Over a decade ago, when our cell phones were still rocking monochrome displays and just then getting into WAP browsing? Yeah. That's a great comparison, actually, and points out where the concept would have begun in the 'modern' era. Remember, that was about the extent of what our technology of the era could bring to bear without HUGE cost, which incidentally I imagine will be a very present issue with the Wii u's main controller.
Operating costs are irrelevant; They exist for any other transaction in the business. As for buying the used game back, they don't do that with real currency, just store credit.
I should note that with the Halo 3 example, I was offered a used copy of the game on launch day when I was going to pick it up.
True, but EB/Gamestop have huge incentives to bring new games back for trade value. When The Godfather was released, there actually was a promotion that if you could beat the game within a certain period of time (I think it was either a few days or a week), you'd trade it back in and it was 'free'. Nowadays, they have their "Most Wanted" lists, with new releases fetching the biggest bounties, and new releases tend to have a "trade 3 and it's free" promotion as well. In other words, EB/Gamestop have put HUGE amounts of effort into making people part with new releases in order to get other games, in a rather turnstile fashion. If you've ever been into an EB or Gamestop, you'll probably notice that there actually are a surprising number of new releases with used stickers on.
It's true that on day 0, there shouldn't be many used copies, but I have witnessed it, in particular with Halo 3. Within less than a week's time, used copies lined the shelves for $5 less than new.
I don't believe that it's fair for a product to have to compete with itself on the same shelves that it's on. Recently used copies are very likely to not have any damage or defects, and EB/Gamestop warrant them as working for a certain period of time, anyway, so there isn't any incentive to pay the extra to buy a full retail copy. This is part of the reason why multiplayer is becoming such a huge cornerstone of game development - Multiplayer communities generally mean that people who play online will continue to do so, rather than trading the game in. It's also why EA and others have been bundling one-use DLC with their games, and why it could very well be possible that in order to combat both piracy and used game sales, one-use (or limited-use) serial keys for console games might be in our future. With that in mind, it would be a LOT better to come to an agreement with publishers over street dates rather than having the bottom taken out from under the entire used game industry in the name of anti-piracy (which is exactly how it would be spun).
Per-sale of used game, it is pure profit. I never said there wasn't any risk in taking on the inventory, but then again, most games they take in will go for about $5-10 or so worth of store credit, ensuring that no raw currency leaves the door one way or another.
No, but that argument is also flawed; DVD (or Blu-ray, I'll refer to both as DVD for random, arbitrary reasons) sales aren't the sole revenue generator for a film that had a theatrical release, and you seldom see used DVD's on the same shelves as new ones, to boot. In fact, most retailers that DO sell DVD's don't bother stocking used DVD's.
It IS bad for developers because retailers like Gamestop and EB will put used copies on the shelf immediately on launch whenever they get them in, and for a few bucks less. They get a 100% profit, with none of the proceeds going to the developer (which is fine, but it's important to remember that you're not their customer by buying a used copy of a game). It cannibalizes initial sales during the most important time of a game's release, especially when you consider that frequent used game buyers will opt into things like Gamestop/EB's Edge card system, getting an additional 10% off the sticker price.
If the motion picture industry let retailers rent/sell copies of movies at the same time as theatrical release, then the financial bottom would be eaten out from under the theatrical aspect of the industry, which is usually the most important and most profitable portion of a film's release. This is the reason why the motion picture industry delays home video releases of new films, and this is what should be done with games, too.
I've heard arguments against that, people saying "Oh, well, I should be able to sell it if I want to", and that's fine, really; What needs to be regulated is not people selling games back or trading them in, but the amount of time needed before used copies start showing up on retail shelves alongside new copies. The only problem is, retailers are unlikely to agree to something like that unless forced to, since they can sell a $70 game for $65 for 100% profit. Waiting until later gains them less. Which is sort of why the game industry almost needs a standards board for this kind of thing... Something, though I shudder to say it, like the RIAA/MPAA (because, besides suing people for downloading media, that's part of what they do).
i5 2500K is a quad-core processor just like the X4 980 BE, and typically runs around $200 CAD (like the 980). You can pay around $230 if you don't shop around for sales. (Just a few days ago, it was priced at $199 on NCIX)
By benchmarks I've been seeing and by the article itself, the i5 2500K is overall a faster CPU than the 980 for any task. The Phenom II series processors aren't up to task as far as competing with Sandy Bridge at its price point is concerned.
Totally agreed really. But I'm sure someone out there is going to benefit from this.
It doesn't keep up with the Sandy 2500K, which can be had for around $200, depending on where you look. Then again, as the article suggests, it's better for an upgrade than a new system, so existing AMD users should be able to appreciate some tangible gains. Too late for me, though, I recently jumped ship from an Athlon X2 6000+ to the Sandy 2500K and I'm blown away by the performance.
Headaches from viewing 3D videos are caused by flickering on the screen.
Not entirely. It's also a result of your eyes focusing in ways that they don't naturally focus, sort of how you're supposed to focus in a strange way to view a magic eye puzzle.
Just like with computer monitors, upping the refresh rate results in less flicker
Except refresh rate != Frame rate. While I'm not exactly up on industry projectors, I'm fairly sure that 3D projectors are much faster in terms of refresh rate, particularly since 24Hz would be far too slow and flickering would be severe (far worse so than an old CRT set on the default 60Hz). In contrast, the recommended refresh rate for TV's to display 3D content is 200Hz+, though 120Hz is usable. I realize that there are differences between projectors and LCD's, I can't imagine that 3D films are projected at 2x24Hz.
I've been using Google Mail (separate from GMail) for a while now for my mail needs, and it's actually working out pretty well. Better uptime and performance than hosting the server myself, and it's generally just a lot easier. Then again, you have to ask yourself if you want Google to potentially be able to see your mail.
