That's ridiculous. Nintendo made money with the Gamecube, because they made profit on each box. They made a hell of a lot more money than Microsoft from gaming over the past few years. So does that mean you think Gamecube was more successful than Xbox?
Perhaps you've not heard of marketshare and mindshare, but in modern business they are more important than profitability. Consider Amazon.com, who didn't make a profit for the first 5 years of their existence. Hugely successful, but losing money every day. The reason they were successful is that everyone knows they will eventually make all that lost money back, plus more. The same with Google, Yahoo, YouTube, and the list goes on.
Microsoft are spending money to win. They don't care how much it costs, they just want to have a lot of Xboxes out there so that it can link up to Windows Media centre or a PC or whatever else is in the plans. And if they are successful they start to rake in big money.
The Gamecube was a loser because Nintendo came out with a badly tarnished reputation. They make a kiddie console with no serious games, they got left behind by the 'cool' companies Sony and Xbox, and their future was bleak. That's exactly why they have to take relatively risky options now, with the DS and the Wii. Nintendo would never have gone bust, but when their popularity falls behind the other two makes they lose support. The 3rd party support of the Gamecube was abysmal. Many retailers have stopped selling Gamecube a long time ago.
It's not just about money.
Re:I think it will work for the price point
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Will the Wii Work?
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· Score: 1
In particular I don't like analog controls or anything wireless (the former because they break easily and are less precise, the latter because of interference/line-of-sight issues and because they need batteries).
Evidently you haven't tried a console controller in the past 5 years. The N64 was notoriously easy to 'wear out' (although I never saw one break), and the old infra-red wireless controllers from the 90s suffered from line of sight and battery problems.
But these days the analogue controls are just as tough as the digital, if not tougher because they are built to take more abuse. I've never seen a Gamecube, Xbox or PS2 analogue stick fail, having owned all three consoles and used dozens of controllers for each. The digital pad on the Gamecube is not the best and I have seen that fail, as well as the digital pad on PS2. But if you buy genuine products as opposed to generic brands then you won't have any problems.
And wireless these days is RF - it is not infrared. It is radio. There is no line of sight issue, and the transmission is not required to be a high amplitude. The Gamecube 'Wavebird' controllers will last for dozens of hours of gameplay before the batteries run out. I think I have only changed the batteries in my Wavebird 5 or 6 times in a couple of years. Granted it's not always my primary controller, but I would use it at least a few times each month for a couple of hours per session.
Have you looked at the banner on the website? It's practically imitating American Idol, with a pencil, paintbrush and rule under a spotlight on an American Idol-like stage, with an watching audience and using what appears to be the American Idol font.
It's such a blantant imitation that American Idol would have reason to be upset at the plaguarism.
Funny that a 60 minute track is the longest metal track ever - even longer than the 74:17 track to which I originally linked. It's a strange, strange world!
Want to get on iTMS Australia? Need an Australian business license.
Do you mean an Australia Business Number? Any sensible person who is creating a product would have one anyway - and it takes all of 5 minutes to apply for one online.
To be honest, your little story makes it sound insanely easy to get onto iTunes. Much easier than, say, getting a distribution deal into a national music store like HMV.
A little off topic, but I really don't see how a computer can help demonstrate geometry or integration. It might help with three dimension graphing, but only in a very simplistic manner. Students who have to 'see' the graph on a screen, rotating in three dimensions, are always going to struggle with the subject.
Copyrighted works (and their associated rights) are bought and sold all the time. How do you think that musicians transfer their recordings to record labels, etc? How do you think that Michael Jackson came to 'own' the Beatles back-catalogue? B-u-y-i-n-g and s-e-l-l-i-n-g.
That's bullshit. You are not buying a copyrighted work. That would entail that you are buying all the rights associated with the copyright. You are buying a copy of a copyrighted work. You don't become the owner of any of the rights associiated with the copyright, and you really only have the right to use the work privately and sell your authorised copy.
I don't think too many people have a problem with paddle-shift gearboxes - I don't see how that counts as a driver assist, unless you're hoping to get an advantage over some klutz that can't use a regular gearbox.
Driver assists include traction control, launch control, and anti-lock brakes. Anti-lock brakes are currently illegal in F1, but traction control is allowed. It's something that can give an advantage to a lesser driver.
But in reality it's just part of the formula. We don't ask to ban power-assisted brakes or electronic fuel systems. Everyone plays by the same rules.
This isn't a 'free market', because potential suppliers wouldn't be supplying identical product. There is immense competition, and the majority of the cost of components comes from development due this competition.
At the moment F1 is extremely expensive because there is so much spent on R&D to improve components like these. With one supplier, there is no incentive to develop that particular component. The supplier will charge accordingly, otherwise the regulator will simply choose a another supplier.
I agree about the cd buying vs iTunes 'leasing' - this kind of ignorance really damages any argument presented. Why would we believe his story when he hasn't got the basic facts straight?
No, a high quality recording can not be produced in a home studio. Even if you are creating a totally synthesised song you will still require a mastering studio to perfect the production - and this does not come cheap.
