Err... What opposition? I can't think of anyone that is still around that truly competes with the Power 5 class chips these days... Well maybe Itanium does, but who really buys Itanium based systems?
Though I think the difference here is consumer vs. bussiness (I couldn't think of better names for them). Intel mostly makes consuemr chips (Again Itanium is the exception), so does AMD (though Opteron doesn't really compete against Itanium or Power 5), IBM makes both (though consumer only through Apple systems). IBM though makes chips that are very very hard to compare to the other two.
In the consuemr market I think AMD does come out on top (Apple still being way way more niche than AMD hurts any direct comparison). So it's by far the most relivent to most consumers. IBM may be more inovative, but they have more room to play around with inovation than AMD does or Intel wants... They are the only company that doesn't have to toe the line...
They made me come back from my vacation just for this stupid day and we sold 1 (1!) PSP today... Out of 100 corporate sent us... And games.... Well we had every currently released title with at least 4 copies... I think I sold like 4 games all told...
Yeah I was just so overwhelmingly happy to come back for this crap...
Well that's not exactly true... In one case (where my roomates got a hold of my actual CC card and it predated them just using the number to buy stuff online) the merchant had a signed receipt so the bank actually refused to give me back my money... It was obviously not my signature, but to my bank it didn't matter (I don't actually use them anymore for any of my banking needs FYI). I never did get the money back (about $80) for that transaction as back then (this was roughly 7 years ago) no one cared since I'd gotten back almsot all the money they spent and they were no where to be found anymore...
Now this isn't a credit card company... Again this was my bank with my checking account and a bank credit/debit card. They simply don't seem to care, credit card companies seem to care far more.
Well while technically that's true their are two big exceptions...
1) 'See ID', 'Check ID', 'CID', etc can sometimes get your card dismissed for nor being signed in the first place or if they feel more like annoying you they can say 'CID' is your signature and that anything else you wrote doesn't match up to your 'signature'...
2) The person taking your card has to care. Where I work, normally it's almost pointless to bother asking for your ID... Half the time jackasses write 'CID' et all on their card and then complain when I ask them for ID! The other half of the time no one bothers to bring their damn ID, which is awfully funny in an area like mine where you can't get to the other side of town without driving a car to get their and your required by law to have your ID on you at all times when driving. Though the funniest thing about that one is that it is the persons card they aren't trying to commit fraud their just idiots...
It's gotten to the point after 5 years of this crap I just don't bother if they didn't bother writing something as an actual signature unless they are acting strangely (yeah I know strangely isn't exactly a hard definateion or anything, but after 5 years you normally can tell the strange ones from the 'normal' ones). Frankly the company understands that is normally the case and in fact rely on it, they call it 'code 10' and it works across all forms of payment other than cash... Of course all it really does is flags the banks that this transaction needs special attention, but that's all most banks really care about anyways...
I figured I should probably point this out, but for me to attempt to tell the bank a purchase using my bank provided credit/debit card (ie the ones that work eitehr way) wasn't done by me. First I have to contact however did the charge (ie whatever company it was), if they are unwilling to assist me in gettign my money back I can then go to the bank. The bank then _requires_ the company that did the transaction to send them proof (via signed receipt) for the transaction. If they can't I eventually get my money back.
I've had to do this before when some ex-roomates seem to have gotten my card numbers and to annoy me they started using them to buy things online. Well obviously no one online has a signed receipt and I got my money back, but in your case you are a bussiness and if you ever are in this situation you do need to have prrof available. That or you'd lose money each time it happens.
Where I work we keep digital copies mostly, the ones that can't be captured digitally are done on paper still. Digital copies are kept forever at the corporate office, if I wanted to I could look up anything I've ever signed for digitally here. Physically ones are kept for 3 years, after which they are sent to corporate and I really have no idea what they do with them.
So as a bussiness these can be ver very important to have, but yes they don't do much of anything for most people...
Ya know I couldn't help but think of the crusades when I read this... See one of the many crusades was done by kids who had watched their fathers go off in the crusade before that (I forget what the name fo this one was though or the name fo teh one before it) and so off the kids went to help their fathers in the middle east...
It just seemed so appropriate I decided to point it out...
I work retail (in fact I head the game department at my stoe) and I can tell you it's the stupid lazy-ass parents buying them in the first place. 7 year old don't come up to me with cash in hand to buy GTA: San Andreas... No the parent comes up to me with cash in hand to buy GTA: San Andreas for their 7 year old kid.
