Sometimes I wonder why I read Dailytech user comments...

Alright, news story this time is that AMD has finally launched a 3ghz version of Athlon64 on Socket AM2. It's a little over $600 right now, and Newegg had some.

As I'm reading through the limited user comments on Dailytech, I began to call into question why I even read those comments to begin with. I saw several people talking up Core2, Conroe, and Kentsfield and how it's better than Socket AM2. Now, since I have a feeling that some jackass is going to not like having their warped reality called into question, I'm not laying odds on the post remaining viewable over on DT.

So, lets put it here.

Alright, I just read the above posts, and it's time to rip them apart.

How long has Socket AM2 been out? About since May 23rd 2006.

How long has Socket 775 been out? THG talked about the launch back on June 19, 2004.

How many people who bought Socket AM2 motherboards last year, back in March and April, are able to use Single Core, Dual Core, Quad Core, this new 3.0ghz chip, and AM3 socket Processors? Every single one.

How many people who bought Socket 775 motherboards last year, back in March and April, are able to use Conroe, Dual Core Conroe, and Quad Core Kentsfield. Almost none.

The point is, every single time Intel launches a new processor, even for an existing socket, in this case one that is for a socket well over 2 years old, chances are you'll need to also be buying a new motherboard with it.

So, to those who claim that you should pick up E6600 over an Socket AM2? Sorry, but I like being able to buy a new processor alone, not a new motherboard at the same time.

So, if you did make the mistake of buying Conroe based chips, and it was a mistake, you have my pity. Take it.

I'll have the upgrade path for myself.

A word on Google-Bombs.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/01/quick-word-about-googlebombs.html

Google has made some changes to the algorithms in place in trying to deal with various Googlebombs, or linkbombs.

One of the best known of these practices is the search phrases "failure" and "miserable failure" bringing up George Bush's biography. Now, I personally have never been particularly happy with this particular bomb, for a couple reasons.

1st: Speaking from a social standpoint, what does it say about a party or people who have to manipulate data in order to get the results they want. In other words, if Bush was really a failure, would not that be born out in truth? Would there be a need to manipulate links in order to make the connection?

2nd: What does it say about the mindset of the people who feel, or think, that manipulating this data is their only way they have to say something.

Now, both questions are rather rhetorical. It is obvious to a neutral bystander that the people responsible for Linkbombing the term "failure" and "miserable failure" are the only true failures at work there.

However, it does uncover a couple other questions that don't sit well with those who create Linkbombs to begin with.

1: What political party affiliation are the culprits part of?
2: What are the social and economic opinions of the culprits?

Again, the answer is rather clear in the case of the President Bush LinkBomb. The culprits are more than likely Liberal Democrats with leanings towards the teachings of Marx or Stalin.

So, one final question.

Why do we never hear of this kind of behavior from Conservatives, whether they are tagged as Conservative Democrat or Conservative Republican?

Yeah. Squirm away culprits. Truth has never needed to be manipulated, only lies need to be manipulated.

Good-Bye-Sony- PS3 Market Research

Allright, what follows is a follow-up to the Playstation Portable Market Research published on Gamenikki.com early 2006. I attempted to research the market conditions and placement of the Playstation3 system. However, the PS3 market research was never completed. The Simple reason is that I simply could not keep up with Sony's blunders. By the time I had tracked down a specific quote, verified the sources, ran the numbers, and everything else, a Sony representative would do something else that required investigating. Now, after the launch of the Playstation3 with most major retailers reporting Playstation3 units in stock and available, trying to pick apart how the Playstation3 would fail doesn't make as much sense as trying to determine a plan of action that recover the losses and keep Sony in business. I for one, personally, don't want to see Sony go bankrupt. I'm not very comfortable with the idea of Microsoft, a company with a long history of abusing monopoly status, having a lock on high-end console gaming.

However, as many people will attest, I have often referred to this unpublished document and linked to a .pdf version multiple times over the past several months. In order to go forward determing what Sony can do, I feel that the PS3 Market Research needs to be on a public site that anyone can view. So here it is, unfinished, not really edited, and several pages long... get comfy.

Goodbye Sony.

It seems odd today with my large library of Playstation and Playstation2 titles to ever think that I was anti-sony, but when the Playstation launched I rejected it as a gaming system. As far as I was concerned the Sega Saturn and the Nintendo 64 systems were the only real gaming systems worth talking about. My bias against the Playstation went so far as to reject Final Fantasy VII as a gaming title. It was not until several years later, after the Dreamcast launched, that I finally began to view the Playstation as a valid gaming platform, primarily at the insistance of a friend that I play Final Fantasy IX. Other releases such as Final Fantasy Chronicles (Chrono Trigger, an old favorite of mine from the SNES) helped me purchase an original Playstation system, but the sad thing was, I owned several games and played them through emulation before I ever actually owned an original Playstation.

The Playstation2 carrying titles like Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy X, and Ratchet and Clank, helped solidify the console in my mind as a gaming platform. I wasn't one of the first in line to get the system, however I had picked it up before the Gamecube launched. The Sony picture was spoiled with the behavior of Sony Online Entertainment (S.O.E.), and Sony's true colors were seen again when Sony moved against Connectix and the Virtual Game Station.

Most gamers have seen the reports before of the internal fighting that took place between Sony Corporate and Sony Computing Entertainment. It was no secret that for years Ken Katuragi and his section of Sony was the black sheep of the Sony corporate family. Then, something happened. Sony Corporate began to fall from grace. Competitors like Samsung were rapidly eating away at Sony's traditional products in home entertainment, such as TV's, DVD players, and VCR's, generating several articles about "The new Sony? It's a Samsung" ( http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/the-new-sony-its-a-samsung/2005/07/27/1122143906059.html ) In other markets Sony lost share to competitors in handheld cameras, video recorders, as well as lucrative audio markets. Sony/Ericson, the mobile product division, also lost ground against competitors in the mobile space. According to Business Week back in 2000 the Playstation brand was Sony's strongest brand, surpassing that of the Walkman ( http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_12/b3673182.htm ). Over the past 5 years as Sony filed it's quarterly and annual reports to entities like Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Fair Trade Commission of Japan (JFTC : http://www.jftc.go.jp/e-page/ ), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and tax agencies in Japan and Europe, the picture was painted clearly. Playstation was not just Sony's best known brand, it was it's only brand.

The amount of failed products under Sony's watch is perhaps legendary. Remember the Minidisc ( http://www.minidisc.org/ )? The New Walkman ( http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/08/sony-throws-down-a-new-walkman/ ). How about ATRAC? ( http://www.sony.net/Products/ATRAC3/ ) Sony, is at the very least, an excercise in watching brillant ideas go to waste under the onslaught of proprietary technologies. Sony obtained a reputation for releasing products that were copies of already established products, and for introducing propietary technologies inferior to already avaialble open technologies.

Why then, is the gaming public, so shocked over the Playstation3? Why is the gaming publics so shocked over the pricing of the system, and then the included features? Why are those who are technologically involved for several years acting with surprise at Sony's current set course?

The easiest explanation, I believe, is that nobody thought Sony could possibly be that stupid. A perhaps, gut instinct, that at some point wiser heads would prevail and Sony would realize the position it held in consumer confidence and in the technology market overall. However, that hasn't happened, so our first question at this point is why? Why has Sony not woken up to where it is?

This again, I think, has an easy explanation. Sony believes itself to be a technology leader when it is not. Sony has billions of dollars sunk into product research, and there is a strong possibility that the corporate culture will not allow Sony to accept that it is not a leader within technology. I think this corporate culture explains the ATRAC media encoding format. Despite the fact that the .mp3 and .ogg Vorbis formats were and are much wider spread, Sony continued to push a media format that no manufacturer outside of Sony itself was using. While it might be accurate to run a comparison to Apple's Itunes audio format, it is important to keep in mind that Apple uses the .Mp3 format as the base for it's Itunes service, Apple did not create a completely new format to compete with established formats. This corporate culture may also explain the mini-disc, another product that found itself redundant in a market with crashing CD-R prices, affordable CD-burners, and media players capable of playing .mp3 and .ogg formats.

From the outside, it appears that Sony's mantra is Sony is the center of everything, and everything is around Sony. This is a particular dangerous market mindset to have, something Sony should have been aware from the 1970's and 1980's with the Beta video format. We've already been over how the VHS format succeeded over Beta, and there is little reason to rehash that story.

