I started out in CompSci for 2 years, and then switched to (and graduated) MIS. Trust me, the finance/accounting/management courses you have to take with MIS are much more valuable than physics and calculus. MIS will get you a variety of jobs, CompSci pretty much sticks you with programming.
It sure seems like a misstatement to me, or at least I really hope it was. This guy is in charge of Europe, and the America comment went by pretty quickly without any sort of explanation. He was trying to defend the Europe package, and did so pretty poorly.
I just rented Resistance and didn't notice any kind of install, so I'm going to go with "most" games don't require any install. My guess would be that the "required 3 gigs" is for caching and the updates you can download. Crappy movie based piece of shit games do lots of stupid things, like getting made in the first place.
Care to offer any examples? I've played quite a few games and have yet to have one install anything on the HD. Now if you go online and get the updates it puts it on the HD, but not right out of the box. Caching is not the same as installing.
I'm pretty sure that MS requires games to be able to be played without a HD (I dont care enough to try and find proof). Although they do clearly state that if you want to play online or play old games you need one.
I thought that the HD in the original xbox was a great idea and it made absolutely no sense whatsoever to offer a new console without one. I mean really, they couldn't put a 20 gig HD in the basic system and just make all the developers lives a little easier.
but Blu-Ray discs access slower than DVD's I've been seeing this comment all over/. lately. While that may be the case, developers know that they can cache to the hard drive which more than makes up for any lack of read speed, which isn't always the case on other consoles...
Its called price discrimination, they knew that about 1 million people were willing to pay $600 for the PS3, so why should they sell it to a person with high price elasticity (a.k.a. cheap bastard) for $400. If they had priced it at $400, no one would be able to get one, even the people willing to pay more. Hell, with Nintendo's shortages, they should have had a higher price point at first, why let Ebay take your profits.
Definition
In first degree price discrimination, price varies by customer. This arises from the fact that the value of goods is subjective. A customer with low price elasticity is less deterred by a higher price than a customer with high price elasticity of demand. As long as the price elasticity (in absolute value) for a customer is less than one, it is very advantageous to increase the price: the seller gets more money for fewer goods.
I just can't see Sony doing the same thing Yeah, they wouldn't recall millions of batteries because of a small percentage of failures, oh wait....
Say what you will about Sony being overpriced, arrogant, evil, whatever, but when you buy a consumer electronics product (batteries not included) from them you can be confident that it will perform as expected and will last for a long time. I've had many Sony products over the years, TV's, CD players, receiver, PSP, PS1/2/3, Cameras, and have yet to have any one of them die. Heck, I'd bet dollars to donuts that if I root through my closet and find my 20 year old Walkman that it will still work.
Many people are really missing the bigger point here. This is like Hyundai offering a 10 year warranty on their cars. They are basically saying that the product you are buying is poorly designed/built and will fail.
Some people mistakingly think that Hyundia is offering a great deal without considering the cost of this arrangement. Sure, they fix whats broke, but what about the cost of getting it fixed, such as the day of vacation you had to burn when your car died, the tow truck to get your car to the garage, the time/hassle of arranging the service, the cost of the rental car you had to get while your car was in the shop for a week.
Add up all of these "hidden costs", and you could have just gone out and purchased a superior product in the first place.
These hidden costs are in this "great deal" from MS. What about the time you spend reporting the problem, unhooking and packaging it, the gas/time taking it to the post office. What about the 2-4 weeks you are without the 360, not only can you not play games, but you can't play movies or stream music.
Remember that cost includes a lot more than the price you initially paid, the most important of which is your ability to use the product.
from the best to the worst in that quarter of a century
Thanks to outsourcing this happens much faster now. My current job was fantastic just 2 years ago, good intelligent people doing great work. Now it sucks, thanks India...
What country do you live in, because it can't be the US. There is only so much data that can come into a home over coax/copper line. Take a look around any city and think how much it will cost and how long it will take to get fiber to all of those homes. Ever been to the country, because out there you can't get anything but dial-up, and the most promising rural technology is high speed internet over 50 year old power lines. It will be decades before the US has any kind of consumer fiber network.
Check out how much effort and equipment needs to be installed throughout the city and the house to get fiber. Even then he's still only getting 15 Mb/S.
What the hell is "Episodic Content". If its simply some extra missions, this sure doesn't do much for me. GTA's missions aren't exactly what makes the game great. Drive from Point A to Point B and shoot people. Pick up item at Point B and drive to Point C.