No, traditional music stores are not becoming obsolete. Are bookstores obsolete given Amazon's popularity? Are auction houses closing down due to eBay?
No, you cannot get decent promotion from satellite and internet radio. You write as if being 'good' was the key to making money. The key to making money is being popular, and popularity is generated by radio as well as tv and other cross-promotion. If you are an independent artist you will simply not get there.
Can you name one single independent musician who became famous or wealthy on their own, ie without the assistance of a record label? I know one (which I'll keep to myself), but he's not particularly famous and has now signed with a label because being independent is more trouble than it's worth.
I don't disagree that in a perfect world we wouldn't need (or want) record companies. But in the commodified music industry they are necessary - they keep the machine turning over. Music can't sell itself without the constant pushing of record labels. We will probably enter a period of rationalisation of record labels - decline of the old giants, and growth of many new leaner and more efficient small labels - but the record label will be around forever. Or at least as long as music is being sold.
I'm not the ac above, but I agree wholeheartedly. Given a retail price of $15 it is almost impossible that the label will be getting more than half of that back.
Consider retail markup - most retail industries work on an average 100% markup, but even if music retail were as low as 50% (at a very conservative guess) the retailer is purchasing the disc for $10. And there is more to be taken out for distributor, too.
Artist royalties are generally standardised as a percentage of revenue that the label receives. If you're a big artist with some clout you can negotiate a better deal, but almost all artists will get a basic, low royalty deal. But it is based on record company revenues.
Of the couple of musicians I personally know with songs on iTunes and cds stocked in local stores, they firmly recommend that people buy through iTunes. This is solely because they will receive more money from each purchase - that is the lure with which labels have been drawn to iTunes. Weird Al might have negotiated himself a great deal for physical sales and a poor deal for digital, but on a basic / generic record contract the artist will assuredly get more from iTunes.
Weird Al is probably losing out on selling his filler tracks. On iTunes people often only buy a couple of tracks, rather than the full album. And that is truly the only way that an artist can lose on iTunes.
You might've missed the point here. India has the misery - and whoever will be getting those jobs won't be sharing that misery. The guys who are getting paid a lot of money to make such decisions aren't sharing in the misery, either.
Churchill meant that socialism does allow for sharing everything, but you'll have much more misery than blessings when things are shared. Capitalism gives much more net benefit, and definitely doesn't share the misery.
Maybe the British Labour Party think that they're socialist, but they're pretty conservative in all reality - especially under Tory Blair.
The real socialist countries in Europe can be found in Scandinavia. Everyone is supported, tax is ridiculously high but no one minds because the government actually looks after people, and many big businesses are just another branch of the government. It's still a democracy, but it's socialist.
The job is only 'worth' what the employer sees fit to pay. I might be the best bricklayer in the world, but if no one wants any bricks laid then I'm not worth an awful lot.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps you've not heard of marketshare and mindshare, but in modern business they are more important than profitability. Consider Amazon.com, who didn't make a profit for the first 5 years of their existence. Hugely successful, but losing money every day. The reason they were successful is that everyone knows they will eventually make all that lost money back, plus more. The same with Google, Yahoo, YouTube, and the list goes on.
Microsoft are spending money to win. They don't care how much it costs, they just want to have a lot of Xboxes out there so that it can link up to Windows Media centre or a PC or whatever else is in the plans. And if they are successful they start to rake in big money.
The Gamecube was a loser because Nintendo came out with a badly tarnished reputation. They make a kiddie console with no serious games, they got left behind by the 'cool' companies Sony and Xbox, and their future was bleak. That's exactly why they have to take relatively risky options now, with the DS and the Wii. Nintendo would never have gone bust, but when their popularity falls behind the other two makes they lose support. The 3rd party support of the Gamecube was abysmal. Many retailers have stopped selling Gamecube a long time ago.
It's not just about money.
In particular I don't like analog controls or anything wireless (the former because they break easily and are less precise, the latter because of interference/line-of-sight issues and because they need batteries).
Evidently you haven't tried a console controller in the past 5 years. The N64 was notoriously easy to 'wear out' (although I never saw one break), and the old infra-red wireless controllers from the 90s suffered from line of sight and battery problems.
But these days the analogue controls are just as tough as the digital, if not tougher because they are built to take more abuse. I've never seen a Gamecube, Xbox or PS2 analogue stick fail, having owned all three consoles and used dozens of controllers for each. The digital pad on the Gamecube is not the best and I have seen that fail, as well as the digital pad on PS2. But if you buy genuine products as opposed to generic brands then you won't have any problems.
And wireless these days is RF - it is not infrared. It is radio. There is no line of sight issue, and the transmission is not required to be a high amplitude. The Gamecube 'Wavebird' controllers will last for dozens of hours of gameplay before the batteries run out. I think I have only changed the batteries in my Wavebird 5 or 6 times in a couple of years. Granted it's not always my primary controller, but I would use it at least a few times each month for a couple of hours per session.