Totally possible the government passed over it because the tech was "too new" or perhaps it even just flew under the radar. At the time, that would have been a fairly experimental device by comparison to the R&D efforts going into the emerging sector that now exists for these kinds of devices.
You even admit that three of them collapsed together, yet you insist that computers are becoming disposable? Huge year on year growth in Apple laptop sales during a down economy totally disposes of that argument. People seem more willing to pay for quality products now than they ever have been, because they've seen cheap and it wasn't pretty (and it didn't last. People already hate buying computers, so buying them again is something normal people avoid like the plague.
Actually, they didn't collapse together - They purchased each other (Acer bought Gateway bought eMachines). Dell even went so far as to purchase Alienware, for all intents and purposes a high-end, "quality" computer company. I actually think that increases in Apple sales are something of a good indicator for what I'm talking about, too. Apple's business model isn't to sell people one good machine and let them keep it for five or six years before moving on (though they promise two OS revisions to any hardware sold) - Just like the iPods, iPhones and now the iPads, Apple's major driving force in their business model is the idea that, even if there's really nothing wrong with the device you currently have, you absolutely have to have the new models. While I'm sure that not everyone is hooked this way (at the very least, people with half a brain), there do exist a fairly strong base which do follow this trend. To that end, think of the users that are causing Apple's growth: PC users switching to Apple because they supposedly "have no viruses" and other lovely things, regardless of the fact that it's virtually the same components inside (Hitachi hard drives, for example). They are switching for the OS - Not for the machine.
WTF. Let me ponder for a moment, and repeat; WTF.
How are USED computers worth more in a world where computers are becoming disposible? In said world computers that were at all used would be unusable. That's practically the definition of "disposable" - when my razor blades are done I don't donate 'em to Good Will!
Used markets for anything are very lucrative markets - Buy for dirt and sell for a generous percentage and you have a lot of pure profit going for you. The computer market hasn't yet truly become disposable; You don't toss it in the trash when you buy a new one if the old one still "works." You offload it onto someone who will pay you to take it. Compared to your razors, I'm pretty sure people won't be lining up to take those off your hands!
Yes, just ask Sony how easy it is to lock people out of systems they physically control. Oh that's right, it's totally impossible which is why on OS X systems Apple doesn't and NEVER will try, and on iOS Apple puts up the thinnest veneer of prevention over the hardware which they could improve but they don't even bother.
Actually, it would be fairly easy. Sony's PlayStation 3 has only recently been cracked open, and that's because of a static root key for software signing. If every generation of computer that coincided with an OS release by a company who really wanted to do this were set up with a different key (and with a bit more security than that Sony placed into the PS3), or more severely, change the key at will via protected software updates (they could get away with this because their software is the only software they want you to run), that would effectively A) remove the ability for earlier machines to use new OSes, requiring more frequent hardware purchases - Apple's big money-maker, and B) Stop cold attempts to run unapproved software on the machine. As stupid and needlessly complex as that may sound, Jobs and the Apple crew have a fairly extensive history of wanting to rule over their devices with an iron fist - Remember not long ago when they were telling people that jailbreaking their iDevices violated copyright law? It might be a veiled threat, but it also outlines their view on control over their devices. It isn't that big a stretch, quite frankly, and if they could find a way to make it work, I have no doubt in my mind that they would.
This is pretty wrong. I know it's pretty trollish, but I feel compelled to respond.
computers that can last longer and be cheaper
Trend is actually to computers that are cheaper and more disposable. Once upon a time more companies were trying to release more reliable machines, but the costs were high - Enter Dell, eMachines, Acer and Gateway (the latter three now one and the same), and their business models of inexpensive PC's that aren't necessarily solid broke the market entirely. Computers are becoming disposable, much in the same way mobile phones are.
Used computer market is now becoming HUGE....because no one can afford to retail prices.
Retail prices on PC's have been plummeting for a long time now, and the used computer market is inflating due to the above point: Computers are becoming disposable, and there are even cases where people will toss a computer because of something like a spyware or virus infection.
iPAD subscriptions have taken a complete nose dive of late as people realize how useless and costly the things are
While I never understood the point behind the iPad, its impact on the market in general is undeniable, with Android tablets mimicking its design appearing left and right. Many emerging and future hybrid designs are coming out as iPad-style tablets proper, with a fully-equipped base station featuring a keyboard, mouse, ethernet/display ports, and so on. I know that our provincial government has become very interested in developments by Toshiba in this regard, and may be procuring them to replace laptops in the future.
I want to address the most glaring part last:
too late once open source is OUT into peoples hands its too late.
YOU can't then take it away.
Yeah you can. If, say, Apple decided they wanted to lock down their devices, they could first-off modify their EFI implementation to disable the loading of unsigned (by Apple) software as an operating system. That in itself would disable flavours of Linux from loading, and they could go further still by modifying their operating system to support installation of applications only via their App Store. The beautiful thing is that newer Apple products, both hardware and software, can use a different encryption key for their EFI-OS lockout. Or, they could utilize technology like this:
There exists a real-world potential for such a thing to exist - Microsoft has for a long time been on-again off-again working on something formerly called Palladium, now called Next-Generation Secure Computing Base, which is an implementation of the concept of trusted computing. At the time when this was announced, many thought of this as perhaps being the death of Linux - One major use for this kind of technology is for DRM purposes, wherein only an approved application can access certain data, which could feasibly include the entire system. The hardware required for this kind of thing has been around for a while, and many machines since the AM2/LGA-775 sockets have Trusted Platform Module chips included. One of the more famous applications for this is with Bitlocker.
"The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy." -- Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards
