The article's primary point is that Apple has been able to obtain an exclusive license on Imagination's new tech including the SGX 3D graphics core, however, they present ZERO evidence that the licensing is an exclusive one!!
look at the following quotes:
Quote:
"The next generation of iPhone appears set to claim exclusive access to advanced graphics core and video decoding technology, thanks to a secret licensing deal"
Quote:
"Combined with the fact that Samsung is now licensing the next generation SGX and VXD designs for manufacturing, this indicates that Apple, the current front runner in mobile internet devices with the iPod touch and iPhone, has secured unique Imagination technology for its own exclusive use, and is using Samsung to manufacture the new SoC parts for future models. "
And yet the only statements even related to the relationship with Imagination in NO WAY imply an EXCLUSIVE license. All that it is saying is that Samsung doesn't have a design license for the new tech --- meaning it can only manufacturer designs produced by other companies with the proper license, AKA Apple:
Quote:
"Imagination licenses both its VXD codec cores and the new SGX graphics processor core designs to chip manufacturers, but access to the latest generation of its intellectual property has been negotiated in a new way....
....The source reports that Samsung does not have a license to design chips that include the cores, only to produce them. This is different from previous licensing agreements related to the MBX graphics core, for which Samsung does have a design license."
Besides just the article, Wikipedia reports that the very next-gen SGX graphics core that Apple supposedly has an exclusive on, is already licensed to other companies like Intel, TI, NEC, Sigmatel, and others that have already designed and released products based on the SGX technology.
List of products including Imagination SGX 3D graphics core:
- NEC auto GPS/car information center
- Renesas "SH-Mobile G3"
- Texas instruments OMAP 3000 series cellphones SoC (system-on-a-chip)
- Intel Canmore (SoC for TVs, set-top boxes, other embedded consumer electronics )
- Intel Moorestown (second generation, Intel Atom/Silverthorne x86 platform (SoC for cell phones and mobile internet devices - coming 2009)
The only thing I can think of is that there are different versions of the SGX 3d graphics core with a progressive level of performance. Maybe Apple has an exclusive on just one tweaked version of the core?? Or maybe there are actually two generations of the SGX GPU core, albeit with the same name, and Apple has an exclusive on the new one?
However you cut it, This is a poorly written article that leaves out a lot of critical information to understanding what Apple has really achieved here.
I think there is someone(s) at Apple who is(are) disseminating bogus info.
I would if I were Apple marketing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by winterspan
The article's primary point is that Apple has been able to obtain an exclusive license on Imagination's new tech including the SGX 3D graphics core, however, they present ZERO evidence that the licensing is an exclusive one!!
That is very interesting. I always thought that dedicated gaming devices would be faster than generic computers. Since the iphone/ipod is almost the same price as PSP/DS and is also a touch screen mobile PDA with ipod and in the case of the iphone, a phone, it starts to look like great value for money even considering the phone contract pricing.
Well, to be fair, the Playstation portable first came out in Japan in December 2004, which means the hardware design was probably finalized at some point in early 2004. Considering how fast technology moves, it's not really surprising that the iPhone is more powerful.
Which brings up something interesting. Most gaming machines, portable or not, maintain nearly the same hardware, overall performance, and compatibility over the lifetime of the machine, even if some unimportant components are swapped or the main processors see a die shrink. I figured the iPhone would remain the same way, at least for the first two models. This keeps it easy for developers who do not then have to worry about supporting two different performance profiles and optimizations for their game or other software. It appears if this article is correct, and they are referring to the 3G iPhone, then this will not be the case, with it getting the new SGX graphics core.
This is what they have been doing all the time, ingenious, create secure delivery system with volume, and they will come. Guarantee them piracy freedom, and big game houses will run to you.
That's actually a GREAT point. Although I'm not naive enough to think that piracy will be completely prevented on the iPhone, there are many natural barriers to widescale piracy that I think will provide a great environment for game developers, which obviously is becoming VERY important after seeing piracy numbers like the ones in that tgdaily article.