Unless this means map additions, new characters, new cars/guns/whatever, then this is just stupid. It's gonna take a lot of downloads to recoup 50 Mil.
Several problems with the On Demand argument.
1. Limited penetration. Millions still get either analog (no cable box) or "over the air" tv. OTA includes HD signals in many areas. No access to OD.
2. On Demand does not always offer HD, my Time Warner doesn't.
3. Movies aren't available OD until weeks after it was released on disk. This is HUGE issue.
4. Many cable companies networks are already maxed out and have no room for all of these HD OD offerings.
I also agree with your earlier post, for years I've read about "digital distribution" and I have yet to see anything worthwhile. So I can download 30 gigs for $2 less than buying the Blu-Ray disk, not interested. I'm an early adopter, a nerd, and I still drive to Blockbuster for a movie a few times a month.
A nice fix for the battery issue is this Charger Grip. Not only does it give you an extra 5 hours, but it makes the PSP think that it is running on AC power, so you can have it on the brightest setting, which is very nice if you play in bright conditions. It also makes it much easier to hold.
I used to think I was training my replacement, but now I realize I'm just training my co-worker, which I can tell you is a much worse fate than being fired....
By the way I agree, some are decent, most are morons, and all need micro-managed beyond belief.
I work for a very large global company, and my development group is currently being taken over by Indian contractors from Hexaware. Taken over might be a little harsh, Americans still work there, we just don't do any programming any more. I have the unfortunate task of managing/working with them, so I've got quite a bit of insight to some parts of the article.
using the visas to replace U.S. employees with foreign workers, often cycling overseas staff through U.S. training programs before sending them back into jobs at home
This is exactly what they do, every day new people show up, hang around for a few months, learn apps/processes/systems, then go back to India and "lead" teams there. It's not so much official training classes, but just learning how the process works.
It makes no sense to tell well-trained, highly skilled individuals--many of whom are educated at our top colleges and universities--that the United States does not welcome or value them
They are not well trained or highly-skilled. Most are fresh out of the Indian Tech Institute and have little to no experience.
whether workers brought into the U.S. on H-1B visas are paid less that comparable American workers, a disparity that could drive down overall wages
Waaaayyy less, why the hell else would we be using them
In case you can't tell, I absolutely can't stand working with them, its not a race thing, its that their work is crap and you have to micro-manage every little thing they do. It's a shame, when I first started with this group it was really efficient and all of the people were top notch. Now our best programmers are glorified Systems Analysts/People Managers. Needless to say morale is an issue and I'm looking to move to another department or company.
I used to think getting fired (replaced by 3 indians) would be the worst thing, but now I realize that staying and working with such incompetence is much worse.
Well duh dude. I wasn't recommending unchaining your child from the radiator and instead chaining him to the PS2. Its just that games get bashed non-stop about how bad they are, when in reality they do have some redeeming value.
I think the positive effects of video games are always ignored.
Think about what you do at work all day. You must make quick decisions based on imperfect information and limited resources. You don't know how clients/bosses will react, and you never have all of the information necessary. You have to use limited resources (ie time and $$$) to complete the task, and any actions you take will have an effect on the future.
Now think about video games, even one as "mindless" as Doom. Do you use the Shotgun now, or save the bullets for a possible upcoming Boss battle? Do you use your health pack now or save it for later? Do you spend time searching for bullets or push forth low on ammo?
Video games literally train your brain to consider future possibilities (risk/reward) and use your resources in the most efficient manner to maximize your success. Even if you aren't consciously doing these tasks, your brain is making these "connections".
Stephen Johnson has a great read on subjects like this.
Very good points, and in no way am I saying the system was slow or unusable. It just seemed like a fresh off the MSND disk Vista install with nothing else was using some serious resources.
I'm sure it was prefetching IE, notepad, and all those other great programs that come with Windows (the names of which escape me...) The main point is that you really need a pretty good PC to run it, and there are quite a few "Vista Certified" PC's that have no where near the necessary power, as seen on/. yesterday
He means it sucks down RAM like its going out of style. I just got a new PC (Core 2 Duo, 2GB Ram, Good video card, Striped RAID 0) and with absolutely nothing running Vista Business sucked up 35-40% of my RAM. Thats sitting still, doing nothing, with nothing running.
must have had some lousy video drivers
All drivers for Vista are lousy. They have serious memory leak issues, and when they start to have problems Vista disables them. I gave it a few weeks (and many driver downloads) and finally said "screw it" and installed XP.
