"look at that map again. None of those stores are in boston or even in the greater boston area. none are accessable on the T. So , yes, I have never seen a walmart since there are none in my area at all. Secondly, to drive west on the mass pike one must own a car. Have you tried driving or parking in boston? the traffic sucks and in order to have a guranteed spot you have to pay something like $100 a month. Some places like brookline have no overnight parking on the street."
Are you saying that in your entire life you've never left Boston? When was the last time you left the state of Massachusetts?
I live in boston, we dont have walmarts here. Heck, I've never even seen one before.
You've never seen a Walmart? Come on, there are Walmarts all over. Either you've lived a really sheltered existence (I'm pretty sure you can see a Walmart driving west on the masspike) or you're lying. Which is it?
And there are lots of Walmarts around Boston.
Walmarts in the greater Boston area
I'd like you to take a look at your comment. It is rude and does not promote conversation. I stated that there was a community impact caused by the behavior. You obviously don't think there is a community impact. But rather than say something like, "I don't see any community impact." you assume you know everything and tell me I am wrong - clearly without knowing what impact I believe it has.
It's shameful that this is how you've chosen to communicate.
"I would rather send the guy a couple of hundred dollars than piss away a 100 hours of play time building up a character."
I would rather play a game where I enjoyed playing it and wanted to advance through it. Your opinion on the matter thinks nothing of the community impact this would have on the game.
I suppose, just like you, there are people that prefer McDonald's hamburgers over a perfectly cooked Kobe steak. Personally, I don't need one of these because I've still got a stockpile of Model M's to use.
"ah, so it was in regards to the parent of my reply."
Listen, if you can't even follow a simple nested view of comments, I don't have time to explain anything to you.
"However, the original parent at least attempted to predict console percentages for EU, US, and Japan separately, and didn't treat US predictions as if they applied to worldwide sales. As the originator of the discussion, he had a fairly insightful post that was a lot closer than much of the hype I've been seeing before E3."
I didn't treat US predictions as if they applied to worldwide sales either. As point of fact, I made no mention of how many 360s are going to be sold worldwide. Were you even replying to my comment?
"A few comments have been made that Japanese gamers are far more likely to buy expensive game consoles than might be true in the US/EU - I'm not sure if that is true, but if so, it could be either due to a desire to be able to play not just current ship date games, but also projected future post-console-release games, and thus the strike price of the console at retail may not be as important as the game, music, and movie capabilities from a Japanese console consumer viewpoint."
Again, that has nothing to do with the point that I was making. Don't waste my time, moron.
"The writer says, 'SanDisk is the first company to market its player as an ideological rather than technological alternative to the iPod."
Which is exactly how Apple has sold their products in the past. The whole 'Think Different' campaign was perhaps more subtle but was still using the same idea.
"It's not reasonable to make parenting choices FOR parents."
Oh that's exactly what I want - my name on a list that anyone, including the government, would have access to. No, there's no need for lists or government involvement at all. There's a ratings system. Retailers generally observe it just as movie theatres generally observe the MPAA ratings system. There's no need for government involvement anywhere here. My kids know what games they can and can't purchase without Big Brother stepping in.
Ignoring the number of years and whether Sony has long term viability in the marketplace for a moment, the post I was responding to was suggesting that Blu-Ray discs capacity would never be taken advantage of; I suggest that this is not the case and that having data capacity that seems like too much now will be just enough by the end of the life cycle.
"Sure, it's nice that the space is there, but I highly doubt they'll use even a fraction of it for games."
Ever? Assuming Sony's 10+ year plan for the PS3, I'd say that it seems to be an appropriate size but not something that could never be filled. Are you still satisfied with your 4 gig drive from 1996?
Blah blah - you're still missing the point. Your comment was vapid and added no value to the discussion. All you were basically saying was that Nintendo should make a lot of Wii's. Yes, Nintendo should. They should have as much stock on hand as possible on launch day. That's not insightful.
"I don't see why you are confused about this issue."
It couldn't be that you're using language that isn't clear, could it? No, of course not. I must be an idiot for not being able to interpret exactly what you are trying to say! Yes yes, that's it!! Brilliant.
"Overproduce: produce more then they believe there is a market for. If they look at the pre-orders and have enough to meet those, then they should "overproduce" and ensure there's enough for that and more."
But the manufacturer does not stop manufacturing at any point before release date so the concept of overproduction is foolish in this context. First of all, the number of preorders varies from day to day. Perhaps you don't know anything about how industrial manufacturing works but when your local EB gets your signature on a piece of paper, they don't ring up Nintendo and let them know they'll need one more. It's much larger than all that. Second of all, the number of preordered machines is not going to come anywhere close to the number of demanded units on launch day. It goes without saying that Nintendo would produce more than were preordered. Most people didn't preorder 360s. That is not an accurate gauge of demand. The fact that EB couldn't meet preorders merely means that units were shipped to Walmart and Circuit City - where they were sold. Your belief that the preorder is a great gauge of market demand is flawed.