I've never had a kid under 15 try to buy a Mature rated title from me. Most no we wouldn't sell it to them anyways as part of our corporate policy to look 'family oriented'. Now above 15, well I'm sure some have tried and some have probably suceeded... We are supposed to check ID for anyone under (visually) the age of 21... Which works til you try to figure out what a 21 year old is supposed to look like and then is demolished by people getting annoyed by having to have ID to buy games...
A state bitching about things like this won't help unless they ban the sales of games, rather than trying to enforce a ban on the sale to minors... Every company I know of already has a ploicy not to sell to minors and we know from the efforts of TV news programs to expose the sale of mature rated titles to minors that some due happen... I dont' see a law changing that...
What do ya mean? they are all 'What If...?' movies... Not a single one doesn't reinvent the wheel for that character/group... That basically makes all movies into 'What If...?' material...
I've already run into a situation with Sunbird where I wish it was easy to 'upload' a calander and share it with others... Namely I'm part of a convention project and keeping us all in sync can be a giant pain in the ass... Subird does support remote calanders, but I can't seem to quite get it to work the way we'd like... Namely the group lead isn't the technical one and so if I set it up she can't seem to add important events...
Because in my state (Pennsylvania), we are required to have ID (Driver's License) on us at all times while driving. Now while normally you can only be pulled over for doing something wrong, there is one case where not carrying ID can be very bad. See they setup these things called 'checkpoints'. Now sometimes they are trying to find someone who might be fleeing an area and so setup checkpoints, but there are also drunk driving checkpoints that the police love to setup. In either case you need proof of insurence and ID. Failure to provide either of them means you'll be in jail for awhile (a day or two) and normally they impound your car...
I therefore can't understand why anyone wouldn't carry their ID with them if they needed to drive anywhere...
My needs were simpler I guess... B5 for me was the first Sci-Fi series to 'get' space. Ships didn't need wings unless they wanted to work within a planets atmosphere. Ships could turn without redirecting their movement (aka they could turn and fly 'backwards').
Space as space is meant to be. That is what addicted me to B5. Alot of Sci-Fi still gets it wrong today.
The story though was intricate, and made the second reason I liked it... It wasn't random plots like most SF of the day it had a course that spun everything together like a map. The acting and directing was average, and heck individual stories were often weak as well. But in total they were much more effective...
It depends on which market... Desktops have been up to 50% AMD in the last few years, though exact numbers change all the time and they only track retail store sales figures... Laptops has been to nearly 40% AMD in the same span at certain points...
HP/Compaq make AMD64 laptops. Gateway/Emachines make AMD64 laptops (though unfrotunately their new models aren't up to the great early emachines A64 laptops).
Those are mainstream examples, but custom places do to like:
VoodooPC
The problem is the asian laptop makers who create those laptops that Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc remark as their own... Not many use AMD chips, and those that do only make models for a few vendors... But even so, most of those are enough to keep AMD in that market with some style...
Sure, how many do you want me to list? Since Dell's suport really isn't special at all unless your a corporate account... Though you must live awfully close to some sort of Dell facility for them to send someone out to you... I've worked Tech support before and even before they started sending tech support overseas to lower costs you'd be hard pressed to see that happen...
Wow amazingly those numbers are so wrong it's funny... and people think you are being insightful... Geez...
This has nothing to do with capacity, AMD already makes 1 quarter to 1 third of all x86 compatable cpus... From one plant. One plant I might add that doens't even need to work every day of every month to do that (since they didn't need as many cpu's as they were making they now periodically turn off the cpu equivalent of an assembly line)...
This is all about Intel payouts and deals the cut Dell... Nothing more.
Ya know what's really funny about your argument that AMD just couldn't make enough chips?
They make currently somewhere between 25 & 35% of all cpu's in the x86 market... From one chip fab.
Intel owns something like 13 fabs to make the other 65-75% of that same market...
If AMD did need to increase fabs that badly I'm sure Intel would be happy to cut their loses and sell one or more of their sub-par fabs... Even if they didn't AMD has a handy fab resource in IBM which could easily fab chips for them by contract...
Sure, the key there being someone has to set it up like that... & that someone can't be the same as the person that doesn't know how to do it... It needs to be the 'out of the box' mode, the default you can choose to leave behind or not (& if you don't knwo better you stay in that mode)...