I'm sick of people bitching about the PSP being just ports. There are quite a few very good games that are not ports, off the top of my head
Ratchet & Clank 2 GTA stories Pursuit Force - The best game you've never heard of Call Of Duty Metal Gear SOCOM KillZone Liberation
I'm not saying there aren't awful games (some of which are ports), because I've played some really bad PSP games. But at the same time, there are quite a few "great" games and tons of "decent" games. Try actually playing a PSP before trolling.
BTW, did Nintendo add the ability to listen to music or watch movies when I'm not in the mood to play games...
Slashdot Mirror
I started out in CompSci for 2 years, and then switched to (and graduated) MIS. Trust me, the finance/accounting/management courses you have to take with MIS are much more valuable than physics and calculus. MIS will get you a variety of jobs, CompSci pretty much sticks you with programming.
It sure seems like a misstatement to me, or at least I really hope it was. This guy is in charge of Europe, and the America comment went by pretty quickly without any sort of explanation. He was trying to defend the Europe package, and did so pretty poorly.
I just rented Resistance and didn't notice any kind of install, so I'm going to go with "most" games don't require any install. My guess would be that the "required 3 gigs" is for caching and the updates you can download. Crappy movie based piece of shit games do lots of stupid things, like getting made in the first place.
Care to offer any examples? I've played quite a few games and have yet to have one install anything on the HD. Now if you go online and get the updates it puts it on the HD, but not right out of the box. Caching is not the same as installing.
I'm pretty sure that MS requires games to be able to be played without a HD (I dont care enough to try and find proof). Although they do clearly state that if you want to play online or play old games you need one.
I thought that the HD in the original xbox was a great idea and it made absolutely no sense whatsoever to offer a new console without one. I mean really, they couldn't put a 20 gig HD in the basic system and just make all the developers lives a little easier.
Its called price discrimination, they knew that about 1 million people were willing to pay $600 for the PS3, so why should they sell it to a person with high price elasticity (a.k.a. cheap bastard) for $400. If they had priced it at $400, no one would be able to get one, even the people willing to pay more. Hell, with Nintendo's shortages, they should have had a higher price point at first, why let Ebay take your profits.
Definition
In first degree price discrimination, price varies by customer. This arises from the fact that the value of goods is subjective. A customer with low price elasticity is less deterred by a higher price than a customer with high price elasticity of demand. As long as the price elasticity (in absolute value) for a customer is less than one, it is very advantageous to increase the price: the seller gets more money for fewer goods.
Where exactly are you buying your gaming equipment, because by my math...
XBox - 399
HDDVD - 199
4 games - 240
Total of 740
Figures, I just bought one a week ago. My sacrifice is for the good of the people.
Say what you will about Sony being overpriced, arrogant, evil, whatever, but when you buy a consumer electronics product (batteries not included) from them you can be confident that it will perform as expected and will last for a long time. I've had many Sony products over the years, TV's, CD players, receiver, PSP, PS1/2/3, Cameras, and have yet to have any one of them die. Heck, I'd bet dollars to donuts that if I root through my closet and find my 20 year old Walkman that it will still work.
Many people are really missing the bigger point here. This is like Hyundai offering a 10 year warranty on their cars. They are basically saying that the product you are buying is poorly designed/built and will fail.
Some people mistakingly think that Hyundia is offering a great deal without considering the cost of this arrangement. Sure, they fix whats broke, but what about the cost of getting it fixed, such as the day of vacation you had to burn when your car died, the tow truck to get your car to the garage, the time/hassle of arranging the service, the cost of the rental car you had to get while your car was in the shop for a week.
Add up all of these "hidden costs", and you could have just gone out and purchased a superior product in the first place.
These hidden costs are in this "great deal" from MS. What about the time you spend reporting the problem, unhooking and packaging it, the gas/time taking it to the post office. What about the 2-4 weeks you are without the 360, not only can you not play games, but you can't play movies or stream music.
Remember that cost includes a lot more than the price you initially paid, the most important of which is your ability to use the product.
