Quote :

"Fair enough on your assessment of natal and sphere, but two giants pouring billions of dollars into it makes me pretty confident that it's more than just a fad."

There's a difference between a company putting out an optional controller that uses alternate non-button based controls and a company putting out a brand new console that doesn't have buttons. It just wouldn't happen like that. If the sole, or even main purpose of the Zune (or ipod touch) was to play games, they'd have at least a d-pad and several buttons. Simple as that. But as it stands, these devices are PMPs first, Internet devices second, and at best, gaming devices third. Which is fine, they'd be crazy not to take advantage of the fact that they can play games and use that to make extra cash. But what that means for the games is that they're going to be mostly casual games, and the games that try to do too much (FPS, Platformers, fighting games, even driving games) are going to suffer because of lack of precise and responsive controls.

10/7/2009 11:39:29 AM

Quote :

" If the sole, or even main purpose of the Zune (or ipod touch) was to play games, they'd have at least a d-pad and several buttons. Simple as that."

Why? Because that's how it was in the past?

With the emphasis on motion and free touch and away from buttons, times are a-changin'.

10/7/2009 12:08:00 PM

I mean, you're entitled to your opinion and all, but until the first button-free console actually comes out and succeeds...

10/7/2009 12:17:08 PM

Quote :

"But what that means for the games is that they're going to be mostly casual games, and the games that try to do too much (FPS, Platformers, fighting games, even driving games) are going to suffer because of lack of precise and responsive controls."

Yup.

10/7/2009 12:46:01 PM

Real Soccer 2010 works great with virtual controller/buttons. Granted I wouldn't play like this if it were my main console but for a mobile platform its great!

EA on the other hand with FIFA and I hear Madden have really dropped the ball with controls and are just releasing sloppy games and banking on the fact that people will buy it because its EA.

10/7/2009 1:34:31 PM

Quote :

"Buggy as shit describes damn near every app I use. Facebook app = buggy as shit. Mint.com = buggy as shit until the latest release Civilization = buggy as fuck Safari, weatherbug, dungeon defense = buggy as fuck dude, at least 1/3 of all the apps I've downloaded have either crashed or exhibited ridiculous bugginess in the first 30 minutes of use. There's also a big difference between apps on the app store and just any random windows application. If you want to make a comparison, look at xbla community games versus the iPhone. You can argue quality of play differences, but xbla community games are infinitely better from a code quality perspective."

I'm not sure if its because you work for Microsoft or what but I have all of the above mentioned apps and not one has crashed on me. Civilization is incredibly stable and responsive. Mint...i mean its not that impressive of an app in terms of UI and functionality...its fairly basic and that is very stable and has yet to crash on me. Safari is more stable now and responsive then its ever been...but naturally as with any browser it does crash on occasion especially depending on what content i'm looking at. But it is very rare for it to crash to the home screen.

That being said...all of the following apps I have are very well written and stable...those that aren't I delete immediately or don't download if the reviews indicate it sucks.

Tweetie
Facebook
AIM (sluggish)
Things
Shazam
Pandora
iDisk
Air Sharing Pro
Remote
Fandango
myWireless (AT&T)
U-Verse TV (slow but i think thats due to retrieving data)
Jaadu VNC

I've got a dozen or so other apps that I've had no problems with...and a full page of games.

So again I have no idea what you are getting at or what kind of apps you download but the ones you mentioned are no where near unstable.

Quote :

"but xbla community games are infinitely better from a code quality perspective."

again...i don't think you quite understand the definition of 'infinitely'...

[Edited on October 7, 2009 at 1:41 PM. Reason : .]

10/7/2009 1:40:14 PM

I don't think you understand the concept of relative language.

I've worked with objective c in the iPhone environment, and I've worked with c# in the .net game studio environment. There is a massive difference, if as a studio I had the choice, it's not even a contest what platform to develop for. This was a big reason for the success of the xbox and 360, great developer tools. I see the trend continuing with the zune.

I am on my 3rd iPhone 3G. You must have a GS, because there are massive, known problems with the 3G running 3.1. And every app I listed has crashed on me at least a half dozen times. Across two different phones.

10/7/2009 2:26:40 PM

No i understand what you are saying. I have not worked with C# but I have done some .net development (although years ago). I am also working with objective-c and doing some iPhone development. From what I've seen so far Apple has done a great job with providing the tools. Although getting the app on the physical phone for testing is a huge pain in the ass...

Also i've had most of these apps on my 3G pre 3.1 and never had any problems with them. I wouldn't blame the 3rd party developers for apple developers sloppiness with 3.1.