So, Sony has a corporate culture problem that prevents it from recognizing and dealing with current market conditions. However, if this is the Sony Corporate Culture, doesn't that make the Playstation and SCE an anomoly on Sony's track record of products? No.

Now, as already mentioned, SCE was Sony's black sheep during the 1990's. Ken Katuragi's SCE was not as well funded as the traditional production segments within Sony, often being the subject of derision from other Sony employees. The result is that SCE had to make intelligent decisions within Sony in order to be profitable, and the higher standard SCE held for itself showed through. The original Playstation, a Nintendo product that Nintendo rejected, became the best selling console of all time ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation / http://www.playstation.com/business.html ). The Playstation brand rose, outside of Sony's Corporate care, a blacksheep that supplanted the walkman as Sony's best known product. We've already been over that, but it is important, because Sony Corporate decided to make SCE the focus.

The Playstation became the center of Sony's future living room. First invisioned with the PSX console, then with the Playstation3, Sony intended to ride the Playstation brand back to dominence within the home entertainment industry. SCE became Sony's frontman, the visible entity up on the stage singing for all to hear. SCE because Sony's single shining star.

And that is a problem. Sony's internal corporate history of products and behavior was in distinct contrast to the behavior and policies of SCE, and when SCE became the frontman for Sony, that meant that it became the frontman for all of Sony's previous baggage.

The result is that gamers today should not be at all surprised by Sony's behavior. There should not be any surprise that Sony just doesn't understand how badly E3 2006 went for the company. There should not be any shock as to Sony's arrogence that 5 million people will buy Playstation3 even if there are no games. ( http://digg.com/gaming/5_Million_People_Will_Buy_PS3_Even_If_It_Didn_t_Have_Games_Says_Sony_ ) There should not be any outrage that Sony will now license its games instead of selling its games. There should not be any confusion that this is the real Sony that has taken a back seat to SCE for several years. This is the real Sony Corporation that gamers are finally getting to meet. This is the Sony Corporation responsible for driving wonderful Massive Multiplayer Online games into the ground. This is the Sony Corporation responsible for purchasing emulation technology for X86 processors then bold face denying they purchased the technology until court statements were faxed in. This is the real Sony.

Now, over the past 2 entries I've made on Sony I've detailed their booth report and wrote an open letter outlining the path that Sony absolutely needs to take in order to extricate themselves from the mess created by the E3 2006 showing. There is little doubt that Sony will not follow any suggestions. The corporate culture simply will not allow Sony to accept advice from outside parties.

Now, at this point, we've established that there is a corporate culture within Sony, that the corporate culture is corruptive, that the corporate culture did not effect SCE at it's start, that the corporate culture is now affecting SCE, and that there is a long history of this corporate culture affecting Sony's ability to react to market conditions. From this point I want to delve more into the Playstation side of Sony and look at exactly why Sony is making bad choices and try to explain the possible rationale behind these choices.

First shock : license

The first shock is that Sony now intends to license games instead of selling games. This is actually what Microsoft does with Microsoft Windows, and what the Recording industry does with music. You do not actually purchase the content. What you purchase when you "buy" Windows Operating System or a RIAA member music CD is a license to use the product as the legal /owner/ dictates. That is why people who copy RIAA member music cd's are susceptable to being taken to court, as well as being jailed and or fined. The fact is, once a consumer agrees to a license, they are held to that license.

One of the items I mentioned a long time ago in the casual blog is an upcoming editorial on Digital Rights Management, reffered to as DRM. One of the concepts of DRM, as explained to consumers, is that it allows the /owner/ of the content to decide what happens to the content. That is the reason why owner is bolded. When you purchase a license to use content, rather than the content itself, you are not the /owner/. Rather, the owner is whoever produced the content. DRM, therefor, is used to control the content as the /owner/ wishes. If you are not the /owner/ of the content, you do not have control.

The gut reaction to realizing what licesning content and DRM actually are intended to accomplish is that content providers would never actually do that. Unfortunantly, content providers are already doing that. Sony/BMG has been in hot-water for using Music-CD's to install root-kits in Microsoft Windows Operating Systems.

The reality is, Sony fully intends to remove consumer control of Sony produced content. Consumers will not actually own the content, it will still legally be Sony's, and Sony can use the content in any way it pleases. This ties into Sony's view of the living room of the future. Everything is centered around Sony and Sony is the center of everything. Everything entertainment related is Sony. Consumer Advocy groups and privacy groups will probably have a field day in courts with this.

Second Shock : rumble

The second shock was the reduction of rumble from Sony's Playstation 3 controller, creating a controller similar to Nintendo's Wavebird. When Sony announced the new controller design their press release stated that getting the motion sensing to work required dropping the rumble portion of the controller, in effect copying the Nintendo Wavebird. However, the Wavebird eschewed the rumble feature because the battery life and weight was not acceptable to Nintendo. With the Wii controller, Nintendo includes not just rumble, but a full 360 degree sphere of spatial interaction, and a speaker, all with similar battery life to the WaveBird, if not longer. Sony's announcment of no rumble and motion sensative control caught many developers off guards. Some developers, such as Capcom, were upset to learn about Playstation 3 motion sensative controls from the Pre-E3 Press Briefing. Sony's release on May 8th ( http://www.us.playstation.com/News/PressReleases/340 ) declared that " the vibration feature that is currently available on DUALSHOCK® and DUALSHOCK®2 controllers for PlayStation and PlayStation®2, will be removed from the new PS3 controller as vibration itself interferes with information detected by the sensor."

At the time of the press-release Sony's argument was percieved as acceptable. Logically, it did make sense that a technology designed to spontaneouly move the controller in eratic and random directions would interfere with the ability of the controller to determine it's positional location. Within 24 hours the argument went from acceptable to questionable with Nintendo's demonstration of their new controller designs for the Nintendo Wii. Within a few days the questionable logic from Sony turned into yet another PR disaster driven from Sony's E3 show. The real story behind the facade involved a long running law-suit with Immersion Corporation, producers of force feedback technologies and devices. ( http://www.immersion.com/ ). Several years ago Immersion had hauled Sony and Microsoft into court for infringing on rumble designs used in game pads manufacturered by Sony and Microsoft. Microsoft settled with Immersion, licensed the Immersion technology, and proceeded to buy just under 10% of Immersion stock ( http://www.immersion.com/corporate/press_room/in_the_news_2003.php ). Sony elected to fight Immersion in court, and as many expected, continued to lose in court againt Immersion. Immersion called Sony's bluff on the reduction of rumble from the Playstation 3 ( http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17141 ), extending their idea of an olive branch by offering Sony several solutions to getting rumble technology to work with the Playstation 3 controller. These solutions are not pipe dreams either; eDimensional ( http://www.edimensional.com/ ), a licensor of Immersion technologies, already has working controllers for PC and PS2 that integrate 6 axis motion sensing with Immersion rumble ( http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17279 ). The only catch for Sony is that Sony would need to drop the ongoing appeal against the court rulings and pony up $90 million to Immersion.

Sony's move to drop rumble from the Playstation 3 was a clear move to remove itself from the quagmire of the Playstation and Playstation2 rumble controllers. Part of the injunction Immersion successfully won against Sony was a court order to cease all shipments of Playstation and Playstation2 units. Removing rumble from the Playstation 3 would allow Sony to have a new console on the market without rumble controls, and Sony could comply with the injunction instructions to cease shipments of Playstation and Playstation 2 units. That brings about a whole new can of worms. If Sony did comply with the injunction and yank Playstation and Playstation 2 units from the market, that would leave a console drought Sony would gladly fill with the Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable units.

Third Shock : price point

The third shock Sony dropped during E3 was the price point of the Playstation 3. What is more confusing to the outside observer is that Sony took Microsoft to task over the dual pricing structure of the Xbox 360 back in 2005 ( http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=11209 ). Yet, in 2006 Sony announced it's own dual unit pricing structure, with even Ken Kutaragi saying the console was probably too cheap. ( http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=16971 ) As one of the few, if any writers, who presumed to write that the Playstation 3 would be as cheap as the Xbox 360 to make, if not cheaper, Sony's pricing structure of the Playstation 3 was indeed shocking. $600 is the price of a brand new computer, something I already addressed in the open letter to Sony. However, why this price? What is the rationale or explanation behind it?

