dave smith

I live in Rochester, and had looked at this new pricing as more of a positioning move than anything else, where they were attempting to put themselves right into the money stream as entertainment moves more and more online. My biggest beef was that their caps were waaaayy to low. 5 GB is crap for a bottom tier and they know it. Had they launched with something like 50 GB's than public perception would have been significantly different. By going so low they pretty much confirmed how unbelievably greedy they are to an already pissed off customer base. My predictions for TW in th enext year are :

... they will introduce a mandatory internet useage monitoring software package. It will be pitched as a user-convenience thing, but it will look and act just like what it is : spyware. Expect a ridiculous barage of on-screen nagging.

... they will start to sell that data from their spyware to advertisers and whoever the current Internet Police happens to be ( homeland security, the RIAA, whatever overachieving yet completely clueless Senator or Congressman wants it, and so on. ) at that time. Data is money, and TW loves money.

... look for the eventual "safety" features that will not only monitor, but actively cut you off from sites that are bold enough to break the ridiculously onerous and shortsighted Millenium Digital Copyright Act.

When it chokes or overheats do you get a blue ring of death?

Cool!

OMG! McAfee on a phone? what could suck worse than that bloated, CPU-killing, fear-mongering, invasive and self promoting piece o' shite being introduced onto phones? It's not just McAfee either, Norton is just as bad if not worse. That's IMHO the worse part of Windows Mobile, the whole juggernaught of associated baloneyware that people have been conditioned into accepting along with it. To see it start to creep into the phone-realm is heartbreaking.

Wow, I really hate this new way of doing the releases. I'm one of those lucky guys that owns all the consoles and now it's click click click to get the scoop. PITA.

thanks engadget!

the way to solve this is to reduce the demand for the used games. An example: some new game comes out today. It sells like crazy for six to ten weeks and then starts to drop off. at that point everyone who was going to pay full retail price has already done so. when the drop off starts, the smart publisher makes the game available via Steam, XBLA or PSN. Same game, electronically distributed, lowered price. the publisher and developer get percentages. Many people who won't buy at $60 ( myself included, except for maybe 2 to 3 games a year of the 30 I buy )will buy at $40, or $30. this way revenue can still flow and the overall effect is that publishers and developers not only make more money, but actually reduce the used game market by addressing one of the core problems: New games cost too much money for many people to buy everything they'd like to. Pointing a finger at gamestop for discovering and capitalizing on a giant market opportunity doesn't solve anything. Making adjustments to marketing stategies to compete with them does.

CES goodies? Cool!

i live in NY, where this has been the law for quite some time. I can tell you this: It's not enforceable. Everybody talks on their phone while driving; I see it everyday. I have driven past the police many, many times while yapping away and have never recieved a ticket. It's one of those selective laws there to give the police a reson to pull you over if they want to. In NY one of the biggest lobby groups to get the bill passed were the manufacturers of cell phone accessories. It's pretty much a scam. I think 95% of the people are no worse off talking on a phone while driving. The ones who I think are complete morons and deserve to have their phones broken in half are the ones who send text messages while driving. I'd rather be surrounded by drunks drivng semi's than be anywhere near some horses ass sending a text message while driving.

Widgets are a cool idea, I really hope they come up with something better to use them for than giving advertisers even more access to me via the TV than they already have. Make the widget - building code open source and let's see what happens.