Think of it as that mysterious 'test' most elite PC users want to keep the idiot next door from killing his PC for the 19th time... This will limit it's function to the enduser, but with support for automatically detecting network settings still most urbanites or suburbanites would be fine...
Well they could make a good bit more off of using AMD in key areas, but Intel pays them (literally) to not do so. For years and years now Intel has paid a large portion of any PC vendors marketing costs if the hold to some strict guidelines from Intel about what they sell... This is a big reason why Dell ads are everywhere, since they have a large pool of money to spend on them that is a 'gift' from Intel... All that not factoring in pricing deals on core parts (CPU & chipsets) that Intel gives them...
This is why alot of other companies still make a whole lot of Intel based systems and few AMD ones... The more AMD they use the more money they have to spend on basics like advertising and component costs for those Intel parts. Unfortunately AMD just can't match what Intel does for Vendors and that is the biggest reason they can't match Intel in the market with Vendors...
More so they need to do an overly simplified OS... What I mean is that all files saved or created would go into one area (like 'My Documents'), but this is enforced by the OS. Limit the user to accessing programs, simplify program install (not even a 'next' botton, it has to know where it's going and choose all options automatically), & Allow the user to only access their files in that one location. Or basically make it into what both your average computer incapable and corporate IT person wants.
But with one exception... A single program and it should all be 'unlockable' into the full version of the software for people that can use more complex things... Be that the corporate IT person or the computer 'repairman' at home. MS has sort of thought about this before (it's part of their idea behind XP home and it's multi-user login even for home users), but as normal MS couldn't do it right because it doesn't get more or less complex depending on user.... If Apple did it I have a feeling they could get this right....
First I just countered your examples, I didn't miss the point at all.
EA now owns DICE (or a sizable portion there-of), but they started out being the publisher... IE they published DICE's game. EA (I repeat) EA had nothing to do with creating BF1942 except in publishing the game (ie marketing, boxing it, and sending it to stores). Afterwards they relaized what kind of a hit it could make in sequals for them and tried to take it over and make it in house. It's the same thing they did for Burnout. It's also the same thing they did with C&C. They decided some (at that point) independant developer had a series they could use and the bought it up.
Yes yes NFS & SSX have both been popular at times. Though I still argue against SSX 1, I really can't remember knowing anyone really talking it up til Tricky was released... I'll also point out it never become a GH title until Tricky as well... I never said they were all bad, I just said not all of those were good examples to use...
I also mention some internal groups are less run by corporate than others. Maxis for instance is (I believe) now owned by EA, but still retains alot of it's independance. Though most of those groups are ones EA bought, rather than created internally... Which just goes back to the fact that besides sports titles EA has to but up development groups to get anything good made.
I didn't say you need to get rid of surround sound (in fact I am pretty sure my last post mentioned AC3), I just said you don't need it in Japanese, French, Italian, German, etc, etc... You most likely only need it in one language (any sort of backend for this sort of thing could use multiple copies with different language 5.1 tracks and let the user pick or select it for them based on their home language).
Also I've seen some amazing work with MPEG4 lately doing work with high quality sources (I do A/V editing work on the side). I've seen MPEG4 content noticably better than DVD content or indistiguishable from. Even when played back through my PC to my 38" widescreen HDTV using component cables (All-In-Wonder Radeon 9800 Pro card for the output). Features in most MPEG4 derivitives just gets better and their is some healthy competition from other standards as well.
I think net distribution will become popular, though I don't think it's quite ready yet even if the publishers did let someone do this...
Well HP already solved my issue, and it was my return point to the original poster.... If HP can make what I need and Canon can't then why would I even look at Canon?
I also don't really need 4 devices in one, though printing and scanning in one does count as two... Most of the other things are either to avoid problems or increase ease of use for me... I went with a HP PSC Photosmart 2710 All-in-One just under a year ago because it was simple to use with my whole network and as one device could fit in the space my old printer did.
It also supported the cards my digital camera uses when Canon seems to want 'Pictbridge' to be the solution to everything... To bad my camera doesnt' support that...
1. I've never had a printer that used a flatbed paper input tray cause me as many pains in the ass as ones that used some other method... 'paper jams' shouldn't be caused when it can't seem to feed the paper in...
