has been Blizzard's only metric for success with Diablo 3, not profitability, as we will see later. They claimed that by breaking the existing mould, they were providing a 'more fun' experience. So, the question then becomes, does the AH or RMAH make the game more fun? Interestingly, Blizzard don't appear to be packaging these components with the Playstation 3 edition. Is that because it turns out all of the changes to Diablo 3 were 'not fun', or is it because Playstation 3 users don't deserve 'as much fun', or is playing with a controller rather than a mouse and keyboard 'so much more fun' that their combination with the AH/RMAH turned into a 'fun overload' that had to be dialled back in order not to blow our puny little minds?
It also asks another important question about the business model. Is always-on net requirements 'more fun', particularly when they don't add anything to play beyond what a direct/lan connection might provide. When you try to enumerate the pros/cons, you see something like:
Pros: Everyone uses the latest version all the time if they want to play
Everyone playing has to have a working key
Cons: Internet Connection must be working to play
Need a server farm in every retail country so that paying customers can play (well, they don't even now, and charge people in those countries more money per copy so that they can have a game that they don't have local server access play)
Servers have to be working in order to play
User account has to be working in order to play
If we rolled out a dodgy patch, everyone will be broken at once
We have to know the product life-cycle prior to release in order to cost all of our servers' TCO correctly.
We have to keep talking to everyone to make sure the game is working to their expectations and forever hear about shortcomings
Economically, I don't understand how game companies are able to turn a profit on a title with those kinds of restrictions and ongoing costs. As a small example, lets say one of your servers can host 200 users at a time, but the server cost $20k, thats $100 per concurrent user before you turn the thing on. Maybe it can host 2000 users at a time, sure but thats still $10 per concurrent user before you turn it on or pay any support personnel, or for space on the floor. Surely, over the life of your product, you would be operating a negative margin without some sort of subscription service. I have read other places that, while you can't place a cost on piracy, you can place a cost and a metric on product returns. Diablo 3 is one of the few games I've ever returned, it was unusable for the first week, and is still, in most parts of the world (outside the US/EU/ASIA) mostly unplayable. Despite that, the parts of the game that were modified to provide 'more fun' actually provided, for me, a fan of the Diablo franchise, 'a lot less fun'.
So, to say that another way, by insisting on Always-Connected, Blizzard not only have to pay a bunch of additional ongoing expenses to run (apparently) necessary infrastructure, its also alienating their core user-base which must be very costly to their bottom line. I don't understand how this course of action renders any kind of net commercial advantage.
Gentlemen, I wouldn't trust this overgrown pile of microchips any further than I could throw it. And I don't know if you want to trust the safety of our country to some silicon diode - General Beringer
Yeah, in Australia a Design license costs somewhere between $1400 and $2000 per seat.$40 per month seems like a bargain.
Very true, however, Nintendo may have had a few things going for it:
* Well known IP
* Instalments in popular series
* a unique interface
Additionally, the Wii was berated by supporters of the competition for being underpowered... the very kinds of systems that this seems to be emulating given the form factor of the controller.
And if its for playing emulated titles, wouldn't you provide a more emulator friendly controller? Something that looked like a SNES or an Arcade controller? Maybe a cool bit of tech modders could use, like an Mattel's RF Reader/Writer? A cool RF gun? No, maybe some crappy capacitive track-pad, because those feel great to use, said nobody who has used a notebook in the past 25 years.
To me, Windows XP really refined the Windows experience. I think the way they are forking their UI to Metro or whatever it is, may be taking the usability angle a little too far. I see far too many similarities between the Nintendo Wii OS and Windows 8 to possibly be coincidence, and the Wii has one of the most poorly thought-through UIs of all time. To be honest, I don't think the ribbon system works in Office very well, either - rather than de-cluttering menus it leads to hieroglyphic overload.
.... it had better at least update my peeps any time I'm watching pr0n on the tubes. I require constant automatic updates on my status, so people can track my highly intriguing life-style. [scratches balls]
I find its easier to think of Windows 8 as a slight upgrade to the Wii standard operating system. Think of it like an improvement where you can resize aspects of your Wii menu.
If there is nothing mechanical going on in the device, you are probably causing more harm than anything. I've electrostatically killed functional (well... kinda) computers blasting them out with air. Doesn't always happen, and those computers were caked with welding soot so the periodic blasting was the only thing keeping the parts turning. Normally in an office or home environment I wouldn't bother, since sealed devices without fans tend not to accumulate anything significant. For example, I wouldn't bother opening a monitor from that same manufacturing environment, I'd just clean the casing as you would find they typically break from a fist-through-the-screen rather than old-age.
.... all the internals of your printers, on the other hand, do require constant cleaning and care to avoid damaging any of their multiple friggin sensor points. Also, iPhones and mechanical buttons there-in don't mind a spirit clean.
The correct place to do this is with some kind of in-line web appliance if you want to do things 'hands off'. You can delegate what users should be able to view, according to group policy or IP range or something, and all your web traffic will be handled via that, preferably between your main switch and your modem. As for what performance impact you will get off running it on a home router... who knows, but the service will probably be rubbish unless it hooks into some large OSS database.
The problem you will always have is 'what should be blocked'. In the past, I've found most 3rd party filters to be a little 'hyperactive', and do more harm blocking content than allowing users to do their damn job. A good one is 'chat sites'. A lot of filters will consider any URL with 'forum' in it to be a 'chat site'. A legit example is MrExcel, and hints on how to write working proprietary VB into your spreadsheet. If you can switch it to minimal settings and just block porn and gambling, life becomes a bit easier... but then you always get people going to golfing or football websites to play hypothetical games which break those filters as well.
