Just looking at Nintendo and the Wii rationally, Nintendo couldn't have painted a cleared picture of what the Wii was supposed to be to consumers: A family and/or group oriented gaming console. It just couldn't have been clearer. They sold *a lot* of consoles on this basis! The games that the article cite as not doing well all made me say to myself (as a Wii owner, and near middle-aged gamer): Little wonder. They do not look interesting.

My opinion may have been different 25 years ago, but honestly playing Seven Cities of Gold, Rescue on Fractalus or MULE (some games from 25 years ago) on my old Atari 800 still sounds more appealing than a session of any of those games in the article. I think that's the problem with these games that don't do well: They aren't fun.

No, "harcore gamer" opinions on this don't count. That's a rarified market composed almost exclusively of teens (or younger). And going back to the beginning of my statement, it's not who Nintendo has been targeting *or selling* their console to.

Personally, I'm still pleased with Wii Sports (will be upgrading to Sports Resort when the budget allows), Play, Mario Kart Wii (the only Mario game I've ever really liked after Mario Bros), Zack & Wiki, Punchout!, among several others. I've also got a slew of WiWare games. I love "Cards" - best Euchre game I've seen on any computer platform; has several other card games as well. Donkey Kong, DK Jr, Spellunker and Load Runner are all great games to sit down and play for a few minutes.

I can't speak for Nintendo to say how this is working out for them, but from my angle as a customer, I'm pleased with the experience *and* that I only spent $200 vs $400+ on a new console. Go Nintendo!

-Matt

Not to support a fallacious meme, but I think what they're driving at with the drugs = terrorism thing is all the poppies they grow in Afghanistan. So if you do a drug that's derivative of the poppy (like Tylenol III) you're officially an Enemy Combatant.

-Matt

Fair share? Was that a euphenism? IANAMP (Movie Producer), but I'm willing to bet that fairness never shows its face when the pie that is a movie budget gets carved up. :)

-Matt

Performing a work live and producing a copy to sell are two different things, even under the current law.

I'm going to assume the "government" being referred to above is the US Goverment.

The advent of drug laws as we know them was with the Temperance movement. Another good read is here. Rather than being written toward alcohol prohibition like the Temperance article, this is oriented toward Marijuana Prohibition. The second link is (IMO, anyway) very conservatively written for someone who's simply trying to find out the history of it.

To save the lazy out there some considerable reading, yes drugs were converted to a criminal issue with little good reason or due dilligence on behalf of the legislators. By comparison, Alcohol Prohibition made all kinds of sense...and we all can see that Alcohol Prohibition (which was the 18th Amendment, btw!) was repealed from law wholesale. What should that mean about Marijuana Prohibition?

-Matt

I hate to use the same link twice in the same thread, but please read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law

The effects may have become somewhat varied (to be euphemistic) in the last 400 years, but the source of copyright, in essence, is the protection and encouragement of authors.

-Matt

I'll be darned if I can recall the source now, but copyright was just as much in effect in the days of kings and scribes as it is today.

Wikipedia has it back to 1662.

-Matt

Numbers please.

I can say on the opposite side of your point that Apple has announced blockbuster year after blockbuster year of increasing growth at the iTunes Music Store and now are the largest music seller in the land.

At the same time, they haven't started shutting down the music sections at Best Buy or Walmart.

I can't say your facts are incorrect, but the trends don't point that way generally.

-Matt

P.S. If the elimination of piracy is your goal, you're setting yourself up for failure. It goes with business. Apple has the correct perspective - you must simply outcompete the pirates.

Are you saying that copyright law is another form of PIRACY???

If so, I think I may be inclined to agree.

-Matt

I'd say in the example of drug companies that's simply the cost of doing business. No amount of propaganda or lobbying for copyright legislation (domestic or foreign) is going to give one control over behavior of inDUHviduals in another country. (That's not the way successful legislation works...it is the way fascism works, but that's a different story.)

(BTW, who is Billy Tauzin???? Funny (as in "funny smelling", not as in "funny, ha ha") that he was on the radar of both industries we're talking about here.)

Look at it from another point of view: If what you're doing is "so revolutionary" then how is someone in Brazil knocking off your product in short order? Perhaps it wasn't so revolutinary after all? "Revolutionary"....perhaps that word doesn't mean what you think it means? (revolutionary != we spent a ton of money on it)

I think time to be realistic for drug and music companies: No matter how much you spend/waste on the drugs/artists you're developing, they won't necessarily be profitable or even worth it. Ditto for all the money you spend/waste promoting those drugs/artists.

U.S drug companies and commercial radio are both currently a laughing stock.

I'm going out on a limb here, but perhaps the drug companies should focus more on cures and less on treatments than they do today?

To me, they're ultimately hung up on Gilette's business model. Buy the razor (aka pester your doctor for the perscription) and they sell you new blades for life (aka you get some relief from your symptom, but e.g. your eyes will bleed the whole time). Likewise, music companies perhaps should focus less on what they think we should like/listen to (Clear Channel is an abomination in the truest sense of the word, and only the tip of the industry's iceberg) and more on what we actually like and listen to?

I'd also argue that drug companies make way too much money (yes, it's possible). If that weren't true, they wouldn't have as many problems selling their drugs. (Let's all recall our supply and demand graphs from econ 101....lower prices = more people can afford your product = higher demand) They -- like the music industry -- create their own problems, then do their best to blame others for the results (i.e. lobby the government for special treatment).

On another front....

Print publishing is a more interesting example to me. If they stay with print media (books, paper) they don't have the piracy issue (not really) but as the world moves more and more to digital and print publishing tries to follow, they suffer more and more of the related problems....such as piracy. Thoughts? Personally I still like to pick up a book when I want to read -- it's a very, very good medium -- but I'm going to be called old-fashioned for that before too much longer.

-Matt