2. The second was common actually, but it's part of my overall list...
3a. I don't want an adapter, I can (& did) buy an HP printer with these options built-in and working out of the box. Plug it in, detects network, and it's ready to go... Adapters aren't that simple...
3b. I have a quite non-working one I bought with my camera, but it has never worked in any OS... Not to mention even though it says "Made by Fuji, Inc" on the bottom Fuji swears they don't make adapters... Guess i can call it a $50 paper weight cause that's what it is... I'd rahter be able to stick the card into the printer and let it print the photos or send them over to my PC over the network...
3c. Well the only thing you really said to this was that I might want to consider buying them seperately... To bad I couldn't fit two devices on my desk huh? See if they can't fit in the space I have what use is it to me...?
& as for your last comment... My point was if Canon can't give me the features I need in a single product while HP can then it doesn't matter fi their cartridges suck or not! If it doesn't fit the job it doesn't fit the job. It could have the best cartridges ever, but that means nothing to me... This is why HP is considered the first choice in printers (the offer something for just about everyone) & Canon isn't...
Medal of Honor- hmm... yeah that sucks and has been redoen six ways from sunday now like most EA licences...
Command & Conquer- Yep since EA took over that's been preet craptacular as well...
SSX- Ya know I've never been interested enough to play those... Though quite a few people did like SSX3 and SSX Tricky, SSX 1 & 2 didn't fair so well though...
FIFA- Um yeah, maybe if your in Europe that game sold well... Most people would rather play Winning Elven 7 or 8... If they are playing Soccer at all...
Need for Speed- Underground saved them from being completely lack luster... I'm not sure it deserved all those awards that were given to it (it being underground), but they have heavy competition in that market...
Burnout- They bought the series after two came out & most of the inital planning for the third was done before they got it... It does show they can follow a design when it's given to them I guess... Other than that it doesn't really prove much...
Battlefield 1942- That's not an in house title for them... If they made it themselves I could maybe accept this one...
They still make 99.9% of their money off of sports titles that hardly deserve to be called new versions of the game...
Slashdot Mirror
Err... What opposition? I can't think of anyone that is still around that truly competes with the Power 5 class chips these days... Well maybe Itanium does, but who really buys Itanium based systems?
Though I think the difference here is consumer vs. bussiness (I couldn't think of better names for them). Intel mostly makes consuemr chips (Again Itanium is the exception), so does AMD (though Opteron doesn't really compete against Itanium or Power 5), IBM makes both (though consumer only through Apple systems). IBM though makes chips that are very very hard to compare to the other two.
In the consuemr market I think AMD does come out on top (Apple still being way way more niche than AMD hurts any direct comparison). So it's by far the most relivent to most consumers. IBM may be more inovative, but they have more room to play around with inovation than AMD does or Intel wants... They are the only company that doesn't have to toe the line...
He should have come to my store...
They made me come back from my vacation just for this stupid day and we sold 1 (1!) PSP today... Out of 100 corporate sent us... And games.... Well we had every currently released title with at least 4 copies... I think I sold like 4 games all told...
Yeah I was just so overwhelmingly happy to come back for this crap...
Anyways that was hardly the case everywhere...
Well that's not exactly true... In one case (where my roomates got a hold of my actual CC card and it predated them just using the number to buy stuff online) the merchant had a signed receipt so the bank actually refused to give me back my money... It was obviously not my signature, but to my bank it didn't matter (I don't actually use them anymore for any of my banking needs FYI). I never did get the money back (about $80) for that transaction as back then (this was roughly 7 years ago) no one cared since I'd gotten back almsot all the money they spent and they were no where to be found anymore...
Now this isn't a credit card company... Again this was my bank with my checking account and a bank credit/debit card. They simply don't seem to care, credit card companies seem to care far more.
Well while technically that's true their are two big exceptions...
1) 'See ID', 'Check ID', 'CID', etc can sometimes get your card dismissed for nor being signed in the first place or if they feel more like annoying you they can say 'CID' is your signature and that anything else you wrote doesn't match up to your 'signature'...
2) The person taking your card has to care. Where I work, normally it's almost pointless to bother asking for your ID... Half the time jackasses write 'CID' et all on their card and then complain when I ask them for ID! The other half of the time no one bothers to bring their damn ID, which is awfully funny in an area like mine where you can't get to the other side of town without driving a car to get their and your required by law to have your ID on you at all times when driving. Though the funniest thing about that one is that it is the persons card they aren't trying to commit fraud their just idiots...
