"Projections based on preliminary data show that Blu-ray sales through May have already surpassed sales for all of 2007.
Blu-ray software sales in the first four months of this year more than quadrupled from the same period last year, climbing to 11 million since inception."
I guess you ignored the big Wal-Mart Blu-Ray push of late, and the dropping player prices. Your conclusion doesn't hold up at all.
I know that on Slashdot, and really amoungst all IT literate people, its long been the trend to hate the software that PC manfacturers package in. But the reality is that it isn't malice or greed that puts its there, its consumer demand; not for the software itself, but for PC manufacturers to do anything to make computers cheaper. People like my mom don't care that the machine runs slower, or that her son spends long time removing this crap, she does care that the unit cost $100 less than it would have otherwise. In other words, the general populace demands that every purchase they make be as cheap as it can possibly be -- quality be damned -- and then complains when it has negative side effects. When it comes down to it, complaining about the nagware preloaded on computers to keep them cheap is like complaining about websites that charge to remove the ads (Slashdot, anyone?) Because really, there's no difference here.
Sony offers to sell the computers without the nagware (and associated discounts) and gets slammed. I think this is a good move, and I'm glad to have the option. Maybe they would have been better off just quietly raising the price of all their machines $50 and getting rid of all the nagware by default. Of course, without saying why they did it, it would have been viewed as nothing but a price increase. Sigh.
Uh, HD-DVD's are: 1) region free As are many Blu-rays, although it was up to the studio publishing whether or not to region encode. Many of the biggest titles had no region encoding on Blu-ray. Other studios stayed away from HD DVD because of the lack of region encoding, and as a result, HD DVD was working on adding it in to appease those studios.
2) not a rushed to market technology (no customer screwing profile x.x limitations) Except for the whole new HD DVD 51 spec (bigger discs!) which thankfully died out with the format before the early HD DVD owners got screwed by it.
3) half the price Yeah, Toshiba sold those players for a substantial loss hoping to make up the money on HD DVD patent royalties. How'd that work out for them? Maybe that's why Toshiba was the only one producing those players, as other hardware vendors weren't willing to take a bath on them.
4) has more interactive features in contrast blu-ray store more space. Are you guys that obtuse? Yeah, so many people missed out on the occasional HD DVD-only web features, like going online to buy ringtones or Evan Almighty toilet paper. No matter, though, b/c they will be coming to Blu-ray eventually, like it or not.
P.S. You forgot the extra data bandwidth for Blu-ray, but you weren't really trying, I think.
Blu-Ray was different.. I'll give you that much... Better? No... Won't go that far. The fact that it uses DRM at all makes it lose at least 90 out of 100 points on scale of usability. Wow, the last 10 years of DVD must have been rough on you, seeing as DVDs have DRM.
The fact that early adopters are out however much they spent on players that cannot be upgraded to watch current rev media, drops another 90 out of 100 points. Original profile 1.0 Blu-ray players can watch all movies and all special features on current and future discs, except for picture in picture. Kinda like how original DVD players didn't have access to all current DVD player features, and how my DVD players can't play the "enhanced multimedia content" that requires a PC drive. Curses!
Next we have media costs. blu-ray media costs more to manufacture, therefore raises purchase price. Drop another 50 points. Strange that the extra few pennies per disk (and dropping) hasn't lead to Blu-ray discs costing more than HD-DVDs, seeing how price was supposed to be a big benefit of that format.
Next we have longevity. Downloadable content will soon surpass quality and availability to blu-ray, without the hassles and headaches. Drop another 90 points. You mean the downloadable content with all that horrible DRM? And with even less special feature extras than regular DVD, let alone Blu-ray? And with worse video and audio quality? I suggest you invest heavily in this, right away!
Woo-hoo - we have a winner. Not! Not?! Ummm... ok... "You are the weakest link, goodbye!"
Frankly, I'd love to see actual sales numbers of HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray discs. That information is easy to find, at site like Home Media Magazine. They post weekly Nielsen sales results every Friday.