What country do you live in, because it can't be the US. There is only so much data that can come into a home over coax/copper line. Take a look around any city and think how much it will cost and how long it will take to get fiber to all of those homes. Ever been to the country, because out there you can't get anything but dial-up, and the most promising rural technology is high speed internet over 50 year old power lines. It will be decades before the US has any kind of consumer fiber network.
Check out how much effort and equipment needs to be installed throughout the city and the house to get fiber. Even then he's still only getting 15 Mb/S.
What the hell is "Episodic Content". If its simply some extra missions, this sure doesn't do much for me. GTA's missions aren't exactly what makes the game great. Drive from Point A to Point B and shoot people. Pick up item at Point B and drive to Point C.
Unless this means map additions, new characters, new cars/guns/whatever, then this is just stupid. It's gonna take a lot of downloads to recoup 50 Mil.
Several problems with the On Demand argument.
1. Limited penetration. Millions still get either analog (no cable box) or "over the air" tv. OTA includes HD signals in many areas. No access to OD.
2. On Demand does not always offer HD, my Time Warner doesn't.
3. Movies aren't available OD until weeks after it was released on disk. This is HUGE issue.
4. Many cable companies networks are already maxed out and have no room for all of these HD OD offerings.
I also agree with your earlier post, for years I've read about "digital distribution" and I have yet to see anything worthwhile. So I can download 30 gigs for $2 less than buying the Blu-Ray disk, not interested. I'm an early adopter, a nerd, and I still drive to Blockbuster for a movie a few times a month.
A nice fix for the battery issue is this Charger Grip. Not only does it give you an extra 5 hours, but it makes the PSP think that it is running on AC power, so you can have it on the brightest setting, which is very nice if you play in bright conditions. It also makes it much easier to hold.
I used to think I was training my replacement, but now I realize I'm just training my co-worker, which I can tell you is a much worse fate than being fired....
By the way I agree, some are decent, most are morons, and all need micro-managed beyond belief.
In case you can't tell, I absolutely can't stand working with them, its not a race thing, its that their work is crap and you have to micro-manage every little thing they do. It's a shame, when I first started with this group it was really efficient and all of the people were top notch. Now our best programmers are glorified Systems Analysts/People Managers. Needless to say morale is an issue and I'm looking to move to another department or company.
I used to think getting fired (replaced by 3 indians) would be the worst thing, but now I realize that staying and working with such incompetence is much worse.
And criminals will now be thrilled to learn they are being sent to a "temporary restrictive housing center" instead of jail.
The PSP sucks, its all crappy ports with weird controls, Nintendo rules.
wait a sec...
Well duh dude. I wasn't recommending unchaining your child from the radiator and instead chaining him to the PS2. Its just that games get bashed non-stop about how bad they are, when in reality they do have some redeeming value.
I think the positive effects of video games are always ignored.
Think about what you do at work all day. You must make quick decisions based on imperfect information and limited resources. You don't know how clients/bosses will react, and you never have all of the information necessary. You have to use limited resources (ie time and $$$) to complete the task, and any actions you take will have an effect on the future.
Now think about video games, even one as "mindless" as Doom. Do you use the Shotgun now, or save the bullets for a possible upcoming Boss battle? Do you use your health pack now or save it for later? Do you spend time searching for bullets or push forth low on ammo?
Video games literally train your brain to consider future possibilities (risk/reward) and use your resources in the most efficient manner to maximize your success. Even if you aren't consciously doing these tasks, your brain is making these "connections".
Stephen Johnson has a great read on subjects like this.
Very good points, and in no way am I saying the system was slow or unusable. It just seemed like a fresh off the MSND disk Vista install with nothing else was using some serious resources.
/. yesterday
I'm sure it was prefetching IE, notepad, and all those other great programs that come with Windows (the names of which escape me...) The main point is that you really need a pretty good PC to run it, and there are quite a few "Vista Certified" PC's that have no where near the necessary power, as seen on
I'm sick of people bitching about the PSP being just ports. There are quite a few very good games that are not ports, off the top of my head
Ratchet & Clank
2 GTA stories
Pursuit Force - The best game you've never heard of
Call Of Duty
Metal Gear
SOCOM
KillZone Liberation
I'm not saying there aren't awful games (some of which are ports), because I've played some really bad PSP games. But at the same time, there are quite a few "great" games and tons of "decent" games. Try actually playing a PSP before trolling.
BTW, did Nintendo add the ability to listen to music or watch movies when I'm not in the mood to play games...