It's gotten to the point after 5 years of this crap I just don't bother if they didn't bother writing something as an actual signature unless they are acting strangely (yeah I know strangely isn't exactly a hard definateion or anything, but after 5 years you normally can tell the strange ones from the 'normal' ones). Frankly the company understands that is normally the case and in fact rely on it, they call it 'code 10' and it works across all forms of payment other than cash... Of course all it really does is flags the banks that this transaction needs special attention, but that's all most banks really care about anyways...
I figured I should probably point this out, but for me to attempt to tell the bank a purchase using my bank provided credit/debit card (ie the ones that work eitehr way) wasn't done by me. First I have to contact however did the charge (ie whatever company it was), if they are unwilling to assist me in gettign my money back I can then go to the bank. The bank then _requires_ the company that did the transaction to send them proof (via signed receipt) for the transaction. If they can't I eventually get my money back.
I've had to do this before when some ex-roomates seem to have gotten my card numbers and to annoy me they started using them to buy things online. Well obviously no one online has a signed receipt and I got my money back, but in your case you are a bussiness and if you ever are in this situation you do need to have prrof available. That or you'd lose money each time it happens.
Where I work we keep digital copies mostly, the ones that can't be captured digitally are done on paper still. Digital copies are kept forever at the corporate office, if I wanted to I could look up anything I've ever signed for digitally here. Physically ones are kept for 3 years, after which they are sent to corporate and I really have no idea what they do with them.
So as a bussiness these can be ver very important to have, but yes they don't do much of anything for most people...
Ya know I couldn't help but think of the crusades when I read this... See one of the many crusades was done by kids who had watched their fathers go off in the crusade before that (I forget what the name fo this one was though or the name fo teh one before it) and so off the kids went to help their fathers in the middle east...
It just seemed so appropriate I decided to point it out...
I work retail (in fact I head the game department at my stoe) and I can tell you it's the stupid lazy-ass parents buying them in the first place. 7 year old don't come up to me with cash in hand to buy GTA: San Andreas... No the parent comes up to me with cash in hand to buy GTA: San Andreas for their 7 year old kid.
I've never had a kid under 15 try to buy a Mature rated title from me. Most no we wouldn't sell it to them anyways as part of our corporate policy to look 'family oriented'. Now above 15, well I'm sure some have tried and some have probably suceeded... We are supposed to check ID for anyone under (visually) the age of 21... Which works til you try to figure out what a 21 year old is supposed to look like and then is demolished by people getting annoyed by having to have ID to buy games...
A state bitching about things like this won't help unless they ban the sales of games, rather than trying to enforce a ban on the sale to minors... Every company I know of already has a ploicy not to sell to minors and we know from the efforts of TV news programs to expose the sale of mature rated titles to minors that some due happen... I dont' see a law changing that...
What do ya mean? they are all 'What If...?' movies... Not a single one doesn't reinvent the wheel for that character/group... That basically makes all movies into 'What If...?' material...
I've already run into a situation with Sunbird where I wish it was easy to 'upload' a calander and share it with others... Namely I'm part of a convention project and keeping us all in sync can be a giant pain in the ass... Subird does support remote calanders, but I can't seem to quite get it to work the way we'd like... Namely the group lead isn't the technical one and so if I set it up she can't seem to add important events...
I'd love to se a google solution to this...
You must not drive much, huh?
Because in my state (Pennsylvania), we are required to have ID (Driver's License) on us at all times while driving. Now while normally you can only be pulled over for doing something wrong, there is one case where not carrying ID can be very bad. See they setup these things called 'checkpoints'. Now sometimes they are trying to find someone who might be fleeing an area and so setup checkpoints, but there are also drunk driving checkpoints that the police love to setup. In either case you need proof of insurence and ID. Failure to provide either of them means you'll be in jail for awhile (a day or two) and normally they impound your car...
I therefore can't understand why anyone wouldn't carry their ID with them if they needed to drive anywhere...
My needs were simpler I guess... B5 for me was the first Sci-Fi series to 'get' space. Ships didn't need wings unless they wanted to work within a planets atmosphere. Ships could turn without redirecting their movement (aka they could turn and fly 'backwards').
Space as space is meant to be. That is what addicted me to B5. Alot of Sci-Fi still gets it wrong today.