For a current snapshot of Amazon, you can check the Product Wars site, which keeps current rankings of the two formats and comparison charts over time.
It makes me think that HD-DVD has an advantage just because of its name. Or a disadvantage. There have been plenty of reports of people buying HD-DVDs to play with their HDTV and DVD player, not realizing that it also requires new hardware.
As for HD-DVD being already ahead, it's been trailing Blu-ray significantly in disc sales all year, and Blu-ray is just putting out its biggest sellers now. We'll find out today if the super-discounted HD-DVD Wal*Mart special made a difference in disc sales. But lower prices haven't helped HD-DVD win a single week all year, and it seems unlikely that $20-$30 discs are going to be that attractive to the bargain-buying crowd.
Wasn't Google getting ready to use its Google Gears plugin to allow offline access to its apps? That includes features like offline storage and resource loading and works cross-platform.
It doesn't sound like this would be a barrier for much longer.
I did this transition about 10 years ago, after a few years as a developer. I was working at one of the 2-3 largest software companies in the world, and I managed to succeed more as a manager than as a developer.
I read a whole slew of books, but only one really stood out: "First, Break All the Rules". It's a fascinating book based on Gallup research of managers who are successful across all different sorts of fields. Many of the points it makes are counter-intuitive, but they've worked quite well for me in practice. Don't miss this one.
Other than that: 1) Keep up with your technology area. You need to be able to make judgment calls and have your employees respect them. If you're still coding, this probably isn't a big problem. 2) Know the strengths and weaknesses of all your employees. A manager is 50% psychologist, frankly. 3) Be confident and decisive, but admit your mistakes.
Microsoft's SEC filing says-- Yes, the numbers are in the SEC filing. It's the "Overall the Entertainment division did well" commentary that is Zonk's editorial.
Would someone care to explain how all this accounting mumbo-jumbo translates to "Overall the Entertainment division did well, as sales of the Zune, consoles, and Xbox titles helped push revenues higher?" It's Zonk-atorializing in action.
The 360 warranty fiasco was approximated at a $1 billion loss, just from following the link he listed, but now we see:
1) A nearly $2 billion division loss for the quarter. 2) Revenues dropping 10% 3) Xbox 360 sales less than half the level they were a year ago
Clearly this leads to "Overall the Entertainment division did well", while Sony was ripped apart for its $2 billion loss.
I own all three consoles and don't take a particular side, but there's a lot of spin in this post.
Despite the fact that the 360's compatiblity is only 42%, the vast majority of that list works more or less perfectly. That's not to say that there aren't exceptions, but Microsoft appears to have at least tested the titles that they support You've got to be kidding. We've tried running many of our old Xbox games on my 360, and the "supported" titles have major issue.
* Munch's Oddysee is unplayable because the character voices in game are all distorted like they're spoken underwater. Been in their supported list for ages. * Knights of the Old Republic and lots of other titles have terrible frame rates that make them a chore to play.
We were looking forward to finishing some of our old Xbox games on the new hardware, but just gave up. Granted, the 360 architecture is so different than the original Xbox that it can't be an easy problem to solve. But if you think that Microsoft's titles "work more or less perfectly", you need to take off the fanboy glasses.
I am not into WoW and barely know what it is, but my son has is trying to sell his character and has gotten several offers of $200-$400. But selling them has so far proved impossible due to fraud. Just so you know, what your son is doing is against the Terms of Use(Section 8) of the game. So you shouldn't be too surprised to encounter shady dealers in the process.
Each time he has given the WoW character to the buyer when the payment came through, and each time he was able to get the character back via Blizzard. But they must be getting tired of this, and I don't know how long they will keep giving him back his "stolen" WoW account. Somehow, I'm guessing the phrase "the person we sold our account to never paid up" did not occur during these Blizzard support calls.
