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As I posted (with supporting links) in another comment: The reason EA is giving for his departure is he's responsible for their performance being about $100 million short of what they expected. A successful game launch like Skyrim (at 3.3 million copies) earned $450 million dollars, so if SimCity sold 1.1 million at launch and this was immediately followed by Amazon pulling the game from sale and even once it was back, doing things like temporarily discounting the game to $46 bucks.. then sales are likely bad enough that they're losing more than $100 million from where they expected to be on this one game alone.

SimCity is a really bad game and I certainly hope that heads will roll for ramming an unfinished, needlessly server dependent game into the fans eager hands just to try and make some numbers for the quarter... but is Riccitiello really leaving directly as a result of it? Yeah, there's the timing of it, but the reason EA gives for the departure is they're going to be about $100 million lower on their guidance than they expected. Could they really be $100 million short this quarter from SimCity?

So what are the numbers... SimCity sold 1.1 million copies at launch. For comparison the super-popular Skyrim had a $450 million dollar launch at 3.3 million copies. From that perspective, it certainly looks like SimCity really did make that dent... And considering SimCity 4 is still selling 10 years later, the money they're missing out on over the next 5 to 10 years could be ridiculous.

Sometimes I don't mind microtransactions, but they have power to ruin otherwise perfectly good game, and that's my major problem with them.

It's frequently harder to get more people to buy your product, than it is to get people already buying it to spend more. So soap companies put a little less detergent in the bottle and whiskey makers water the whiskey down a little more.

They clocked the speed he was driving at because the tires were a different size? There's some mysterious huge downhill on the new jersey turnpike that caused him to hit 80 despite setting his cruise control to 54? Really? Is that the best he can come up with?

So how much difference does 2 inches make? Broder says the standard wheel size for the car is 21 inches, but they gave him a car with 19 inch all-weather tires. I haven't seen anybody run the numbers, so I did for fun:

19 inch diameter * pi = 59.7 inch circumference
21 inch diameter * pi = 66.0 inch circumference
59.7 / 66.0 = 0.9 ratio

We don't know what data was recorded or used to create the charts, but if it was the black box wheel revolution data, that data has to be interpreted using a specific wheel size. So if you interpreted it assuming a 21 inch wheel, but the car actually had 19 inch wheels you would end up with:

* For every 100 miles on the chart, the car would have only gone 90.

* When the chart shows 60 mph, the car would have actually been going 54 mph.

* The short blip of 80 mph would actually be 72 mph. (7 mph over the 65 mph limit, which is fairly reserved for the NJ Turnpike.)

So this would pretty much explain how you could get those charts without Broder lying about the details on his trip.

And since he claims Tesla told him the batteries would warm up, I have no reason to believe Tesla didn't when they previously told Consumer Reports the exact same thing:

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2013/01/rapid-charging-at-a-tesla-ev-supercharge-station.html

As a small developer, I would love if Apple took a smaller percentage of app purchases (which as others have pointed out isn't really 30% when you factor in referral fees, retail markups on iTunes gift cards and the credit card processing fees they pay out), but it's great that by enforcing rules they are effectively taking a step toward leveling the playing field for the small guys. (Instead of giving sweetheart deals to fellow big guys.)

But in this case, we're not talking about app purchases-- we're talking about transactions that occur in an app, and this has always been a questionable rule. It a straight tax on transactions. It's in the same vein as Verizon demanding Google pay them because Verizon customers are accessing Google "through their pipes."

And it's more inconsistent than people realize... I routinely place orders for food in the Delivery.com and the SeamlessWeb apps and because I have no credit card on file with either, I enter my credit card info for payment instead of using an iTunes account. So no 30% goes to Apple for my burrito, but DropBox leaves a link to their website in their SDK and suddenly all hell breaks loose. But Apple has a DropBox competitor and doesn't currently offer burritos I guess...

Yes, this is an attack on Google, and has little to do with being "pro-consumer".

I keep seeing this presented as an attack on Google, but it seems to me that it would help Google more than it would hurt it. Consider this: If you're logged into a Google service they can (and will) still track you. With Google's new privacy policy it doesn't matter which service you're logged in to. So if you use Google Docs, Gmail, YouTube, etc. and don't log out every time you do a Google search you'll be getting tracked regardless. Hell, a lot of people have to be logged in to Google services just to get work done now.

So who's going to end up not tracking you with this setting? Ad networks that don't have the sticky-apps that Google does. Will Google lose some data? Yes. But the other guys will lose more and Google's ads (relatively speaking) will perform better as a result.

Microsoft has managed to weather several OS flops (Windows Me anyone?) thanks to their domination of the market, but with Android gadgets and iPhones becoming pervasive can they pull it off again?

In a world where gadgets replace personal computers does Windows 8 or 9 even matter? Wouldn't Windows Phone be the relevant operating system? It's not like if Windows 9 is suddenly amazing, people are going to start shoving laptops in their pockets.

I'm going back to the Blackberry now that amateur hour is starting!

They have to be aware that 3D is failing in the marketplace around the rest of the world (looking at 3D movie attendance, Nintendo 3DS sales numbers, 3D TV sales figures, etc.), so my question is: Why are they jumping on this ship now?

It's tough to be the middleman... Netflix stands between the consumers and the content providers, but streaming video is rapidly becoming a commodity, so no doubt the content providers will get greedy and decide they want to own the whole thing end to end. I'm sure they'll ignore the amazing feat Netflix has accomplished (namely getting people to pay for streaming content online) and attempt to set up their own sites with onerous terms (pay-per-view with 24 hours to start) and high monthly rates, then be all surprised when no one signs up and start claiming piracy is destroying their business.

The "summary" makes it sound like a port is available now, and then throws in an iPad comparison that's nowhere in the original article. From TFA:

"Figure this will take a good long while. Keep your expectations very low and for now enjoy WebOS..."

and my favorite...

"Further complicating the initiative, some of the developers don't yet have TouchPads."

So this is 3 guys planning a porting effort of an older version of Android. (Google hasn't released the source code to Honeycomb yet.) Also from TFA:

"Still, people who bought it took a risk, since it's not clear if HP will continue to develop the operating system."

Really, that's not clear? You think HP might be planning major OS updates for a tablet they just fire-saled?

So there have been a number of articles about how the 3DS (with an actual 3D screen) is having a hard time competing against the iPhone. Sony's entry? Basically the same specs as an iPhone 4. Yeah the Vita has a faster cpu and hardware buttons, but it also has a lower resolution screen and the games will be more expensive. Needless to say all the rumors point to a new iPhone being released in the next few weeks which would probably close the gap on the cpu. Are hardware controls really going to sell $40 games?

So let me get this straight... A free update makes the game look better by using new DirectX11 features, but the whole article is criticizing the game for using a hardware technology (that's only just starting to appear in game engines), in a way that isn't as optimized as they would like? Are gamers feeling that entitled these days? If you speculatively purchase a faster hardware, it's not anybody's obligation to write software to push it to the limit you know.

Why does Mozilla keep treating Firefox like it's something they need to apologize for? Firefox has the best add-ons out there, hands down. And it's been around for years. Why are they acting like Chrome and others are setting the standards now? Why do they act like they're in some kind of pissing contest with Google? Google is the one with something to prove here, not Mozilla.

Maybe because 85% of Mozilla's funding comes from Google.