The primary reason is the marketing push behind the Playstation 3. Sony is pushing the machine as the "cheapest Blu-Ray" player. However, with Microsoft pushing the Xbox 360 and it's HD-DVD Drive attachment at a price under that of the Sony Playstation 3, movie watchers will have a cheaper way to get High Definition Movies and a powerful gaming system. As I've already written, Blu-Ray cannot be the sole focus of Sony. The Playstation 3 cannot be sold as the cheapest Blu-Ray player. Why? Why is that so? Why can Sony not sell the Playstation 3 as the cheapest Blu-Ray player?

Because consumers don't care. Think about Sony's history for a minute or two. Sony has a long history of producing competing products for content delivery that were rejected by the market place. First there was the Beta format, already discussed in the Playstation Portable Market Dissection. Then there was Mini-disc. Then there was the Atrac format. Then there was the UMD format. Each propietary media content delivery platform as envisioned and implemented by Sony has flopped in the market place. While most consumers may not care, the fact is that Blu-Ray movies are targeted at the movie consumer who buys a lot of movies and buys the best equipment to watch those movies on. The small niche of consumers that actually care whether or not the movie is in 640 interlaced or 1080 progressive scan. Sony themselves displayed the problem with High Definition content with the looped Gran Tourismo 4 video during E3. Yes, the picture quality is fanastic when you are 5 feet away from the TV. But as you get beyond 10feet, 20 feet, 30 feet, and so on out from the TV, the High Defintion picture advantage is completely lost. Gran Toursimo 4 in High Def looks exactly the same as Gran Tourismo 4 at 20 feet. The average consumer is not going to be swayed by a picture quality difference they can't actively see. The result is that very few consumers are going to actively buy High Definition movies because the movies offer a much higher resolution picture. That reveals the second problem Sony has, the problem of content delivery. HD-DVD is already here, today. Consumers can already obtain HD-DVD movies and players. The small niche that actually cares about the quality difference between standard DVD and High Definition DVD's are already buying HD-DVD units. That small niche will not be buying when the Playstation 3 launches. The third problem Sony has is that the target market is well aware of past Sony products. Many of the market that is actively into purchasing High Definition content is still feeling the bite from Beta. These consumers are already edgy about Sony products, the long history of broken and shattered promises lingering within memories.

The point of all that is that Blu-Ray is not going to be the dominant movie delivery system that Sony is wishing it to be. With a standing price of $1000+ per Blu-Ray player, the Blu-Ray format is not going to be a popular holiday sales gift short of the extremely small market that can afford a $1000+ player and a TV to display the pictures on. The next question then is why does Sony think it can sell the Playstation 3 as the cheapest Blu-Ray player? Why does Sony need Blu-Ray to succeed? Why does this matter to Sony?

Sony thinks it can sell the Playstation 3 as the cheapest Blu-Ray player because Sony still believes it is a technology leader. Sony still behaves like it is the sole force that drives content delivery platforms for the consumer. Sony's corporate behavior indicates that for Sony it is the year of the Beta video cassette or the year of the walkman. Well, it isn't, and there are more market considerations to account for. Sony inherently believes that Blu-Ray will sell because it is a High-Definition content device and that consumers will want Blu-Ray movies. Since Sony believes that Blu-Ray will be the dominant content delivery platform and that all consumers will be lining up to get Blu-Ray players, it can sell the Playstation 3 as the cheapest Blu-Ray player and that consumers will line up for the Playstation 3.

Sony needs Blu-Ray to succeed for more drastic reasons. As already covered in the PSP market dissection Sony stands to regain billions in revenue from Blu-Ray disc licenses, billions that Sony currently doesn't have. At the end of 2005 during Sony's year-end financial statements it was revealed that only two sections of Sony's corporate structure were profitable. SCE, boosted by UMD license profits, and the section responsible for selling LCD displays. With no other section within Sony performing at a profit there is a potential major financial problem for the Sony Corporation. Blu-Ray represents the holy grail of the return to being a profitable company. If Blu-Ray succeeds as the High Definition content delivery platform of choice the royalties derived will be astronomical. Every manufacturer involved in optical content delivery platforms, be it the disc manufacturers or drive manufacturers would have to fork money over to Sony in order to ride the Blu-Ray bandwagon.

That is why Blu-Ray matters to Sony and why it is so important to Sony internally as to why the Playstation 3 must be positioned as the cheapest Blue-Ray player. Sony believes the Playstation 3 to be the forefront of it's return to technological domination within home entertainment. However, this marketing path is one that will not work, at least not in it's current state, and Sony is going to run into a serious problem if it believes that the Playstation 3 will sell on the promise of Blu-Ray alone.

Fourth Shock : Content

The forth shock Sony dropped during E3 was the sheer lack of content for the Playstation 3 platform. To do a quick comparision, Sony's raised platform only featured 4 titles for the Playstation 3. Behind Nintendo's closed walls were 27 different Wii games. The Xbox 360 also had multiple Xbox 360 titles on display covering the Role Playing game, the first Person Shooter, sports, 3rd person action, as well as typical movie license titles. While many 1st and 2nd party developers for Sony have had Cell based systems since 2004, 3rd parties haven't been as fortunante. The result was a dearth of appreciable titles for the Playstation 3 platform. It is one thing to launch a platform with a small number of games, it is another to launch a platform with a small number of games that people actually want to play.

That was one of the faults the Playstation 2 ran into. The number of games worth the cost of the platform were extremely few to start with. It wasn't until Capcom's Devil May Cry did the Playstation 2 have a title that drove sales based on a game alone. Nintendo, traditionally the king of poor launch lineups, admitted that it made several mistakes with the launch of the Gamecube and the Nintendo 64 ( http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17287 ). Yes, it's nice to have a single game that is worth playing, but it takes more than a single game in order to be successful. The problem is with Sony's launch is that there are no exclusive must have titles for the platform. Nintendo is going to launch their system with a Zelda title and plan to have Mario and Metroid titles out quickly as well. Sony is going to launch with...

The lack of content actually available for the platform is one of the reasons why Sony's arrogence about 5 million people buying the console anyways is so infuriating ( http://digg.com/gaming/5_Million_People_Will_Buy_PS3_Even_If_It_Didn_t_Have_Games_Says_Sony_ ). The question is at this point, why does Sony think it can get away with having little or no content for an extremely expensive gaming console?

Sony's positioning of the PS3 is odder yet by a quick sampling of previous consoles that have topped the $500 launch price mark. There have only been 2 consoles to top the $500 mark before. The Neo-Geo console which weighed in at $650 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Geo ), and Trip Hawkins 3DO platform at $700 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3DO_Interactive_Multiplayer ). While the Neo-Geo and 3DO brands are probably recognizable to today's gamers, many are probably not aware that previous owners of the brands attempted to enter the home console market. As expected, both console attempts failed outside of niche purchasers. Sony apologists make the argument that it is inaccurate to compare the Playstation 3 to the Neo Geo and 3DO consoles, basing these innaccuracies on arguments such as console features. One of the arguments deals with the available gamer populace. There are far more gamers available who can purchase a gaming console than there were back in 1990 and 1993, so there are more who will purchase the console. This argument does have a basis in truth. The overall gaming market in 2006 is indeed larger in terms of the number of players and the amounts of revenue generated. However, this particular market hinges on the idea that the gaming market would buy consoles in the same ratios that the consoles were purchased at in 1990 and 1993, or at least in ratios favorable to Sony's Playstation 3 price points. The immediate problem with that particular assumption is that the video game market is as narrow today as it was in 1990 and 1993. Today's market is much more diverse. Thus, while there are more overall gamers available who might pay for an extremely expensive console, the number of gamers available who will pay for a console at the Playstation 3 price points are probably few in number.

In Sony's situation the available market conditions at the time of the Playstation 3 launch are not favorable to the purchase of the system either. Traditionally, the producers of a console use a subsidized marketing process in order to generate revenues. For example, when the Gamecube launched in 2000 it had a price point of $200. However the production cost of the Gamecube was most certainly in excess of $200, probably closer to $300 or $350. Nintendo sold the console at a production loss, then made money from the profits generated by the sale of Gamecube games. For those who remember Microsoft's entry into the console space with the original Xbox many investors shied away because Microsoft was not experienced in dealing with subsidized markets. Subsidized production campaigns are the major issue on why available content is so important. The Neo Geo and 3DO consoles flopped not only due to the high price, but the lack of meaningful content that was worth a purchase. While Neo Geo does have some properties such as Metal Slug and King of Fighters, no one would argue that these properties are worth the singular cost of a console.

