History has shown that once a console gains market dominance it's all but over bar the fat lady singing for the competition. Sure they may be able to eke out a borderline existence but no console has ever had a heartwarming come from behind Disney style win once a clear leader was established.
The NES bitch slapped all comers. The Playstation surprised everybody, destroyed Sega and did Japanese fetish like things to Nintendo. The PS2 laughed like a bad guy in an anime at the competition before crushing them all.
Despite all this the current crop of "games journalists" seem to be adamant about how Sony will execute an amazing come from behind win. "It's has the hardware that gives me wet dreams." "It's a Playstation and therefore is sent from heaven to save us from actual gameplay." "It's bigger than the first generation XBox controller." "Zero Punctuation owns one so they must be the shit."
I believe that Sony has fluffed this generation in a way that rivals the mistakes made by Osborne or Apple in the early 90s. They took a name that was the pretty much the definition of sex in the nerd world and turned it into the equivalent of COBOL for masses. Unless a Y2K event happens in the near future, Sony will be pan handling for change soon.
As for the 360, MS has never made hardware this complex before and it shows. It is less reliable than a business person who honestly believes that ties make you more professional and successful. Consoles are supposed to be something that gets about as much attention as a VCR. You plug in in under 2 feet of cables and the charming photos that Aunt May sent you last Christmas and it just works. Not something that requires raised floors and dedicated air conditioning to survive the harsh environment of the average consumer's home.
So there it is: IT analysts are basically corporate technology therapists.
But there are other ways of looking at it, one of which was put succinctly
some years ago by Charles Wang, the billionaire chairman of software giant
Computer Associates. He was asked to assess the quality of Gartner's
researchers. "I want to choose my words carefully here, so I'm not
misunderstood," he said. "They're a bunch of fucking idiots."
"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."
Using XML as a programming language is the prime example of this. It is basically lisp with a different (but vastly more verbose) syntax and the more advanced concepts removed.
There's a reason all the big OEMs stopped calling them laptops.
As far as I remember that's not the case. There used to be three grades of carry aroundable computers. Portables (really big, basically desktops with a handle and screen), laptops (smaller, about the size of what is now called desktop replacements) and notebooks (smallest, basically in reference to it benig the size of a notebook). The vast majority of laptops are about the size or smaller of what used to be called "notebooks" so everything gets called a notebook.
I think they've already cornered the market on "giraffe grazing" simulations so now they've also decided to aim for the "driving along a corrugated road" simulation market too.
I think this comment from one of the engineers at ArsDigita directed to one of the VC suits that flew the company into the side of a mountain is appropriate:
"You talk like a press release."
-- David Rodriguez
He was also "laid off" due to economic pressure (ie the new directors turned a profitable $20 million a year in revenue company into something that burned through twice that amount in less than a year before imploding). If you want to see the whole story it's here.
It all happened about five years ago when a bunch of drunk and stoned art school students were sitting around listening to Pink Floyd and watching South Park.
Student 1: Hey man. Wouldn't it be, you know, really great and shit if we made a movie about this episode? Student 2: Fuck yeah man. We could cast somebody famous. Like that guy. Student 1: Yeah. Student 2: And that other famous guy. You know, he's got like the hair. Student 1: Yeah. Student 2: And we could fuck with The Man by getting a South Park episode nominated for an oscar. Student 1: Yeah. Hey, do you have any pudding. I'm starving man. Student 3: Dude, dude, dude. Do you reckon we can make a bong out of this stuffed toy?
And that is how it happened (names have been changed to protect the guilty).
... "commanded" to appear in various lawyers' offices.
At which point they will be "commanded" to bend over and grab their ankles for IBM. Suddenly secretely supporting a company to launch a bullshit attack on a competitor doesn't seem so funny. And also picking a legal fight with the company that tied up the Justice Department with so much legal bullshit they gave up on their antitrust suit probably wasn't the best idea either.
Companies are rightfully paranoid that a departing employee...
You spelt "ridiculously" incorrectly. If he'd wanted to do anything malicious then he could have done it in the ample time he was a trusted employee. Doing what they did basically says "We don't trust you. We didn't understand what you did while you were here and we are complete morons."
Somebody resigning is no more a risk than any other employee. It's the treating them like a criminal that gets their back up, not them already having decided to leave.
It seems that big chunks of autonomy are necessary to developing really high quality products that are significantly different from the main corporate line.