1) Software for the iPhone is only available through one source, the iTunes Store.
2) It looks as though mobile phone software is much cheaper than PC equivalents, with most games probably selling for less than $10.
3) All the security features/components including encrypted firmware, digitally signed applications, etc.
I bet Apple will eventually find a way to not necessarily stop the firmware cracking, but to encourage end-users not to do it through some system. Maybe they will institute a system that only makes certain features available if the iPhone is recognized as having "genuine firmware" by itunes, such as keeping people from being able to download apps or blocking multiplayer gaming or something.
Although, again, I'm sure most of these ideas can be hacked as well. But I still do think they'll come up with a "carrot and stick" method of discouraging cracking and piracy.
The article's primary point is that Apple has been able to obtain an exclusive license on Imagination's new tech including the SGX 3D graphics core, however, they present ZERO evidence that the licensing is an exclusive one!!
look at the following quotes:
And yet the only statements even related to the relationship with Imagination in NO WAY imply an EXCLUSIVE license. All that it is saying is that Samsung doesn't have a design license for the new tech --- meaning it can only manufacturer designs produced by other companies with the proper license, AKA Apple:
Besides just the article, Wikipedia reports that the very next-gen SGX graphics core that Apple supposedly has an exclusive on, is already licensed to other companies like Intel, TI, NEC, Sigmatel, and others that have already designed and released products based on the SGX technology.
List of products including Imagination SGX 3D graphics core:
- NEC auto GPS/car information center
- Renesas "SH-Mobile G3"
- Texas instruments OMAP 3000 series cellphones SoC (system-on-a-chip)
- Intel Canmore (SoC for TVs, set-top boxes, other embedded consumer electronics )
- Intel Moorestown (second generation, Intel Atom/Silverthorne x86 platform (SoC for cell phones and mobile internet devices - coming 2009)
The only thing I can think of is that there are different versions of the SGX 3d graphics core with a progressive level of performance. Maybe Apple has an exclusive on just one tweaked version of the core?? Or maybe there are actually two generations of the SGX GPU core, albeit with the same name, and Apple has an exclusive on the new one?
However you cut it, This is a poorly written article that leaves out a lot of critical information to understanding what Apple has really achieved here.
Whatever the accuracy if this article, PLEASE don't ever use Wikipedia for a reference about Apple's plans, or licensing. They know no more about that than anyone here.
Whatever the accuracy if this article, PLEASE don't ever use Wikipedia for a reference about Apple's plans, or licensing. They know no more about that than anyone here.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. I did NOT use Wikipedia to reference ANYTHING about Apple's plans or licensing. I simply used wikipedia to gather a list of devices currently using the technology that the article is claiming to be an exclusive of Apple. In addition, the list of products have URL references to their respective manufacturers for more information, which I then confirmed.
side note: Acknowledging the problems and imperfections related to a quasi-public collaborative environment, Wikipedia is actually an excellent source of general information if you understand how the process works. In the true "open source" style, everything that is contributed from the public HAS to have a citation/reference, and all the information is checked and rechecked by other members. Through the extensive content history and change log, false, misleading information is quickly spotted and removed. Similarly, information without references, and information using unofficial/inappropriate references is also quickly flagged, discussed, and removed and/or corrected.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. I did NOT use Wikipedia to reference ANYTHING about Apple's plans or licensing. I simply used wikipedia to gather a list of devices currently using the technology that the article is claiming to be an exclusive of Apple. In addition, the list of products have URL references to their respective manufacturers for more information, which I then confirmed.
Ok, your explanation is understood.
Quote:
side note: Acknowledging the problems and imperfections related to a quasi-public collaborative environment, Wikipedia is actually an excellent source of general information if you understand how the process works. In the true "open source" style, everything that is contributed from the public HAS to have a citation/reference, and all the information is checked and rechecked by other members. Through the extensive content history and change log, false, misleading information is quickly spotted and removed. Similarly, information without references, and information using unofficial/inappropriate references is also quickly flagged, discussed, and removed and/or corrected.