It appears that Sony is under the perception that people will buy their console without any meaningful content to have on the console. While this might be true, this isn't healthy for long term finances. Witness the Xbox and Microsoft's Home Entertainment Department which never posted a profit over the length of the Xbox's life. Now, Sony believes that they can get away with launching at the current price points because their current content delivery line is focused on the Playstation 2. What Sony intends to do is use the funds generated by the Playstation 2 licenses in order to fund the initial rounds of Playstation 3 systems. Then, when developers get a handle on the Playstation 3 and actually start producing games for the system, Sony will then be able to rest on the funds generated by the Playstation 3 games. To Sony there is little reason to think that this will not work. This is, afterall, the same process that was used to launch the Playstation 2. Those who remember the lackluster Playstation 2 launch titles will remember that the Playstation went out on a blaze of titles like Dragon Warrior VII. However, there are several conditions of the market that are decidedly different between 2006 and 1999 when the Playstation 2 made it's debut.

The first difference is that as of the end of 2006, only one non-gaming section of Sony posted a profit. The rest of the entire Sony corporation is not profitable and will be unable to generate any support for Playstation 3 platform. This will have the effect of increasing the visible financial damage by SCE on Sony's overall financial records.

The second difference is that Sony will be launching alongside another hardware platform, in this case Nintendo's Wii system. Over the course of 1999 and 2000 Sony launched the Playstation2 without any direct competition. This is important to consider given Nintendo's selling price is even lower than the competitor already on the market.

The third difference is that in 1999 and 2000 when Sony launched the Playstation2, Sega's Dreamcast was not experiencing full 3rd party support. Instead the Dreamcast was ignored by developers like Electronic Arts. In 2006 the Nintendo Wii is experiencing an incredibly strong line-up of 3rd party titles that are completely unique from the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. The Xbox 360 is also enjoying full 3rd party support. The result is that the Playstation 3 is not launching into a market where the Playstation 3 will have the exclusive content factor.

The forth difference between 2006 and 1999 is that in 1999 and 2000 Sony was in a position to strong arm developers and force them to drop games from other platforms. That particular strategy is marked by Sony's strong arming of Valve software in order to prevent Half Life: Blue Shift from launching on the Sega Dreamcast. Sony's control over 3rd parties in 2006 is hardly the same, and attempting to strong arm any developers from releasing games on the Microsoft Xbox 360 or Windows Platform is not a wise idea. Unlike Sega in 1999 Microsoft can easily make it worth a developers time to completely ignore the Playstation platform. Nintendo's console which is radically different from the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 has wide spread developer approval, another target Sony would be unwise to attempt strongarms over.

If Sony honestly believes that it can be profitable and sell Playstation 3 units without any support content, the Sony Corporation will be in for a rough ride. Content is what moves systems. Content is what kept Nintendo in second place world wide sales, and content is what kept the original Xbox from ever getting out of the third spot in worldwide sales. Microsoft learned their lesson and is making good with several new games for the Xbox 360. Nintendo and Microsoft are ready and waiting to release their finalized content for their respective systems, and Sony has nothing to combat that. One of the mistakes Sony made during E3 is that the Playstation 3 content avaialble did not make anybody walk out of E3 and say "I must absolutely get a Playstation 3 to experience that." Nintendo and Microsoft succeeded in their pursuits, much of the talk around E3 was about people who now had to get an Xbox 360 or a Nintendo Wii system.

Fifth Shock: DVI, HDMI, Component, and HDCP

The fifth shock Sony created was the fuss over the lack of an HDMI port on the lower model Playstation 3 system. This particular shock has already been directly addressed in the Sony booth report. However, this time around, I want to examine the specific reasons over why Sony has these different formats to begin with, and what the logic and rationale behind these reasons are.

The primary advantage to an HDMI cable is that it transmits the same digital signal as a DVI cable and can also carry an 8 channel audio stream. This is signal is also the same that is used in the popular Component cable format. The HDMI plug is also smaller, and the cord can be thinner, making it more flexible. Using adapters consumers can also use DVI plugs with HDMI cables, or use HDMI cables with DVI plugs, or use HDMI to component cable plugs.

Another advantage, from the viewpoint of entities wishing to license and control content, HDMI natively supports HDCP, an encryption protocol used to secure High Definition content against fair-use practices. Corporations like Sony that have a desire to control how, when, and how much, content is experienced by consumers, HDCP is a giant leap ahead.

The primary disadvantage of HDMI is that the plugs and support chips are more expensive to produce than the seperate support chips and plugs for DVI cables, component cables, and coaxial or digial audio cables. The secondary disadvantage to the connector is that it isn't very widespread. Most High Defintion Television sets on the market use component input, and most 16*9 format LCD monitors use DVI input. While HDMI plugs could be converted to DVI or Component output, doing so could require special keying of the original plug.

The logic behind Sony's move with the use of HDMI was fairly clear. HDMI was positioned for use on the premium Playstation unit,

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17279 : eDimensional rumble controller.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17287 : gamecube launch lessons

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17273 : ship 6 million units

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17269 : use opera remote to surf

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17238 : PS3 price point

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17231 : blu-ray key for games

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17179 : peter moore on PS3 controller

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17141 : immersion calls Sony on rumble

₤

Simon Adebisi : NCSoft, please ban the holder of this account.

And I quote from City of Heroe's Local chat :

Simon Adebisi : I told you one already, JC'Angelo, when you in my cell you sit down to pee, now I have to shank you


Next thing I know this player is hauling a Giant Monster down on the taunt team in and effort to wipe the Hamidon Raid. NCSoft, you need to pull this guys account, and his credit card number, and make sure that he never comes back to the game.

Zune only has 2% of the market? Who would have guessed.

Checked Dailytech and one of the current headlines is about the success of the Ipod yet again during Christmas time : http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5493

Microsoft's Zune also found space in the article, but I'm sure a lot of readers are familiar with the adage that a bad promotion is just as good as a good promotion. The idea being that even if you create a ruckus about a product through bad advertising, people who report on your bad advertising have to mention your product by name anyways, which results in people hearing about your product anyways. Rockstar Games has used this concept to great effect with Grand Theft Auto, Bully, and other games. News agencies complaining about the games have to refer to the Rockstar Developers and refer to the games by their direct names, which means that the average person watching FoxNews is going to hear about Grand Theft Auto. They may not understand, but the name is still placed out there. This is also how Jack Thompson got such prominence, if you were asking me. But I digress.

There appearently is some surprise within the Music Industry that the Zune has taken a nosedive, not that Steve Ballmers infamous Squirt terminology was helping the system. Appearently a lot of people within the Music Industry were supposing that the Zune was going to be a success. Afterall, it was selling right next to the Red Hot Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii systems right in Gamestop. It surely is/was a better media player than Sony's MYLO and Playstation Portable system. Why would it fail?

I, for one, do not find the Zune's performance surprising at all. The Zune is basically a repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat ( http://www.gigabeat.com/ ), a player that almost nobody has ever heard of, also for good reason. Now, I could be wrong about this, but I wasn't able to find a positive review about the Toshiba Gigabeat, most of the reviews I've seen lumping it along with Dell's failed Ditty.

That being said, it is plausible that the Zune could pass One Million Units shipped by June 2007. However, there is a key word in there that I think a lot of people are skipping over, and that is the word shipped . Now, we've already been in this mess before with Sony and the original Playstation, not to mention the Playstation Portable. Shipped units are not sold units. We've also had this before with the original Xbox from Microsoft as well, which used Shipped Units in the US instead of sold units to give a perceived higher sales numbers than the competing GameCube from Nintendo. While the Xbox eventually did take a substantial lead in the US, many analysts still try to use the shipped numbers instead of retail sales numbers.

The catch is that Units that are shipped from the Warehouse are not sold units. Fact is, Sony and Microsoft have a long history of embellishing sales numbers by either mis-reporting the numbers, or by changing the way the numbers are presented. I, personally, already hammered Sony on that back on Monday 23rd of January 2006 at 08:30:01 AM on Gamenikki's blog. The Sony PSP Market dissection is reprinted here : http://www.gamenikki.com/g3/features/Jason.php?id=...

To quote myself

The question is why? Why would Sony not expect to sell as many PSP units in 2006 as it did in 2005? We'll get to that later, but for now, lets take a look at another piece of the puzzle.

