Let's look at the recent 4 port consoles (sorry can't remember if the Dreamcast had 4). 1) Nintendo 64 2) Nintendo Gamecube 3) Xbox
Nope can't see any Sony console there although if you want I can ask Sony to come round and "force" you to buy a 4 port controller adaptor and an extra 3 game controllers. Of course all the new generation consoles support 4 wireless controllers so if you want we better rant at Microsoft and Nintendo as well.
Now the next generation machines that will work on a standard definition TV. 1) Nintendo Wii - graphics looks better on a HD-TV 2) Microsoft Xbox 360 - graphics looks better on a HD-TV 3) Sony PS3 - graphics looks better on a HD-TV
Well I live in Australia and US$60 translates with 10% GST to approx AU$90 which is not bad considering Xbox 360 premium games here are about AU$110 (US$80 allow for GST difference). Even Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox premium games are between AU$90 and AU100. Basically if a game is selling for X dollars for say the Xbox 360 then the same game on the PS3 will sell for the same price. Nintendo will also have to do the same otherwise people are going to get annoyed.
As far as nickle-and-dime for content you have to put the blame on the vendor and in this case it is (shock!) Sony, however what if you have Electronics Arts (what ever) that charges you for different sporting teams are you going to blame Sony for that as well. If you want you can apply nickle-and-dime to Microsoft since they are charging for extra content as well and have much tighter control than Sony. Can't speak for Nintendo but it is the games manufacturer or the hosting service who charges for content not necessarily the Console producer.
If you really want a premium game then you will have to pay a premium price. For the Xbox 360 owner do you honestly expect HALO 3 when it appears to be a cheap game? althouth after a while it will drop in price. On a further note the Game Console manufacturer charges a fee per game to the game producer and they in turn sell to the retailer who in turn will set the retail price. If a game does not sell well then the overall price of the game is reduced. Simple supply and demand. If you don't like the price then don't buy it and the retailer very quickly gets the message.
More "doom and gloom" entertainment from the media.
The PDA does have its usages in that is is very flexible in what it can do, however the problem with a PDA is that it has a small screen which can be quite irritating to people who need to display large amounts of text and/or drawings in context rather than scroll. This is a major issue with human interfaces because you still need an input device (stylus, keyboard, mouse,.... etc) and an output device (screen, sound,... etc) that a human can use either their hands or eyes (mainly) and that restricts the size of many electronic devices.
Say you are in an environment where you require many manuals to be available. Other than having lots of paper manuals you use a laptop (a PDA can be useless here), but this is a fragile device and is very easily broken so that is why paper is preferred which in turn can result in time consuming searches. The Sony document viewer goes a good way to solving this issue however it does need to be robust if it it to survive workshop environments. I have seen specialty PDA's that are quite large used for data entry in workshop environments but they are not that robust and are rarely seen on the shop floor.
As far as e-books go I personally have no interest preferring paper, but I do know that this will be the way of the future, however in many ways this will be "market push" (pushed by industry) not "market pull" (required by the consumer) - to coin marketing buzz wording.
Re:Too much "innovation", too little scope for cha
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GUIs Get a Makeover
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Most GUI menus seem to suffer from the "its got to look cool" effect and to hell with the overall functionality. Any interface should be designed with efficiency in mind although what is efficient to one becomes a nightmare to another. In many cases the so called efficient interface is decided on by people who will hardly ever use it and the person who has the job of actually doing the work is stuck with it.
When people get stuck in an inefficient process they either leave (normally the best solution) or just put their brain in neutral and do what they are told without really thinking even if what they are told to do is really stupid.
Most people can learn good computing skills if they feel that they have some control but many people don't have any control and seem to have accepted that they can just go up to a computer and "magical things" happen. Change in business rarely comes from the rank and file workers but the managers and if those managers have very little IT knowledge or just "follow the leader" can you blame people for just doing their job without really thinking.
The problem with MS Windows or to be honest any operating System and that includes all the *nix's is user education. In many ways we can blame Microsoft for trying to simplify something that is not all that simple. Simplifying a process is actually a good thing but to dumb down the process to an extent were the user assumes they don't have to think leads to complacency and problems in the future.
I have found that majority people can be taught to understand computers and take basic security precautions but you have to make the learning process interesting and show people they have control. Once control is taken away which unfortunately seems to be the current management perspective (ie. outsourcing, taking away trust, treating people people like they know nothing.... etc) then people only do the basics which means just enough to get by and in the computing industry this is a disaster.
In business it is vitally important for a manager to lead but it is also important for that manager to have a good working knowledge of IT and to empower their workers and colleagues. Good IT practices at work do flow on into the home no matter what the Operating System.
The pdf "Perspectives on Fuel Cell and Battery Electric Vehicles" is quite an informative read although it was written on 2002, but a lot of what is said is still relevant today.
I think the summary says it all:
Battery electric vehicles based on the same platform as fuel cell vehicles can have greater range than the fuel cell version if latest battery technology is employed.
Making hydrogen with electricity is very inefficient. Compared with battery electric vehicles, electricity consumption will be from 3 to 6 times higher per mile.
When hydrogen is produced from natural gas, fuel cell vehicles can, at best, only match the fuel economy of a comparable natural gas hybrid vehicle, and will have less than half the driving range for given tank volume and pressure.
With fuel-cells, petrol or diesel electric or just mono fuels such as [bio-]diesel, ethanol, gas or petrol there is always an energy equation that contains factors such as production, delivery, use and eventual disposal, so making a so called "green" consideration can be quite difficult. It is easy for an individual to make a choice since it depends on what they can afford and to hell with everyone else but can society afford this?
I hope I am wrong but as more and more third world countries become more mechanised we are going to see a much greater demand for fuel with its associated problems and unless something radically new is invented we as a global community are going to be in big trouble.
Ethanol does not have a very efficient growth, conversion, delivery and use cycle, although in some countries that have an abundance of sugar the creation/use cycle and government subsidies can can make a difference. For a country like the USA and other industrialised countries there are better uses for the land than growing ethanol fuel crops. After all it is rather pointless consuming 2 units of fuel to make 1 unit of fuel (use gallons or liters for units and you get the picture).