One reason for really sloppy code with iPhone apps is because people are rushing to get their apps out AND outsourcing them. (this does not apply to all apps of course but some)

Quote :

"This was a big reason for the success of the xbox and 360, great developer tools. I see the trend continuing with the zune."

This is also part of the reason for a huge success for iPhone apps because of great developer tools. Apple has made it so easy to develop on their platform.

[Edited on October 7, 2009 at 2:36 PM. Reason : .]

10/7/2009 2:32:30 PM

There's a big difference between making an app easy to develop, and making an app easy to develop with quality code. Objective C (as with every other flavor of C++) requires a LOT of intimate code knowledge, cleanup and stringent adherence to coding standards to create manageable, bug-free code.

The problem is, it requires a knowledgable developer to write good code (which very few outsourced developers have), which is compounded by the moving platform (every Apple update breaks major parts of the platform requiring not only recompilation, but very often rework).

.NET platforms don't have the second problem, and the XNA framework takes care of the first problem. It's a big difference for game development in particular, but even for basic apps, it's a pretty big difference.

As far as the tools themselves go, I agree with you. XCode is a pretty damn awesome IDE, and comes with pretty awesome profiling and debugging tools as well.

10/7/2009 5:48:11 PM

Quote :

"I play casual games. I've yet to play a game on the ds, wii, or iPhone that is unplayable or even a distraction without physical buttons."

While I'm looking forward to the games on this thing, I wouldn't call anything best suited to playing casual games a serious gaming platform.

Have any ipod games so far taken a dpad and buttons on the screen approach? That seems like it could work for more hardcore games.

10/16/2009 11:18:41 AM

A good deal have attempted that.

Its very hit and miss depending on the level of control the user needs to have. Screen space is also a concern

10/16/2009 11:32:53 AM

^^Real Soccer has done that and it works well unless the ball is in the bottom left corner

10/16/2009 12:08:33 PM

Quote :

"Brand awareness != Market share != Profitability != Usability != Functionality."

yes, i forgot, you are the end all and end all mensa wünder kid that can code, drive, solve business issues, etc. etc. .... and you still don't see how those could possibly be connected do you?

basically my point was, and you didn't quite seem to grasp it, very very few people care outside techies.

but we will see what the sales numbers are this holiday season, last year was pretty fucking abysmal for the Zune

comparing xbox live games to iphone apps? really?

10/16/2009 11:29:01 PM

you do realize both xbox live and iphone platforms are huge indie developer resources right?

10/17/2009 9:47:09 AM

^^Yes, really.

Quote :

"and you still don't see how those could possibly be connected do you?"

No you retard. My point is, correlation is not causation. Which you have now missed twice. Dumbass.

10/17/2009 3:58:10 PM

the zune will probably gain more followers thanks to touchscreen. iphone will continue to be a bestseller.

people will like one or the other, possibly both or neither. some of both will be purchased.

seriously, why does every thread about the ipod or zune have to become a penis length contest?

10/18/2009 8:47:57 PM

Quote :

"No you retard. My point is, correlation is not causation. Which you have now missed twice. Dumbass."

why are you acting like such an arrogant ass fool?

any implied causation is a figment of your imagination three times.

^ i dunno, i'm just saying the zune is too late to the party, i really don't care what it can or can't do, in fact i don't give a fuck. at all.

10/19/2009 11:54:43 AM

You said:

Quote :

"more so that 95% of consumers plain don't care about the zune, probably never even heard of it or could recognize the name much less what it does. so it doesn't matter what it can do or what it can't do better or worse than a variety of istuff."

You are saying 95% of consumers don't care about a device, regardless of it's functionality, because they've NEVER HEARD OF IT BEFORE. That is exactly saying that somehow profitability or success is caused by brand awareness. Which is stupid.

^^It's not a penis length contest at all. People have a very hard time objectively comparing something they've owned and used for a long time, to a product intended to compete with it. Hell, I'm the same way

[Edited on October 19, 2009 at 12:03 PM. Reason : mo]

10/19/2009 12:01:39 PM

Quote :

"You are saying 95% of consumers don't care about a device, regardless of it's functionality, because they've NEVER HEARD OF IT BEFORE. That is exactly saying that somehow profitability or success is caused by brand awareness. Which is stupid."

wait what? Are you saying brand awareness has nothing to do with success?? How are you going to be profatible or successful if no one has heard of your product?

10/19/2009 1:14:09 PM

i haven't read the thread, so might be missing the context, but in general how does one make money of a product if no one knows about it?

wait i think i got your point, you're differentiating between dependent on and causes

[Edited on October 19, 2009 at 2:14 PM. Reason : .]