At this time there is no doubt about the domination of the PS1 and the PS2 in the gaming world. The PS1 is by far the worlds most popular console, ever, and the PS2 is by far the most popular of the current generation consoles. It was not always like that though. During the late 1990's Sony was actually known to pull many tricks in order to make the sales of the Playstation appear to be better than sales of competing consoles, such as the Nintendo 64. Sony was known for counting consoles returned for repairs and shipped back out as new consoles. Another one of the tactics used back then is that Sony would list the number of Playstation units shipped out as the number of units... um. Well, the number of units sold.

Sounds suddenly familiar doesn't it. Sony didn't sell 10 million plus PSP units, but they did ship that many. Now, what I want to ask, is what the average user going to think when they browse through press listings or blurbs on a news site. Those are such big numbers being tossed about, and the idea of a million anything to an average web page browser is indeed a lot. What exactly looks more competitive? 9 million plus handhelds sold versus 13.5 million handhelds sold, or 10 million plus handhelds versus 13.5 million handhelds

The fact is, Microsoft isn't promising that one million units will have been sold by June 2007. All they promise that one million units will have shipped from the factory. Now, if Microsoft wants to step forward and say how many Zune's they actually expect to sell to end users by December 2007, I think that number is going to be a few hundred thousand short of a million.

There are several reasons why the Zune isn't selling, the least of which being the terminology associated with the unit, the restrictions placed on sharing music, and the ugly design. The fact is, the Zune competes directly against "Plays for Sure" devices. Microsoft, as far as I see it, turned on their own sales partners and is reselling a "Plays for Sure" device without the "Plays for Sure" support. In addition, the Portable Music player field is littered with entities that have come and gone. Sony who used to dominate with the Walkman can't beat Apple. RIO, who created the market, is where now? Creative, who owns the high-quality home consumer sound market for computers, hasn't been able to dent Apple.

So why would analysts believe that Microsoft would be capable of competing where the people who created the markets failed? Money isn't everything. Microsoft may have billions, and they may have their Tax on new computer systems, but, media players aren't locked into a personal computer.

Now, i'm tempted to continue on about how Microsoft can't leverage their illegal monopoly. At this point, I'm going to direct you www.roughlydrafted.com

I'd start here :
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/D2B2568D-4F51-4808-BB9E-07B800E6D44D.html

Although this page gives a more convenient listing of all the articles.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM/1E546447-B703-4C61-8CC4-68849DF3C9AC.html

Btw, slight word of Warning. The writer of the Roughly Drafted Articles is very Pro-Apple, and does not really effectively cover or view Open-Source. Cited examples include that Linux isn't ready for the desktop, something that Mepis disproved back in 2003, and Ubuntu has helped enforce.

The writer also attempts to make political jokes about the US Government. As best I can figure, it does not appear that the Roughly Drafted writer actually ever took Government 101 in any high school. So, do keep a keg of salt on hand while reading through the articles there.

Chewing out Dailytech responders, one idiot at a time.

yes, Trigger Tyme and Paintball has been pushed back. I've gotten some emails that... um. Well. Lets just say that I'm not wanting to get in the middle of whatever tiff is going on between Trigger Tyme and an apparent competitor.

Anyways, the subject of today's post is yet another person repeating an oft-disproved lie about Microsoft products. So, here we go. This is the original post I made on Dailytech, in response to Vista Activation getting cracked again.

I found this line to be, well, hilarious:

Despite Microsoft’s best efforts to shut down this latest exploit, it does leave us wondering jus how secure this new operating system if it can be poked at and prodded this early after release.

Many of the security features were already being cracked a year ago or more on the beta's that were going out. Over the past 6 months as the final release firmed up, the known exploits didn't stop. We knew literal months ago that Vista was no more secure than a properly configured and hardware firewalled protected Windows XP or Linux OS.

The end fact is, it's still going to take work to protect any computer system, any OS. Vista has changed nothing in a System's Administrator job, end of story. We don't have to wonder. We know that inherently, any Microsoft product will be less secure out of the box than it's competitor. We know that people will still be earning paychecks fixing that.

Someone came along shortly after that and ran this comment:

Only less secure because the "competitors" have 3% market share, therefore nobody gives a (manure) about cracking them.

Oh... yeah. The old Market Share equals more attacks argument. Lets go ahead and eliminate this bunch of marketing mud right now.

Slight problem with that Sharky.

Mind telling me what Web-server powers the majority of Web-sites in use today? And what Operating system is the basis for the most servers in use today?

I'll answer for you: Apache and Linux.

Despite having a majority in server usage for games, banking, shopping, web-pages, ftp, or anything else where a server is used, you don't hear about major Zero-Day or Near-Zero-Day exploits for Linux or Apache.

The line that Microsoft products are less secure because they have a majority in the consumer market is inherently based on several false assumptions.

The first assumption is that Microsoft products are easier to crack. This is based on the sheer number of exploits that make appearances in the wild. However, there is very little code documentation available for Microsoft software. With Linux and Apache there is ample documentation available, and even beginners in coding can grasp the way the programs actually work. The fact is, it is easier to modify a program that is fully documented rather than one that is not. If malicious crackers wanted to make SoBig and IloveYou look like childs play, they would have attacked Linux and Apache servers.

The second assumption is that all of the computers sold by Microsoft-Licensed OEMS remain with a Microsoft OS. This is partially based in the so quoted "Microsoft Tax." Nearly every complete computer system sold on the market ships with a Microsoft OS. However, even a casual browsing of Distrowatch, or casual browsing of the forums for Ubuntu, Mepis, PClinuxOS, and other versions of Linux show something startling. There aren't just hundreds of posts from people reporting they've "switched", there are several hundred thousand posts. The problem, if you want to call it that, is that there is no reliable metric for determining what Operating System somebody is running on their computer. So, while it's safe to say that Microsoft probably has greater than 50% market share, assigning any percentage above that to Microsoft ignores ample evidence to the contrary.

The third assumption is that all cracks are equal. Now, I have not personally done this, but I do know people have taken the time to dig down through Symnatec's reports on Windows and Linux vulnerabilities and existing exploits for those vulnerabilities. Now, we've all heard the marketing from Microsoft that it is more secure than Linux, and we've all heard from Linux developers that Microsoft isn't telling the whole story. Symnatec bears that out. We've all heard about the penetration rates for Windows virus's. Hundreds of computers are affected each month by a new vulnerability. Spyware and Adware code is on a rampage. However, when looking at Open-Source OS's like Linux, and Applications like Apache, over 70% of the reported viral exploits available only have been found in Symnatec's testing labs, with a penetration of 2 computers.

So, not all cracks are equal. Not all exploits are going to do the same damage, or initialize in the same manner. There are several people who do care about cracking Linux and Apache. They just have paying Jobs from the likes of IBM, Novell, RedHat, and Ubuntu.

Now, please stop the F.U.D. that Microsoft products are less secure because of Market Share. Confirmed majority marketshare is only true in one particular market, and does not apply or indicate the industry as a whole.

Something else popped into my mind while I was posting this into Blogger.

Vista isn't even out yet for the average user. I can't go down to Best Buy and get a copy of Vista off the shelf right now. Most manufacturers are not even selling HomePC's with Vista right now, almost all holiday models are all Windows Xp.

So, right now, Vista doesn't even have .01% of the home market, and it's server penetration rate is far less. There is also a known issue with SQL Server 2005 Express, which does not run on Vista.

So, right now, Vista has the overall penetration of say, BeOS, RISC-OS, or maybe Amiga. This brings the market-share ratio F.U.D. into perspective. Vista does not even have the market share of BeOS, and it already has more major published vulnerabilities and exploits than either 3 of it's market-share peers.

Triggertyme... not yet :: 95% of who supports Novell Microsoft deal?

The torrenza post had been sitting in que for a few days, I wanted to toss it out after TriggerTyme. But, while writing the TriggerTyme report I noticed I was creating both a "report" of the weekend and a "Why I play Paintball" entry.

So, that's now been split into two entries...

While I finish those up them, I wanted to comment on this story from Cnet:

http://news.com.com/2061-10795_3-6142793.html

Microsoft is touting that in a survey of 201 computing industry decision makers, 95% supporting the agreement. Now, back on May 8th of 1998 Illiad's Userfriendly comic strip commented on Microsoft's survey about whether or not Windows 98 should be stalled by the goverment.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19980508

Userfriendly commented that Microsoft had 835 directors and Vice Presidents, which would have given the required 5 to 1 ratio out of 1002 respondents. Back then, it made a nice joke, but the point of the comic strip still stands.