As interesting as this development seems, I can't see myself wanting to use a device that requires me to lean over or look down for extended periods of time. The nice thing about current monitor/keyboard or laptop setups is that it allows a user to keep their head facing forward in a natural position and also provides a place to rest the arms that keeps them from tiring out. A vertical version of this unit would help the eyes and neck, but quickly tire the arms.
Without any tactile feedback, it seems like a a user would always have to look down to use it. I could see its place in applications that only involved limited or intermittent interaction, but anything that needed constant attention (e.g. work) seems like it would quickly be a strain.
Easy. The existence of a format war is holding people back from buying either BD or HD-DVD until there is a winner. I know many such people.
Helping to end the format war and greatly increase the overall HD market would be much more beneficial than selling a few thousand HD-DVD discs now. Yes, the volumes are that low.
Not to mention the overhead costs of supporting a second format.
This article reeks of a lot of dubious information and slanted opinions.
1) First, all of the articles have been interpreted through translations. There have already been Asian language press releases earlier this year (namely aroud CES) which get mistranslated due to the confusing and generic terminology around HD DVD. This is due to the HD-DVD(tm) and HD DVD (generic technology, either format) which even plagues English speaking-owners who by the wrong formats on their media.
2) Why has there been no English press release or confirmation from any of the companies supporting HD-DVD? If this is such a big deal, you'd think they'd be jumping to announce it due to the current widespread perception that HD-DVD is losing the war.
3) Who the heck is HansV, and why do we care about his personal anecdote -- second hand from his *kids*, even? Media sales numbers don't back up the idea that HD-DVD is selling like hotcakes.
4) The suggested retail price for these players -- at the earliest 6 months from now -- is not that much lower than HD-DVD players out currently ($399) that aren't selling that well to begin with.
5) You can buy Japanese-manufactured Blu-Ray players *right now* on Amazon for significantly less than $1000 right now. You can buy Blu-Ray *burners* for a laptop for less than that right now. Not to mention the PS3. Blu-ray players costs will be dropping in 6 months, too.
This sounds like a trumped up PR story by an HD-DVD fanboy. Where is Walmart's motive to "push for HD-DVD" when that format is selling less than its opponent, and doesn't carry as much of the content (e.g. Disney) that Walmart customers prefer? I'm not saying this purchase might not be true, but it seems to be a very one-sided account of motives from a company who itself has said nothing. And I say this as the owner of an HD-DVD player and not a Blu-Ray player, although I expect to have both soon.
But what you'll see if you've been following the comparison trends at: http://eproductwars.com/dvd/ is that Blu-Ray passed HD-DVD early this year, and the sales gap is generally widening. It's not just a fluke of the Casino Royale release.
Couple this with the anemic release schedule for upcoming HD-DVDs compared to Blu-Ray, and it looks like Blu-Ray is on a pretty solid path to trouncing HD-DVD. I say this as the owner of an HD-DVD XBox addon (but not PS3 or any other Blu-Ray).
I remember PHP making these claims for years now, that there's an amazing amount of uptake. But how are they counting the sites? Is it just by pinging a server to determine if it has PHP installed? Or are they tracking whether it's actively used in development? I'm wondering if these numbers exist because PHP is just installed by default on common server deployments.
Unfortunately, they don't call this out on the PHP site, and I suspect that's for a reason...
I'd love to see more details on the shear number of people and time that went into developing Google Maps, A9, etc. Especially compared to how long it would take to build the equivalent apps in just about any other technology. Everyone creamed when they dissected these sites to learn their techniques, but having to bend over backwards to make a technology platform do simple functions is not a good sign.
I lead a large team working on AJAX apps at big corporation, I can tell you that building AJAX apps is much, much harder than any other UI technology I've dealt with in years. Can you build simple form-driven apps which are faster and more effective? Sure. But as soon as you stray from the path of least resistance you will encounter:
* Serious scalability problems in browser DOM support * Javascript performance quirks * Extreme tendency to leak memory * Lack of basic programming tools * Accessibility compliance? Good luck! * Inability to perform simple operations without plugins, like say, "draw a diagonal line" without resorting to HACK HACK HACK
It's pretty hellish. Client side Java wasn't this bad, even in its earliest days. Maybe frameworks can evolve to reduce some of the burden, but I seriously doubt that AJAX will take off until the browsers -- yes, Internet Explorer, too -- refocus on being application platforms rather than document viewers with hacky scripting thrown in. If Mozilla / Firefox can provide really good fundamentals for programming web apps, they might pull it off, but they seem to be more concerned about rewriting their bookmark manager yet again.