Even growing for bio-diesel which has a positive efficiency cycle has issues, since you need to determine what land is to be used for food to land that is to be used for bio-diesel production. It is rather pointless growing bio-diesel rich plants in marginal soil if the production costs wipe out the positive side of the energy equation or worse distroy the land. As countries such as China and India become more industrialised this problem is going to get worse.
The holy grail seems to be hydrogen fuel cells but there are enormous issues with efficient manufacture , safe storage and eventually disposal. It is rather pointless developing this technology if it is going to be put in inefficient vehicles so a whole range of new transports will have to be made, for many the transition is not going to be comfortable.
There is no easy solution to the energy needs of all nations, although energy efficient vehicles and effective food distribution would go along way. I personally think that there is something slightly obscene in countries importing items that upsets the energy equation (growth + harvesting + delivery costs) such as bottled water to name one, still people can justify anything given the chance.
I think it is going to be difficult to call who is going to win here but in Microsoft's case with their Xbox they effectively lost a few billion dollars while Nintendo and Sony made a considerable profit on the Gamecube and PS2 respectively. The Xbox 360 is also a loss maker but Microsoft has very deep pockets although no company can continue taking a loss without the shareholders screaming. I think the next two years are going to be crucial.
In the article it was suggested that Sony discount their HD-TV's with a PS3 purchase. Actually this is an excellent idea and would work to Sony's advantage especially since they are bringing out their own 1080p LCD HD-TV's. Also coming out is Sharp's 1080p LCD HD-TV's which are 20% cheaper so discounting here may beneficial for Sony. Personally I would be very tempted if I could get a Sony HD-TV, Sound System and PS3 with a good discount, however I would do my homework first.
Like it or not if you really want to get the best out of the new consoles you really should get a HD-TV (either a 720p or the more expensive 1080p). Of the console makers Sony is the only company that can benefit from this since Microsoft and Nintendo don't make TV's. What was funny when the Xbox came out the demo TV in our local EB was a Sony, however it was not long before the brand was stickered over. Even today with the Xbox 360 the display brand is hidden although I am fairly certain the display is not a Sony.
The price drop if (and I mean IF!!) it occurs across all countries would make the PS3 basic (with HDMI) a very attractive machine. Now before I get flamed lets look are the announcement.
The 20GB version will cost 49,980 yen (EUR 335 / GBP 225), down from 62,790 yen (EUR 421 / GBP 283), Kutaragi said.
Now doing some currency calculations (I live in Australia) and the above translates to AU$570.00 and adding 10% GST and most likely some other tariffs (assume 30% overall - a ripoff I know) then the retail price in Australia is approx AU$741.00 . Now this is not bad considering the original PS2 retailed at AU$730.00 and was highly successful.
Many organisations seem think the build costs of the PS3 is anything from US$700 to US800 however Sony is not talking and why should they. It is easy to cost an item if you do know what the manufacturer charges but it is not so easy when you try to put a manufactures cost on the item. If you control the process and Sony does, then the overall manufacturing cost to you is fairly small. If you have looked at an electronics manufacturing plant it is very difficult for an outsider to guess manufacturing costs correctly.
Try guessing costs for the Cell Chip and this gets so much harder, however I do know that the new generation machines use Silicon on Insulator (SOI) which currently costs about US$1200 per 300mm diameter wafer, however this will come down dramatically with volume usage. An educated guess at about 20% to 30% yield brings the Cell Chip manufacture cost from US$30 to US$18, even this is a guess because I don't know what the processing cost of actually creating the Cell Chips on the wafer are. You also have to remember that the Cell Chip is jointly developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba who all have vested interests in making this chip profitable and these people do control the manufacturing process.
Now what is the overall cost of the BluRay player to the manufacture? again unless you actually know the costs you can only guess. Assume SOI again and a 4 square mm laser and assuming a 40% yield and an overall processing cost of 100% on each SOI wafer and you get approx US$0.40, now how much to actually make the mechanics? Well if DVD's are anything to go by then assume say 100% more expensive then you get a US$40 to US$60 cost.
If anyone has better figures (not hearsay from journalists who most likely don't even know what a resistor is) please publish them.
Before I hear about "Console makers make a loss on their consoles", that is an Urban Myth since Nintendo and Sony (maybe initially) did not make a loss on the Gamecube, PS1 or PS2. The only company that has done this is Microsoft (approx US$4B to date) with their Xbox. I am not sure of the Xbox 360 loss since reports are contradictory but take a look at the following URL:
The only new machine Australia is going to see this year is the Wii and that will sell for AU$400 (US$301) which IMHO will sell well but I don't see the price of the games being that much different than the Xbox 360's (can't compare the PS3 yet) if the previous game prices are anything to go by. In fact I have found the Nintendo Gamecube games don't drop as much over time as the other console games.
Still games are a personal choice and while the majority of games will be ported to each console, the choice of a particular console will allow you to play that consoles exclusive games.
Re:You can't win with the controllers!
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Will the Wii Work?
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The PlayStation plain controller (later followed by the dual shock) actually became the console industry standard, of course Microsoft or Nintendo would not bring out identical controllers so they changed a few buttons around. What is strange is the PS1 controller is actually based on the Super Nintendo's controller (look down on it and compare other controllers).
I have had many game machines and have recently purchased a Logitech 2 wireless controller for my PS2 (you can get one for the Xbox as well) and I have found it brings a new dimension to playing since it has rumble as well as being wireless and the batteries last a very long time (50+ hrs with rumble on and 100+ hours without it). I should have purchased one of these a year ago since I find I enjoy my games more with no cords on the floor for the wife or kids or friends to trip over.
The Nintendo Wii looks like it has a very innovative controller because it is radically different, however I still remember the N64's interesting but IMHO ergonomically horrible controller so I definitely want to try before I buy. Moving a controller is nothing new, most people do this without thinking but if you have to do this just to play a game this is going to get painful. OK and very interesting for short games (and I don't buy these) but painful for longer games.
A method that is obvious people in the field may not be obvious to people outside the field. The problem is the people who find a method obvious are never consulted till it is to late and by that time they cannot (most likely get a headache first) understand the legal jargon that goes to make up a patent that in turn was made up by legal people who have little if any understanding of the technical aspects of the patent in the first place.
