Yeah I was thinking the exact same thing. The only time I click on ads is by mistake, especially when I'm using a touchpad instead of a mouse. On the internet, I know what I want to find, and view all the ads as an annoyance. It's not like T.V. where I'm watching in a near-stupor and am sometimes too lazy to change the channel. If I had to guess (just based on personal experience) I would say the number of illegitimate clicks is close to 50%. Are there any people out there who regularly click internet ads?
Vgchartz has Lair selling 92,441 copies 8th in the United States. They're not completely accurate I don't think, but for a game with universally bad reviews, the sales are pretty good. More notably, they have Warhawk selling over 107k, which doesn't include online sales.
Personally I can't believe that someone modded you up. Give the analysts a break. Did anyone predict Nintendo was going to be this successful before the Wii was released? That would be pretty hard because no one knew if the controller would work. The people at Nintendo certainly didn't predict this kind of demand and they saw it in action before anyone else.
Your analysis is faulty. While consoles generally have a spike in sales when they are initially released, it usually takes a few price cuts and good games to be released before people really start buying it. There are many people out there who think even $250 is too much to pay for an immature console with few compelling titles. When more people have the 360, it should encourage developers to make exclusive titles, enable Microsoft to make deeper price cuts, and build consumer confidence in the system. People will be saying, "Microsoft has sold many consoles, maybe they won't discontinue the 360 as quickly as they did the original Xbox." This should increase sales, not decrease them as you suggest. There is a point at which the market will be saturated, but if we have reached that point already then Microsoft is in serious trouble.
You know what's weird, I live in New York, and I seem them all the time. Haven't seen them get busted. Walk down Canal Street and they'll have whatever movie just came out for cheaper than it costs to buy one movie ticket. The only thing is that the transfer quality is always completely awful. I wonder if they're tolerated to increase tourism, or if they're just too small to bother with. I know that my aunt and cousins come to chinatown just to buy those knockoff designer bags.
The question you should be asking is how much money the studios can expect to lose by not selling Blu Ray's for 18 months. They would have to sell a ton of discs to profit 150 million dollars in 18 months. Also, if someone has a Blu Ray player and wishes to purchase such modern classics as Shrek 3 and Blades of Glory, there is a possibility that they will be willing to wait 18 months. Looks to me like Paramount just got a ton of free cash to help keep HD-DVD alive for a few more months.
I'm wondering if maybe the hands-free kit makers lobby are bribing the politicians. If driving with one hand is the dangerous part, then why don't they ban driving with one hand?
It's not like talking on a cell phone where you have to put the phone up to your ear. It makes sense to text in front of your windshield so you can sort of see the road. However,there's a chance that anyone who really wants to text is just going to do it with the phone out of sight.
Words do mean things, many things. You seem to think that saying that a law doesn't apply is the same thing as making a law after the fact. This might be the case, but it is not as clear as you make it out to be. You have to read the constitution as a whole. One part says there's no ex post facto lawmaking, another part says the President can issue pardons. This would tend to give strength to the argument that there is a difference between making a law after a crime has been committed, and allowing a person or company to break an existing law. Generally when interpreting documents, a good place to start is to make sure your construction of the terms doesn't make it internally contradictory.
That's funny because when I think of the reason that most people use laptops it isn't "sex appeal" it's portability. At universities, people use them to take notes in class. In the office, people use them to do computing away from their desk. In coffee shops, people bring them along so they can computer and socialize with other humans. I don't see desktops taking over anytime soon, unless they start putting them everywhere, but at that point the proprietary screen and power supply don't seem so expensive anymore.
I don't have any info from testing labs, but I saw a video of a guy attacking a Blu Ray disc with a pizza cutter and then playing it. Has some new coating on it. I heard estimates that they'd last 100 years. Don't feel like looking up links, but it's on Engadget somewhere.