To a PvP player, the threat of player violence at any time isn't the end of the fun -- it's just the start of it!
Maybe we just have different definitions of fun, then.
Being on guard at any time because someone can come and pick a fight with you can be fun, IF there is any chance of a fair fight.
Being on guard at any time because a level 60 rogue can suddenly pop out of stealth at any time, kill your lower level in 2 shots with NO chance of defense, leading you to spend the next 5 minutes walking back to your body... that's not my idea of fun. Having it happen over and over again turns the "game" into a chore. And having it happen even after moving from area to area in a night leaves me looking for the "Cancel Account" button.
Blizzard's new system isn't all that unreasonable, except that there is no dishonor penalty for ganking players much weaker than your own. Yes, I know that would be complicated to implement, but it is possible. But without it, things are actually going to get worse.
The way it is today, users have to choose from PvP, which is anything goes ganking and PvE, which is neutered and dull.
If they'd done the honor system right, they could have hit the reasonable middle ground for those of us who want excitement but not endless frustration.
I've owned 5, 10, and 30 GB iPods, and I run regularly. The iPods got me through marathon training. Having them definitely made things easier once you enter hour #3 on a long run.
However, having your iPod start to flake out an hour in is also a real downer, and I've experienced a lot of problems with them while running that I never experienced just playing them stationary or walking around. Everything from lockups and reboots, endless skipping, to playing with no sound. Usually a reset or a "timeout" where I hold it stationary does the trick, but I would probably agree that a hard drive based player is not ideal for running. The 10GB seemed to have the least problems among the lot.
The Mac game market isn't that bad. I used to be a serious PC gamer, but consoles have pretty much taken over that addiction. Still, there are a few PC gems every now and then, but a lot more of them than you might expect are ported to Mac.
If you are a PC game fanatic, the Mac is not for you. Games take longer to get here, and some games won't get there at all. But if you are a casual PC gamer, the Mac really isn't that bad these days. It's much better than it was a few years ago.
We get all of the Blizzard games simultaneous with the PC. Many of the most successful FPS games make it, but they may appear months later due to the porting process. The kind of games that casual gamers play alot are usually there -- Myst (ship hybrid CDs), the Sims and its variants, etc. The big names also arrive, titles like KotOR, Splinter Cell, Call of Duty, Halo, etc.
You can find out more at sites like Inside Mac Games. Switching to Mac is definitely not a blocker for casual gaming, and it seems to be getting better all the time.
The point is that instead of having to make a profitable enterprise, they can make an unprofitable one and then afterwards, once they've monopolized the industry either by shoving their technology down people's throats and holding it there, or by actually making a product, they can do whatever they want.
Your statement may or may not be true, but if you really care, I hope you are avoiding giving Microsoft any money. That means no Xbox, no Slate, no mice, etc. Certainly no Windows or Office purchases.
Otherwise you are just giving them the income they need to pull it off.
Slashdot Mirror
"Projections based on preliminary data show that Blu-ray sales through May have already surpassed sales for all of 2007.
Blu-ray software sales in the first four months of this year more than quadrupled from the same period last year, climbing to 11 million since inception."
I guess you ignored the big Wal-Mart Blu-Ray push of late, and the dropping player prices. Your conclusion doesn't hold up at all.
Sony offers to sell the computers without the nagware (and associated discounts) and gets slammed. I think this is a good move, and I'm glad to have the option. Maybe they would have been better off just quietly raising the price of all their machines $50 and getting rid of all the nagware by default. Of course, without saying why they did it, it would have been viewed as nothing but a price increase. Sigh.