Unfortunately, there have been more than a few scandals over this. A large number of pages have been altered, and took a while before anyone noticed. Numerous other articles have been shown to have incorrect information.
Governments and corporations, as well as individuals, continually alter articles to remove negative statements, information, etc.
Wikipedia is anything but reliable.
It isn't that a vast number of alterations, or just plain incorrect information resides there, but the uncertainty caused by what is continually being done, lowers the expectation that anything is correct, unless something you are using for a reference is something that you already know to be true.
Well, to be fair, the Playstation portable first came out in Japan in December 2004, which means the hardware design was probably finalized at some point in early 2004. Considering how fast technology moves, it's not really surprising that the iPhone is more powerful.
Only 3 years though and the iphone was not designed for gaming. In the desktop space, it took about 5 years for low end desktops to match a PS2 and even then, the cost was still a factor of 4 higher. The iphone costs the same amount, is faster and the time frame is 3 years as well as exceeding the gaming devices in terms of features and usability. Technology does move quickly I agree but I still think it's impressive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by winterspan
It appears if this article is correct, and they are referring to the 3G iPhone, then this will not be the case, with it getting the new SGX graphics core.
When they said about the iphone being faster than the PSP though, don't they mean the current iphone? If that's the case, all that'll happen is that games can run in different modes so the newer phone can run with better textures or whatever. If the games can match the quality of the PSP on the original iphone then there's nothing to worry about regarding compatibility.
Quote:
Originally Posted by winterspan
which obviously is becoming VERY important after seeing piracy numbers like the ones in that tgdaily article.
Piracy numbers are always greatly exaggerated. The numbers quoted count access times using illegal codes, which is a ridiculous statistic - no more reliable than an online poll that uses session ids. Check out any piracy site and you can see the most people downloading a popular file is about 100,000 at most and it drops down to a few thousand after a month or so. Assuming that a game of typical size as Crysis takes 2 days to download, the numbers are way less than the organizations want you to believe. Nowhere do they take account of gamers who buy the game after trying it or people who bought the game and lost the disc or it broke or was stolen.
Piracy is not a major issue. What is a major issue is the irrationality surrounding piracy amongst developers and this is what is helped with tighter security over game distribution. However this method of distribution is not without its headaches. The amount of trouble I had with steam put me off that kind of system for good. Not only that, you can't sell your games second-hand in a lot of cases.
There's no way I will ever pay £40 for a video game and this is typically what new games cost. Portable devices tend to be slightly lower but my average buying price was always £15 per game. Forcing me to always buy new games is just going to put me off altogether and secured downloads typically always prevent second-hand sales. In a way digital downloads will always prevent this because there's not really such a thing as a second-hand digital copy as there is no quality loss.
The only solution is lower prices for online content. Judging by the pricing of online movies, this has not been the case.
Unfortunately, there have been more than a few scandals over this. A large number of pages have been altered, and took a while before anyone noticed. Numerous other articles have been shown to have incorrect information.
Governments and corporations, as well as individuals, continually alter articles to remove negative statements, information, etc.
Wikipedia is anything but reliable.
It isn't that a vast number of alterations, or just plain incorrect information resides there, but the uncertainty caused by what is continually being done, lowers the expectation that anything is correct, unless something you are using for a reference is something that you already know to be true.
Yeah, it's definitely not perfect, but its the most comprehensive resource for general information on the net. Just like everything else on the internet, you have to be skeptical, and especially so on ANY type of controversial topic. Like, I wouldn't recommend finalizing an opinion on the Arab-Israeli conflict from the content at the wikipedia page. That said, It is very informative and as a general rule, again not including controversial topics or political topics, most of the information can be assumed to be accurate.