Manica Mansion marked the beginning of the Scumm interface. Before then, there was only the guess-what-the-developers-were-thinking-text-parse r. I remember a puzzle from the first King's Quest where an elf asks you his name, and the answer is rumplestiltskin, but you have to do a letter substitution where z=a y=b etc. This was before online walkthroughs were ubiquitous. A puzzle like that could pretty much end your game right there. You can see why the point and click interface pioneered by Maniac Mansion is still remembered fondly.
I too would buy whichever gets the Dawn of the Dead ultimate edition on one disc, but I feel like Star Wars has broader appeal. With all the money riding on who wins the format war, I can't believe one of them hasn't sent a fat check over to someone like George Lucas(although it would probably take a pretty big check to get him moving). He could put both the real Star Wars, and his stupid edited one on the same disc and make everyone happy. If only one format got Star Wars, the format war would be over.
I don't know how long you expect the PSP's battery to last for, but mine lasts for around 5-6 hours of non-wifi gameplay, or about 3 hours of online multiplayer. It doesn't seem like something to make such a fuss about. I can hardly remember the last time it ran out of batteries while i was playing it. I don't know how long the DS battery lasts for, but if I can play for more than 3 hours a day without having to recharge in between, I sort of stop caring.
I don't even care that I'm playing ports. It's a portable gaming system. Sure, I can play Pirates! on my desktop, but when I plan on taking a nice long dump, I want it to be portable. When I'm on the subway, I don't really care that I'm playing a port of Phantasy Star II, I'm just happy I have a game to play. I don't really have that much free time to sit in my living room pounding videogames like I used to. The PSP is really good for filling the gaps in time when I wouldn't be able to do anything worthwhile anyway.
The extra price for the Elite version pales in comparison to the $180 dollars they're asking for the proprietary 120 GB external hard drive. Seems to be a $100 markup over similar drives. I guess it was to be expected from the creators of the $100 proprietary wifi adapter. I am shocked by the stupidity of this move. I had been thinking about how dead Sony would be if Microsoft had a price cut. What they decided to do was create a system that makes PS3 look more reasonably priced, and makes the Wii look even more dirt cheap. Elite + HD-DVD + 1 year live + Wifi= 830 dollars. That's not to mention that they're alienating all the early adopters who bought the core system and now are getting gouged on a proprietary hard drive, and confusing consumers with yet another SKU.
Not a bad point, but I don't know if the gaming market is increasing in Sony's favor. I would say that casual gaming (WiiDS) is increased, but the hardcore subset willing to pay 600 bucks is probably about the same. While 360 had more supply issues, it was also the only next-gen console on the market at the time. I used to have 2 Xboxes and I really loved the system, but Microsoft didn't support them too long. They came out with the 360 to beat Sony to the market. They released the "core" unit for 300 bucks and if you want to do just about anything with it you have to buy an overpriced hard drive attachment. Now they're coming out with this "Elite" SKU. I wonder how much the 120 GB attachment is going to cost. Probably about 4X as much as the same hard drive for the PC. How long is it going to be before they're releasing the 720? While I do think that the wait hurt Sony, it might have been a better choice than having to buy overpriced hardrive, Live, wifi, HD-DVD attachements, etc. like you do for 360.
It does work. It is how people compare costs in different time periods. You do not understand inflation. Just because electronics go down in price does not mean that inflation does not exist. Also, people becoming "accustomed" to paying a certain price doesn't have anything to do with inflation. I do not know how you are asserting that people are used to paying the same price every generation when we are talking about consoles that cost different amounts of money.
The difference to the Neo Geo might still be just as big. You left out how much the Neo Geo cost in Switzerland. Consoles cost different amounts of money in different countries based on things like exchange rates and the taxes in your given country.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah I was thinking the exact same thing. The only time I click on ads is by mistake, especially when I'm using a touchpad instead of a mouse. On the internet, I know what I want to find, and view all the ads as an annoyance. It's not like T.V. where I'm watching in a near-stupor and am sometimes too lazy to change the channel. If I had to guess (just based on personal experience) I would say the number of illegitimate clicks is close to 50%. Are there any people out there who regularly click internet ads?
