"If you disagree, please (using my hypothetical numbers) show me how they would have derived more than $50,000,000 worth of benefit with the false shortage."
Your fancy formatting and bullets don't change the fact that your thinking is critically flawed. The black market activity which you described does not reduce the amount of consoles sold in the long term. Microsoft is betting that the black market activity will actually create hype to increase the demand for the systems in the long run, which contradicts what you argued.
Don't believe me? Lets assume that the market for xbox 360s is willing to purchase 450,000 systems as you previously stated. If the shortage of 300,000 systems is produced then the market is still demanding the extra 150,000 systems. Microsoft does not lose out on the profits, they just cannot recieve them until more xboxes are released. Your flaw is in the middlemen. It doesn't matter how many people profit or are invovled with the process between the supplier and the consumer. Even the might Ebay cannot change the number of units supplied, and the number of units that the consumers demand.
Microsoft had two choices with the amount of systems to release. The first choice was to release as many as they could produce. Everybody who would want a system would get one, they would sell games, and then nobody would be talking about the system anymore. The second choice was the shortage option. I will stick with your numbers so with this choice 150,000 people did not get a system. They still want the system, and Microsoft is willing to bet that these people will be talking about it, and the added spotlight in the media will increase the demand.
Don't underestimate how difficult an adaptation this will be. I have discussed this with friends in the past and the consensus is that it will suck. How do you write a screenplay of a movie about only little kids, and make it appeal to adults?
Short of gratuitous nudity (Petra does walk around naked but I'm thinking more along the lines of Ender accidently walking in on Jessica Alba's boobies) I don't see how the projected earnings will satisfy Warner Bros demands.
Since he fits the description of a computer geek he must CLEARLY be guilty. It sure is good to see that stereotyping in the justice system still lives strong. I guess all those black comics on Comedy Central are right....
BTW do not let the 4 computers fool you. Some might picture Hugh Jackman in Swordfish but more likely it is similar to my family. I am the only one who uses computers and still we have 5 sitting around the house. A mac from like 1990, a 300 MhZ beast, 2 semi-recent dells, and a laptop. I have made my family waste way too much money so that I could have play those new games every 2-3 years.
It is strange timing on this announcement, shortly after the xbox 360 was released. With people having hands on experience with the revolution controller http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3143782 what could the secret possibly be? Perhaps there was an add-on that they didn't use because there were no games to showcase it? I'm also thinking that the somewhat mixed reactions have resulted in Nintendo revising the controller and realizing that there needed to be more to it.
I do however agree on waiting till after the holiday season to release more details. They need all the momentum they can gather as they lead into their own systems release. Any groundbreaking press releases will be lost in the news among the reporters that Johnny has once again waited until Chrismas Eve before buying his presents.
I figured out Microsoft's tactics on this! Beat all the other companies to the market by using a soon to be out of date system! It's brilliant! Take the money from R&D and pump that into advertising...next thing you know cha-ching! They'll actually release their real system around the same time as PS3....but not before they've sold millions of the "basic" systems. Hey Bill....high five!
It's a good gesture to try to stop the corrupt radio business, but it will have very little effect. The corruption runs rampant, from low level DJ's to nationally syndicated shows, however unfortunately most is unknown.
The bottom line is that having steady radio play is the key to selling albums, and when the the vast fortune of the music industry is at stake, dishonesty is inevitable. A VERY high percentage of Americans discover new music by hearing it on the radio, and a small fine (10 million? Ensuring that their arists get radio play has got to be worth at least 10x that) will do little to discourage the big labels.
*sigh*
The term depression is thrown around in today's society with no true knowledge of what it truly is. Almost everybody is affected by having days where they feel bad, don't have any energy, or are just burnt out. That is NOT depression. True depression actually affects approximately 20% of the people in our country at some point in their lives. That is still an extremely high percentage for something so miserable to live through, but its not even close to affecting "almost everyone". Almost the entire public conception of depression is false, including the numbers of people who are affected. Most depression does not occur during puberty, it either usually hits in 20's (What am I going to do with my life?) or in the 40's (What have I done with my life?)
So next time the movie you wanted to see is sold out, don't comment on how depressed it makes you feel because you are insulting the people who have to actually deal with this health condition for years
"3. Is it worth the price? I didn't buy an XBox at launch, but I bought one when the price dropped below $200. I am impressed enough by the XBox to have the 360 reserved, however, and I fully intend to grab it on the day of release; the XBox is *easily* worth twice the price of a PS2 on construction value alone. (I've completely trashed three PS2 consoles. It says something that I bothered to replace them, though.)
