Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Adblocking and Neflix (Score 5, Insightful) 96

I would wonder if removing commercials from their lives might actually be a negative in the long run. It saves you money now, but they're not receiving any inoculation against advertising tricks and so might become more vulnerable to them later in life. Rather than just turning on the taps of advertising again though, you might consider watching a show together with them that talks about ads in a way that'll give them that inoculation, and which they'll find entertaining. The "Gruen Transfer" series by Australia's ABC is awesome, if you can track it down at all, and the "Gruen Nation" spin-off series they did about election advertising should be a must watch for any voter.

Comment Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score 1) 204

Never invented anything? Oh really now... The refrigerator The electric drill The tank The pacemaker Zinc sunblock cream The Hills Hoist clothesline The Black Box flight recorder Plastic spectacle lenses Ultrasound The inflatable escape slide Cask Wine Variable rack and pinion steering The power board/strip The Bionic Ear The Dual Flush Toilet Multi-focal contact lenses WiFi Anti-flu Medication Scramjets Blast Glass *ahem*

Comment When I heard about NFC in the controller... (Score 1) 111

...the first thing I thought of was "Skylanders".
Skylanders uses RFID for its "Portal of Power", not NFC, but NFC is essentially just building on RFID anyway, and is backwards compatible with existing RFID infrastructure and tags. The "Portal of Power" may have been a gimmick, but it was a very profitable gimmick that was popular with the kids. Incorporating that kind of functionality direct into the Wii U controller is a stroke of sheer genius from Nintendo, IMO. RFID tags are cheap. $0.15 for a passive (unpowered) tag, $0.50 for an active tag. It'd be quite inexpensive for developers to incorporate those into their products and merchandise to have them interact with games on the Wii U.

Comment Re:Out of band initiation (Score 2) 111

Nintendo hasn't been opposed to public social interaction and sharing. The entire Pokémon franchise is arguably built on that concept. The reason they've stayed away from direct online interactions has mainly been because of fears over how those services will actually be used. ie. They didn't want parents to hear their kids being exposed to bad language or sexual predators over a Nintendo service. Were those fears of Nintendo justified? Given how many FPS gamers seem to behave, they probably did have some legitimate reason to be concerned there.

Having said that however, it's clear from more recent efforts, such as the direct voice communication inbuilt in Pokémon Black & White, and the communication features included in the last 3DS update, that they're starting to open themselves up there. I'm sure it'll continue to go at a glacial pace that will continue to frustrate "hardcore" gamers, but in terms of selling to the "family" market it actually does make some sense.

Comment Re:Online network OK. But what about the Wii-U? (Score 1) 111

How much of the 3DS's poor launch can be explained by a poor economic climate, and how much can be explained by having a relatively poor selection of games on release? The 3DS sales started to go up after the price drop, but they only started their spike when Super Mario Land 3D and Mario Kart 7 came out, a spike which was perfectly timed to disrupt the Vita's launch in Japan. To me, that suggests that the real determining factor behind how strong the Wii U launch will be is what games they have available on release day.

Comment Is the real issue with gamers, or with stores? (Score 2) 543

Realistically, blocking the ability of gamers to sell their used games isn't likely to be that much of a concern. PC gamers have already shown they're willing to accept that when coupled with reasonably sensible pricing schemes (eg. Practically any PC game download service, such as Steam).

The real problem for a company trying to implement something like this is going to be with the stores. Historically, stores such as Gamestop have only minimal margins on the sales of actual gaming consoles. (The Wii is a rare and notable exception there, and the Wii U is unlikely to be different on that score.) It's the same kind of razor & blades business model that Microsoft and Sony use selling them the consoles in the first place (though not as extreme, since Microsoft and Sony usually lose money on each console sold.) This is why many stores try to up-sell you to a bundle when you're buying a console, since they make so much more on the margin of those games (even the ones that they seemingly discount dramatically for the purpose of the bundle).

If you eliminate the possibility of these stores selling used games on a console, then you're leaving them only with new games (average margins) and consoles (minimal margins). What do you think will be the result of that? Most likely, they'll shift shelf space to something with better margins, if not eliminate the product line from their stores entirely. After all, when a games store sells you a console, they're hoping to continue to make money from you from game sales in the future. If you can't buy used games from them, then your value as a customer to them has just decreased dramatically.

Slashdot Top Deals

The only difference between a car salesman and a computer salesman is that the car salesman knows he's lying.

Working...