P.S. You forgot the extra data bandwidth for Blu-ray, but you weren't really trying, I think.
Better? No... Won't go that far.
The fact that it uses DRM at all makes it lose at least 90 out of 100 points on scale of usability. Wow, the last 10 years of DVD must have been rough on you, seeing as DVDs have DRM. The fact that early adopters are out however much they spent on players that cannot be upgraded to watch current rev media, drops another 90 out of 100 points. Original profile 1.0 Blu-ray players can watch all movies and all special features on current and future discs, except for picture in picture. Kinda like how original DVD players didn't have access to all current DVD player features, and how my DVD players can't play the "enhanced multimedia content" that requires a PC drive. Curses! Next we have media costs. blu-ray media costs more to manufacture, therefore raises purchase price. Drop another 50 points. Strange that the extra few pennies per disk (and dropping) hasn't lead to Blu-ray discs costing more than HD-DVDs, seeing how price was supposed to be a big benefit of that format. Next we have longevity. Downloadable content will soon surpass quality and availability to blu-ray, without the hassles and headaches. Drop another 90 points. You mean the downloadable content with all that horrible DRM? And with even less special feature extras than regular DVD, let alone Blu-ray? And with worse video and audio quality? I suggest you invest heavily in this, right away! Woo-hoo - we have a winner. Not! Not?! Ummm... ok... "You are the weakest link, goodbye!"
For a current snapshot of Amazon, you can check the Product Wars site, which keeps current rankings of the two formats and comparison charts over time.
As for HD-DVD being already ahead, it's been trailing Blu-ray significantly in disc sales all year, and Blu-ray is just putting out its biggest sellers now. We'll find out today if the super-discounted HD-DVD Wal*Mart special made a difference in disc sales. But lower prices haven't helped HD-DVD win a single week all year, and it seems unlikely that $20-$30 discs are going to be that attractive to the bargain-buying crowd.
Wasn't Google getting ready to use its Google Gears plugin to allow offline access to its apps? That includes features like offline storage and resource loading and works cross-platform.
It doesn't sound like this would be a barrier for much longer.
I did this transition about 10 years ago, after a few years as a developer. I was working at one of the 2-3 largest software companies in the world, and I managed to succeed more as a manager than as a developer.
I read a whole slew of books, but only one really stood out: "First, Break All the Rules". It's a fascinating book based on Gallup research of managers who are successful across all different sorts of fields. Many of the points it makes are counter-intuitive, but they've worked quite well for me in practice. Don't miss this one.
Other than that: 1) Keep up with your technology area. You need to be able to make judgment calls and have your employees respect them. If you're still coding, this probably isn't a big problem. 2) Know the strengths and weaknesses of all your employees. A manager is 50% psychologist, frankly. 3) Be confident and decisive, but admit your mistakes.
It's a strange definition of "well".
The 360 warranty fiasco was approximated at a $1 billion loss, just from following the link he listed, but now we see:
1) A nearly $2 billion division loss for the quarter.
2) Revenues dropping 10%
3) Xbox 360 sales less than half the level they were a year ago
Clearly this leads to "Overall the Entertainment division did well", while Sony was ripped apart for its $2 billion loss.
I own all three consoles and don't take a particular side, but there's a lot of spin in this post.
Looks like the 360 compatibility page on Wikipedia confirms my experiences... not so great. Lots of slowdowns and bugs.
* Munch's Oddysee is unplayable because the character voices in game are all distorted like they're spoken underwater. Been in their supported list for ages.
* Knights of the Old Republic and lots of other titles have terrible frame rates that make them a chore to play.
We were looking forward to finishing some of our old Xbox games on the new hardware, but just gave up. Granted, the 360 architecture is so different than the original Xbox that it can't be an easy problem to solve. But if you think that Microsoft's titles "work more or less perfectly", you need to take off the fanboy glasses.