4. What can I do with it? If the answer is "nothing" -- no games -- I'm not really interested. So backward compatibility is critical. The GameCube was the last console to enter my arsenal, because I didn't have an existing library it could use. The key factor there was a strong used game selection and a few killer games (e.g. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)."
First off your comment about construction value is utterly ridiculous. You've broken 3 PS2s? You do realize you're supposed to use controllers and not hammers to play the game. Second, although I believe backwards compatibility is just a nice convenience (I'm not spending 300 bucks on a PS2 so I can play PS1 games), only the ps2 had backwards compatibility. Therefore your reasoning on Gamecube being the last console to enter your "arsenal" (taking violence in video games to the next level), is completely false.
Regardless of whether or not this was done on purpose, the publishers are going to milk this as long as they can. They are the publishers after all. That means that it is their profession to make as much money as they can on books. This book, although having amazing presale numbers, has had a lot of its marketing power stolen by the recent bombings in London. Such a tragic event has taken away any idle news coverage which would have instead been directed at Harry Potter. The people in charge of marketing are doing whatever they can do get the public's attention back on the books.
Its pretty simple psychology they are using. Humans desire that which cannot be had, and if this book is being protected by the CIA, FBI, and Mafia, then it must be the greatest book ever.
Oh and I'll be @ my local barnes and noble 10 pm friday night waiting in line, and then will have a contest with a few friends to see who can finish it first. No joke. People who make fun of the books as childish simply cannot appreciate a simple fun story
I browsed through the furniture awards expecting to find goofy couches and uncomfortable chairs when I was surprised by a very cool toilet. http://www.idsa.org/idea/idea2005/g53.htm/
What a sleek looking throne, I'm sure everybody here is jealous. No tank? Doesn't plug? CAN BE PLACED ANYWHERE????? Sounds like my dream toilet.
Have you used an N64 controller lately? The first problem is how unwieldy the thing is. When Nintendo placed the z button in the middle they had to have known that the primary position would be to hold the analog with left hand and buttons with right hand. This means that they expected 1/3 of the controller to just be dead weight on one side during gameplay.
That problem however is vastly overshadowed by the complete failure that is the analog stick. I give a lot of credit to Nintendo for being innovative (and can't wait to see/use a revolution controller), however this little grey stick is seriously flawed. Partly compounded by a poor design in a stick (as pointed out it is too skinny and the top doesn't provide enough grip), the analog stick just flat out does not move very well. Try playing Goldeneye sometime and immediately you will notice a complete lack of precision becacuse the stick does not move very consistently. Sony definitely gained a huge advantage by releasing theirs second and the biggest difference in the controllers is how consistent the analog sticks are.
That said I cannot wait to see the controllers for the next 10-15 years. With advances being made in every aspect of gaming, it seems silly that the only way to control is through a piece of plastic with buttons. I see huge levels of immersion in the future that current systems are missing out on just due to the simplisticness of the current handheld controller. Maybe Nintendo will wow us with their next controller, but chances are it will takes a few tries before the next main controller for a system is not plastic with buttons.
Oh man this poor guy is trying to make some money on the side, but without ads the bandwidth costs for the next few days are going to destroy his bank account.
Hopefully he'll think quick and at least put up some google ads. I'm sure a lot of people here read on penny-arcade about the ex-keenspotter who is making more money with just google ads. (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/)
Xbox connect is supposedly improving constantly and adding a lot of features to make it more new user friendly. My friend has a modded xbox and says that it works fine. I think it lacks the useful interface options and stat tracking of xbox live....however if you do get banned (and I know theres a big percentage of users on this site who have modded xboxs), give it a try
You are without a doubt extremely wrong. Please don't throw around big vocab words and poker slang, because you obviously don't know what you are talking about. Watch any poker played by experts with open eyes and see that the choices they make are not based upon their cards, but based upon so called "tells" from their expert opponents.
The Pros use physical tells to gauge how weak/strong thier opponent feels. And the pros are very good at figuring out the strength of the cards they face. This is the extent that pros use physical tells. Only beginners make the decision to fold everytime their opponent touches his ear while blinking.
The main thing you fail to mention is the tells given away by the action. This is the where most pros gain their advantage over the amateurs. They know what each bet, check, raise, call should mean. If something is out of the ordinary, they will have a good idea of what you have, and they will break you.