Microsoft does not clarify who was polled, or for which companies. All Microsoft states is that 201 computing industry decision makers. What is the metric for determining how these decision makers were polled. Was IBM polled? Was Sun Polled? Was Red Hat Polled? Was Open Office polled? Were FireFox developers Polled? Were Apache developers polled? Were the SAMBA developers polled?

The quick answer is, no. None of the developers who have made industry changing decisions in the past 10 years were polled.

So who did Microsoft poll then? Corel? SCO? SGI? Their own employees? Novell's employees?

Until Microsoft comes forward with clarification on who was polled, or agrees to run a new poll and explicitly ask the above mentioned companies and developers their stance on the Novell/Microsoft agreement, we should file this as shameless promotion and ignore it.

Torrenza: Why AMD may not have to introduce a new processor

Over some of the past entries I've commented on Intel's Conroe/Core2 design inability to scale performance with processor speed. I've also commented on the Athlon64 design which does scale predictably has the speed increases.

However, AMD has yet to introduce a direct competitor to the ultra-high end Conroe/Core2 designs, such as Kentsfield, and nor does AMD seem to be in a hurry to do so. Many AMD fanaticts seem to be convinced that AMD will answer Intel Shot for Shot, and fully expect Quad-Core to regain the performance crown. Many analysts seem to believe that AMD will release another version of the K8/Hammer design that will make up the few percentage points lost to Core2.

AMD may, but they don't have to. Back in 2001 and 2002 AMD was beginning to show off the architecture they called Hammer, a fully 64bit processor with amazing potential. Early tests showed that Hammer was putting out performance numbers on par with AMD Thunderbird and Intel Willamette and Northwood designs with a 1ghz clock advantage.

When the AthlonXp 3200 launched, AMD knew that the Xp line was running out of steam. The Intel 3.2ghz Pentium4 was the clear winner in a majority of benchmarks. Rather than continuing to answer shot for shot with Intel, AMD pushed Hammer, the Athlon64 processor. Remember what Intel initially said about x86-64? That 64-bit was useless and that nobody wanted or needed it? And what actually happened as time went on? Intel only began x86-64 support with Prescott in 2005, 2 years after AMD, and even then applications compiled for x86-64 specs under Linux wouldn't run with Intel's version.

AMD redefined the battlefield rather than continuing an arms race of who could get the fastest clocks out of the processor.


Just the same with Core2 and Athlon64. AMD has already been in this position before. Intel, while slow, is capable of competing. The Athlon64 would not always be the most powerful processor available, AMD has never said otherwise. Just as the Pentium4 3.2ghz went beyond the AthlonXp 3200, something would go beyond Athlon64.

And again, AMD has redefined the battlefield, this time with the processor inter-connection than with a new processor design.

Torrenza is basically cache coherent Hypertransport, allowing for processors or chipsets to be directly aware of what other processors or chipsets are doing. By opening up CC-HyperTransport, AMD can link their processors directly with other processors that may not be of Athlon64/Hammer design. As is, Sun Microsystems, HP, and IBM are behind socket compatibility, placing their processors into AMD sockets. Sun is known for it's Sparc Architecture and the most recent Niagara design. HP has the PA-RISC architecture and what is left of the Alpha Architecture. IBM is one of the primary backers of the PowerPC architecture, and while Sony may be failing with Cell in the Playstation3, the Cell design is not one that can be dismissed.

Now, let me try to put some context here:

In the common computer today it is taken for granted that not all processors process in the same manner. Some processors are better at some tasks than others. AMD and Intel typically focus on the Central Processor, the brains behind the computer. The central processor collects, collates, arranges, and directs the computers other systems. ATi and Nvidia typically focus on graphics, designing high performance add-in cards to increase visual display quality. Creative markets a sound processor that has a focus on producing the best sound possible. AGEIA markets an add-in card that removes physics computations from the central processor. BigFoot makes and markets the Killer NIC, a hardware networking card.

There is no question that each of these different dedicated hardware parts are better in terms of performance than integrated parts. The difference may be noticeable in only a few cases, but it is there.

Now, given that we take for granted that a computer can have a multitude of different tasks that are each served best by one architecture, is it really too much of a stretch to think that the same applies to the Central Processor?

Sun's Niagara design is a monster in several server tasks, but even with the most powerful video card in the world, don't expect it to be able to run Unreal Tournament 1999. It is not built to run that kind of code.

What Torrenza enables is multi-central-processor systems that don't have to be one architecture. Lets say that somebody running a webserver may also want to host a game server as well. Today, that means having to buy two different computer systems. One that is tuned to serve web-pages and one that is tuned to serve games. With Torrenza, that person could buy one server, equip one socket with an Athlon64, and the other socket with a Sparc Niagara design processor, and be able to do both.



That is how the battlefield is being redefined. AMD's Athlon64 is not the be all/end all processor design. There are some tasks that it just will never be as good at. With Torrenza though, consumers can use a completely different processor which can be stronger in areas that the Athlon64 is not strong in.

This is why AMD doesn't have to rush another processor architecture out the door, or ramp the speed up on the existing Athlon64 designs. A single server with an Athlon64 processor and a Cell processor inside would render Conroe processor designs irrelevant. Intel can have the single application performance crown, that won't help when the competition is able to answer Conroe processor designs with equal performance in similar tasks, and also give a devastating performance difference in tasks that the Conroe architecture is not designed for.



Now, I do need to state that I am intentionally trying to avoid the Operating System question in relation to Torrenza. There is only one Operating System available that could possibly pull this merger of architectures off, and its not from Microsoft. It may also be years before we actually see anybody putting anything like this together. However, consider this:

Intel:
took 2 years to add x86-64 support into Pentium4
is 3 years behind AMD on delivering comparable x86-64 performance
is at least 5 years behind on a Direct Connect Like Architecture

By the time Intel gets their Direct Connect Like Architecture out the door, Torrenza could already be fulfilling the scenario outlined here.

Firefly MMO Flop in Progres |or| Intel Larrabee Flop in Progress

Recently two bits of information popped up on some news feeds that have caused a stir. The first is that Multiverse has licensed FireFly/Serenity and will be using thier in-house MMO engine in order to make a FireFly MMO-RPG. There have also been wraps taken off of Intel's Larrabee project which aims to take over Nvidia and AMD/Ati as the provider of high-end graphics cards.

Wired News originally reported on Multiverse's FireFly acquisition here:

Apparently Multiverse intends to use FireFly as a highlight and high profile example of what their engine can do. Now, when I went to http://www.multiverse.net/ I noticed a blurb on the side that states this:

TerraNova
November 9, 2006
Multiverse > SL > WoW?
Which is the future of virtual worlds? Experts or the masses? Multiverse appears to be hedging its bets by allowing its tool set to be used by either.

That is what starts ringing bells that something is wrong. Second Life is only able to handle a few thousand people at a time, is very slow loading, and generally looks like a lab project from somebody learning to make 3D objects. World Of Warcraft can handle a few million people at a time, is much faster on loading, and looks like a professional grade graphics project.

As you poke around the Multiverse site, something else jumps out. Multiverse does not actually make any games. Rather, they make a quoted Technology Platform for games. In otherwords, all Multiverse does is make a GAME ENGINE and expects to license the game engine out like ID Software (Doom3 Engine), Epic Software (Unreal Engine 3), LithTech (Jupiter EX), or CryTek (Cry Engine).

Forgive me if I think that Multiverse is already on the road to failure with their objective. The problem is, all Multiverse has to show off their engine is a Demo World that comes across as a cheap copy of Second Life. Most other Engine Providers generally have a killer application that show off what the Engine can do.

ID Software's Doom3 engine is demonstrated by Doom3 and Quake4, both high selling titles with massive franchise history. The games Massive Multiplayer capabilities are being shown off by the next Enemy Territory game.

Epic Software backs Unreal Engine 3 up with Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 2007. As with Unreal Tournament 2003, a headline game shows off what the new engine is capable of. With the expansion of Assault into Conquest, Unreal Tournament 2007 also shows off the Engines capability to stream maps, big news for MMO Type Games.

LithTech works closely with spun-off developer MonoLith on the Jupiter and Jupiter EX Engine. Unlike other high profile Engines, LithTech's premier title does not carry the name of the Engine. On the other hand, I don't think Jupiter or EX could be worked into F.E.A.R., one of the few FPS's I ever felt was worthy of a perfect 10.

CryTek made a huge splash with Far Cry and Crysis, titles that set new records for how games should look, as well as potentially justifying spending over $500 on a graphics card to get those looks.