"I think you're doing a little bit of hair splitting here - I'm recommending that Nintendo make far more consoles than they think they may have to meet initial demand (aka - overproduce)."
Again, how you are suggesting demand is gauged is completely flawed. Preorders are a poor metric to use here since so many won't preorder but still want one. Let's play a game and assume Nintendo is going to use your great preorder figure to determine when to release the console. (Since they can only produce X number of units in a day - which is completely unrelated to demand.) What if 20 million are preordered? Should they delay past the Christmas buying season to satisfy your horribly ill-thought release position? Of course not. Next, what if they've met The Great Preorder Number that you propose and are ready to go and announce the launch for a week later - SUDDENLY - 5 million more preorders come on. Should they then move the release date so that they can get 10 million units manufactured? That would be really smart. No, I am afraid that you are wrong. There is no concept of overproduction in this realm at launch. A company sets a release date, advertises it, and makes as many units as possible in the given time frame. Don't be snide in any future replies or I will refuse to educate you further.
"I don't think that was what I was intimating - my criticism is that if MS did not have enough console sales for initial launch, perhaps they should have waited another 5-6 months (and, seeing the Japanese sales, perhaps those were consoles better held in reserve for the US market). I don't think MS stopped making 360's - they were too impatient to wait until they had "enough" to at least meet the preorders!"
You said Nintendo should "overproduce." How exactly do you believe that is to be done? Console manufacturers don't stop making consoles at any point before launch day. If you are merely suggesting that Nintendo moves the launch date back to have a higher volume, then "overproduce" is the wrong word for it.
"(unlike Microsoft's launch) they have plenty of units at launch (if anything, they should *overproduce* as much as they can to make sure that everybody who wants a Wii can get one)."
You think that Microsoft chose how many 360s to manufacture for the launch and that once that number was reached, factory floors went quiet? Console shortages are caused by the manufacturer not being able to get them out the door fast enough, not manufacturers trying to hedge their bets and only producing a limited number.
Assuming there are conservative moderators who moderate based on their personal political opinion - what do you think the odds are that there are "liberal" moderators* that do the same? If you agree with me and believe that both sides of the spectrum have members who would rather downmod than discuss - then why attack conservatives for it? Why not note this inherant problem with the moderation system?
* - These labels are tired and only hurt the ability of people to discuss a point. Most people see their political affilitation the same way they see their favorite sports team, which is the worst way to approach it. Politics should be discussed as people, not as the sum of a party line.
"Operating system-wise, they have. They has continually tried to eliminate Linux and it wasn't long ago that Ballmer was hinting that they might have some patents that they could threaten Linux with, wasn't he? Not to mention the constant studies they fund that invariably find that Windows is better for some reason or another."
A business trying to drive out a competing product with unsavory behavior is nowhere close to being comparable to ethnic cleansing. The fact that you think this way is quite troubling. Would you rather live in a world where Windows failed or where the Holocaust never happened?
"No, but murderers are treated with more respect than Microsoft's customers are by Microsoft. Murderers have to be proven guilty awhereas Microsoft assumes all copies of Windows are pirated until proven otherwise. Furthermore, they attempt to shakedown their paying customers into buying more of their software under threat of lawsuit if they can't prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that their copies ar elegal (sic), don't they?"
I've never felt threatened by Microsoft to prove that my copy of Windows is valid. They've never sent someone over to bully me until I show them my license. What exactly are you referring to in this point? That Windows Genuine component of Windows Update? Or is there a huge story about MS threatening lawsuits here that I don't know about. (Honestly asking.)
And you know what - assuming MS is threatening people with lawsuits as you suggest - don't blame MS if they're allowed to behave this way, blame the politicians who've created an environment where this type of behavior is considered acceptable.
Oh, but you don't want to create change - you just want to fabricate lies and compare ethnic cleansing to selling an operating system and (GASP!) bundling IE!
But rather than make that point - at which point this discussion could have continued as I would have responded to it - you implied I was merely an idiot.
You really don't know what you're talking about.
By the way, it's non sequitur. And my logic has been on display for all to see while the best you can muster is to call names and to tell people to read more carefully. That's your argument distilled.
I don't even know why I am bothering at this point.
I suggested that the ESRB should not take such threats seriously and then explained why I didn't think there was a need to take threats seriously - mainly because politicians would gain more power by the ESRB not listening to them if they were able to push their agenda into law and nullify the ESRB. You never addressed the logic behind why I stated the ESRB should ignore the threats but merely said only an idiot would ignore such threats. The implication is easy to see.