Have you looked at the banner on the website? It's practically imitating American Idol, with a pencil, paintbrush and rule under a spotlight on an American Idol-like stage, with an watching audience and using what appears to be the American Idol font. It's such a blantant imitation that American Idol would have reason to be upset at the plaguarism.
14 tracks... fantastic!
That's waay off topic.
Funny that a 60 minute track is the longest metal track ever - even longer than the 74:17 track to which I originally linked. It's a strange, strange world!
To be honest, your little story makes it sound insanely easy to get onto iTunes. Much easier than, say, getting a distribution deal into a national music store like HMV.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del%C3%ACrium_C%C3%B2 rdia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thursday_Afternoon
Just two that I personally own. I'm sure there are dozens of other popular single-track- albums.
What a great idea - hold your global event in the most isolated city in the world.
A little off topic, but I really don't see how a computer can help demonstrate geometry or integration. It might help with three dimension graphing, but only in a very simplistic manner. Students who have to 'see' the graph on a screen, rotating in three dimensions, are always going to struggle with the subject.
Copyrighted works (and their associated rights) are bought and sold all the time. How do you think that musicians transfer their recordings to record labels, etc? How do you think that Michael Jackson came to 'own' the Beatles back-catalogue? B-u-y-i-n-g and s-e-l-l-i-n-g.
That's bullshit. You are not buying a copyrighted work. That would entail that you are buying all the rights associated with the copyright. You are buying a copy of a copyrighted work. You don't become the owner of any of the rights associiated with the copyright, and you really only have the right to use the work privately and sell your authorised copy.
You're not really much of a liberatarian, then, are you?
Driver assists include traction control, launch control, and anti-lock brakes. Anti-lock brakes are currently illegal in F1, but traction control is allowed. It's something that can give an advantage to a lesser driver.
But in reality it's just part of the formula. We don't ask to ban power-assisted brakes or electronic fuel systems. Everyone plays by the same rules.
At the moment F1 is extremely expensive because there is so much spent on R&D to improve components like these. With one supplier, there is no incentive to develop that particular component. The supplier will charge accordingly, otherwise the regulator will simply choose a another supplier.
So if I'm willing to pay $1 per year for broadband, that should be how the price is determined?
I agree about the cd buying vs iTunes 'leasing' - this kind of ignorance really damages any argument presented. Why would we believe his story when he hasn't got the basic facts straight?
No, traditional music stores are not becoming obsolete. Are bookstores obsolete given Amazon's popularity? Are auction houses closing down due to eBay?
No, you cannot get decent promotion from satellite and internet radio. You write as if being 'good' was the key to making money. The key to making money is being popular, and popularity is generated by radio as well as tv and other cross-promotion. If you are an independent artist you will simply not get there.
Can you name one single independent musician who became famous or wealthy on their own, ie without the assistance of a record label? I know one (which I'll keep to myself), but he's not particularly famous and has now signed with a label because being independent is more trouble than it's worth.
I don't disagree that in a perfect world we wouldn't need (or want) record companies. But in the commodified music industry they are necessary - they keep the machine turning over. Music can't sell itself without the constant pushing of record labels. We will probably enter a period of rationalisation of record labels - decline of the old giants, and growth of many new leaner and more efficient small labels - but the record label will be around forever. Or at least as long as music is being sold.
Consider retail markup - most retail industries work on an average 100% markup, but even if music retail were as low as 50% (at a very conservative guess) the retailer is purchasing the disc for $10. And there is more to be taken out for distributor, too.
He's just lifted http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-2 0060428SonyBMGInDigitalMusicTrouble.html and replaced the 'Allman Brothers' with 'Weird Al'.
Artist royalties are generally standardised as a percentage of revenue that the label receives. If you're a big artist with some clout you can negotiate a better deal, but almost all artists will get a basic, low royalty deal. But it is based on record company revenues.
Of the couple of musicians I personally know with songs on iTunes and cds stocked in local stores, they firmly recommend that people buy through iTunes. This is solely because they will receive more money from each purchase - that is the lure with which labels have been drawn to iTunes. Weird Al might have negotiated himself a great deal for physical sales and a poor deal for digital, but on a basic / generic record contract the artist will assuredly get more from iTunes.
Weird Al is probably losing out on selling his filler tracks. On iTunes people often only buy a couple of tracks, rather than the full album. And that is truly the only way that an artist can lose on iTunes.
Churchill meant that socialism does allow for sharing everything, but you'll have much more misery than blessings when things are shared. Capitalism gives much more net benefit, and definitely doesn't share the misery.
The real socialist countries in Europe can be found in Scandinavia. Everyone is supported, tax is ridiculously high but no one minds because the government actually looks after people, and many big businesses are just another branch of the government. It's still a democracy, but it's socialist.
The job is only 'worth' what the employer sees fit to pay. I might be the best bricklayer in the world, but if no one wants any bricks laid then I'm not worth an awful lot.
Well said. Those who think that CEOs are overpaid are either ignorant or jealous.
If the deforestation from 'centuries ago' was harmful, is that a sound reason to accelerate deforestation today?