The point here here is that Multiverse does not have a killer application on tap to demonstrate what the Multiverse engine can do. Rather, what Multiverse is trying to do is get someone else to build the killer application. Their plan for the FireFly MMO is to hire a development team to bring the world to life. Unfortunantly, the plan has a fatal flaw in it:

No one is available to hire who can program a Complex MMO.

Think about for a second. The MMO-Market is flooded with development teams. Consider NC-Soft and Webzen for a minute and the amount of developers they have. Consider Sony Online Entertainment and Blizzard for a minute. These companies are already aggressively highering mod makers, coders, and college students who demonstrate skills applicable to the MMO markets.

GuComics (http://www.gucomics.com) runs a comic panel every so often about The Zapper, commenting on deaths within the gaming industry. On August 16th the Zapper Panel listed several companies/games who had gone under. The MMO market is just littered with failed projects that had massive marketing budgets and formally high player counts. One of the most common problems is that the development teams simply could not put together a game that a lot of people wanted to play, the same problem NC-Soft has right now. NC-Soft has a lot of great games such as Auto Assault. Is it good enough for me to pay every month for? No.

To put this in even further perspective, consider NC-Soft's upcoming Tabula Rasa, found over here: http://www.playtr.com/index.html Tabula Rasa has gained a lot of interest because of the person who is creating the game, Richard Garriot, AKA Lord British from Ultima. A lot of players eagerally await the game because they know what Richard Garriot has done in the past. Also consider City Of Heroes from NC-Soft, headed currently by Matt Miller, the creator and player of the character named Positron. If Matt Miller were to up and leave Paragon City, I'd be tagging right along behind because I love CoH. I, personally, would have never looked at SOE's Planetside game if it were not for the fact that the creators behind Tribes were bringing the game to life.

The fact is, once you know who a good game designer is, you'll be more likely to follow that game designer around if they move to another game.

Now, keeping that in mind, start putting the picture together. Multiverse is trying to get a development team together to produce an MMORPG for a high profile property. The problem is, the only people available to really pull together on an MMO Project are either people not yet in the MMO industry, or those who have created games that failed in the MMO markets. People who have the talent to program great games are going to be actively courted by several different developers with high profile projects. Lets say I get approached by NCSoft or Blizzard to be a writer, and I also get approached by some unknown company to to write as well for a long term contract. Which one would I choose?

I'd go with the company that has an established track record.

let me lay it out in a shorter form

Multiverse has

-no Killer Application on hand
-no well known developers on hand
-no reliable source of developers to compete with NCSoft, Webzen, SOE, and Blizzard

The phrase, Cart Before the Horse comes to mind when looking at what Multiverse is trying to do. The good news for Multiverse is that they aren't the only ones who have run into this problem.

Intel also has a problem with putting carts before horses, and that would be Larrabee. The-Register reported on Larrabee over here: Basically, Intel feels that they can take the high performance video accelerator market away from Nvidia and AMD/ATi. Like I think Multiverse is headed for failure, I think Larrabee is also in trouble.

The problem is that like game development, the pool of people available who are capable of designing high performance graphics is relatively small. One of the many reasons cited by ATi over the past several years about shying away from Open-Sourcing their graphics drivers is that everybody who could understand the drivers was already employeed by ATi, or employeed by Nvidia. Looking at the market, ATi is/was probably right about that. Like the MMO markets, ATi and Nvidia have not been the only players, they've just been the best so far.

Consider 3DFX, makers of the popular Voodoo Series of cards several years ago. Despite owning the performance market for games during the time of Windows 95 and 98, 3DFX is now property of Nvidia. Despite having a great API for graphics and fantastic software support, hardware misteps took 3DFX out of the market.

Consider XGI, makers of Volari. XGI was born when Silicon Intigrated Systems purchased Trident and spun off the Xabre line of graphics accelerators. Xabre was decently priced with decent drivers, but really could not make a dent against their competitors. XGI's hardware looked great on paper, but driver support was never good enough to allow the cards to function. XGI was aquired by ATi.

Consider S3, backed by Via. S3's Chrome cards have barely carved out a niche among Home Theater Enthusiasts. Despite decent pricing and decent driver support, they have not been able to crack open more than sliver of the graphics market.

What about former graphics great Matrox? Their Parhelia chip offered fantastic triple screen support, the performance of a Geforce4 TI 4200, at over 3 times the price. That was back in 2003, and since then Matrox has been near silent in GPU discussions.

PowerVR was another high profile, thier last major design win going into the Dreamcast. Did anybody actually buy a Kyro card though?

The landscape for graphics development is an extremely competitive one. While there have been many who have approached the graphics accelator markets over the years, competition for the add-in market drove several out of business or into mergers. ATi and Nvidia aggressively recruit anybody who has talent with drivers or hardware design, and have done so for several years. Even when some of the purchases didn't make any sense to begin with, such as the 3DFX and XGI purchases, the results spoke for themselves. Nvidia brought back SLI, and XGI's hardware designers are no strangers to multi-chip setups either.


So, lets put this in perspective then. ATI and Nvidia have a long history of spending millions of dollars to recruit anybody with talent in their industries.

Intel who has never really left the graphics market, is openly laughed at and mocked by game developers (Mark Rein for example) for their horrible integrated graphics.

Larrabee is a great idea, sure. Competition needs to exist. But lets be honest. If you want to work in graphics, either writing drivers or designing hardware, and you get approached by Nvidia, ATi, and Intel, who would you go with? Would you go to work for the companies with a reputation for high performance graphics? Or would you go to work with a company known for making Integrated Graphics that can barely run Unreal Tournament 1999.

Again, anybody who is competive or talented in the field is probably going to go for the companies with proven track records.

Now, maybe Intel can pull a Rabbit out of it's hat. Maybe they can make a competitive graphics chip based on General Purpose computing.

Keep this in mind though. AMD launched and sold Athlon64 processors in bulk back in 2003. Intel's Core2 processor did not reach mass availability until around August 2006 and the majority of Intel processors available today are still of the old Pentium4 design. It took Intel over 3 years to get a competitor to Athlon64 out the door, and that competitor is still hampered by a Front Side Bus design. Intel is timeling a Direct Connect Like Architecture for 2008/2009. That puts Intel over 5 years behind HyperTransport version 1. HyperTransport itself is already in it's 3rd revision and includes specifications for cables that can connect systems 3 meters away at processor latency.

So Intel is 3 years behind AMD on architecture design, over 5 years behind HyperTransport, and this is Intel's Core (... pun was not really intended here, one of my complaints with Intel's choice of branding) Market. Intel's bread and butter is the Central Processor and the supporting chipsets.

Graphics have been ancillary to Intel's markets for years. If they can't even compete against their Core Competitor(s), what makes us think that they can compete with companies whose entire business's are based on secondary objectives?

I, for one, don't think Intel can.

****


TriggerTyme report coming up next

HardOCP Steve and I agree... (again) :: Handwriting

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1165272610506&call_pageid=968332188492

now, according to this article I found while reading HardOCP's news, Handwriting is ... quote "irrelevant." Now, like Steve who ran the news on HardOCP, I am skeptical of the validity of the report. Now, I can type a lot faster than I can write. I can type a lot neater than I can write. However, despite using a Computer to type with on a daily basis, I have never forgotten how to pick up a pencil and write the alphabet out, or how to form the letters.

This... report... if you will just reeks of laziness on the part of the students. Writing is pretty much like riding a bicycle. Once you get the patterns down, you really can't forget them. Personally the teachers need to suspend all acceptance of printed materials and accept hand-written only. If the teachers cannot read the papers, automatic F.

I think that would jog the memory cells on the students.

I think I should be speechless about ActiveX on FireFox

Part of me does not want to even put the link in text... but, without the link, it is kind of pointless.

http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/plugin.htm#introduction

Somebody is making a plugin to run ActiveX controls on FireFox. Now, I don't know about any of my readers, either from MepisLovers or otherwise, but one of the main selling points of FireFox is that it does not support ActiveX. Even Microsoft admits that ActiveX is a Bad Idea, or at least a Bad Implementation of an idea.

I personally started using FireFox because I got tired of the ActiveX junk that Internet Explorer natively accumulates, and for no other reason. I didn't care about open standards. I didn't care about open code. I didn't care about tabbed browsing. I didn't care about small executables. I didn't care about integrated RSS readers. I was flat out tired of having to run two anti-virus and two anti-spyware programs every day in order to keep the system clean of junk accumulated by ActiveX and Internet Explorer.