My guess is you've read a couple poker books, and maybe took money from your sister. But you don't understand the game
"The original game wasn't really groundbreaking, or even all that innovative"
I disagree with you on that point. The game brought mainstream aspects of the RPG which had previously only been appreciated by the hardcore. I can personally say this becuase I hooked 3 non-rpg fans on the game (people who despised the genré).
'You just spent 50 hours beating the game...now you are going to replay it with a slightly different character???' Although the game is fairly linear, the feeling of freedom was really groundbreaking in that it was appreciated by the, uh amateur RPG player. All 3 people after beating the game were drawn in by the story and all beat it again as the opposite (interestingly enough all were light the first time).
KOTOR was groundbreaking in its overall appeal to the non-RPG gamer, a feat not easily accomplished by true role playing games. By creating a more public interest in the game, Bioware has guaranteed us gamers a more corporate interest in RPGs
I was a member of 1047 (Nerdlingers). We finished 4th out of 20 rookie teams at our competition last year despite having 0 help on our robot by any adults, although we are the exception.
We went to a local team to use their facilities (they had built a mock arena), because we didn't have enough money. When we got there, all their kids were dicking around and playing tag, and about 5 engineers (mainly NASA) were doing all the work on the robots.
This is not an isolated example because in the process of scouting at the event, we would ask kids simple questions about the drive train (Does your robot have mulitple gears?) and people would just be clueless.
FIRST is for the most part dominated by dad's and friends who are engineers, but for the teams that learn on their own and are able to sucessfully compete it is a wonderful experience.
"or only buying American-made cars instead of foreign cars."
Actually one of the main reasons for buying American products (especially cars) over foreign models is more than a mere xenophobia. American cars might be more expensive and slightly inferior, but the money is going back into our economy. The production costs pay for our works, our neighbors, and the profits stay on our soil. Buying foreign cars transfers our economies money overseas.
So don't just assume that Japanese don't buy American tech products because of a xenophobia towards white people. They aren't as stupid as those flash videos we see all the time make them out to be:)
Slashdot Mirror
"If you disagree, please (using my hypothetical numbers) show me how they would have derived more than $50,000,000 worth of benefit with the false shortage."
Your fancy formatting and bullets don't change the fact that your thinking is critically flawed. The black market activity which you described does not reduce the amount of consoles sold in the long term. Microsoft is betting that the black market activity will actually create hype to increase the demand for the systems in the long run, which contradicts what you argued.
Don't believe me? Lets assume that the market for xbox 360s is willing to purchase 450,000 systems as you previously stated. If the shortage of 300,000 systems is produced then the market is still demanding the extra 150,000 systems. Microsoft does not lose out on the profits, they just cannot recieve them until more xboxes are released. Your flaw is in the middlemen. It doesn't matter how many people profit or are invovled with the process between the supplier and the consumer. Even the might Ebay cannot change the number of units supplied, and the number of units that the consumers demand.
Microsoft had two choices with the amount of systems to release. The first choice was to release as many as they could produce. Everybody who would want a system would get one, they would sell games, and then nobody would be talking about the system anymore. The second choice was the shortage option. I will stick with your numbers so with this choice 150,000 people did not get a system. They still want the system, and Microsoft is willing to bet that these people will be talking about it, and the added spotlight in the media will increase the demand.
Don't underestimate how difficult an adaptation this will be. I have discussed this with friends in the past and the consensus is that it will suck. How do you write a screenplay of a movie about only little kids, and make it appeal to adults?
Short of gratuitous nudity (Petra does walk around naked but I'm thinking more along the lines of Ender accidently walking in on Jessica Alba's boobies) I don't see how the projected earnings will satisfy Warner Bros demands.
Since he fits the description of a computer geek he must CLEARLY be guilty. It sure is good to see that stereotyping in the justice system still lives strong. I guess all those black comics on Comedy Central are right.... BTW do not let the 4 computers fool you. Some might picture Hugh Jackman in Swordfish but more likely it is similar to my family. I am the only one who uses computers and still we have 5 sitting around the house. A mac from like 1990, a 300 MhZ beast, 2 semi-recent dells, and a laptop. I have made my family waste way too much money so that I could have play those new games every 2-3 years.
but I feel the need to expose the world's most sophisticated software. The password....is "password"
It is strange timing on this announcement, shortly after the xbox 360 was released. With people having hands on experience with the revolution controller http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3143782 what could the secret possibly be? Perhaps there was an add-on that they didn't use because there were no games to showcase it? I'm also thinking that the somewhat mixed reactions have resulted in Nintendo revising the controller and realizing that there needed to be more to it. I do however agree on waiting till after the holiday season to release more details. They need all the momentum they can gather as they lead into their own systems release. Any groundbreaking press releases will be lost in the news among the reporters that Johnny has once again waited until Chrismas Eve before buying his presents.