The best way to develop great anything in the computing industry is to get a group of good people together, give them a goal, some constraints, enough money and stay out of their way. Most of the time this method produces something that is significantly better than average. The downside of it is that it occasionally it will produce a steaming pile of turd.
What always seems to happens to inovative companies is that they become risk adverse and stop being willing to wear the cock ups to get the good stuff. They start implementing "process" and management oversight that removes the cock ups but also kills the inovation.
The Register has a long history of telling it how it is. They called complete crap on WAP. They called complete crap on Itanium (Itanic as they called it). Also, they're British. As Winston Churchill said "They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst."*
That makes their opinion on what GamePC said valid. GamePC has a vested interest in not pissing off Intel too much. They publish the numbers and then say "but it's all good" so Intel will send them their next generation of procesors.
Anyone know if region-free DVD players are also openly sold in australia?
They used to be before the original Sony decision which made it illegal to sell mod chips but not illegal to own a chipped device. I'm guessing they will be legal again.
Slashdot Mirror
History has shown that once a console gains market dominance it's all but over bar the fat lady singing for the competition. Sure they may be able to eke out a borderline existence but no console has ever had a heartwarming come from behind Disney style win once a clear leader was established.
The NES bitch slapped all comers. The Playstation surprised everybody, destroyed Sega and did Japanese fetish like things to Nintendo. The PS2 laughed like a bad guy in an anime at the competition before crushing them all.
Despite all this the current crop of "games journalists" seem to be adamant about how Sony will execute an amazing come from behind win. "It's has the hardware that gives me wet dreams." "It's a Playstation and therefore is sent from heaven to save us from actual gameplay." "It's bigger than the first generation XBox controller." "Zero Punctuation owns one so they must be the shit."
I believe that Sony has fluffed this generation in a way that rivals the mistakes made by Osborne or Apple in the early 90s. They took a name that was the pretty much the definition of sex in the nerd world and turned it into the equivalent of COBOL for masses. Unless a Y2K event happens in the near future, Sony will be pan handling for change soon.
As for the 360, MS has never made hardware this complex before and it shows. It is less reliable than a business person who honestly believes that ties make you more professional and successful. Consoles are supposed to be something that gets about as much attention as a VCR. You plug in in under 2 feet of cables and the charming photos that Aunt May sent you last Christmas and it just works. Not something that requires raised floors and dedicated air conditioning to survive the harsh environment of the average consumer's home.
9: Political
8: Financial
"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."
Using XML as a programming language is the prime example of this. It is basically lisp with a different (but vastly more verbose) syntax and the more advanced concepts removed.
"Well, something that you could never comprehend conflicts with something that you'd never understand."
gugugugugugugugugugugugu.
It'll be awesome.
"You talk like a press release."
-- David Rodriguez
He was also "laid off" due to economic pressure (ie the new directors turned a profitable $20 million a year in revenue company into something that burned through twice that amount in less than a year before imploding). If you want to see the whole story it's here.
Student 1: Hey man. Wouldn't it be, you know, really great and shit if we made a movie about this episode?
Student 2: Fuck yeah man. We could cast somebody famous. Like that guy.
Student 1: Yeah.
Student 2: And that other famous guy. You know, he's got like the hair.
Student 1: Yeah.
Student 2: And we could fuck with The Man by getting a South Park episode nominated for an oscar.
Student 1: Yeah. Hey, do you have any pudding. I'm starving man.
Student 3: Dude, dude, dude. Do you reckon we can make a bong out of this stuffed toy?
And that is how it happened (names have been changed to protect the guilty).
It's called "job security".
Not just for IRC anymore.
Did you design the original X-Box controller?
Somebody resigning is no more a risk than any other employee. It's the treating them like a criminal that gets their back up, not them already having decided to leave.
It's nature verses Steve Irwin down here you know. Eventually we're likely to have Bilby's that feed on cattle.
What always seems to happens to inovative companies is that they become risk adverse and stop being willing to wear the cock ups to get the good stuff. They start implementing "process" and management oversight that removes the cock ups but also kills the inovation.
Or a touch typist.
That makes their opinion on what GamePC said valid. GamePC has a vested interest in not pissing off Intel too much. They publish the numbers and then say "but it's all good" so Intel will send them their next generation of procesors.
* Except when they fluke a win in the cricket.
It's the drop bears that are endangered. Those and the Yowies.
I want to know how he makes all the wee hours of the morning disappear like that.