Sure, now I care about those things. Now it does make a difference to me. But, the entire reason I moved to using and advocating Open Source software is that I was concerned about security. I wanted to remove as many entry points as possible. Now, we are very much aware of many security analysts out and about writing about how FireFox is no more secure than Internet Explorer. We've heard all about the security comparisons.

Let me put it this way. I can count on one hand the number of compromised and hijacked FireFox browsers that I have had to fix. Matter of fact is, I don't even have to use a hand. Why? Because to this date, I've never actually seen an end user run into a FireFox exploit. Now, I have seen pop-ups get through. I have seen pop-unders. I've seen ads get through. But since I moved to FireFox on windows, the worst browser problem I've seen has been tracking cookies. I can say the same for Opera on Windows.

Now, Internet Explorer, on the other hand, is a completely different story. When I was working for Sitel we received on average 4 calls each, per day, from people with hijacked or compromised Internet Explorer browsers. Now, you figure an average of 60 people taking calls over an 8 hour period, that is/was 240 compromised Internet Explorer systems every 8 hours. That was from our call center alone, never minding what San Diego, Call Tech, Sykes, or WTX-Cox handled (and forgetting the other regional call centers).

After Internet Explorer 7 launched I've heard of numerous reports of peoples whose Windows have been completely been Swedish Chef Borked over by the Microsoft Upgrade. I, personally, have had to deal with 23 different compromises since IE7 launched.

Does that put it into perspective for you on what the real security situation is? Now, I firmly lay the blame for the sad situation with Internet Explorer Security at the feet of ActiveX. I know that at least 20 of the problem IE7's I had were caused due to the "need" for Microsoft to support ActiveX controls from IE6.

Now, when I read that someone is implementing ActiveX controls on FireFox, in ANY form, needs of compatibility is not a phrase that runs through my mind. Gaping Security Hole is. Now, I don't know how we could dissuade the author(s) of the ActiveX plugin to stop, and I understand that there are corporate interests being served that probably would not deploy FireFox (or Opera for that matter), without ActiveX support.

My question that I pose to the Author(s) is this then: Do you really think implementing a process or application, a process or application so dangerous that even the creator of that Application or process gets behind the message that it needs to be gotten rid of, is a good idea? I don't think so.

My Issue with Anandtech | or | why I'm not buying Intel's Kentsfield numbers

By this point in time if you read any news sites at all that have anything related to technology, you probably have heard of Intel's Kentsfield, their Quad-core processor. You probably have also heard amazing performance numbers for it, and probably have been told that it is the highest performing processor you can get.

Excuse me while I call foul on these reports.

Fact is, I'm not buying Kentsfield performance numbers, not by a long shot.

Now, I have several issues with the numbers and performances being bandied about by Intel and Intel sponsored reviewers, and I'm going to start with Intel's Core2 processor. Core2 is why I'm fairly certain that once Kentsfield processors arrive in masse, people are going to find that it is a lemon.

Now, Kentsfield is built on Intel's Core2 processor design, better known as Conroe. It basically fits 4 of the Conroe cores onto one piece of Silicon. Let's review Core2 shall we? Now, if you listen to a lot of review sites out there, say Anandtech for one, you would believe that Intel's Core2 processor is the ultimate processor you can buy.

Not.. really. A lot of reviewers called foul on when Conroe launched. Many noted that the initial benchmarks were designed to fully utilize the massive on board cache of Conroe. Benchmarks showing realistic data sets were far and few between, and real-life use was a mystery.

Reality began to set in when HardOCP took the Core2 processor to the benchmark table. HardOCP strives to avoid using canned benchmarks, and instead tries to record actual game usage. Thier... results... were surprising to many of the Conroe backers. While Core2 was faster than Athlon64, it wasn't by a blow out. Rather, it was only 2-5% faster. The picture HardOCP painted got worse. HardOCP was using the 2.66ghz Core2 and the 2.93ghz Core2 on the tests, and the performance delta between the two was as small as the delta to Athlon64. 2-5%

So, lets do some quick math here, starting with the mhz speeds of 2660 and 2930.

2930 - 2660 = 270

2930 / 270 ~ 11

The 2.93ghz Core2 has about an 11% clock rate advantage over the 2.66ghz version, but the performance wasn't even close for 10% delta.

Now, I personally know that overclocking an Athlon64 2800+ Socket 754 on Biostar's T-Force by 250mhz nets a significant performance advantage. Even overclocking it by just 100mhz nets a larger than 5% performance increase.

I also know that dropping memory timings on the Athlon64 3200+ on Socket 754 from 3, 3, 3, 8 to 2, 2, 2, 5 netted a larger than 5% performance boost. In many cases using ultra-tight memory timings can net anywhere from 15-20% more performance out of an Athlon64 design.

Yet, as Core2 began to propagate out into the market, users have found that dropping memory timings didn't help. Overclocking does not help either. Once users begin to rise above the 2.6ghz mark, Core2 just does not scale with performance.

Many users agreed early on that the problem was Intel's connection technology. Intel is still using the Front Side Bus design to connect their chips to the rest of the system...

and that's why I think the Kentsfield / QuadCore performance numbers are manure. Boosting the FSB connection speed is only a band-aid on an overall larger problem. Core2 is saturated as is trying to move information in and out on Dual Core Systems. Does Intel really expect us to believe that QuadCore, built on the same architecture, can really be so powerful?

Core2, once it got out into the open, has proven to be a worthy competitor to the Athlon64. But the Athlon64 owner who pays attention to their choice of memory and their memory timings are not going to be outrun by Core2.

Intel Apologists no doubt can take the stance that, well, even if the performance numbers are hyped, it will be the most powerful processor period because of the massive caches. It still will be more powerful, so nyah.

The... counter argument... is that power isn't everything. Consumers also have to figure cost. Back when the AthlonX2 4800+ had just come out I ran a post called Rig Recommendations on a Planetside forum. Since then, I've passed the Rig Recommendations article around and it now sits on Mepisguides. One of the particular points I brought up in Rig Recommendations, and points I continued to bring up on forums, was that gamers had to factor in the cost of their processor compared to the power output.

I pointed out that each price point of an Intel Processor, the AMD processor of similar power output was cheaper. If you compared prices directly, the AMD processor was always much more powerful than the Intel Processor. To quote myself:

The Intel 3.8ghz 32bit costs $590

The Intel 3.6ghz 64bit also costs $590

The socket 754 Athlon64 3700+ that outruns them both costs $254

Now, being honest here, AMD hasn't exactly held the "Ultimate" performance crown that often. Remember the AthlonXp? Remember how the Intel 3.2ghz Pentium4 processor ran rings around the AthlonXp 3200 processor?

Fact is, while AMD hasn't always held the performance crown, they've been very consistent at holding the price crown. I still remember explaining to somebody in BurgerKing back in 2002 why he wanted an AMD processor and not an Intel design, and I explained it to him on price. Yes, if he had the money to get to get the most powerful system available, Intel was going to be his choice. But if was stuck on a budget, Intel wasn't even a consideration.

The same holds true today. If you want to build the most powerful system you can for a majority of applications, you are going to get a Core2 system, and now a Kentsfield. But, if you actually have been placed on a budget, or say a fixed incoming, AMD's processors deliver much better bang per buck.

Now, bringing it back to Anandtech. I used to read Anand's site on a daily basis a little over a year ago I think. Anandtech tended to be pretty well balanced. Till, around after Core2 launched, I began to get the feeling that all the motherboard and CPU articles were selling Intel Products. I didn't see any investigations into the FSB issues with Core2. I haven't seen any parallels on how Conroe's Saturation of the FSB mimics the Barton Saturation of the FSB. I haven't seen anything about how Intel will need to move to a Direct Connect Like Architecture in order for newer processors to scale up in performance.

Instead, I read the article about AMD's 4x4 platform and I'm greeted by expressions about how Core2 dominates peformance. Em. No. It doesn't.

Over time I've watched as Anandtech has slowely splattered egg on Anand's face with... questionable content... on the site.

I really wonder, when users actually start getting hands on with Kentsfield, how big is the backlash going to be? How many people are going to realize that they've been mislead?

Scoring high in PCMark is one thing. Being able to run City of Heroes for 8 hours during a Hamidon Raid, or hosting a Web server under *nix for years on end are quite different. And I personally think that Kentsfield will be a lemon once it hits real work.