Solution - disallow patents on all software (it's maths and logic anyway) and business methodologies (what works for one may not work for another).
Of course this is too easy and I can see this tied up in litigation (in the USA anyway) for centuries.
Market research employs statistics and as any one who has studied this subject knows if you select the wrong group or don't take enough meaningful samples all your data is useless and in today's market this can translate to losses in the millions of dollars.
The market that caterers for kids up-to 16 has to realise that most kids don't earn any money and rely on their parents, so buying an expensive gaming machine (think Xbox 360 and PS3) for the child is not appropriate. I think many parents will look at buying a PS2, Xbox or a Wii this Christmas but only a few games will be brought (particularly for the Wii) and unless the parent gets interested in gaming then the kid is only going to get additional games for their birthday or special occasions.
It is only people with disposable income (normally over 30) and an interest in gaming (or loss of interest in TV) that will purchase the newer more expensive machines (includes PC's) and will happily purchase games.
Well it depends when and where you buy your games. Normally I rarely buy a brand new game although I did get "God of War" but only when it went Platinum. It is not that I can't afford the latest game at the premium price but I prefer to wait and given that I like Action/Adventure and RPG's I can easily do this since I like a game that takes many hours to play. For me this has not changed for over 20 years and I don't fit into the 18 to 35 age group being in my late 50's.
I find that younger people (mid to late teens) are usually interested in the opposite sex and games rarely come into it however at this age you do find the hard-core gamer. For the married (age 20 up) this group are usually distracted by their spouse and so if you have a keen gamer before marriage (what ever) gaming is normally curtailed or reduced dramatically. With kids, car and mortgage gaming is even more severely impacted and it is not until you reach your late 20's or even 30's that gaming becomes attractive since the parent by this time has young kids that become interested in gaming and this can lead them to also get back to or even start gaming. At this stage it is (or should be) the parent who dictates the game and if the parent gets interested the kids will have their own TV and game machine but the parent will have the better machine and will buy more games for themselves.
Once your kids get into their teens you start to see a cycle with the teens dropping out of gaming but the parent may continue gaming since they sometimes do have more time on their hands and would rather play a game than watch TV. It is really this group late 20's and above that has the money and the time to buy and play games, hence the cost of buying an Xbox 360 and/or PS3 is nothing to the older gamer and sometime the more expensive "toy" is preferred since this gives bragging rights (think BMW 325 to Toyota Camry or SUV to Subaru Forester) and this is the group that manufactures need to target because that is were the disposable money is.
I am fairly sure if you asked an older person why do you play games I think the most common answer would be "Have you seen what is on TV lately?". Also older gamers find some games do actually give a a physical (increased heart rate) and sometimes mental work out. So basically the hours spent gaming would have been spent watching TV anyway and how many non-gamers can honestly say they spend less than 20 hours a week watching TV.
If Microsoft charges for "Windows Security Center" after all they designed NT5.x (NT, WIN200, XP, Vista) we could look at the following (From Wikipedia):
Extortion is a criminal offense, which occurs when a person either obtains money or property from another through coercion or intimidation or threatens one with physical harm unless they are paid money or property.
Extortion currently carries up to a maximum prison sentence of 20 years in most states and under Federal law.
If you look at how intimidation is defined then some people should be going to jail.
Basically vi was designed for 24x80 CRT screens of which the ADM3 and the VT100 became the most popular although this depends who you talk to. On an ADM3 the HJKL key actually had the Left, Down, Up and Right arrow keys printed on them hence the convention. I do actually surprise my colleagues by using the basic keyboard (ie. no function or cursor keys) but I have a background of using so many different keyboards (including teletypes) that it is much faster for me to do this.
By using "cursors" it was possible to write a termcap (BSD) or terminfo (SYS V) that would allow the user of vi to use function and arrow keys. This is true even today and is usable by vim or even gvim which is really a vi type window which has graphical capability (ie. mouse) so that you can use the old tty commands and/or mouse.
There are always advantages and disadvantages in using a GUI or keyboard commands and vim/gvim does give many options. In fact I do find that if you know vi you basically know vim and can very easily use gvim.
I know many people like Emacs but now is not the time for religious wars like those of the mid 1980's. When people ask me which editor to use I first ask them what they want to do and then outline the pluses and minuses of vi vs emacs (if installed) vs pico (if installed). IMHO I think the best way to describe the editors is:
vi - excellent general purpose editor (a must if you are a System Admin)
emacs - very powerful editor but requires devotion to learn properly but well worth it.
pico - great cut-down emacs editor (low learning curve) for people who just want to type something.
If you are a Unix System Admin you will find that sometimes you may need to learn "ed" which to many may seem a strange thing to say today but believe me it is important that you know some of the basics of this line editor. I have even seen people use "ed" as their default editor and use it surprisingly quickly and efficiently.
My apologies to those people who are going to say "what about XXXX" (insert for favorate editor here). If you look at *nix editors you are always guaranteed to have "vi", "ed" and possibly "emacs" all the others are basically add-on's although with Linux you do get "vim" which you can call with "vi".
Learning "vi" is not as complex as learning "emacs" (not to say don't learn, but the learning curve is steeper) and it is surprisingly easy once you come to grips with the short cuts and how they relate to each other. Examples: [b]ack (word back), [w]ord (word forward), [e]nd (end of word). Also remember upper case is usually the reverse of what you did with the lower case command. There are some excellent books/papers you can get from Google. I find the best way to learn something is to have some serious editing then use the editor you want to learn.
If you don't want to do run something like Folding@home on your PS3 then don't install it and if you don't want to waste electricity then switch your PS3 off. In fact to really save money don't buy a PS3.
Picking the best games is really in the "Eye of the Beholder" (sorry could not resist that). The easiest but not necessarily the best way is to look at sales, but for many the best games are the ones they enjoyed.
I don't have the figures for a cut-down cell (if such a thing exists), although I would assume that if you only want a PPE (not negotiable) and say 4 SPE's then standard cell chip yields would increase to say 50~70%. Of course if the clock frequency is lower then I would also assume that yields would go up as well. The overall size of the standard cell chip is huge and since you are going to put rectangular chips on a circular wafer then you are never going to get much more than 80~90% yields (reasonable guess here). Actually I am sure IBM, Sony and Toshiba are aware of this and less critical appliances could get a so called "cut down" cell chip at a suitably reduced price.