10/19/2009 2:06:54 PM

Quote :

"seriously, why does every thread about the ipod or zune have to become a penis length contest?"

10/19/2009 2:11:39 PM

^^ exactly. The .com boom/bust should prove that brand recognition doesn't equate to profitability or success.

10/19/2009 8:49:10 PM

So with Windows 7 releasing this week, are there going to be more apps soon?

10/19/2009 10:19:14 PM

^^ wait what? i think the .com boom and bust is a perfect example of brand recognition being instrumental to sustained success. Amazon.com built a brand on being the leader in online bookselling. sites like shoes.com not so much because the brand wasn't developed as a leader in anything.

product success relies on differentiation. consumers need to see a definitive advantage to a product. the zune HD's major differentiator AT THIS POINT is "its not an iPod". Maybe later on Microsoft can show that content can actually be a differentiator but I really don't see that happening. right now Apple has the lead in many areas that matter to a majority of consumers, including the content lock in of already purchased content from iTunes. in order for MS to make a successful product they need to show that their content is different in a tangible way from the iPod touch. right now I don't see that happening because its just a bunch of promises.

10/19/2009 11:12:20 PM

^i didn't even think of that...Switching over to another content provider and device would be a really dumb move for someone like me because i've already sunk so much money in iTunes provided content. Granted my current music library could easily be ported but thats only a fraction of my media library. The rest is TV shows and Movies that can't easily be ported to another platform.

10/20/2009 12:00:44 AM

^^ it's called the Zune Pass. $14.99 gives you content parity for music. There are several other major differentiators (HD Radio, HD Video output). Content is pretty ubiquitous (music, movies, tv), it's the experience and the applications that sell the device. Apple definitely has a huge head start on the Apps, but the experience end is squarely in the Zune's favor.

And you obviously don't remember a damn thing about the .com boom. There were dozens, if not hundreds of brands established with huge recognition. They just didn't have a path to profitability to back all that up. Amazon, Ebay and Yahoo were pretty the only players that made it out alive, and it didn't have a damn thing to do with their branding. It was because they were solid business models. I lived (and worked) through it, and experienced first hand the retarded notion that brand recognition translates to profitability.

^Yep, you hit the real nail on the head (although, to be fair, Apple doesn't make hardly anything from TV/Movie sales on iTunes. They actually don't make much from Music either). Unless they add a "Video Zune Pass" option, I can definitely see that being a blocker for some people.

10/20/2009 1:55:18 AM

Quote :

"brand recognition doesn't equate to profitability or success."

Quote :

"you're differentiating between dependent on and causes"

no shit, but good luck being successful without (any sort of notable market share for instance)

yes you are right about the recognition thing, you failed at applying it though. you merely stated that the reverse (high recognition =! success) is potentially false, which is very different from what I was going for, but go you for nitpicking at the idea's structure and not the concept behind it.

if you honestly think the zune can be successful even though the vast majority of the market base has no clue what it is or what it does, then well...

note: I'm not calling you stupid or any other names like you have so blatantly debased yourself by doing. I know you seem to take every slight at MS as some sort of personal attack. But it's not.

10/20/2009 11:09:48 AM

Now you're just being silly. The zune isn't a household brand, but to say it has no recognition is being ignorant. There are several million devices out there, so quite a few people know about it. Maybe not your parents (or mine), but most of the tech generation is at least aware of the name.

The rest

10/20/2009 11:31:07 AM

:sigh: mmmk, i will ask people on my masters team if they know what a zune is and if they would buy one or have one, most are 20-50, and have technology jobs (nvidia, electronics research/physics) or are tech people. there are some in it that are not tech people as well.

consider this a informal non-comprehensive poll about how well awareness of the zune is among a typical slice of working adults in the triangle. I'll let you know the results.

i would like you to name something, anything, out there without a good brand awareness in it's market that's successful.

10/20/2009 12:00:06 PM

I just did an informal poll of the guy in the next cube. He knows what a ZuneHD is and his daughter already has a Zune. weee

You can't seriously think that Zune has poor market presence. It's basically everywhere you can't sell an iPod. Ever heard of newegg?


V...That's the point. An "informal poll" of any number of people is pointless. I can say that I've chatted with a lot of people in my office about the Zune and they all knew about it before hand. In my last office with a lot younger guys in it, everyone knew about it because they don't live in a cave.

[Edited on October 20, 2009 at 1:00 PM. Reason : V]

10/20/2009 12:37:32 PM

^lol ok regardless of what point you are trying to argue here...you asked one person?

10/20/2009 12:55:07 PM

^^^ it's called b2b. There are products I guarantee you've never heard of that run large parts of your life.