As interesting as this development seems, I can't see myself wanting to use a device that requires me to lean over or look down for extended periods of time. The nice thing about current monitor/keyboard or laptop setups is that it allows a user to keep their head facing forward in a natural position and also provides a place to rest the arms that keeps them from tiring out. A vertical version of this unit would help the eyes and neck, but quickly tire the arms.
Without any tactile feedback, it seems like a a user would always have to look down to use it. I could see its place in applications that only involved limited or intermittent interaction, but anything that needed constant attention (e.g. work) seems like it would quickly be a strain.
Easy. The existence of a format war is holding people back from buying either BD or HD-DVD until there is a winner. I know many such people.
Helping to end the format war and greatly increase the overall HD market would be much more beneficial than selling a few thousand HD-DVD discs now. Yes, the volumes are that low.
Not to mention the overhead costs of supporting a second format.
This article reeks of a lot of dubious information and slanted opinions.
1) First, all of the articles have been interpreted through translations. There have already been Asian language press releases earlier this year (namely aroud CES) which get mistranslated due to the confusing and generic terminology around HD DVD. This is due to the HD-DVD(tm) and HD DVD (generic technology, either format) which even plagues English speaking-owners who by the wrong formats on their media.
2) Why has there been no English press release or confirmation from any of the companies supporting HD-DVD? If this is such a big deal, you'd think they'd be jumping to announce it due to the current widespread perception that HD-DVD is losing the war.
3) Who the heck is HansV, and why do we care about his personal anecdote -- second hand from his *kids*, even? Media sales numbers don't back up the idea that HD-DVD is selling like hotcakes.
4) The suggested retail price for these players -- at the earliest 6 months from now -- is not that much lower than HD-DVD players out currently ($399) that aren't selling that well to begin with.
5) You can buy Japanese-manufactured Blu-Ray players *right now* on Amazon for significantly less than $1000 right now. You can buy Blu-Ray *burners* for a laptop for less than that right now. Not to mention the PS3. Blu-ray players costs will be dropping in 6 months, too.
This sounds like a trumped up PR story by an HD-DVD fanboy. Where is Walmart's motive to "push for HD-DVD" when that format is selling less than its opponent, and doesn't carry as much of the content (e.g. Disney) that Walmart customers prefer? I'm not saying this purchase might not be true, but it seems to be a very one-sided account of motives from a company who itself has said nothing. And I say this as the owner of an HD-DVD player and not a Blu-Ray player, although I expect to have both soon.
But what you'll see if you've been following the comparison trends at:
http://eproductwars.com/dvd/
is that Blu-Ray passed HD-DVD early this year, and the sales gap is generally widening. It's not just a fluke of the Casino Royale release.
Couple this with the anemic release schedule for upcoming HD-DVDs compared to Blu-Ray, and it looks like Blu-Ray is on a pretty solid path to trouncing HD-DVD. I say this as the owner of an HD-DVD XBox addon (but not PS3 or any other Blu-Ray).
About 22 million Web sites employ it
Is that employ or deploy?
I remember PHP making these claims for years now, that there's an amazing amount of uptake. But how are they counting the sites? Is it just by pinging a server to determine if it has PHP installed? Or are they tracking whether it's actively used in development? I'm wondering if these numbers exist because PHP is just installed by default on common server deployments.
Unfortunately, they don't call this out on the PHP site, and I suspect that's for a reason...
Parent poster has it exactly right.
I'd love to see more details on the shear number of people and time that went into developing Google Maps, A9, etc. Especially compared to how long it would take to build the equivalent apps in just about any other technology. Everyone creamed when they dissected these sites to learn their techniques, but having to bend over backwards to make a technology platform do simple functions is not a good sign.
I lead a large team working on AJAX apps at big corporation, I can tell you that building AJAX apps is much, much harder than any other UI technology I've dealt with in years. Can you build simple form-driven apps which are faster and more effective? Sure. But as soon as you stray from the path of least resistance you will encounter:
* Serious scalability problems in browser DOM support
* Javascript performance quirks
* Extreme tendency to leak memory
* Lack of basic programming tools
* Accessibility compliance? Good luck!