Only 3 years though and the iphone was not designed for gaming. In the desktop space, it took about 5 years for low end desktops to match a PS2 and even then, the cost was still a factor of 4 higher. The iphone costs the same amount, is faster and the time frame is 3 years as well as exceeding the gaming devices in terms of features and usability. Technology does move quickly I agree but I still think it's impressive.
Don't get me wrong, I agree as well -- it is impressive. I'm not sure about the desktop analogy, since you used "low-end desktops" and the iPhone is certainly in the high-end of cellphones. Either way, it looks like future versions with that new Imagination core will even be significantly faster than the iPhone now!
I can't believe that it contains a full universal shader architecture in hardware! Pixel, Vertex, and Geometry shaders with support for OpenGL ES 2.0, Directx10, and shader model 4. That is incredible!
If I'm not mistaken, even Intel's integrated graphics for computers COULDN'T SUPPORT SHADERS until the last revision!
Quote:
When they said about the iphone being faster than the PSP though, don't they mean the current iphone? If that's the case, all that'll happen is that games can run in different modes so the newer phone can run with better textures or whatever. If the games can match the quality of the PSP on the original iphone then there's nothing to worry about regarding compatibility.
Yes, the current iPhone is faster than the PSP. The article does not mention if the Imagination SGX chip will be going into the soon-released 3G iPhone or a future variant. Either way, the SGX chip is indeed backwards compatible with the MBX chip on the original iPhone.
The issue i raised was that if the 3G iphone has a new graphics chip, then developers will have to independently optimize their games for two different hardware performance profiles (assuming the resolution stays the same).
This is not a huge deal, but it does add complexity and ultimately additional cost to the development process. That is the reason why the Playstation portable continues to use the same primary hardware throughout it's multiple revisions.
Quote:
Piracy numbers are always greatly exaggerated. The numbers quoted count access times using illegal codes, which is a ridiculous statistic - no more reliable than an online poll that uses session ids. Check out any piracy site and you can see the most people downloading a popular file is about 100,000 at most and it drops down to a few thousand after a month or so. Assuming that a game of typical size as Crysis takes 2 days to download, the numbers are way less than the organizations want you to believe. Nowhere do they take account of gamers who buy the game after trying it or people who bought the game and lost the disc or it broke or was stolen.
Piracy is not a major issue. What is a major issue is the irrationality surrounding piracy amongst developers and this is what is helped with tighter security over game distribution. However this method of distribution is not without its headaches. The amount of trouble I had with steam put me off that kind of system for good. Not only that, you can't sell your games second-hand in a lot of cases.
There's no way I will ever pay £40 for a video game and this is typically what new games cost. Portable devices tend to be slightly lower but my average buying price was always £15 per game. Forcing me to always buy new games is just going to put me off altogether and secured downloads typically always prevent second-hand sales. In a way digital downloads will always prevent this because there's not really such a thing as a second-hand digital copy as there is no quality loss.
I agree that piracy and especially the losses due to piracy are both greatly exaggerated. All I am saying is that If the perception of the developer is that piracy is a big deal, then I'm sure they'll see the iTunes "single-point-of-installation" to be a good thing for the iPhone platform. Hopefully that is the case, and we see a large community of development for the iPhone and iPod Touch
Piracy numbers are always greatly exaggerated. The numbers quoted count access times using illegal codes, which is a ridiculous statistic - no more reliable than an online poll that uses session ids. Check out any piracy site and you can see the most people downloading a popular file is about 100,000 at most and it drops down to a few thousand after a month or so. Assuming that a game of typical size as Crysis takes 2 days to download, the numbers are way less than the organizations want you to believe. Nowhere do they take account of gamers who buy the game after trying it or people who bought the game and lost the disc or it broke or was stolen.
Piracy is not a major issue. What is a major issue is the irrationality surrounding piracy amongst developers and this is what is helped with tighter security over game distribution. However this method of distribution is not without its headaches. The amount of trouble I had with steam put me off that kind of system for good. Not only that, you can't sell your games second-hand in a lot of cases.
