I'm genuinely curious. If they're doing the whole "Hire Contractors to dodge taxes" thing that really only works for a few of the most undesirable jobs (auto part runners come to mind) where they can take advantage of ex cons. For anything else sooner or later the IRS notices and drops the hammer.

They over estimated the cost of GDDR5. You can only lose so much money on your console, and Microsoft has lost massive amounts for 2 generations.

They thought the price of GDDR5 was going to be so high they console would sell for more than people could pay. Remember the $799 3DO? No. There's your answer.

They tried to make up for it by putting 64 megs of high speed on die cache, but again screwed up. The cache was expensive and took up space on the CPU die that Sony used for more Cuda cores.

So yeah, it was a money decision, but it wasn't about profit, it was about making a console people could afford. Both companies guessed, and Microsoft guessed wrong.

Not until Netcraft confirms it.

is there anyone here that is in favor of, or will even defend the rights to do this merger?

What I like is, when this goes through with almost universal opposition it'll be just one more reminder of how little power we here in America all have...

when people started saying "For Playstation, XBox and Steam" though? It's practically a platform in itself. Kinda like how people called video games "The Nintendo" back in the day.

I have to admit, I like the convenience of Steam. With my Gog copy of Shadow Warrior I've got to patch it up every time I install. My Steam games auto patch themselves.

Yeah, that Mozilla guy stepped down, but there aren't a lot of real consequences to that (save for him being out an easy paycheck ).

Take a look at Occupy Wall Street. That was a real movement with real impact. It was also systematically (and very effectively) shut down before it accomplished anything :(.

they full well understand. They're counterbalancing the well being of that 50 year old coal miner against the enormous wealth they consider their birthright. For the nicer ones if they can keep the enormous wealth and let the coal miner do ok so much the better, and for a few of the nasty ones they're looking forward to the cheaper labor that coal miner and his peers entering the workforce will create...

Had me going there. For a minute I thought there might be some discussion that the people running GM might somehow be at fault. Thankfully they are blameless as always, and have rooted the true culprits in the form those dastardly engineers.

Seriously though, I'm tired of being told that it's OK for these people to be super super rich because of all the value they add and the risks they take, when $#@! like this keeps happening and they never once take a hit. I know it's how ruling classes work and all, but it still sucks...

Except Maybe Alan Grayson, and it's all he can do to hold onto his seat. Back when the health care debate was raging he pointed out that the right wing's answer was If you get sick, die quick. They moved in with so much money he lost his seat, and since they own the media they also stopped covering anything he said.

I don't have anything to compare to. Anyone who is even remotely progressive just gets destroyed...

Actually we're the only country that wasn't blasted into the stone age during WWII. For a brief period of time fear of communists stealing factories kept off-shoring at bay (ironically it Marx used to warn that capital flowing to where labor was cheapest was a problem). A small group of progressives dragged the rest of our country out of the uncivilized mess it was mired in (the American South didn't exactly go along with the the whole Civil Rights thing quietly, and lately they've been pushing voter suppression hard).

I hate to say it, but I wouldn't so much as call us 'great' as I would very lucky. For most Americans prosperity was a temporary blip on the radar they're watching fade away...

are you suggesting that an issue might not be simple, and that simple common sense, gut feelings and ideology might not produce the best results?

I kid, I kid, but good post. I guess what I wish people would take away is that the world is a complex place and we really have to think about what we're doing, why we're doing it. There's no magic set of principles that will get us to the right answer :(.

I'm always hearing how my personal privacy is the most important freedom I've got, meanwhile my wages have been declining for 30 years. You never hear the Koch brothers complaining about their personal privacy. How much do you know about them? What do you suppose would happen to you if you tried to find out?

Money is freedom. Economic security is freedom. You're not free so long as somebody can deprive you of food/shelter/health care/etc.

my company monitors everything I do and say when I'm at work. Most do. If you think yours doesn't you're either kidding yourself or working for yourself.

And why should you have an expectation of privacy regarding anything you do while you're on the job that pertains to the job?

By actual game devs. In particular watch the CCG one.

You also want to encourage businesses to build and maintain permanent housing for your residence so at least a few people can live without 4 hour daily commutes.