Vgchartz has Lair selling 92,441 copies 8th in the United States. They're not completely accurate I don't think, but for a game with universally bad reviews, the sales are pretty good. More notably, they have Warhawk selling over 107k, which doesn't include online sales.
Personally I can't believe that someone modded you up. Give the analysts a break. Did anyone predict Nintendo was going to be this successful before the Wii was released? That would be pretty hard because no one knew if the controller would work. The people at Nintendo certainly didn't predict this kind of demand and they saw it in action before anyone else.
Your analysis is faulty. While consoles generally have a spike in sales when they are initially released, it usually takes a few price cuts and good games to be released before people really start buying it. There are many people out there who think even $250 is too much to pay for an immature console with few compelling titles. When more people have the 360, it should encourage developers to make exclusive titles, enable Microsoft to make deeper price cuts, and build consumer confidence in the system. People will be saying, "Microsoft has sold many consoles, maybe they won't discontinue the 360 as quickly as they did the original Xbox." This should increase sales, not decrease them as you suggest. There is a point at which the market will be saturated, but if we have reached that point already then Microsoft is in serious trouble.
You know what's weird, I live in New York, and I seem them all the time. Haven't seen them get busted. Walk down Canal Street and they'll have whatever movie just came out for cheaper than it costs to buy one movie ticket. The only thing is that the transfer quality is always completely awful. I wonder if they're tolerated to increase tourism, or if they're just too small to bother with. I know that my aunt and cousins come to chinatown just to buy those knockoff designer bags.
The question you should be asking is how much money the studios can expect to lose by not selling Blu Ray's for 18 months. They would have to sell a ton of discs to profit 150 million dollars in 18 months. Also, if someone has a Blu Ray player and wishes to purchase such modern classics as Shrek 3 and Blades of Glory, there is a possibility that they will be willing to wait 18 months. Looks to me like Paramount just got a ton of free cash to help keep HD-DVD alive for a few more months.
I don't know where you're getting your info from, but I'm pretty sure they both have region coding.
I can think of one game that is both Bad and funny.
I'm wondering if maybe the hands-free kit makers lobby are bribing the politicians. If driving with one hand is the dangerous part, then why don't they ban driving with one hand?
It's not like talking on a cell phone where you have to put the phone up to your ear. It makes sense to text in front of your windshield so you can sort of see the road. However,there's a chance that anyone who really wants to text is just going to do it with the phone out of sight.
Words do mean things, many things. You seem to think that saying that a law doesn't apply is the same thing as making a law after the fact. This might be the case, but it is not as clear as you make it out to be. You have to read the constitution as a whole. One part says there's no ex post facto lawmaking, another part says the President can issue pardons. This would tend to give strength to the argument that there is a difference between making a law after a crime has been committed, and allowing a person or company to break an existing law. Generally when interpreting documents, a good place to start is to make sure your construction of the terms doesn't make it internally contradictory.
That's funny because when I think of the reason that most people use laptops it isn't "sex appeal" it's portability. At universities, people use them to take notes in class. In the office, people use them to do computing away from their desk. In coffee shops, people bring them along so they can computer and socialize with other humans. I don't see desktops taking over anytime soon, unless they start putting them everywhere, but at that point the proprietary screen and power supply don't seem so expensive anymore.
I don't have any info from testing labs, but I saw a video of a guy attacking a Blu Ray disc with a pizza cutter and then playing it. Has some new coating on it. I heard estimates that they'd last 100 years. Don't feel like looking up links, but it's on Engadget somewhere.
When one of them begins to outsell the PS2? My guess is that this should happen once the Wii is no longer supply constrained.
