Posted by
DarkJedi – October 31, 2006
We all know that there will be many people who wants to run out and spend all their hard-earned cash on the newest hype on the block – in this case: The PlayStation 3… However, once again Sony brings bad news, while their competitors brings good news! It seems that Sony or Sorry as they should be called after all their excuses will not be able to deliver the promised number of units for launchday after all… But is anyone suprised?! 
It seems to be caused by delivery problems with the Cell-processor as the yields are simply too low (10-20%). Sony probably shouldn’t have teamed up with Toshiba and then started the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD fight with them at the same time 
Another problem with the yields of the Cell-processor appears if you read this article from TheRegister. It says: “Sony wants chips with at least seven SPEs functional“, but hey… There are eight SPEs on a Cell-processor! Will this damage the performance of Sony’s PlayStation 3? I certainly hope the game gevelopers won’t make games that depend on the 8th SPE, as you can’t be sure every customer who spends all his money on the PayStation 3 will have one!!!
Of course Sony will make sure that your house is kept warm this winter, while the power supplying companies will be smiling happily, when Sony launches its newest PowerStation, ups I mean PlayStation…
On another note Microsoft instead chose to beef up their XBox360 so that it will be even more powered up for the launch of the few PlayStation 3’s available on launchday!…oh, and to rub a bit of salt into the veins of Sony they also decided to announce Halo Wars – and threw out a high-def trailer! (and of course this annoucement also hit XBox Live! to ensure that they spread the word )… After all: It is an XBox360 exclusive game!
So perhaps Sony is running an altogether different strategy this time, and doesn’t expect Nintendo to be any kind of trouble… Well, this calls for a cartoon!
Posted by
DarkJedi – October 30, 2006
Another week, another series of good and bad news…
First off TheRegister have written a not-so-entuisiastic article on the new EULA in Windows Vista, which is a rather funny read, as they allow children from the 9th grade to evaluate in their own words the difference between Vista’s EULA and the GPL v. 2 …
And Microsoft isn’t in for good news this morning… TheRegister also writes that one of the “best” security features in Windows Vista (64-bit version), The Patchguard, has already been punctured! oy wei…
However, Microsoft have done some good things over the years… DirectX is one of them – even though it has manifested Windows completely as the only gaming platform apart on the PC. Firingsquad has an interesting article on the upcoming version of DirectX, DirectX 10, which will only be available on Vista (The Godsforsaken EULA-infested version of Windows)… The article also takes a historical view of the development of DirectX and its former versions, which is funny to see in retrospective
On the neverending story of DRM a funny read is the story of a Washington professor and his experience with the many types of DRM in Security Focus…
Of course we have good news .. It is now almost official and a bad kept secret these days, but Diablo 3 is coming!
And it wouldn’t be an interesting week without some news from Sony This time it is C|Net that is testing/evaluating the cheap version of the Sony PlayStation 3. They haven’t quite understood to seperate hype from reality – e.g. they still assume that the Cell processor will run 3,2 ghz, which is not yet a fact! What really worries me is that Sony have placed a battery in their controller: “the controllers will likely employ an internal battery that can be charged via mini-USB cable.” .. and thinking back on Sony’s trackrecord in battery-making this will make the PlayStation 3 even more “exciting” – or a more “hot” device you might say
Posted by
DarkJedi – October 27, 2006
This is just a small followup on some of the many cases I have been blogging about…
First of Sony’s profits is down 94%, while able competitor Nintendo’s profits are up 72% .. Perhaps Sony should try to understand why the wind is blowing this way!
Secondly, as I have mentioned earlier, the EULA in mainly the small version of Microsoft’s upcoming operating system, Windows Vista, is ridiculously restricting… Now Acer is commenting on the restricting license, saying that Microsoft on purpose is doing this to boost sales in the more expensive versions of Vista!
Thirdly I will just mention again that the goddamn music industry, once again represented by IFPI (International Fraud and Powergreedy Idiots) won the first outcome in court against telecompany Tele2, and apparently were also behind VISA’s decision to block payment from AllOfMP3, who has still to have a court ruling against it?
On a similiar note customers have begun to tag products from Amazon, which are carrying DRM to help other customers against buying this defective product…
A really good pierce of news today is that Mozilla.org have been disclosing some of the features they expect in Mozilla FireFox 3.0, which will arrive next year! (among others: Places, Cairo 2D graphics acceleration and Gecko 1.9 engine)
Oh year, and on a small funny note evidence have finally been recovered that beyond any doubt proves that Harry Potter is a ripoff of StarWars
What a crazy world we live in!