I would assume It would be cheaper to connect two or more cell chips via a circuit board or suitable substrate, taking care with the interconnect rather than try to put the assembly on one chip. It would be possible to do what Microsoft has done with their triple core for the Xbox 360 however I would leave that up to the design engineers of the consortium.
It has been pointed out to me that maybe the overall cost (I assumed US$1300/wafer including US$100 for processing) is out. This may be the case but I do know the (Silicon on Insulator) SOI wafer is at present US$1200 for small runs and unless you are using very expensive materials for the processing I think US100/wafer for processing is reasonable, especially since you are looking at massive volumes.
The fab producers will charge extra for not only the processing but an extra charge for the finished product, however I cannot see a Companies like Sony, Toshiba or IBM charging themselves much more than say 10% to 30%. It would be reasonable to see a 100% or more markup for other companies.
It must be remembered that a SOI fab is US$11M so you still have to recoup your initial spend and this equally applies to R&D so you need to plan on how much to actually charge over a time period and this is were it gets into serious Statistics because charge to much and you product becomes more expensive and fewer people buy your product and if you charge too little you never recoup your R&D and other costs.
Note I am an electrical engineer and one of my subjects was IC design but that was over 20 years ago. The basics have not changed but the methodologies have. There are many IC FAB companies from the 1970's to today that allow a small manufacturer to group their designs with other manufacturer designs saving quite a considerable amount of money. Kind of like the the old computing batch jobs that were run on punched cards. Unfortunately I could not find out general costs, so with regard to the Cell costs I have made some reasonable guess work.
Even with a 20% yield the cell is going to cost between US$15 to US30. The cell will be made on a Silicon on Insulator (SOI) wafer (300mm diameter) costing approx US1200. In huge quantities (and the for PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 there will be huge quantities) this will bring down the cost of the wafer and thus the overall cost of the chips on SOI will be cheaper.
On an interesting note the Cell chip is approx 250 square mm so taking the 20% option on a 300mm diameter SOI wafer (assume US$1300 for wafer and assembly) the overall cost of the chip is US$23. The fab machines are about $11M each and are capable of producing completed wafers between 25,000 to 35,000 per year. Great if you control the process and IBM, Toshiba and Sony (to a lesser degree) do.
Do a Google search on "Silicon On Insulator" as a starting point.
Well back in the mid 1980's some PC's would set you back almost $10k and they only ran DOS while a workstation (full colour graphics) could cost anything from $7k (we got a very good deal from SUN and SGI) to $100k+.
The dual cell machine costing $18k may be quite cheap for what it can do. Not everything revolves around PC's.
If companies want serious number crunching power it is not unusual to see purchases in the millions.
Actually piracy has helped Microsoft, so going after the big pirates is more for publicity of the "Don't do it we will eventually catch you" but in reality you would not have pirates if customers did not want the cheap software. The best way of pushing people to Open Source is to make piracy very difficult and Microsoft is well aware of this, hence the balancing act.
In many ways the people who support those pirates are no more different than a person who goes to his local pub and buys a nice HD-TV for 10% of what it would normally be worth. In law this is actually called "receiving stolen goods" and can get you quite a serious fine or even a jail term. I know many people would say they weren't aware (oh did you see that flying pig) that the product they purchased was stolen but in my experience if its to good to be true, it is.
I am amazed that they are going to do an 80/20 (Premium to Standard) mix for a first release. A better course of action would be to do an 90/10 or even a 95/5 since the machines are going to be in short supply the people who are early adopters will buy the premium model. This usually means the early adopters are most likely to buy more games than those who just buy the standard version and like it or not Sony wants the people who buy this machine to get games or at least Bluray movies.
It is no good selling millions of game machines if the majority of people who buy them hardly buy games. That is why the Xbox was in many ways a failure losing Microsoft over US$1B compared to the Nintendo Gamecube which actually made quite a healthy profit (not as much as hoped) for Nintendo.
I can see the Wii doing well over Christmas as well, but lets be practical, if you are a parent the Wii is an excellent buy for your kid(s) with the purchase on one to three games but after that the only games the kid will see is on his birthday unless the parent(s) get interested (with young kids this can be difficult), not what I would call a rousing success.
The PS3 will really miss the holiday season but in reality the people who will buy this machine can and will do so at any time during the year without batting an eyelid, these are people who can afford games and/or Bluray movies. They are also the people who can afford HD-TV's and that is what Sony and other HD-TV manufacturers want.
In addition the premium games for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 will all be around the same price, if the Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox are anything to go by, so what you need are people to buy games if you are going to make a profit on your console loss. I know Microsoft made a loss on it's console but I cannot find anything on Sony or Nintendo making a loss (large or small) on their consoles. Basically this appears to be one of those Urban Myths.
I know many people on/. seem to be Sony bashing lately and Sony does deserve some criticism for what IMHO is management pigheadedness and stupidity and unless there is a total stuff up I think the PS3 will do well although not as well as as the PS2 which is still going to be a money spinner for Sony for a few more years.
Unfortunately you are right. Microsoft has no chance of making any profit by selling games for this modification it is purely a loss for them and to add insult the software is running under Linux.
If Microsoft takes the developers to court, they could win legally but could end up with a public relations nightmare, so they will most likely ignore it since they do have very deep pockets.
The only thing I can see come of this is Microsoft phases out the Xbox more quickly and this of course is going to get developers and gamers offside and that may play in favour of Nintendo and Sony and since Sony has made some major stuff-ups lately they will need every bit of help they can get. At least the PS2 is still a very viable and profitable console for vendors and consumers alike.
Personally I think it is Sony's management's fault. Basically heads should roll. This is a real debacle since this is not only going to get the customers offside but the retailers (at least in those countries that have PAL as their TV standard) are also going to be pissed since many tens of thousands of dollars have effectively been wasted on advertising.
I think potential PS3 customers would accept Sony's delay if Sony's came out with a sincere apology and then get their act together but I am not sure about the retailers.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's look at the recent 4 port consoles (sorry can't remember if the Dreamcast had 4).
