and profitable. Nintendo making things like VR based fitness arcade centers or interactive rehabilitation training methods using all their gaming hardware and software expertise is not a difficult thing to imagine. Let alone education. There is so much they could do without being the cheesy shit that are most edutertainment games. If they are willing to take risks and develop their own medical devices they could, but they could also partner with Japanese medical equipment start-ups(or even sony, as they also make medical equipment).

But ignoring the core problems, in particular with the home console divisions, is far from ideal. If want to ignore their home console problems, might as well go third party.

One thing that bothers me is that, while the WiiU is not selling well, the 3DS is selling like crazy, including hardware and software. The only reason I can see them not making good money are internal management/administrative problems. Another is thing is that you don't need to have the absolute majority of the market to be profitable. They know that first hand from the N64 and Gamecube eras. Seeing all this negativity and lack of confidence coming from inside the company would be really bad if I were a shareholder. I'm much more bothered by this than the bad revenues.

Same thing applies for Mac vs Windows versions of Office. I mostly use a mac for research and development, but Office (alongside Solidworks) are the reasons I keep a decent Windows computer at my side. As a Ph.D. candidate, I have a horrible time with formats and template compatibility every time I try to write a paper using Office for Mac. Even boring academic/university bureaucracy documents are a nightmare on Office for mac simply because they are made on Office for windows. Simply blows my mind.

Unfortunately, as a guy who uses LibreOffice for personal note taking, I've also seen some format errors/inconsistencies when I open an odp file on a different OS. I'm not far from knowledgeable on this subject but I suspect all those office suits rely too much on OS shared resources and GUI factors. Sometimes I really wish pdfs were more edit friendly(at least using cheap/free software).

But why? 640KB ought to be enough for everybody.

Custom firmware, jail break, etc. If I want these features, they are already there just waiting to be unlocked and the price/service is unacceptable that is what I'd do. However, as a guy who never bother doing it on my own phones and consoles, the thought of having to do it on cars is infuriating. I hope this never catches.

Let me play Devil's Advocate

You can always use Google docs, iWork on iCloud or Office 365. The PS4 browser seems to be decent enough for that. As the web technologies and local processing power evolves the need to actually have a native app is getting very low, specially on a TV device that is connected to the internet most of the time. That Google ChromeOS notebooks are the very early signs of an age where installing stuff on your computer will be something that only a few professionals will do. For the great majority of people being able to install any crap on a game console doesn't even comes close to being a desirable feature. People just want to play games and that is it. Sony/MS making their consoles as open as a traditional Win/OSX/Linux PC will just open the doors to piracy and hacking.

Considering you mention the iPad, an iOS device, the definition of a proprietary hardware monopolistic device. The success of the other closed game consoles also does not help your point. Windows may not be a physical device, still pretty much fits the profile and even the flopping products sell tens of millions. Being proprietary is hardly the reason for failure. Having a poor business strategy, poor marketing, poor content, etc, are. This applies for both open and closed products.

Well to each his own I guess. Nowadays I don't freak out about banking as I follow basic internet security guidelines and common sense, but temporary I got inspired by the net banking practices I learned from my work place. For a brief period of time, I basically I had an old, isolated linux netbook that I use exclusively for banking, there is nothing but an up to date webbrowser with bookmarks to my log in pages in that netbook. My workplace, btw, uses an isolated windows XP machine. Why windows XP? Because IE6 was the only thing most of our financial institutions supported until recently(most already upgraded, but I think there is a couple that is frozen in the (dark) past yet). Never tried it, but game console seems to be a nice option as well as they are walled gardens.

BTW, I don't mind a default walled garden and other software limitations, but Apple should gives us the option to get out of that if we wished to(They already do something like that on OS X, as you can choose to use only Appstore apps, signed apps or no restriction at all). Either that or they relax their content policy in the Appstore. For a platform that is content driven, banning just anything that could be offensive is ridiculous. No need to allow hardcore political parody midget porn, but not allowing games/apps that display partial nudity or social/political criticism is not acceptable to my standards. Until a nice and respected and well known website like DeviantArt can have it's own App, Apple iOS division won't be seeing a single dollar from me.

I got a Macbook pro retina, enjoying OS X in a nice hardware package. I also enjoy my xperia phone, but with all the crap that google has been pulling recently and the fact sony doesn't have the balls to make their own OS(I really like the xperia hardware), I contemplated moving to the iPhone. But that irongrip Appstore and platform coupled design decisions I can't stand really scare me away from the device. Apple, allow me to use 3rd party app stores, give me a decent built in file manager, give me something like AirDroid(and not iTunes), allow script languages, and let me customize the "desktop"(widgets, no Win95 like icon grid), and I will become a full fledged Apple fanboy and shower you with money.