Posted by
DarkJedi – October 26, 2006
Okay, perhaps I posted too soon on the good side of the music industry as their dark side struck hard yesterday…
The main problem with the music industry is that they have realised as of lately that their distribution model isn’t fit for this age (or the last two for that matter), and they need an alternative to fill their wallets to the brim again… It is one of the only industries, where cartels are still perfectly legal, and not punished by the law, misinformation is the way to their daily bread and technology is used perfectly legally to lock people into submarkets (cartel) and away from competitors (and thereby free markets) of which they have no say and are constantly loosing rights to music they previously were accustomed to! Of course this doesn’t mean that anything become cheaper even though you loose fundamental rights over the purchase you make – much like the latest EULA distributed by Microsoft in Windows Vista, as previously mentioned!
Yesterday IFPI, Anitpiratgruppen and the rest of the sad, pathetic loosing part of the Music Industry showed that they will sell their mother for a chance to keep their ridicolously high pay-checks… As they now realise that they are going out of business if they do not sue enough of their customers and continue to act like ignorant 700-century apes they yesterday showed that in their eternal hunt for a bit of cool cash they are now willing to sell the basic freedom of a democracy!
Yesterday IFPI somehow persuaded an equally ill-informed and ignonant court in Copenhagen to enforce telecompany, Tele2, to block the russian digital music provider, AllOfMp3, on their backbone – in the same way as they do with child porn… Where is perspective in that? Is child porn and music sharing the comparable crimes? No, in no fucking way!!! … How come a private company like IFPI can decide which websites to be blocked and which not to be blocked???!!! This is a direct assault on the freedom of speech on the internet… The main difference between child porn and AllOfMP3 is that the police authority in Denmark comes with a judge-approved decision when they request a child porn site to be taken down, and in the case of AllOfMP3 a private company (IFPI) comes with nothing but the fact that the site is illegal in Denmark to download from, but still legal in its native country, Russia… Where will this madness end? Can I now as a private person request that random websites be block on the backbone because I deem them illegal or not in my taste? The internet would quickly loose its function and its basis, but hey, that’s probably the biggest victory IFPI could ever archive – and they got a good step of the way yesterday, thanks to that ridicolous judge… Naturally IFPI have already announced their big win all over the world on Grammy.com! A win that ensures that Denmark will soon have a more strict censorship on the internet than the “democratic” republic of China – Gee, thanks IFPI, you must be proud!
Thank God that Tele2 has not giving up yet and are now heavily supported by the rest of the tele-industry… Good luck fighting for our basic rights!
Posted by
DarkJedi – October 25, 2006
Just a couple of articles for the interested
It appears that we should not regard anyone in the music business to be as ignorant of their customers, users and fans out there… Apparently it is mainly of problem of the distributers – not the musicians! Some musicians have even started a coalition against acting with such horrid ignorance against your fans and customers – and are against DRM, which seems to be more about controlling the markets and keeping out competitors than controlling music being copied… And this is good news! (Or at least a start of reason trying to get back into the music industry!)
On a second note Sony have reasonly released their own comparison of the XBox360 against their upcoming PlayStation 3… and even the Nintendo Wii (which doesn’t make much sense in that comparison as they only compare on hardware – as is still the only way Sony understands!). The problem with the comparison is of course that Sony makes a lot of wrong assumptions in order to justify that their price for the PlayStation 3 is right, and even cheap compared to the XBox360.. and as we all know “Wrong assumptions is the mother of all fuckups!”
A more interesting read, however, is the IGN’s comparison on raw hardware power between Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s XBox360… and Sony: It still doesn’t look good – and don’t forget: you are still a year behind!
Posted by
DarkJedi – October 23, 2006
As of lately many have been writing a lot of positive articles on the PlayStation 3… It is a good valued bundle and the console works well! It might be that Sony have put together a well-designed and well-working console, I agree. But there is a problem with the equation! Where will Sony make money? It isn’t like the last time they launched a PlayStation, where an upcoming competitor just barely launched, and they had all the known game-titles and the name in the console-business. This time people know the XBox, know the games for it, like Halo, and definitely also expects Nintendo to take their part of the market (Many perhaps also from the group that finds the PlayStation 3 too expensive, but wants a new console this christmas!).
The main problem for Sony is that Sony is used to selling consoles with a loss to gain the upper hand, but this Microsoft is a year ahead, and Sony doesn’t quite consider just how much they need to loose in order to win! They claim to be able to recoup fast, but how exactly will they be making money? Not on the console and not on the games as they will not be in the exclusive club anymore (and will even allow game publishers to distribute their games freely on Sony’s network)… They expect to earn on selling hardware like the PC and become a new Apple – the center of home entertainment? Well, good luck – That’s exactly what Microsoft is gunning for, and they already have the entire PC Desktop Market
Claiming back the loss of selling the PlayStation 3 isn’t the only part of the investment Sony needs to get back … It has also invested enormous sums of money into the production of the PlayStation 3!