1) Nintendo 64
2) Nintendo Gamecube
3) Xbox
Nope can't see any Sony console there although if you want I can ask Sony to come round and "force" you to buy a 4 port controller adaptor and an extra 3 game controllers. Of course all the new generation consoles support 4 wireless controllers so if you want we better rant at Microsoft and Nintendo as well.
Now the next generation machines that will work on a standard definition TV.
1) Nintendo Wii - graphics looks better on a HD-TV
2) Microsoft Xbox 360 - graphics looks better on a HD-TV
3) Sony PS3 - graphics looks better on a HD-TV
How are you forced to upgrade to a HD-TV again?
Well I live in Australia and US$60 translates with 10% GST to approx AU$90 which is not bad considering Xbox 360 premium games here are about AU$110 (US$80 allow for GST difference). Even Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox premium games are between AU$90 and AU100. Basically if a game is selling for X dollars for say the Xbox 360 then the same game on the PS3 will sell for the same price. Nintendo will also have to do the same otherwise people are going to get annoyed.
As far as nickle-and-dime for content you have to put the blame on the vendor and in this case it is (shock!) Sony, however what if you have Electronics Arts (what ever) that charges you for different sporting teams are you going to blame Sony for that as well. If you want you can apply nickle-and-dime to Microsoft since they are charging for extra content as well and have much tighter control than Sony. Can't speak for Nintendo but it is the games manufacturer or the hosting service who charges for content not necessarily the Console producer.
If you really want a premium game then you will have to pay a premium price. For the Xbox 360 owner do you honestly expect HALO 3 when it appears to be a cheap game? althouth after a while it will drop in price. On a further note the Game Console manufacturer charges a fee per game to the game producer and they in turn sell to the retailer who in turn will set the retail price. If a game does not sell well then the overall price of the game is reduced. Simple supply and demand. If you don't like the price then don't buy it and the retailer very quickly gets the message.
More "doom and gloom" entertainment from the media.
Good post.
.... etc) and an output device (screen, sound, ... etc) that a human can use either their hands or eyes (mainly) and that restricts the size of many electronic devices.
The PDA does have its usages in that is is very flexible in what it can do, however the problem with a PDA is that it has a small screen which can be quite irritating to people who need to display large amounts of text and/or drawings in context rather than scroll. This is a major issue with human interfaces because you still need an input device (stylus, keyboard, mouse,
Say you are in an environment where you require many manuals to be available. Other than having lots of paper manuals you use a laptop (a PDA can be useless here), but this is a fragile device and is very easily broken so that is why paper is preferred which in turn can result in time consuming searches. The Sony document viewer goes a good way to solving this issue however it does need to be robust if it it to survive workshop environments. I have seen specialty PDA's that are quite large used for data entry in workshop environments but they are not that robust and are rarely seen on the shop floor.
As far as e-books go I personally have no interest preferring paper, but I do know that this will be the way of the future, however in many ways this will be "market push" (pushed by industry) not "market pull" (required by the consumer) - to coin marketing buzz wording.
Most GUI menus seem to suffer from the "its got to look cool" effect and to hell with the overall functionality. Any interface should be designed with efficiency in mind although what is efficient to one becomes a nightmare to another. In many cases the so called efficient interface is decided on by people who will hardly ever use it and the person who has the job of actually doing the work is stuck with it.
When people get stuck in an inefficient process they either leave (normally the best solution) or just put their brain in neutral and do what they are told without really thinking even if what they are told to do is really stupid.
Most people can learn good computing skills if they feel that they have some control but many people don't have any control and seem to have accepted that they can just go up to a computer and "magical things" happen. Change in business rarely comes from the rank and file workers but the managers and if those managers have very little IT knowledge or just "follow the leader" can you blame people for just doing their job without really thinking.
The problem with MS Windows or to be honest any operating System and that includes all the *nix's is user education. In many ways we can blame Microsoft for trying to simplify something that is not all that simple. Simplifying a process is actually a good thing but to dumb down the process to an extent were the user assumes they don't have to think leads to complacency and problems in the future.
.... etc) then people only do the basics which means just enough to get by and in the computing industry this is a disaster.
I have found that majority people can be taught to understand computers and take basic security precautions but you have to make the learning process interesting and show people they have control. Once control is taken away which unfortunately seems to be the current management perspective (ie. outsourcing, taking away trust, treating people people like they know nothing
In business it is vitally important for a manager to lead but it is also important for that manager to have a good working knowledge of IT and to empower their workers and colleagues. Good IT practices at work do flow on into the home no matter what the Operating System.
Mod this up.
The pdf "Perspectives on Fuel Cell and Battery Electric Vehicles" is quite an informative read although it was written on 2002, but a lot of what is said is still relevant today.
I think the summary says it all:
Battery electric vehicles based on the same platform as fuel cell vehicles can have
greater range than the fuel cell version if latest battery technology is employed.
Making hydrogen with electricity is very inefficient. Compared with battery electric
vehicles, electricity consumption will be from 3 to 6 times higher per mile.
When hydrogen is produced from natural gas, fuel cell vehicles can, at best, only
match the fuel economy of a comparable natural gas hybrid vehicle, and will have
less than half the driving range for given tank volume and pressure.
With fuel-cells, petrol or diesel electric or just mono fuels such as [bio-]diesel, ethanol, gas or petrol there is always an energy equation that contains factors such as production, delivery, use and eventual disposal, so making a so called "green" consideration can be quite difficult. It is easy for an individual to make a choice since it depends on what they can afford and to hell with everyone else but can society afford this?
I hope I am wrong but as more and more third world countries become more mechanised we are going to see a much greater demand for fuel with its associated problems and unless something radically new is invented we as a global community are going to be in big trouble.
Ethanol does not have a very efficient growth, conversion, delivery and use cycle, although in some countries that have an abundance of sugar the creation/use cycle and government subsidies can can make a difference. For a country like the USA and other industrialised countries there are better uses for the land than growing ethanol fuel crops. After all it is rather pointless consuming 2 units of fuel to make 1 unit of fuel (use gallons or liters for units and you get the picture).