The story though was intricate, and made the second reason I liked it... It wasn't random plots like most SF of the day it had a course that spun everything together like a map. The acting and directing was average, and heck individual stories were often weak as well. But in total they were much more effective...
It depends on which market... Desktops have been up to 50% AMD in the last few years, though exact numbers change all the time and they only track retail store sales figures... Laptops has been to nearly 40% AMD in the same span at certain points...
HP/Compaq make AMD64 laptops.
Gateway/Emachines make AMD64 laptops (though unfrotunately their new models aren't up to the great early emachines A64 laptops).
Those are mainstream examples, but custom places do to like:
VoodooPC
The problem is the asian laptop makers who create those laptops that Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc remark as their own... Not many use AMD chips, and those that do only make models for a few vendors... But even so, most of those are enough to keep AMD in that market with some style...
Sure, how many do you want me to list? Since Dell's suport really isn't special at all unless your a corporate account... Though you must live awfully close to some sort of Dell facility for them to send someone out to you... I've worked Tech support before and even before they started sending tech support overseas to lower costs you'd be hard pressed to see that happen...
Wow amazingly those numbers are so wrong it's funny... and people think you are being insightful... Geez...
This has nothing to do with capacity, AMD already makes 1 quarter to 1 third of all x86 compatable cpus... From one plant. One plant I might add that doens't even need to work every day of every month to do that (since they didn't need as many cpu's as they were making they now periodically turn off the cpu equivalent of an assembly line)...
This is all about Intel payouts and deals the cut Dell... Nothing more.
Ya know what's really funny about your argument that AMD just couldn't make enough chips?
They make currently somewhere between 25 & 35% of all cpu's in the x86 market... From one chip fab.
Intel owns something like 13 fabs to make the other 65-75% of that same market...
If AMD did need to increase fabs that badly I'm sure Intel would be happy to cut their loses and sell one or more of their sub-par fabs... Even if they didn't AMD has a handy fab resource in IBM which could easily fab chips for them by contract...
Err Athlon XP chips can throttle to... & Mobile MAD chips have had better clock rate controls since the K6-3...
Sure, the key there being someone has to set it up like that... & that someone can't be the same as the person that doesn't know how to do it... It needs to be the 'out of the box' mode, the default you can choose to leave behind or not (& if you don't knwo better you stay in that mode)...
Think of it as that mysterious 'test' most elite PC users want to keep the idiot next door from killing his PC for the 19th time... This will limit it's function to the enduser, but with support for automatically detecting network settings still most urbanites or suburbanites would be fine...
Well they could make a good bit more off of using AMD in key areas, but Intel pays them (literally) to not do so. For years and years now Intel has paid a large portion of any PC vendors marketing costs if the hold to some strict guidelines from Intel about what they sell... This is a big reason why Dell ads are everywhere, since they have a large pool of money to spend on them that is a 'gift' from Intel... All that not factoring in pricing deals on core parts (CPU & chipsets) that Intel gives them...
This is why alot of other companies still make a whole lot of Intel based systems and few AMD ones... The more AMD they use the more money they have to spend on basics like advertising and component costs for those Intel parts. Unfortunately AMD just can't match what Intel does for Vendors and that is the biggest reason they can't match Intel in the market with Vendors...
More so they need to do an overly simplified OS... What I mean is that all files saved or created would go into one area (like 'My Documents'), but this is enforced by the OS. Limit the user to accessing programs, simplify program install (not even a 'next' botton, it has to know where it's going and choose all options automatically), & Allow the user to only access their files in that one location. Or basically make it into what both your average computer incapable and corporate IT person wants.
But with one exception... A single program and it should all be 'unlockable' into the full version of the software for people that can use more complex things... Be that the corporate IT person or the computer 'repairman' at home. MS has sort of thought about this before (it's part of their idea behind XP home and it's multi-user login even for home users), but as normal MS couldn't do it right because it doesn't get more or less complex depending on user.... If Apple did it I have a feeling they could get this right....
Well lets see...
First I just countered your examples, I didn't miss the point at all.
EA now owns DICE (or a sizable portion there-of), but they started out being the publisher... IE they published DICE's game. EA (I repeat) EA had nothing to do with creating BF1942 except in publishing the game (ie marketing, boxing it, and sending it to stores). Afterwards they relaized what kind of a hit it could make in sequals for them and tried to take it over and make it in house. It's the same thing they did for Burnout. It's also the same thing they did with C&C. They decided some (at that point) independant developer had a series they could use and the bought it up.
