Generic Guy - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Sony needs to... (Score 1) 302

by Generic Guy on Tuesday December 30, 2008 @06:25PM (#26272949) Attached to: Breaking Down the Dropping Parts Cost for Sony's PS3

What I'd like to know is the real install base of the three consoles. You know, not every Xbox360 sold is actually going to a new customer due to a so-called RROD phenomenon. Is there any good data to clear that up?

The real install base doesn't matter, what matters is the amount of revenue (and profit) brought in by additional software and service purchases. This is what is known as attach rate, and the Xbox360 has a rather exceptionally high attach rate. And this is from a console which has long been hacked to run pirated/copied discs (the PS3 has not been hacked, which you would've thought might attract more game developers). I've always been shocked at how good the Xbox360 attach rate has been.

If half those Xbox consoles are landfilled due to RROD or other failures, then it just makes the real attach rate that much better and even more surprising. Despite the crap hardware and piracy, the Xbox360 is certainly moving software like mad.

P.S. PS3's suffering is not just high retail price, but apparently also the relatively sub-standard dev system which Sony provides. Essentially, the thing is a giant pain in the ass the work with, so dev houses won't spend the extra man-hours necessary programming for it.

Submission + - Google Checkout sees poor customer satisfaction

Submitted by

Aryabhata

on Saturday January 20, 2007 @01:07PM

Aryabhata writes: "As per an Arstechnica report on a survey by investment firm J.P. Morgan Securities, Google Checkout has had a relatively quick and modest market penetration of six percent since its launch in June of 2006, but lags behind in customer satisfaction vs PayPal. On the customer satisfaction front, only 18.8 percent reported having a "good" or "very good" experience with Google Checkout, while 81.2 percent indicated a fair to poor experience customer experience compared to PayPal's 44.2 percent reporting good experiences. Some users have reported anecdotally that Google Checkout mistakenly canceled sales without warning or that the checkout process took too long."

Submission + - Future desks to charge gadgets wirelessly?

Submitted by IronMan on Saturday January 20, 2007 @12:45PM

IronMan writes: Future desks may allow us to charge our phones, iPods, PDAs and other gadgets wirelessly. Office equipment maker Herman Miller is one of the first companies to license the eCoupled inductive coupling technology from Fulton Innovation. This technology allows wireless transfer of energy through a magnetic field, it works a bit like most electronic toothbrushes. Motorola is working together with eCoupled, but it's still not sure when the first consumer devices with this technology will appear on the market. And if they do, they will probably be quite expensive.

Ohio Recount Rigging Case Goes to Court 224

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday January 20, 2007 @11:15AM from the counting-down-the-hits dept.

The Akron Beacon Journal is reporting that the trial of the three election workers accused of rigging the 2004 presidential election recount in Cuyahoga County is finally underway. As you may recall, this was the case where poll workers 'randomly' selected the precincts to recount by first eliminating from consideration precincts where the number of ballots handed out on Election Day failed to match the number of ballots cast and, then opening the ballot boxes in private and pre-counting until they found cases which would match up. What is interesting here is that they have already admitted doing this and that it was clearly counter to the letter and the spirit of the law, but still insist it wasn't really 'wrong,' presumably since they only did it to avoid having to go to the bother of a full recount as required by law.

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