Even growing for bio-diesel which has a positive efficiency cycle has issues, since you need to determine what land is to be used for food to land that is to be used for bio-diesel production. It is rather pointless growing bio-diesel rich plants in marginal soil if the production costs wipe out the positive side of the energy equation or worse distroy the land. As countries such as China and India become more industrialised this problem is going to get worse.
The holy grail seems to be hydrogen fuel cells but there are enormous issues with efficient manufacture , safe storage and eventually disposal. It is rather pointless developing this technology if it is going to be put in inefficient vehicles so a whole range of new transports will have to be made, for many the transition is not going to be comfortable.
There is no easy solution to the energy needs of all nations, although energy efficient vehicles and effective food distribution would go along way. I personally think that there is something slightly obscene in countries importing items that upsets the energy equation (growth + harvesting + delivery costs) such as bottled water to name one, still people can justify anything given the chance.
I think it is going to be difficult to call who is going to win here but in Microsoft's case with their Xbox they effectively lost a few billion dollars while Nintendo and Sony made a considerable profit on the Gamecube and PS2 respectively. The Xbox 360 is also a loss maker but Microsoft has very deep pockets although no company can continue taking a loss without the shareholders screaming. I think the next two years are going to be crucial.
In the article it was suggested that Sony discount their HD-TV's with a PS3 purchase. Actually this is an excellent idea and would work to Sony's advantage especially since they are bringing out their own 1080p LCD HD-TV's. Also coming out is Sharp's 1080p LCD HD-TV's which are 20% cheaper so discounting here may beneficial for Sony. Personally I would be very tempted if I could get a Sony HD-TV, Sound System and PS3 with a good discount, however I would do my homework first.
Like it or not if you really want to get the best out of the new consoles you really should get a HD-TV (either a 720p or the more expensive 1080p). Of the console makers Sony is the only company that can benefit from this since Microsoft and Nintendo don't make TV's. What was funny when the Xbox came out the demo TV in our local EB was a Sony, however it was not long before the brand was stickered over. Even today with the Xbox 360 the display brand is hidden although I am fairly certain the display is not a Sony.
The price drop if (and I mean IF!!) it occurs across all countries would make the PS3 basic (with HDMI) a very attractive machine. Now before I get flamed lets look are the announcement.
t ory=9085
The 20GB version will cost 49,980 yen (EUR 335 / GBP 225), down from 62,790 yen (EUR 421 / GBP 283), Kutaragi said.
Now doing some currency calculations (I live in Australia) and the above translates to AU$570.00 and adding 10% GST and most likely some other tariffs (assume 30% overall - a ripoff I know) then the retail price in Australia is approx AU$741.00 . Now this is not bad considering the original PS2 retailed at AU$730.00 and was highly successful.
Many organisations seem think the build costs of the PS3 is anything from US$700 to US800 however Sony is not talking and why should they. It is easy to cost an item if you do know what the manufacturer charges but it is not so easy when you try to put a manufactures cost on the item. If you control the process and Sony does, then the overall manufacturing cost to you is fairly small. If you have looked at an electronics manufacturing plant it is very difficult for an outsider to guess manufacturing costs correctly.
Try guessing costs for the Cell Chip and this gets so much harder, however I do know that the new generation machines use Silicon on Insulator (SOI) which currently costs about US$1200 per 300mm diameter wafer, however this will come down dramatically with volume usage. An educated guess at about 20% to 30% yield brings the Cell Chip manufacture cost from US$30 to US$18, even this is a guess because I don't know what the processing cost of actually creating the Cell Chips on the wafer are. You also have to remember that the Cell Chip is jointly developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba who all have vested interests in making this chip profitable and these people do control the manufacturing process.
Now what is the overall cost of the BluRay player to the manufacture? again unless you actually know the costs you can only guess. Assume SOI again and a 4 square mm laser and assuming a 40% yield and an overall processing cost of 100% on each SOI wafer and you get approx US$0.40, now how much to actually make the mechanics? Well if DVD's are anything to go by then assume say 100% more expensive then you get a US$40 to US$60 cost.
If anyone has better figures (not hearsay from journalists who most likely don't even know what a resistor is) please publish them.
Before I hear about "Console makers make a loss on their consoles", that is an Urban Myth since Nintendo and Sony (maybe initially) did not make a loss on the Gamecube, PS1 or PS2. The only company that has done this is Microsoft (approx US$4B to date) with their Xbox. I am not sure of the Xbox 360 loss since reports are contradictory but take a look at the following URL:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?s
The only new machine Australia is going to see this year is the Wii and that will sell for AU$400 (US$301) which IMHO will sell well but I don't see the price of the games being that much different than the Xbox 360's (can't compare the PS3 yet) if the previous game prices are anything to go by. In fact I have found the Nintendo Gamecube games don't drop as much over time as the other console games.
Still games are a personal choice and while the majority of games will be ported to each console, the choice of a particular console will allow you to play that consoles exclusive games.
The PlayStation plain controller (later followed by the dual shock) actually became the console industry standard, of course Microsoft or Nintendo would not bring out identical controllers so they changed a few buttons around. What is strange is the PS1 controller is actually based on the Super Nintendo's controller (look down on it and compare other controllers).
I have had many game machines and have recently purchased a Logitech 2 wireless controller for my PS2 (you can get one for the Xbox as well) and I have found it brings a new dimension to playing since it has rumble as well as being wireless and the batteries last a very long time (50+ hrs with rumble on and 100+ hours without it). I should have purchased one of these a year ago since I find I enjoy my games more with no cords on the floor for the wife or kids or friends to trip over.
The Nintendo Wii looks like it has a very innovative controller because it is radically different, however I still remember the N64's interesting but IMHO ergonomically horrible controller so I definitely want to try before I buy. Moving a controller is nothing new, most people do this without thinking but if you have to do this just to play a game this is going to get painful. OK and very interesting for short games (and I don't buy these) but painful for longer games.
A method that is obvious people in the field may not be obvious to people outside the field. The problem is the people who find a method obvious are never consulted till it is to late and by that time they cannot (most likely get a headache first) understand the legal jargon that goes to make up a patent that in turn was made up by legal people who have little if any understanding of the technical aspects of the patent in the first place.
Solution - disallow patents on all software (it's maths and logic anyway) and business methodologies (what works for one may not work for another).
Of course this is too easy and I can see this tied up in litigation (in the USA anyway) for centuries.