The next logical step is an affordable good CAD program. I use SolidWorks and many professional level 3D printers at work such as Stratasys Dimension and Vantage series, Objet Eden and Formiga for both metal and nylon models. And while things like Makerbot have proven to "sort of get the job done" in home/hobbyist environments, there is absolutely nothing even close to SolidWorks or AutoCAD that is affordable to the average enthusiast. In my case, for printing my Japanese Anime figures, Blender is usable but it's hardly the best option for building hobbyist robotics(in which case I use SolidWorks through my work computer using VNC, thankfully I'm the boss so I can give permission to myself to do so). If there are affordable, quality PCB desing tools like EAGLE, there should be something similar for CAE/CAM. I simply can't find anything.

3D scanners? At least IN MY CASE, completely unnecessary.

I wish I could mod both of you up, but unfortunately my unused mod points expired a couple of hours ago. 3.2B for just a freaking smoke detector with barely any market share yet. The profitable medical robotics company I work for, with real examples documented in scientific journals of improving and even saving lives, isn't worth a hundredth of that yet. Life is simply not fair...

Not disagreeing with your point about the need to reduce costs, but I'm not sure if India is a good reference in prices. What are they paying to their engineers and technicians? Is their hardware on par of American, Russian and European in terms of safety, reliability or capabilities? Is that number even correct and not made up? As a guy with no knowledge in the matter it's really hard to judge whether Obital/SpaceX costs are overpriced or not without knowing the reason those costs exist in first place and how India is doing their magic.

Everything capable of computing and is owned by a person is a PC: macs are PCs, the PS4 is a PC, smartphones and tablets are PCs, even my brand new Panasonic smart rice cooker is a PC. What people call "pc gaming" is nothing more than windows gaming. Windows games only work on windows/x86 machines(at least out of the box). Steam Machines are not an example of Valve trying to save windows gaming.

IMO, valve is instead trying to create a new version of "pc gaming", in the shape of an open home console(as opposed to the sony/nintendo model closed model) while also trying to expand in the next hot market: smart TVs/living rooms. Having it's own software and hardware platform where your service is the default is also a great way to reduce the visibility of rival game appstores like GOG, Origin and non steam popular games(Minecraft, LoL, Blizzard games).

Not only that but Valve is trying to save something, this something is itself. The business may look great nowadays, but it's foolish to think they're invincible. Windows and Mac are becoming walled gardens, not very friendly towards apps outside the official app stores. Windows PC sales are in record decline. 65 million steam accounts may look impressive at first glance but considering that steam is a FREE service and that even the PS3, the overpriced console that sold the least the last generation, still managed to grab 80 million users(let alone way over a hundred million PSN accounts), it's clear that Valve doesn't have as close as many users as it could. If Valve lose it's momentum, they could easily become irrelevant.

On the other hand as long as Actvision/Blizzard, Minecraft, EA and LoL (and in Japan, porn VNs) exist, Windows PC gaming will exist. Contrary to popular internet forum belief, Windows PC gaming is much more than Steam. I personally believe that, if wasn't for the crazy seasonal sales and mandatory steamworks in some games(Civ5 in my case), many people(including myself) wouldn't even bother with the service.

Because Google is a for profit business? "Giving" only happens if they can make money out of it.

I agree with you. But I also think eventually the content providers could also have a deal with ISPs to expand their networks in exchange for some of the profit. The Google Fiber project is in my opinion a very early sign of that: Google trying to provide fast internet so that people can use more google products. Sony is already a fiber provider in Japan and some other Asian countries as well.

They better not lose track of time. Honestly, after seeing the new prototype yesterday I'm stating to think the final product won't be available until 2015. If sony announces and releases a true VR headset for the PS4 this year(not the new HMZ whatever), they'll lose their biggest advantage: being the first to the market. And it's not only sony, valve is reportedly working on a vr headset of their own and there are also castAR, glyph and infinityEye as minor competitors as well.

On a side note why did they even bother showing a prototype at CES anyway? It's not like they need to attract funding and investors anymore. And it's hard to imagine that the CES crowd doesn't know about the rift anyway. At this R&D stage, secrecy is one of the keys for success.