I think it tends to be on the side of company moderated forums, such as the comments sometimes allowed at the bottom of NYTIMES style articles. Its a thin line to tread when it comes to corporate comment censorship, and you run a risk of alienating readers.
That said, many user-moderated or self-moderated forums work rather well, since, despite the contention of the article, *some* troll comments make accurate points, and the masses are typically able to smell bullshit.
So are the trolls really winning? Maybe...in older-style forums.
I've run enterprise email servers before, and every now and then a connector will break. For example, piping email traffic to Exchange via Mail Marshal will infrequently result in mail delivery failures because something is broken. It gets fixed shortly after its reported, but it isn't always reported in a timely fashion. So, isn't this fairly common?
Isn't an armistice a cease-fire agreement (like a 'putting war on hold' agreement, rather than officially signifying the end of aggressions)? The article states that an armistice cannot be unilaterally dissolved, yet doesn't direct action by NK against any US troops signify the end of the cease-fire?
Clearly your not a fan of Wu Tang or Shaq.... and you know what? I'm glad that these two equally talentless groups of people are now the benchmark for hetrosexuality. Keep it classy, Facebook Analytics!
Won't they simply mirror? Does the ISP have to watch and block mirrors? Will the whack-a-mole ever end?
I think Cliff misses the point about why a lot of people hate EA. Its not just that they seem to produce very lack-lustre releases, diddled with DRM and DLC, its that EA throws their money around the industry in order to obtain a significant number of development houses and their IP. Then, once they have that IP, they don't do anything with it!
Loyalty to EA typically comes about because someone is loyal to a fun product which EA later absorbs.... then lost when future release are steaming piles of crap or simply non-existent
Then you have companies like Steam that seem to encourage development and innovation, and don't employ armies of ham-fisted employees that typically answer questions with dumber questions. Is it any wonder that gamers respond well to Steam's approach?
You can almost be sure the bricked SSD was from Kingston. You'd be lucky to get an entire day's worth of light-usage out of them before bricking. I believe Kingston are aware of this, because its about the only memory product they don't seem to have any kind of warranty on, even if returned on the same day they're purchased.
Well, if the Ada Initiative's mission was to plaster 'RAPE' all over every single Internet technical news site, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
I concur with this coward! I often use Kingston flash memory... its a solid state device... technically. I can have Linux installed to one of those bad-boys for about a week before the thing cannot be accessed ever again. I've used more reliable floppy disks in the past. It frequently amazes me at how a device with no moving parts can be so unreliable.... or maybe Kingston make the worlds worst memory devices. I've asked Kingston support this same question a number of times now, but they are mysteriously quiet on the issue.
I like your way of thinking Mr.Smith. I am starting to use Windows 8 as the benchmark for incompetent implementations, and everything surrounding it. I can't even recommend these to friends to own. 4GB of memory? No lounging around with a bit of Solidworks. Does Microsoft understand why people use their OS? Its profound how out of touch Execs are with the desires of the masses. MS keeps trying to baby-down operating systems while simultaneously misunderstanding that people want visual complexity. Its fine to redefine computing, but less is sometimes not more - look at Powerpoint!
The other odd thing is that, MS are still offering these products as 'general solutions'. Look at this stupid thing! "Surface Pro". Professional What!? Professional "it looks like your trying to write a letter with that stupid little keyboard as you are leaning off your couch to reach me on the coffee table"? Maybe Microsoft, if they are so interested in redefining interfaces, look at redefining purchasing practices. "Hey! I'm an artist! I want wicked stylus action and a computer with enough f&%#ing memory to run Photoshop!", or "Hey! I'm a journalist! I want a wicked keyboard, spell checker, audio recorder, possibly OK video recorder that I can fold into my pocket but use on my lap!", or "Hey! I'm an audio engineer, and I actually want one of these stupid f$&$ing touch interfaces, because it makes logical sense for my applications, but I also need a high performance audio IO and midi interfaces. WTF dude? Why don't u sell a pro model bro?"
Microsoft needs to realise that people want to be able to tear it up or actually buy something designed for their needs... approximately. Microsoft's OS's have been great in the past because of the lack of wall to develop for them and distribute your code. I mean, lets be honest, MS kills *nix on interoperability between versions and hardware configurations... at least in a traditional world where the majority used x86. Lets have a focus on getting under the hood rather than barring it off, and more specialization in what MS does well, which is provide a standardized platform that allows you to dick around with everything as if its what is supposed to be done!
I think this is the base level functionality for most systems. They'll only record information when the lighting in the frame changes or something passes in front of the camera. Even your basic Swann security system will do that, and let you watch highlights from your iJunk. Typical on Enterprise grade CCTV products as well, with export options to various USB devices or email. Better packages will print activity reports as well. Dalmiere is another Enterprise grade device I've used - plug it in with its cameras and let it do its thing. Records about 2 years worth of data from about 8 cameras at a time. Remote access to the box, etc. We'd shoot through days of footage in the space of a few minutes, and most places will have security systems in place to give you a better idea if your perimeter has been compromised.
I have a Sony MiniDisc player/recorder right here. It was given to me because I work with bands who occasionally throw it at my face as one of the worst things I've ever tried to freely give to them. It highlights how out-of-touch Sony is with consumers and producers. The fact that they are still being manufactured surprises me no end.