You are correct there, that the numbers companies give are always exaggerated, but I think that the access times with illegal codes is still the most accurate way of measuring piracy. You talk about people who might actually own legal version, but have lost or broken their disk, and that for downloads copy, but why wouldn't they use their legal serial number with it? Or people who try before buying, isn't that illegal in your books either? I don't think using piracy site statistics is really any more presentative, because people have also many more channels to get their hands on software. In the era of digital media, concept of second-hand doesn't really work any more, because there really isn't anything to sell forward. Digital media companies aren't selling you physical goods, but experiences, and those you really aren't yours to give away. Because of piracy developers have slowly changed towards subscription based games. So now we come back to my original idea, if Apple creates secure and hassle free channel for developers to monetize their creations, Apple certainly becomes very interesting partner. Additional to sell channel, Apple could also provide developers stabile platforms, not only iPhone, but mac and tv platform as well.
Piracy numbers are always greatly exaggerated. The numbers quoted count access times using illegal codes, which is a ridiculous statistic - no more reliable than an online poll that uses session ids. Check out any piracy site and you can see the most people downloading a popular file is about 100,000 at most and it drops down to a few thousand after a month or so. Assuming that a game of typical size as Crysis takes 2 days to download, the numbers are way less than the organizations want you to believe. Nowhere do they take account of gamers who buy the game after trying it or people who bought the game and lost the disc or it broke or was stolen.
Piracy is not a major issue. What is a major issue is the irrationality surrounding piracy amongst developers and this is what is helped with tighter security over game distribution. However this method of distribution is not without its headaches. The amount of trouble I had with steam put me off that kind of system for good. Not only that, you can't sell your games second-hand in a lot of cases.
There's no way I will ever pay £40 for a video game and this is typically what new games cost. Portable devices tend to be slightly lower but my average buying price was always £15 per game. Forcing me to always buy new games is just going to put me off altogether and secured downloads typically always prevent second-hand sales. In a way digital downloads will always prevent this because there's not really such a thing as a second-hand digital copy as there is no quality loss.
The only solution is lower prices for online content. Judging by the pricing of online movies, this has not been the case.
You're certainly wrong about that.
You're not including the vast number of times people who do download those games (and other programs) give them away to their friends as well. And that repeats itself numerous times.
And just how many of these piracy sites are there? I've seen estimates that there could be thousands. I wouldn't be surprised.
I can't believe that it contains a full universal shader architecture in hardware! Pixel, Vertex, and Geometry shaders with support for OpenGL ES 2.0, Directx10, and shader model 4. That is incredible!
If I'm not mistaken, even Intel's integrated graphics for computers COULDN'T SUPPORT SHADERS until the last revision!
Yeah, even the iphone's going to be faster than the Mac Mini now. I see what you are saying with that, with those features the backwards support could suffer - that's been the case with a few games that support advanced shader engines like Splinter Cell. Imagine Playing Splinter Cell with a gesture based interface though. Online play with other games should be easy with 3G.
Quote:
Originally Posted by project2501
I think that the access times with illegal codes is still the most accurate way of measuring piracy.
As long as it's using unique IPs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by project2501
why wouldn't they use their legal serial number with it?
'Illegal' apps can let you play without the CD in the drive (less lag, less noise). If you compare even PSP games, there are comparisons online showing how much faster a game loads and runs if you do it from the SD card vs UMD. You can actually do this using a copy you own. This is one thing that's always irritated me about methods that companies use to secure intellectual property. They almost always degrade the quality of the experience for legitimate buyers instead of the people who stole the product.
People who steal PSP games get free games, early releases as they get US titles, faster gameplay, access to cheats and mods whereas legit buyers like me get stuck with noisy, slow UMD discs, expensive games and I have to wait months for a title to come out in Europe vs the US and I get no access to a cheats system. Until companies start focusing on customer experience instead of profits, crime will always pay.
If you get a better experience for free, why would you pay for a worse experience? Guilt isn't enough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
You're not including the vast number of times people who do download those games (and other programs) give them away to their friends as well. And that repeats itself numerous times.