Simply saying you didn't imply it doesn't make it true. You're very good at using rude language and telling people to read more carefully but your ability to have a discussion and respond to someone's opinion is quite poor. I will not respond to you again.
"So, what exactly does the U.S. government have to do with the ESRB? They are the Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of a self regulatory body that was created simply because of threats of legislative regulation of a sector of business in a free country. Pretty simple, see."
You give a lot of creedance to idle threats made by politicians who have nothing to say so they spit out the easy, anti-free speech line. I don't have such a fear of such people. Any time legislators have tried to take it the next step and actually get involved in regulating video games, the courts have struck the law down.
Lawmakers may threaten the ESRB but there's no reason to think that the ESRB should be affected by such threats. Do you actually think any politician wants the ESRB to meet their demands? No, of course not. The politician wants the ESRB to be done away with and the creation of a government body to handle suppressing free speech as a little notch in their bed post.
Now, since you've gone to the trouble of defending the post I replied to - why is the main thesis of the point that Bush caused all of this when Lieberman, Tipper Gore, and lately, Hillary Rodham are the real root?
"Kinda like I already look back on the pre-Bush era of Slashdot... where we didn't blame every single thing we could irrationally connect to the President on him, and get modded up for it."
Bravo. The state of intellectual discourse has sunk to a depressing level. People either blame Bush for everything or blame those socialist liberals for everything. There's no room for any discussion of points being made; there's just blind following of whatever label a particular person has decided to latch onto (usually without any real knowledge of what that label traditionally means - all they know is that they hate the other side.)
A lot of people strike me as rooting for a sports team when it comes to discussing politics. It's sad. Grandparent is a perfect example of someone who doesn't have any real knowledge or opinion on the issue - except that he read 1984, really liked it, and thinks it would be cool to fight the man.
Slashdot Mirror
Somewhat related - has anyone seen a water-cooled external hdd enclosure? I'd like a nice little self-contained unit.
It's shameful that this is how you've chosen to communicate.
3DRealms is not a public company. There are no public shares available. Your comment is incorrect.
I suppose, just like you, there are people that prefer McDonald's hamburgers over a perfectly cooked Kobe steak. Personally, I don't need one of these because I've still got a stockpile of Model M's to use.
That was my only point.
His numbers are also completely fabricated and not based on any reality of the marketplace. He merely pulled them out of thin air.
Blah blah - you're still missing the point. Your comment was vapid and added no value to the discussion. All you were basically saying was that Nintendo should make a lot of Wii's. Yes, Nintendo should. They should have as much stock on hand as possible on launch day. That's not insightful.
The "you" in my comment was not directed at you, obviously.
* - These labels are tired and only hurt the ability of people to discuss a point. Most people see their political affilitation the same way they see their favorite sports team, which is the worst way to approach it. Politics should be discussed as people, not as the sum of a party line.
And you know what - assuming MS is threatening people with lawsuits as you suggest - don't blame MS if they're allowed to behave this way, blame the politicians who've created an environment where this type of behavior is considered acceptable.
Oh, but you don't want to create change - you just want to fabricate lies and compare ethnic cleansing to selling an operating system and (GASP!) bundling IE!
You really don't know what you're talking about.
By the way, it's non sequitur. And my logic has been on display for all to see while the best you can muster is to call names and to tell people to read more carefully. That's your argument distilled.
Ever consider that perhaps, you're the idiot?
I suggested that the ESRB should not take such threats seriously and then explained why I didn't think there was a need to take threats seriously - mainly because politicians would gain more power by the ESRB not listening to them if they were able to push their agenda into law and nullify the ESRB. You never addressed the logic behind why I stated the ESRB should ignore the threats but merely said only an idiot would ignore such threats. The implication is easy to see.
Simply saying you didn't imply it doesn't make it true. You're very good at using rude language and telling people to read more carefully but your ability to have a discussion and respond to someone's opinion is quite poor. I will not respond to you again.
Lawmakers may threaten the ESRB but there's no reason to think that the ESRB should be affected by such threats. Do you actually think any politician wants the ESRB to meet their demands? No, of course not. The politician wants the ESRB to be done away with and the creation of a government body to handle suppressing free speech as a little notch in their bed post.
Now, since you've gone to the trouble of defending the post I replied to - why is the main thesis of the point that Bush caused all of this when Lieberman, Tipper Gore, and lately, Hillary Rodham are the real root?
A lot of people strike me as rooting for a sports team when it comes to discussing politics. It's sad. Grandparent is a perfect example of someone who doesn't have any real knowledge or opinion on the issue - except that he read 1984, really liked it, and thinks it would be cool to fight the man.