Official Blog Post: What The Bloody 'ell Happened?

[Prometheus]

you can't say that!!

are you insane?, the big bad internet troll will get you for sure :unsure:

I guess I must be. Heavens.

when the Internet speaks (or in this case...laughs uncontrollably), then a product is doomed h34r:

By that logic, the Pandora's doomed too, surely? :lol: There's been plenty of internet-speak from folks out there to that effect, no? (Note to anyone reading: I'm joking.)

And where do viral marketers who try to poison opinions for or against products come into that?

they missed a metric ton of functionality on the Ipad, why should it succeed where better devices failed?

Regarding something with "less" functionality succeeding where "better" devices have failed: That's what happens when customers are overshot by "better" devices - for them, the "lesser" device may be the better one, because it may very well work better for them.

It's like, say, mobile telephones. I am overshot by all such devices on the market - and almost nobody wants to sell to me because they're too busy offering "better" functionality to folks who want that, whilst customers like myself just want a telephone. That "better" functionality is making a worse product for customers like me (and customers like myself are usually unheard in online discussions, as such things tend to be biased in favour of the desires of the aforementioned folks, which then leaves an untapped market who have priorities other than joining discussion forums to add their voice), so we don't buy these things. I do chuckle when I hear people say things like "Everybody has a mobile phone! Just tether it!", though (but that's really "the curse of knowledge" and is an entirely different discussion ).

The notion of making such things often tends to be sneered at as being for "stupid, technologically-illiterate old people" or suchlike by folks who would be undershot by such an item, as they haven't yet been overshot themselves and don't see why someone would want a phone-only-phone as opposed to a phone with blue teeth, cameras, internet access and so on and so forth (a similar thing is when there are claims that some things are "only bought by posers" and whatnot, without looking at why it is that some of these things sell multi-millions, or who is really buying them). In this example, a much simpler product will probably be released and be laughed at - but it may very well sell many millions. A simple example, but there you go. (None of the people in the example are "wrong", they just have different requirements and priorities.)

Again, I stress that I'm not saying that this will necessarily be the case with *this* device, though - I'm just explaining my thinking.

no hope, bury it and pretend it never happened (like Lucas did with the star wars Christmas special)

I'm just going to observe with interest, as I don't buy excuses like "People will just buy it because of the brand name". I'll be curious to see if people buy them, and their real reasons.

 

[laurencevde]

Just let me yell and rant a bit for a moment, ok?

Xbox360 arcade doesn't count. That machine borders unusability. It's meant for people getting a second Xbox, and to lower the marketing-price...

"technologically-illiterate people": guess what? that's >90% of the entire (western) human population!

There has NOT been A SINGLE decent, useable, tablet. They ALL failed either on the area of weigth, battery life, price, or enough performance to be of some use. Most of them failed on all of those points. The iPad is the first one that I know of that's at least useable on all of those points. You can (f.ex) actually use it while walking around all day. You can hold it with one hand. It should fit in a (big) woman's purse. Yes, it's a bit(?) locked down, and that'll limit the device's market, but most people just don't care!
Oh, and the PC is practically the only lots-of-functions device/ whose functionality increases with time. Think about that for a sec...

Prometheus, I guess you just want a phone that can call, is cheap, and has a looooong battery-life? Yeah, so do I... They are available. Here in NL, I could get a nokia or SE for €60-90 with long battery-lifes, and philips has a line of very-long-life phones (9@9 I believe) but those can't be called cheap...
US however, you're screwed anyways. First of all, you can't get Nokias, secondly, you (practically) can't get a phone-plan that doesn't subsidize your phone, so you can just as well get a more expensive phone...

 

[Prometheus]

"technologically-illiterate people": guess what? that's >90% of the entire (western) human population!

Bingo. That's one of my points, but put more bluntly. :lol: Thanks. (As an aside, I tend to think it's more of a matter of people having different priorities, than any real form of illiteracy, myself. On that matter, this is an interesting read - look for the "genius explorers" line, because it becomes most relevant around that point.)

Prometheus, I guess you just want a phone that can call, is cheap, and has a looooong battery-life? Yeah, so do I... They are available. Here in NL, I could get a nokia or SE for €60-90 with long battery-lifes, and philips has a line of very-long-life phones (9@9 I believe) but those can't be called cheap...

Glad I'm not the only one. UK-based, here - I'll have to look into those. I don't mind having to pay a bit more to get a phone not subsidised by a provider, as long as it does what I want.

 

[Vlynndar]

I have this phone.

Spoiler

It does three things. One, make calls. Two, send texts. Three, not get broken.

When I bought it new, it was about 30 euros. Battery life is good.

 

[mindlord]

I use a LG CU515 - The battery life is phenomenal - 4-5 days between charges if I take my usual 1 or 2 short calls from the wife per day. I turned off 3G permanently, and it makes all the difference.

 

[Chip]

Xbox360 arcade doesn't count. That machine borders unusability. It's meant for people getting a second Xbox, and to lower the marketing-price...

How so? The only difference between the arcade and regular models is that the arcade has 512MB of flash storage instead of a hard drive. Since that's the same amount as the Wii, I don't see how you can claim it "borders unusability".

 

[Consequence_9]

Xbox360 arcade doesn't count. That machine borders unusability. It's meant for people getting a second Xbox, and to lower the marketing-price...

How so? The only difference between the arcade and regular models is that the arcade has 512MB of flash storage instead of a hard drive. Since that's the same amount as the Wii, I don't see how you can claim it "borders unusability".

Because many downloadable games are much bigger than that on their own, not to mention game saves are often bigger on the 360 than on the wii. Wii downloadable games on average have a much lower mb count. I dunno if I'd go as far as to say it borders on unusability, but it is certainly a hindrance (as it is on the wii as well).

 

[fischju2000]

Xbox360 arcade doesn't count. That machine borders unusability. It's meant for people getting a second Xbox, and to lower the marketing-price...

How so? The only difference between the arcade and regular models is that the arcade has 512MB of flash storage instead of a hard drive. Since that's the same amount as the Wii, I don't see how you can claim it "borders unusability".

Because many downloadable games are much bigger than that on their own, not to mention game saves are often bigger on the 360 than on the wii. Wii downloadable games on average have a much lower mb count. I dunno if I'd go as far as to say it borders on unusability, but it is certainly a hindrance (as it is on the wii as well).

On 4.0 and up you can load Wiiware and VC games from the SDHC slot. (After having purchased them on said Wii and transferring them off the NAND, which isn't hard)