True but it's also the fact it's counted as a lost sale when it may not be. Take for example GTA 4. It costs £45. If I stole it, it assumes that I stole it rather than bought it, which is false because I wouldn't have bought it at that price so it's not a lost sale. The games companies can make up whatever numbers they want because they have no real information about how much damage is caused. As movie makers have said, all the actors still get paid, all the technical staff get paid so who is losing out? The faceless corporation who could've make $125 million profit instead of $120 million? Nobody really knows - the stats are simply used as a way to incite hate-mongering against theft, which I'll admit isn't necessarily a bad thing but it leads to irrational behaviour.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
And just how many of these piracy sites are there? I've seen estimates that there could be thousands. I wouldn't be surprised.
Nah, I'd say hundreds at most. Plus they tend to share common stats. So 100,000 downloaders on one site is a lot of the time the same ones on another and like I say, that number is pretty rare. Typically, you're talking about a few thousand. I added up total downloads of Crysis from a site and the number is around 400,000 since the release.
Assuming there are 5 sites with similar popularity (which is a reasonable estimate), that makes 2 million downloads. Other less popular sites will get downloads that are a fraction of that. Decentralized P2P apps like Limewire aren't that significant here because they are not popular for large downloads due to reliability.
Stats of 2 million also don't take account of people who downloaded more than once as one particular copy might not have worked. Not to mention downloads due to the game not being available such as in some eastern countries.
My estimation is that companies exaggerate their claims by an order of magnitude at least and as I say, nobody knows what percentage of those people wouldn't have bought the game in the first place so you can't count it as a lost sale.
So while I think that it's great to discourage software theft, I don't want to see it at the expense of a good customer experience, which it so often is. The main issue for me is no second-hand sales and no competing sales to drive down prices. One store might sell less than the RRP on some titles than others. By shopping around, you get a better deal. A single store means that Apple as always are in control of everything. What do they care if their computers and BTO options are overpriced? No one can have a competing service to drive down prices.
Since iphone app downloads are exclusive to itunes, Apple control the pricing.
Yeah, even the iphone's going to be faster than the Mac Mini now. I see what you are saying with that, with those features the backwards support could suffer - that's been the case with a few games that support advanced shader engines like Splinter Cell. Imagine Playing Splinter Cell with a gesture based interface though. Online play with other games should be easy with 3G.
As long as it's using unique IPs.
'Illegal' apps can let you play without the CD in the drive (less lag, less noise). If you compare even PSP games, there are comparisons online showing how much faster a game loads and runs if you do it from the SD card vs UMD. You can actually do this using a copy you own. This is one thing that's always irritated me about methods that companies use to secure intellectual property. They almost always degrade the quality of the experience for legitimate buyers instead of the people who stole the product.
People who steal PSP games get free games, early releases as they get US titles, faster gameplay, access to cheats and mods whereas legit buyers like me get stuck with noisy, slow UMD discs, expensive games and I have to wait months for a title to come out in Europe vs the US and I get no access to a cheats system. Until companies start focusing on customer experience instead of profits, crime will always pay.
If you get a better experience for free, why would you pay for a worse experience? Guilt isn't enough.
True but it's also the fact it's counted as a lost sale when it may not be. Take for example GTA 4. It costs £45. If I stole it, it assumes that I stole it rather than bought it, which is false because I wouldn't have bought it at that price so it's not a lost sale. The games companies can make up whatever numbers they want because they have no real information about how much damage is caused. As movie makers have said, all the actors still get paid, all the technical staff get paid so who is losing out? The faceless corporation who could've make $125 million profit instead of $120 million? Nobody really knows - the stats are simply used as a way to incite hate-mongering against theft, which I'll admit isn't necessarily a bad thing but it leads to irrational behaviour.