Market research employs statistics and as any one who has studied this subject knows if you select the wrong group or don't take enough meaningful samples all your data is useless and in today's market this can translate to losses in the millions of dollars.
The market that caterers for kids up-to 16 has to realise that most kids don't earn any money and rely on their parents, so buying an expensive gaming machine (think Xbox 360 and PS3) for the child is not appropriate. I think many parents will look at buying a PS2, Xbox or a Wii this Christmas but only a few games will be brought (particularly for the Wii) and unless the parent gets interested in gaming then the kid is only going to get additional games for their birthday or special occasions.
It is only people with disposable income (normally over 30) and an interest in gaming (or loss of interest in TV) that will purchase the newer more expensive machines (includes PC's) and will happily purchase games.
Well it depends when and where you buy your games. Normally I rarely buy a brand new game although I did get "God of War" but only when it went Platinum. It is not that I can't afford the latest game at the premium price but I prefer to wait and given that I like Action/Adventure and RPG's I can easily do this since I like a game that takes many hours to play. For me this has not changed for over 20 years and I don't fit into the 18 to 35 age group being in my late 50's.
I find that younger people (mid to late teens) are usually interested in the opposite sex and games rarely come into it however at this age you do find the hard-core gamer. For the married (age 20 up) this group are usually distracted by their spouse and so if you have a keen gamer before marriage (what ever) gaming is normally curtailed or reduced dramatically. With kids, car and mortgage gaming is even more severely impacted and it is not until you reach your late 20's or even 30's that gaming becomes attractive since the parent by this time has young kids that become interested in gaming and this can lead them to also get back to or even start gaming. At this stage it is (or should be) the parent who dictates the game and if the parent gets interested the kids will have their own TV and game machine but the parent will have the better machine and will buy more games for themselves.
Once your kids get into their teens you start to see a cycle with the teens dropping out of gaming but the parent may continue gaming since they sometimes do have more time on their hands and would rather play a game than watch TV. It is really this group late 20's and above that has the money and the time to buy and play games, hence the cost of buying an Xbox 360 and/or PS3 is nothing to the older gamer and sometime the more expensive "toy" is preferred since this gives bragging rights (think BMW 325 to Toyota Camry or SUV to Subaru Forester) and this is the group that manufactures need to target because that is were the disposable money is.
I am fairly sure if you asked an older person why do you play games I think the most common answer would be "Have you seen what is on TV lately?". Also older gamers find some games do actually give a a physical (increased heart rate) and sometimes mental work out. So basically the hours spent gaming would have been spent watching TV anyway and how many non-gamers can honestly say they spend less than 20 hours a week watching TV.
If Microsoft charges for "Windows Security Center" after all they designed NT5.x (NT, WIN200, XP, Vista) we could look at the following (From Wikipedia):
Extortion is a criminal offense, which occurs when a person either obtains money or property from another through coercion or intimidation or threatens one with physical harm unless they are paid money or property.
Extortion currently carries up to a maximum prison sentence of 20 years in most states and under Federal law.
If you look at how intimidation is defined then some people should be going to jail.
Does anyone see the above happening?
Basically vi was designed for 24x80 CRT screens of which the ADM3 and the VT100 became the most popular although this depends who you talk to. On an ADM3 the HJKL key actually had the Left, Down, Up and Right arrow keys printed on them hence the convention. I do actually surprise my colleagues by using the basic keyboard (ie. no function or cursor keys) but I have a background of using so many different keyboards (including teletypes) that it is much faster for me to do this.
By using "cursors" it was possible to write a termcap (BSD) or terminfo (SYS V) that would allow the user of vi to use function and arrow keys. This is true even today and is usable by vim or even gvim which is really a vi type window which has graphical capability (ie. mouse) so that you can use the old tty commands and/or mouse.
There are always advantages and disadvantages in using a GUI or keyboard commands and vim/gvim does give many options. In fact I do find that if you know vi you basically know vim and can very easily use gvim.
I know many people like Emacs but now is not the time for religious wars like those of the mid 1980's. When people ask me which editor to use I first ask them what they want to do and then outline the pluses and minuses of vi vs emacs (if installed) vs pico (if installed). IMHO I think the best way to describe the editors is:
vi - excellent general purpose editor (a must if you are a System Admin)
emacs - very powerful editor but requires devotion to learn properly but well worth it.
pico - great cut-down emacs editor (low learning curve) for people who just want to type something.
If you are a Unix System Admin you will find that sometimes you may need to learn "ed" which to many may seem a strange thing to say today but believe me it is important that you know some of the basics of this line editor. I have even seen people use "ed" as their default editor and use it surprisingly quickly and efficiently.
My apologies to those people who are going to say "what about XXXX" (insert for favorate editor here). If you look at *nix editors you are always guaranteed to have "vi", "ed" and possibly "emacs" all the others are basically add-on's although with Linux you do get "vim" which you can call with "vi".
Learning "vi" is not as complex as learning "emacs" (not to say don't learn, but the learning curve is steeper) and it is surprisingly easy once you come to grips with the short cuts and how they relate to each other. Examples: [b]ack (word back), [w]ord (word forward), [e]nd (end of word). Also remember upper case is usually the reverse of what you did with the lower case command. There are some excellent books/papers you can get from Google. I find the best way to learn something is to have some serious editing then use the editor you want to learn.
If you don't want to do run something like Folding@home on your PS3 then don't install it and if you don't want to waste electricity then switch your PS3 off. In fact to really save money don't buy a PS3.
Picking the best games is really in the "Eye of the Beholder" (sorry could not resist that). The easiest but not necessarily the best way is to look at sales, but for many the best games are the ones they enjoyed.
I don't have the figures for a cut-down cell (if such a thing exists), although I would assume that if you only want a PPE (not negotiable) and say 4 SPE's then standard cell chip yields would increase to say 50~70%. Of course if the clock frequency is lower then I would also assume that yields would go up as well. The overall size of the standard cell chip is huge and since you are going to put rectangular chips on a circular wafer then you are never going to get much more than 80~90% yields (reasonable guess here). Actually I am sure IBM, Sony and Toshiba are aware of this and less critical appliances could get a so called "cut down" cell chip at a suitably reduced price.
