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iPhone 4S… bl apple, bl
On July 11 2008, the iPhone 3G was released.
11 months later on June 19 2009, the iPhone 3GS was released.
12 months later on June 24 2010, the iPhone 4 was released.
16 months later, the iPhone 4S has been announced.
It’s taken Apple well over a year to produce just a revision of the iPhone 4, which is only just on par with the current Samsung Galaxy S2 in the tech-specs. And will in no way stand up against the next android phones in the coming months.
I get that they have been distracted with the illness and now recent passing of their co-founder Steve Jobs. But that really shows how much they relied on Jobs to lead them through every hurdle.
So it should be interesting to see how they go under the control of Tim Cooke. -
One gaming platform for all consoles.
This is something I’ve always wanted, so it’s good that there are some big wigs putting the word forward.
Enough of these segregated gaming communities (XBL, PSN, PC etc).
I know the bottom line is business, but I’m sure there are other ways for them to compete.
The selling point of a console should not be its online community, it should be the strength of it’s hardware and performance. Because companies know that the bulk of users are buying their console to play with their friends, so they put a large portion of money into it. Plus let’s not forget the costs of maintence/upkeep to keep these networks running.
This is all money that could also be used else where.
Let’s say for example Valve created a platform in which all consoles (Yes, that means PC also) were brought onto one gaming network.
For starters and most obviously, the amount of users is substantially increased. The que times would be a lot shorter!
For example (An example inside an example, oh shi-):
One of the reasons I purchased Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood for Xbox360 was to see how it’s multiplayer would go. I was solidly impressed, however the ques were sometimes very long (hours in fact) and so I cancelled my XBL service, because it just became pointless to me.
However, if I was able to play online with other users on other platforms I probably would have found shorter ques and would have kept my subscription.
The second pro is your competition just got better and no more of this “I am number ‘x’ on MW2 for ‘platform’”.
One single ladder of competition would prove who is actually boss.
Also let’s not forget those times you discovered your friend playing the same game as you. You both get excited to pwn each others face off, until the awkward “…you have it on PS3 right?” “ohhh no… Xbox…”.
The third pro is dedicated security (or actual security if you own a PS3. “oh snap.”).
Valve is a company renowned for its constantly improving security and would provide a solid more dedicated security team (Not just some guy that Sony hired AFTER shit went wrong). This also would take the pressure off of the console companies who now more than ever have to dedicate more of those dollars towards constant security for their networks.
Those are the most obvious pros for one online gaming platform, but what are the cons? and how can we work around these?
Money. That’s literally it, but it’s unfortuantely how these machines run.
However, let’s go deeper into this.
- Loss of subscriptions for their individual networks:
If there was one gaming platform surely that would mean the subscriptions to XBL and PSN would be no more?
Incredibly right. But, you would most likely pay a small subscription fee to Valve’s platform (I mean Small, because Valve are the masters of making things cheap.). However, it wouldn’t be too farfetched for Microsoft or Sony to attach a fee of their own and I imagine it wouldn’t be that much. Especially when you take into account that not all of your current subscription fee goes straight to their wallets. Firstly it goes into the running costs of the network, future expansions, staff, etc and then what ever is left over from that will goto them.
And I imagine if it came to it, I’m sure most people wouldn’t mind paying a small increase so that they can play with all of their friends and not just some of.
- Harder to stand out in competition:
As I stated at the start, their online networks have become a big selling point. Which sucks, because I don’t want to choose my console based on who I can play with.I want to choose my console based on hardware and performance.
Eliminating that selling point would make the competition greater. Because then you will have the companies putting alot more thought and money into their next consoles, rather than chucking more of that money into their online aspects.
- Loss of DLC and other digital content:
This is very much the same problem/solution as the subscription.
They still would not lose out here, because DLC is generally for a game of a console and won’t be a case of one-for-all. This would make it easy for them to still put their own cut on the DLC.
In conclusion,
I support one gaming platform for all consoles.
I think I will wrap this up as I am getting tired.
If you couldn’t tell by my jabbering haha.I am very keen to hear what anyone else thinks and would be keen for a discussion.
So feel free to comment :)
Adios amigos!
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MacSecurity?
I remember this ad:
I’ve been doing some exploring through the Mac OSx tonight to really see how they do things.
While I won’t deny the overall look is very snazzy, I don’t think it is as user-friendly as everyone makes them out to be.
Infact, I found that anything that wasn’t a big bloated icon required a great adventure through Nav bars and the poor File System that would put the one rings trip to Mordor to shame.
Also, another thing was when I would want to close a window or application. I clicked the red X thinking “Close”. Which turned out to be pretty much another minimize button and to properly close it I had to close it through it’s drop-menu on the Nav bar. Alternatively, I could’ve hit “Mac-button+Q”.
But, I thought it was plain common sense that when you click the red X you want to close the damned thing. If I wanted to minimize it, I would’ve clicked Minimize.However these “annoyances” are nothing compared to what I found when I went testing the system security.
In the video I linked at the start, “Mac” is meant to be insulting “PC” because of the constant security warnings and confirmations. Now, granted this happened ALOT in Vista and has been better perfected in Win7.
But, what I discovered was that Mac has the option of a Firewall. But, the damned thing is off by default!
There is a reason we have Firewalls and especially when your consumers are generally not IT savvy, who fall for opening malicious emails, links and downloading malicious attachments. So having these Firewalls on by default helps prevent this shit.
So the next time someone claims their Macs are virus-free (And that’s their reasoning behind owning one), you can shake the bajebus out of them. Because, it’s easy to think you’re virus free when there is nothing there to either detect or prevent them.I am still exploring around the Mac and hopefully will have more crap to talk about.
Please feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate the feedback and love a good discussion!
Peace out homies! -
I love how every piano has it’s own voice and story.
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HAH
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I think Koji Kondo needs to follow Nobou Uematsu’s lead and actually perform his work more. I would pay everything to see a Koji concert <3
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Oh God, yes!
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Two churches located across the street from each other. At least the Catholics have a sense of humor. lol
…Do the Presbyterians think Rocks are animals?
Just have to.
Holy shit balls!
(via nayandherblog)
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New Fav
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Best.