I figured out Microsoft's tactics on this! Beat all the other companies to the market by using a soon to be out of date system! It's brilliant! Take the money from R&D and pump that into advertising...next thing you know cha-ching! They'll actually release their real system around the same time as PS3....but not before they've sold millions of the "basic" systems. Hey Bill....high five!
It's a good gesture to try to stop the corrupt radio business, but it will have very little effect. The corruption runs rampant, from low level DJ's to nationally syndicated shows, however unfortunately most is unknown.
The bottom line is that having steady radio play is the key to selling albums, and when the the vast fortune of the music industry is at stake, dishonesty is inevitable. A VERY high percentage of Americans discover new music by hearing it on the radio, and a small fine (10 million? Ensuring that their arists get radio play has got to be worth at least 10x that) will do little to discourage the big labels.
*sigh* The term depression is thrown around in today's society with no true knowledge of what it truly is. Almost everybody is affected by having days where they feel bad, don't have any energy, or are just burnt out. That is NOT depression. True depression actually affects approximately 20% of the people in our country at some point in their lives. That is still an extremely high percentage for something so miserable to live through, but its not even close to affecting "almost everyone". Almost the entire public conception of depression is false, including the numbers of people who are affected. Most depression does not occur during puberty, it either usually hits in 20's (What am I going to do with my life?) or in the 40's (What have I done with my life?)
So next time the movie you wanted to see is sold out, don't comment on how depressed it makes you feel because you are insulting the people who have to actually deal with this health condition for years
"3. Is it worth the price? I didn't buy an XBox at launch, but I bought one when the price dropped below $200. I am impressed enough by the XBox to have the 360 reserved, however, and I fully intend to grab it on the day of release; the XBox is *easily* worth twice the price of a PS2 on construction value alone. (I've completely trashed three PS2 consoles. It says something that I bothered to replace them, though.) 4. What can I do with it? If the answer is "nothing" -- no games -- I'm not really interested. So backward compatibility is critical. The GameCube was the last console to enter my arsenal, because I didn't have an existing library it could use. The key factor there was a strong used game selection and a few killer games (e.g. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)."
First off your comment about construction value is utterly ridiculous. You've broken 3 PS2s? You do realize you're supposed to use controllers and not hammers to play the game. Second, although I believe backwards compatibility is just a nice convenience (I'm not spending 300 bucks on a PS2 so I can play PS1 games), only the ps2 had backwards compatibility. Therefore your reasoning on Gamecube being the last console to enter your "arsenal" (taking violence in video games to the next level), is completely false.
Regardless of whether or not this was done on purpose, the publishers are going to milk this as long as they can. They are the publishers after all. That means that it is their profession to make as much money as they can on books. This book, although having amazing presale numbers, has had a lot of its marketing power stolen by the recent bombings in London. Such a tragic event has taken away any idle news coverage which would have instead been directed at Harry Potter. The people in charge of marketing are doing whatever they can do get the public's attention back on the books.
Its pretty simple psychology they are using. Humans desire that which cannot be had, and if this book is being protected by the CIA, FBI, and Mafia, then it must be the greatest book ever.
Oh and I'll be @ my local barnes and noble 10 pm friday night waiting in line, and then will have a contest with a few friends to see who can finish it first. No joke. People who make fun of the books as childish simply cannot appreciate a simple fun story
I browsed through the furniture awards expecting to find goofy couches and uncomfortable chairs when I was surprised by a very cool toilet. http://www.idsa.org/idea/idea2005/g53.htm/
What a sleek looking throne, I'm sure everybody here is jealous. No tank? Doesn't plug? CAN BE PLACED ANYWHERE????? Sounds like my dream toilet.
how long until we see some George Foreman lean mean gaming machines?
Have you used an N64 controller lately? The first problem is how unwieldy the thing is. When Nintendo placed the z button in the middle they had to have known that the primary position would be to hold the analog with left hand and buttons with right hand. This means that they expected 1/3 of the controller to just be dead weight on one side during gameplay.