Yes yes NFS & SSX have both been popular at times. Though I still argue against SSX 1, I really can't remember knowing anyone really talking it up til Tricky was released... I'll also point out it never become a GH title until Tricky as well... I never said they were all bad, I just said not all of those were good examples to use...
I also mention some internal groups are less run by corporate than others. Maxis for instance is (I believe) now owned by EA, but still retains alot of it's independance. Though most of those groups are ones EA bought, rather than created internally... Which just goes back to the fact that besides sports titles EA has to but up development groups to get anything good made.
I didn't say you need to get rid of surround sound (in fact I am pretty sure my last post mentioned AC3), I just said you don't need it in Japanese, French, Italian, German, etc, etc... You most likely only need it in one language (any sort of backend for this sort of thing could use multiple copies with different language 5.1 tracks and let the user pick or select it for them based on their home language).
Also I've seen some amazing work with MPEG4 lately doing work with high quality sources (I do A/V editing work on the side). I've seen MPEG4 content noticably better than DVD content or indistiguishable from. Even when played back through my PC to my 38" widescreen HDTV using component cables (All-In-Wonder Radeon 9800 Pro card for the output). Features in most MPEG4 derivitives just gets better and their is some healthy competition from other standards as well.
I think net distribution will become popular, though I don't think it's quite ready yet even if the publishers did let someone do this...
Well HP already solved my issue, and it was my return point to the original poster.... If HP can make what I need and Canon can't then why would I even look at Canon?
I also don't really need 4 devices in one, though printing and scanning in one does count as two... Most of the other things are either to avoid problems or increase ease of use for me... I went with a HP PSC Photosmart 2710 All-in-One just under a year ago because it was simple to use with my whole network and as one device could fit in the space my old printer did.
It also supported the cards my digital camera uses when Canon seems to want 'Pictbridge' to be the solution to everything... To bad my camera doesnt' support that...
Hmm well let me clear things up:
1. I've never had a printer that used a flatbed paper input tray cause me as many pains in the ass as ones that used some other method... 'paper jams' shouldn't be caused when it can't seem to feed the paper in...
2. The second was common actually, but it's part of my overall list...
3a. I don't want an adapter, I can (& did) buy an HP printer with these options built-in and working out of the box. Plug it in, detects network, and it's ready to go... Adapters aren't that simple...
3b. I have a quite non-working one I bought with my camera, but it has never worked in any OS... Not to mention even though it says "Made by Fuji, Inc" on the bottom Fuji swears they don't make adapters... Guess i can call it a $50 paper weight cause that's what it is... I'd rahter be able to stick the card into the printer and let it print the photos or send them over to my PC over the network...
3c. Well the only thing you really said to this was that I might want to consider buying them seperately... To bad I couldn't fit two devices on my desk huh? See if they can't fit in the space I have what use is it to me...?
& as for your last comment... My point was if Canon can't give me the features I need in a single product while HP can then it doesn't matter fi their cartridges suck or not! If it doesn't fit the job it doesn't fit the job. It could have the best cartridges ever, but that means nothing to me... This is why HP is considered the first choice in printers (the offer something for just about everyone) & Canon isn't...
Uh this is slashdot... Your sure I have marriage prospects...?
Hm... ok I'll bite:
Medal of Honor- hmm... yeah that sucks and has been redoen six ways from sunday now like most EA licences...
Command & Conquer- Yep since EA took over that's been preet craptacular as well...
SSX- Ya know I've never been interested enough to play those... Though quite a few people did like SSX3 and SSX Tricky, SSX 1 & 2 didn't fair so well though...
FIFA- Um yeah, maybe if your in Europe that game sold well... Most people would rather play Winning Elven 7 or 8... If they are playing Soccer at all...
Need for Speed- Underground saved them from being completely lack luster... I'm not sure it deserved all those awards that were given to it (it being underground), but they have heavy competition in that market...
Burnout- They bought the series after two came out & most of the inital planning for the third was done before they got it... It does show they can follow a design when it's given to them I guess... Other than that it doesn't really prove much...
Battlefield 1942- That's not an in house title for them... If they made it themselves I could maybe accept this one...
They still make 99.9% of their money off of sports titles that hardly deserve to be called new versions of the game...