The question remains: If Sony doesn’t earn money on the console, on the games and has an enormous investment in the PlayStation 3, where will Sony earn its money?
Posted by
DarkJedi – October 20, 2006
Just a small bit of news from my personal life. Apart from spending a lot of time working these days I have been out buying a bit more hardware. My old 17″ 25 ms white Acer monitor just didn’t fit anymore so I bought a new one: The Samsung 205B … A nice, clear widescreen 20″ screen!
Playing Oblivion in 1600×1050 with HDR is absolutely magnificent
Posted by
DarkJedi – October 19, 2006
The income of Sony is starting to feel the heat of the many problems Sony have created for themselves: Faulty and dangerous batteries, competitors in the console arena and much more, which resulted in an expected net loss in income this year by 38%… In a year, where they have done much to cut expenses! Not a good sign, definately not a good sign.
If the PayStation 3 does not become a major performer for Sony economically they will soon need to start selling off parts of the company to maintain cash-flow. Perhaps they should sell of their music and movie business and then start to act like an electronic company again? … Perhaps even start to listen to their customers?
Well nobody knows
Posted by
DarkJedi – October 18, 2006
We have all seen the billboards and televisions in games, from the days of Duke Nukem 3D and onward. While persons today use less time with their television, and when they do zapp most of the time, they spend a lot of time playing computer games. It didn’t take long to figure out how to reach the consumer again and bombard him with advertisement… The answer is: Ingame advertisement and it’s big business – growing VERY fast!
However, there are some concerns and basic rules that the publisher should be aware of, and unfortunately EA haven’t really got the brains for that. Such a big company, owning half of the computer software industry, simply doesn’t listen to its customers. There are a few rules that the persons who pay good money for a game expects, when the publisher starts to push advertisement into the game:
- It should lower the cost as they can earn quite a bit of cash on this, so either the price of the game must go down, or the content must be that much better…
- If the game is not placed on our time period the ads should reflect this.
- The software that drives the ads should not expose the paying customer in any way.
The problem with EA’s way of thinking became clear when they released Battlefield 2142 – the newest version in a popular series with a large audience. The problem is that the way they implemented ingame ads simply violated all the rules: The cost of the game is exactly the same, so the buyer gets nothing for being exposed to ads. The game is placed in 2142, where the newest version of the Honda is probably is bit different than the one Honda launched this summer, making it impossible to immerse in the game. But the worst part is that the ingame ad service is maintained by a spy-ware program, that logs your IP and your browsing habbits and “Other non-personal information”, which is not even disclosed to the buyer… This is simply ridiculous, and I expect this to hit as hard on EA as the SONY BMG Rootkit-case, as spyware is always prone to exploits! My guess is that this case will be one of the biggest public relation scandals EA will ever face, and they will never see it coming, as they never listen to their customers…
So suddenly EA’s motto: “It’s in the game” has a totally new meaning – and not for the better!
Posted by
DarkJedi – October 17, 2006
Sony has by many been declared the winner of the next-gen console war – even before it began. However, the realities of production and how to win the customers may have been a little different than what analysts and especially Sony predicted.
While Sony and Microsoft did all they could to make their next-gen console as powerful as possible, so that the best graphics and sound could be shown in the games Nintendo went its own way again – focusing on innovation and its customers… While the titles for Sony’s upcoming console will be the usual stuff of 1st/3rd person shooters and car games – this time with better graphics, but the same game play, Nintendo’s titles will be the experience that children and especially their parents have long hoped for: Interaction and movement… Now, for the first time, you will not be a small fat boy by playing console games. With Nintendo’s new WII you will actually have to move, interact and train your eye-to-hand coordination – A training area which parents love to throw their children into instead of having them sit quietly and unmovable by the computer or the playstation getting wrist-pains and worse.
The focus area of the two main contenders: Sony and Nintendo is in interaction, where Sony could learn a bit about history and see that Nintendo can be a fierce opponent!
Of course Sony’s response is to mimic Nintendo, when they finally realised that their competitor was not really Microsoft but Nintendo, was to steal some of the ideas from the Nintendo controller and integrate it into their upcoming PlayStation 3 controller… But alas fast work is ill work!
My personal opinion is that Nintendo’s Nunchuk controlled, the price and especially the fact that it will be fun to watch your friends or family play the Nintendo games will decide the outcome of this battle…