That problem however is vastly overshadowed by the complete failure that is the analog stick. I give a lot of credit to Nintendo for being innovative (and can't wait to see/use a revolution controller), however this little grey stick is seriously flawed. Partly compounded by a poor design in a stick (as pointed out it is too skinny and the top doesn't provide enough grip), the analog stick just flat out does not move very well. Try playing Goldeneye sometime and immediately you will notice a complete lack of precision becacuse the stick does not move very consistently. Sony definitely gained a huge advantage by releasing theirs second and the biggest difference in the controllers is how consistent the analog sticks are.
That said I cannot wait to see the controllers for the next 10-15 years. With advances being made in every aspect of gaming, it seems silly that the only way to control is through a piece of plastic with buttons. I see huge levels of immersion in the future that current systems are missing out on just due to the simplisticness of the current handheld controller. Maybe Nintendo will wow us with their next controller, but chances are it will takes a few tries before the next main controller for a system is not plastic with buttons.
Oh man this poor guy is trying to make some money on the side, but without ads the bandwidth costs for the next few days are going to destroy his bank account. Hopefully he'll think quick and at least put up some google ads. I'm sure a lot of people here read on penny-arcade about the ex-keenspotter who is making more money with just google ads. (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/)
http://www.xbconnect.com/
Xbox connect is supposedly improving constantly and adding a lot of features to make it more new user friendly. My friend has a modded xbox and says that it works fine. I think it lacks the useful interface options and stat tracking of xbox live....however if you do get banned (and I know theres a big percentage of users on this site who have modded xboxs), give it a try
You are without a doubt extremely wrong. Please don't throw around big vocab words and poker slang, because you obviously don't know what you are talking about. Watch any poker played by experts with open eyes and see that the choices they make are not based upon their cards, but based upon so called "tells" from their expert opponents. The Pros use physical tells to gauge how weak/strong thier opponent feels. And the pros are very good at figuring out the strength of the cards they face. This is the extent that pros use physical tells. Only beginners make the decision to fold everytime their opponent touches his ear while blinking. The main thing you fail to mention is the tells given away by the action. This is the where most pros gain their advantage over the amateurs. They know what each bet, check, raise, call should mean. If something is out of the ordinary, they will have a good idea of what you have, and they will break you. My guess is you've read a couple poker books, and maybe took money from your sister. But you don't understand the game
"The original game wasn't really groundbreaking, or even all that innovative"
I disagree with you on that point. The game brought mainstream aspects of the RPG which had previously only been appreciated by the hardcore. I can personally say this becuase I hooked 3 non-rpg fans on the game (people who despised the genré).
'You just spent 50 hours beating the game...now you are going to replay it with a slightly different character???' Although the game is fairly linear, the feeling of freedom was really groundbreaking in that it was appreciated by the, uh amateur RPG player. All 3 people after beating the game were drawn in by the story and all beat it again as the opposite (interestingly enough all were light the first time).
KOTOR was groundbreaking in its overall appeal to the non-RPG gamer, a feat not easily accomplished by true role playing games. By creating a more public interest in the game, Bioware has guaranteed us gamers a more corporate interest in RPGs
I was a member of 1047 (Nerdlingers). We finished 4th out of 20 rookie teams at our competition last year despite having 0 help on our robot by any adults, although we are the exception. We went to a local team to use their facilities (they had built a mock arena), because we didn't have enough money. When we got there, all their kids were dicking around and playing tag, and about 5 engineers (mainly NASA) were doing all the work on the robots. This is not an isolated example because in the process of scouting at the event, we would ask kids simple questions about the drive train (Does your robot have mulitple gears?) and people would just be clueless. FIRST is for the most part dominated by dad's and friends who are engineers, but for the teams that learn on their own and are able to sucessfully compete it is a wonderful experience.
"or only buying American-made cars instead of foreign cars."
:)
Actually one of the main reasons for buying American products (especially cars) over foreign models is more than a mere xenophobia. American cars might be more expensive and slightly inferior, but the money is going back into our economy. The production costs pay for our works, our neighbors, and the profits stay on our soil. Buying foreign cars transfers our economies money overseas.
So don't just assume that Japanese don't buy American tech products because of a xenophobia towards white people. They aren't as stupid as those flash videos we see all the time make them out to be