I would assume It would be cheaper to connect two or more cell chips via a circuit board or suitable substrate, taking care with the interconnect rather than try to put the assembly on one chip. It would be possible to do what Microsoft has done with their triple core for the Xbox 360 however I would leave that up to the design engineers of the consortium.
It has been pointed out to me that maybe the overall cost (I assumed US$1300/wafer including US$100 for processing) is out. This may be the case but I do know the (Silicon on Insulator) SOI wafer is at present US$1200 for small runs and unless you are using very expensive materials for the processing I think US100/wafer for processing is reasonable, especially since you are looking at massive volumes.
The fab producers will charge extra for not only the processing but an extra charge for the finished product, however I cannot see a Companies like Sony, Toshiba or IBM charging themselves much more than say 10% to 30%. It would be reasonable to see a 100% or more markup for other companies.
It must be remembered that a SOI fab is US$11M so you still have to recoup your initial spend and this equally applies to R&D so you need to plan on how much to actually charge over a time period and this is were it gets into serious Statistics because charge to much and you product becomes more expensive and fewer people buy your product and if you charge too little you never recoup your R&D and other costs.
Note I am an electrical engineer and one of my subjects was IC design but that was over 20 years ago. The basics have not changed but the methodologies have. There are many IC FAB companies from the 1970's to today that allow a small manufacturer to group their designs with other manufacturer designs saving quite a considerable amount of money. Kind of like the the old computing batch jobs that were run on punched cards. Unfortunately I could not find out general costs, so with regard to the Cell costs I have made some reasonable guess work.
Even with a 20% yield the cell is going to cost between US$15 to US30. The cell will be made on a Silicon on Insulator (SOI) wafer (300mm diameter) costing approx US1200. In huge quantities (and the for PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 there will be huge quantities) this will bring down the cost of the wafer and thus the overall cost of the chips on SOI will be cheaper.
On an interesting note the Cell chip is approx 250 square mm so taking the 20% option on a 300mm diameter SOI wafer (assume US$1300 for wafer and assembly) the overall cost of the chip is US$23. The fab machines are about $11M each and are capable of producing completed wafers between 25,000 to 35,000 per year. Great if you control the process and IBM, Toshiba and Sony (to a lesser degree) do.
Do a Google search on "Silicon On Insulator" as a starting point.
Well back in the mid 1980's some PC's would set you back almost $10k and they only ran DOS while a workstation (full colour graphics) could cost anything from $7k (we got a very good deal from SUN and SGI) to $100k+.
The dual cell machine costing $18k may be quite cheap for what it can do. Not everything revolves around PC's.
If companies want serious number crunching power it is not unusual to see purchases in the millions.
Actually piracy has helped Microsoft, so going after the big pirates is more for publicity of the "Don't do it we will eventually catch you" but in reality you would not have pirates if customers did not want the cheap software. The best way of pushing people to Open Source is to make piracy very difficult and Microsoft is well aware of this, hence the balancing act.
In many ways the people who support those pirates are no more different than a person who goes to his local pub and buys a nice HD-TV for 10% of what it would normally be worth. In law this is actually called "receiving stolen goods" and can get you quite a serious fine or even a jail term. I know many people would say they weren't aware (oh did you see that flying pig) that the product they purchased was stolen but in my experience if its to good to be true, it is.
I am amazed that they are going to do an 80/20 (Premium to Standard) mix for a first release. A better course of action would be to do an 90/10 or even a 95/5 since the machines are going to be in short supply the people who are early adopters will buy the premium model. This usually means the early adopters are most likely to buy more games than those who just buy the standard version and like it or not Sony wants the people who buy this machine to get games or at least Bluray movies.
/. seem to be Sony bashing lately and Sony does deserve some criticism for what IMHO is management pigheadedness and stupidity and unless there is a total stuff up I think the PS3 will do well although not as well as as the PS2 which is still going to be a money spinner for Sony for a few more years.
It is no good selling millions of game machines if the majority of people who buy them hardly buy games. That is why the Xbox was in many ways a failure losing Microsoft over US$1B compared to the Nintendo Gamecube which actually made quite a healthy profit (not as much as hoped) for Nintendo.
I can see the Wii doing well over Christmas as well, but lets be practical, if you are a parent the Wii is an excellent buy for your kid(s) with the purchase on one to three games but after that the only games the kid will see is on his birthday unless the parent(s) get interested (with young kids this can be difficult), not what I would call a rousing success.
The PS3 will really miss the holiday season but in reality the people who will buy this machine can and will do so at any time during the year without batting an eyelid, these are people who can afford games and/or Bluray movies. They are also the people who can afford HD-TV's and that is what Sony and other HD-TV manufacturers want.
In addition the premium games for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 will all be around the same price, if the Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox are anything to go by, so what you need are people to buy games if you are going to make a profit on your console loss. I know Microsoft made a loss on it's console but I cannot find anything on Sony or Nintendo making a loss (large or small) on their consoles. Basically this appears to be one of those Urban Myths.
I know many people on
Unfortunately you are right. Microsoft has no chance of making any profit by selling games for this modification it is purely a loss for them and to add insult the software is running under Linux.
If Microsoft takes the developers to court, they could win legally but could end up with a public relations nightmare, so they will most likely ignore it since they do have very deep pockets.
The only thing I can see come of this is Microsoft phases out the Xbox more quickly and this of course is going to get developers and gamers offside and that may play in favour of Nintendo and Sony and since Sony has made some major stuff-ups lately they will need every bit of help they can get. At least the PS2 is still a very viable and profitable console for vendors and consumers alike.
Personally I think it is Sony's management's fault. Basically heads should roll. This is a real debacle since this is not only going to get the customers offside but the retailers (at least in those countries that have PAL as their TV standard) are also going to be pissed since many tens of thousands of dollars have effectively been wasted on advertising.
I think potential PS3 customers would accept Sony's delay if Sony's came out with a sincere apology and then get their act together but I am not sure about the retailers.
Artstechnica has a review (1 Sep 2006) on this. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060901-7646 .html
Don't really blame Microsoft (shock, horror - did I say that!) for what IMHO is stupidity, blame the Patent system.
Caution reading the patent will only give you a headache.