Brand awareness really only matters a lot in consumer markets with physical commodities, or very little product differentiation and in heavily saturated business markets. If you have little competition in a space, or are in an industry where sales aren't open market driven, brand doesn't mean much.

Look at large enterprise, industrial and government sectors. They are ruled by the rfp, and bid based industries don't give two shits about brand awareness.

Google spent almost nothing on branding for years, and still spends a fraction of what their competition does. SAS, lockheed, webassign, most game studios (zipper, big fish, bungie, take2, etc).

10/20/2009 2:34:30 PM

Quote :

"i would like you to name something, anything, out there without a good brand awareness in it's market that's successful."

Uh... the iPod? Lets not forget it was an unknown product from a near-death company that only worked on MacOS for the first year and a half.

Brand awareness doesn't happen overnight.

10/20/2009 2:52:54 PM

Oh snap, i just WebEx'd into someone's machine and they had zune installed.

10/20/2009 3:10:28 PM

^^^ I don't think you can count game studios, it's not their job to advertise, it's the publisher's responsibility.

For example, Bungie probably didn't spend a dime of its own money advertising Halo 3, but MS spent a lot.

10/20/2009 3:23:57 PM

^He didn't say marketing, he said BRAND awareness. Very few game studios have any public brand awareness, even among gamers, yet they put out tremendously successful products.

10/20/2009 3:38:22 PM

I'm sure Bungie has great brand awareness among gamers. Many other big time developers also (especially if they do their own publishing).

But I can see what you mean.

10/20/2009 3:44:29 PM

^I seriously doubt even hardcore gamers can name more than the big 3-4 (Bungie, Blizzard, Epic, Red Storm).

10/20/2009 3:50:30 PM

Quote :

"Uh... the iPod? Lets not forget it was an unknown product from a near-death company that only worked on MacOS for the first year and a half. Brand awareness doesn't happen overnight."

that would apply here if this was the first gen zune. I bought the first zune before Vista came out and that was a while ago. They still haven't done anything in terms of brand awareness. But they did get one thing right. It only works on their OS so I guess they are truly following in Apples footsteps...maybe they'll continue to follow in Apples success as well?

10/20/2009 3:51:53 PM

It took several years (and the whole "working with other operating systems" thing) for the iPod to truly become successful and mature as a brand. It took them years to actually start selling well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg

Honestly, the Zune seems to be selling as the iPod did at first, which can again be partly attributed to a young product and a young brand.

10/20/2009 4:21:37 PM

^^Took Apple 4 hardware releases to "get it right". The 4G was the first version with any mass market recognition.

10/20/2009 6:00:12 PM

5% recognition on some level return of my survey of over 100 20-50 year olds mostly all in the tech sector as well...

of the 5 replies that knew of it, 3 knew more than "it's another music player"

one of those 3 works for nvidia, the maker of the Zune HD's chip (or one of them)

and how many out of all polled own one (zune+ zune HD), plan to, or even thought about owning one?


0

but again the real test will come in the next few months, both in advertisement and in sales numbers for the holiday and holiday sales.

i like how you assume i made the retarded correlation though.

10/27/2009 12:34:06 PM

Quote :

"^^Took Apple 4 hardware releases to "get it right". The 4G was the first version with any mass market recognition."

largely because Mac's aren't as widely adopted as PCs (not even in the same ball park) and at the time it was only supported on Macs. It wasn't until the 2nd gen that you could use an iPod on a PC through music match. and then the 3rd gen was when musicmatch was dropped and iTunes support for windows was released.

In order for the iPod to become a huge success it was inevitable that windows support had to be streamlined. So pretty much the moment that happened the iPod took off.

The zune on the other hand started on Windows (and remains to only be supported on windows) and still hasn't seen fractions of the success. I would defend your comment about it took Apple 4 tries to get it right...but thats because they were pioneering when you compare it to the junk that we called Mp3 players at the time. Apple has more or less set the standard in these devices today which gives Microsoft and others a good place to start. Its not like they have to reinvent the wheel here.

Quote :

"It took several years (and the whole "working with other operating systems" thing) for the iPod to truly become successful and mature as a brand. It took them years to actually start selling well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg Honestly, the Zune seems to be selling as the iPod did at first, which can again be partly attributed to a young product and a young brand."

what we need is a graph that shows market share vs. other mp3 players and market share vs. other similar devices (walkmans, discmans etc) not units sold. Mp3 players weren't as widely adopted then as they are now. A lot has changed in terms of mobile media in the last 5 years.

When I bought my first mp3 player most people were still using discmans

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 12:48 PM. Reason : .]