Manica Mansion marked the beginning of the Scumm interface. Before then, there was only the guess-what-the-developers-were-thinking-text-parse r. I remember a puzzle from the first King's Quest where an elf asks you his name, and the answer is rumplestiltskin, but you have to do a letter substitution where z=a y=b etc. This was before online walkthroughs were ubiquitous. A puzzle like that could pretty much end your game right there. You can see why the point and click interface pioneered by Maniac Mansion is still remembered fondly.
I too would buy whichever gets the Dawn of the Dead ultimate edition on one disc, but I feel like Star Wars has broader appeal. With all the money riding on who wins the format war, I can't believe one of them hasn't sent a fat check over to someone like George Lucas(although it would probably take a pretty big check to get him moving). He could put both the real Star Wars, and his stupid edited one on the same disc and make everyone happy. If only one format got Star Wars, the format war would be over.
I don't know how long you expect the PSP's battery to last for, but mine lasts for around 5-6 hours of non-wifi gameplay, or about 3 hours of online multiplayer. It doesn't seem like something to make such a fuss about. I can hardly remember the last time it ran out of batteries while i was playing it. I don't know how long the DS battery lasts for, but if I can play for more than 3 hours a day without having to recharge in between, I sort of stop caring.
I don't even care that I'm playing ports. It's a portable gaming system. Sure, I can play Pirates! on my desktop, but when I plan on taking a nice long dump, I want it to be portable. When I'm on the subway, I don't really care that I'm playing a port of Phantasy Star II, I'm just happy I have a game to play. I don't really have that much free time to sit in my living room pounding videogames like I used to. The PSP is really good for filling the gaps in time when I wouldn't be able to do anything worthwhile anyway.
The other advantage being you don't have to pay for 2 different optical drives.
The extra price for the Elite version pales in comparison to the $180 dollars they're asking for the proprietary 120 GB external hard drive. Seems to be a $100 markup over similar drives. I guess it was to be expected from the creators of the $100 proprietary wifi adapter. I am shocked by the stupidity of this move. I had been thinking about how dead Sony would be if Microsoft had a price cut. What they decided to do was create a system that makes PS3 look more reasonably priced, and makes the Wii look even more dirt cheap. Elite + HD-DVD + 1 year live + Wifi= 830 dollars. That's not to mention that they're alienating all the early adopters who bought the core system and now are getting gouged on a proprietary hard drive, and confusing consumers with yet another SKU.
I like to think that a large amount of fanboyish comments on sites like slashdot are just viral marketers who have not yet been exposed.
Not a bad point, but I don't know if the gaming market is increasing in Sony's favor. I would say that casual gaming (WiiDS) is increased, but the hardcore subset willing to pay 600 bucks is probably about the same. While 360 had more supply issues, it was also the only next-gen console on the market at the time. I used to have 2 Xboxes and I really loved the system, but Microsoft didn't support them too long. They came out with the 360 to beat Sony to the market. They released the "core" unit for 300 bucks and if you want to do just about anything with it you have to buy an overpriced hard drive attachment. Now they're coming out with this "Elite" SKU. I wonder how much the 120 GB attachment is going to cost. Probably about 4X as much as the same hard drive for the PC. How long is it going to be before they're releasing the 720? While I do think that the wait hurt Sony, it might have been a better choice than having to buy overpriced hardrive, Live, wifi, HD-DVD attachements, etc. like you do for 360.
It does work. It is how people compare costs in different time periods. You do not understand inflation. Just because electronics go down in price does not mean that inflation does not exist. Also, people becoming "accustomed" to paying a certain price doesn't have anything to do with inflation. I do not know how you are asserting that people are used to paying the same price every generation when we are talking about consoles that cost different amounts of money.
The difference to the Neo Geo might still be just as big. You left out how much the Neo Geo cost in Switzerland. Consoles cost different amounts of money in different countries based on things like exchange rates and the taxes in your given country.
I don't know the resolution of the PSP's screen off the top of my head, but I'm guessing that it wouldn't look very good on a normal-sized television.