* Inability to perform simple operations without plugins, like say, "draw a diagonal line" without resorting to HACK HACK HACK
It's pretty hellish. Client side Java wasn't this bad, even in its earliest days. Maybe frameworks can evolve to reduce some of the burden, but I seriously doubt that AJAX will take off until the browsers -- yes, Internet Explorer, too -- refocus on being application platforms rather than document viewers with hacky scripting thrown in. If Mozilla / Firefox can provide really good fundamentals for programming web apps, they might pull it off, but they seem to be more concerned about rewriting their bookmark manager yet again.
1. Incompatible with windows games
Trust me, once you start playing World of Warcrack on your Mac you won't need any of those other games.
To a PvP player, the threat of player violence at any time isn't the end of the fun -- it's just the start of it!
Maybe we just have different definitions of fun, then.
Being on guard at any time because someone can come and pick a fight with you can be fun, IF there is any chance of a fair fight.
Being on guard at any time because a level 60 rogue can suddenly pop out of stealth at any time, kill your lower level in 2 shots with NO chance of defense, leading you to spend the next 5 minutes walking back to your body... that's not my idea of fun. Having it happen over and over again turns the "game" into a chore. And having it happen even after moving from area to area in a night leaves me looking for the "Cancel Account" button.
Blizzard's new system isn't all that unreasonable, except that there is no dishonor penalty for ganking players much weaker than your own. Yes, I know that would be complicated to implement, but it is possible. But without it, things are actually going to get worse.
The way it is today, users have to choose from PvP, which is anything goes ganking and PvE, which is neutered and dull.
If they'd done the honor system right, they could have hit the reasonable middle ground for those of us who want excitement but not endless frustration.
yeah ... wtf? I mean, telling kids to have an open mind and view something critically ... it's almost like we want them to think for themselves.
Please get back to me when the same folks force this message onto all their Bibles.
Signed,
Survivor of a religious upbringing
I've owned 5, 10, and 30 GB iPods, and I run regularly. The iPods got me through marathon training. Having them definitely made things easier once you enter hour #3 on a long run.
However, having your iPod start to flake out an hour in is also a real downer, and I've experienced a lot of problems with them while running that I never experienced just playing them stationary or walking around. Everything from lockups and reboots, endless skipping, to playing with no sound. Usually a reset or a "timeout" where I hold it stationary does the trick, but I would probably agree that a hard drive based player is not ideal for running. The 10GB seemed to have the least problems among the lot.
I'm definitely in the market for a flash player.
The Mac game market isn't that bad. I used to be a serious PC gamer, but consoles have pretty much taken over that addiction. Still, there are a few PC gems every now and then, but a lot more of them than you might expect are ported to Mac.
If you are a PC game fanatic, the Mac is not for you. Games take longer to get here, and some games won't get there at all. But if you are a casual PC gamer, the Mac really isn't that bad these days. It's much better than it was a few years ago.
We get all of the Blizzard games simultaneous with the PC. Many of the most successful FPS games make it, but they may appear months later due to the porting process. The kind of games that casual gamers play alot are usually there -- Myst (ship hybrid CDs), the Sims and its variants, etc. The big names also arrive, titles like KotOR, Splinter Cell, Call of Duty, Halo, etc.
You can find out more at sites like Inside Mac Games. Switching to Mac is definitely not a blocker for casual gaming, and it seems to be getting better all the time.
The point is that instead of having to make a profitable enterprise, they can make an unprofitable one and then afterwards, once they've monopolized the industry either by shoving their technology down people's throats and holding it there, or by actually making a product, they can do whatever they want.
Your statement may or may not be true, but if you really care, I hope you are avoiding giving Microsoft any money. That means no Xbox, no Slate, no mice, etc. Certainly no Windows or Office purchases.
Otherwise you are just giving them the income they need to pull it off.