10/27/2009 12:45:31 PM

Quote :

"what we need is a graph that shows market share vs. other mp3 players and market share vs. other similar devices (walkmans, discmans etc) not units sold. Mp3 players weren't as widely adopted then as they are now. A lot has changed in terms of mobile media in the last 5 years."

That's not really what we're talking about though. The argument was that a products with no or limited-brand awareness aren't successful. My point was that something like brand awareness doesn't happen overnight and limited brand awareness at the time of launch doesn't mean failure, which is why the iPod is a great example of it. It was a completely unknown product that took years to really become a widely recognized brand.

10/27/2009 2:49:47 PM

My point is that you are comparing units sold as a method of measuring brand awareness for a type of device that wasn't that widely used then as it is now. A better way to display brand awareness of an iPod (or any mp3 device) during a time period is to show its market share among other similar devices.

It's a different case now for any competitor then it was back then. Now mp3 players and mobile media devices are so widely used and known about. You aren't trying to climb the hurdle of getting people to adopt these types of devices...its already widely accepted. Now its just a question of your brand vs. another.

10/27/2009 2:55:29 PM

Quote :

"5% recognition on some level return of my survey of over 100 20-50 year olds mostly all in the tech sector as well... of the 5 replies that knew of it, 3 knew more than "it's another music player" one of those 3 works for nvidia, the maker of the Zune HD's chip (or one of them) and how many out of all polled own one (zune+ zune HD), plan to, or even thought about owning one? 0 but again the real test will come in the next few months, both in advertisement and in sales numbers for the holiday and holiday sales. i like how you assume i made the retarded correlation though."

You just proved my point even further.

10/27/2009 3:23:34 PM

Quote :

"what we need is a graph that shows market share vs. other mp3 players and market share vs. other similar devices (walkmans, discmans etc) not units sold. Mp3 players weren't as widely adopted then as they are now. A lot has changed in terms of mobile media in the last 5 years."

That's not true at all. There were DOZENS of high quality, very well liked mp3 players on the market before, during and after the iPod.

The reason the iPod succeeded and rose to dominance is because they established an ecosystem. The device was largely secondary. The 4G iPod was the standard the grew the ecosystem, and it was a pretty marginal device compared to the rest of the market at the time.

I love how people have this retarded selective memory when it comes to Apple products.

10/27/2009 3:26:40 PM

Quote :

"That's not true at all. There were DOZENS of high quality, very well liked mp3 players on the market before, during and after the iPod. The reason the iPod succeeded and rose to dominance is because they established an ecosystem. The device was largely secondary. The 4G iPod was the standard the grew the ecosystem, and it was a pretty marginal device compared to the rest of the market at the time. I love how people have this retarded selective memory when it comes to Apple products."

What are you talking about? Don't be blinded by everything Microsoft to see logic here.

I never said there weren't OTHER mp3 players back then...but MP3 players were not as popular back then as they are today...thats the point I'm making here. So obviously units sold for any device regardless of manufacture isn't going to be as their units sold in todays market. Back then people downloaded music from napster, burned it to a CD and listened to it in their discmans or in their car CD players when on the go.

Its a totally different market today.

and there is nothing selective or retarded about our memory of apple I never had an ipod back then because as I already stated I had a creative something or another...(forgot what model). In fact I didn't have an ipod (or any apple product) until around the 5th generation when mp3 players became more mainstream and they evolved to more then removable limited storage as mainstream.

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 3:36 PM. Reason : .]

10/27/2009 3:34:19 PM

Quote :

"My point is that you are comparing units sold as a method of measuring brand awareness for a type of device that wasn't that widely used then as it is now. A better way to display brand awareness of an iPod (or any mp3 device) during a time period is to show its market share among other similar devices. It's a different case now for any competitor then it was back then. Now mp3 players and mobile media devices are so widely used and known about. You aren't trying to climb the hurdle of getting people to adopt these types of devices...its already widely accepted. Now its just a question of your brand vs. another."

See, I'm of the stance that both are a case of "new product" vs. "entrenched marketshare giant". Both suffer from the "well, there's already something out there that everyone knows plays music; how do I get noticed when I do the same thing?"

Basically I'm looking at the market being "things that play music and people who want to play music portably; regardless of form factor"

10/27/2009 3:58:00 PM

^form factor is a part of it...if you came out with something totally off the wall and unheard of no matter how awesome it was only early adopters would buy it because the general public isn't familiar with it.

Just think about how dumb the general population is...going from needing a CD to your entire music collection is in digital form on one small device is a pretty huge leap for the average joe.

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 4:06 PM. Reason : .]

10/27/2009 4:04:35 PM