Nah, I'd say hundreds at most. Plus they tend to share common stats. So 100,000 downloaders on one site is a lot of the time the same ones on another and like I say, that number is pretty rare. Typically, you're talking about a few thousand. I added up total downloads of Crysis from a site and the number is around 400,000 since the release.
Assuming there are 5 sites with similar popularity (which is a reasonable estimate), that makes 2 million downloads. Other less popular sites will get downloads that are a fraction of that. Decentralized P2P apps like Limewire aren't that significant here because they are not popular for large downloads due to reliability.
Stats of 2 million also don't take account of people who downloaded more than once as one particular copy might not have worked. Not to mention downloads due to the game not being available such as in some eastern countries.
My estimation is that companies exaggerate their claims by an order of magnitude at least and as I say, nobody knows what percentage of those people wouldn't have bought the game in the first place so you can't count it as a lost sale.
So while I think that it's great to discourage software theft, I don't want to see it at the expense of a good customer experience, which it so often is. The main issue for me is no second-hand sales and no competing sales to drive down prices. One store might sell less than the RRP on some titles than others. By shopping around, you get a better deal. A single store means that Apple as always are in control of everything. What do they care if their computers and BTO options are overpriced? No one can have a competing service to drive down prices.
Since iphone app downloads are exclusive to itunes, Apple control the pricing.
I don't want to see it at the expense of good customer experience either, but I think you are clearly underestimating the impact. As I said, the original download isn't the end of it. That download gets shared any number of times. your number could easily be off by an order of magnitude.
I don't want to see it at the expense of good customer experience either, but I think you are clearly underestimating the impact. As I said, the original download isn't the end of it. That download gets shared any number of times. your number could easily be off by an order of magnitude.
And in addition, programs, and games, also end up on the newsgroups where anyone can download them. There's no way to count those downloads, but I'm willing to bet, because of the lack of the need for a password, those numbers are high.
'Illegal' apps can let you play without the CD in the drive (less lag, less noise). If you compare even PSP games, there are comparisons online showing how much faster a game loads and runs if you do it from the SD card vs UMD. You can actually do this using a copy you own. This is one thing that's always irritated me about methods that companies use to secure intellectual property. They almost always degrade the quality of the experience for legitimate buyers instead of the people who stole the product.
People who steal PSP games get free games, early releases as they get US titles, faster gameplay, access to cheats and mods whereas legit buyers like me get stuck with noisy, slow UMD discs, expensive games and I have to wait months for a title to come out in Europe vs the US and I get no access to a cheats system. Until companies start focusing on customer experience instead of profits, crime will always pay.
If you get a better experience for free, why would you pay for a worse experience? Guilt isn't enough.
My point was that assuming we are using those access times with illegal codes as a measure, then the company clearly has lost potential money there, because someone clearly was interested in trying out the game, true they maybe wouldn't have paid the full price. And if someone has legit code, but still downloads an image for gaming, it shouldn't show up in the illegal access code list anyway, so it wouldn't count as a lost sale.
I'm with you that enhancing end user experience is the best way to combat pirates, but thinking that as long as actors and other parties get paid it doesn't matter, those same greedy companies have to also take hit from the other flopped products. Predicting what is going to be a hit, is really not straight forward.
I find it amusing Apple would put a chip on its iPhone that has hardware HD video decoding, when Apple doesn't bother to use hardware for HD (though its non-integrated video chips support it) on Macs.
I find it amusing Apple would put a chip on its iPhone that has hardware HD video decoding, when Apple doesn't bother to use hardware for HD (though its non-integrated video chips support it) on Macs.
It may seen funny. But, don't forget that Apple's other machines don't need this chip, while their small handheld devices do. This is also used for higher rez output to a Tv.
Comments
I think there is someone(s) at Apple who is(are) disseminating bogus info.
look at the following quotes:
"The next generation of iPhone appears set to claim exclusive access to advanced graphics core and video decoding technology, thanks to a secret licensing deal"
"Combined with the fact that Samsung is now licensing the next generation SGX and VXD designs for manufacturing, this indicates that Apple, the current front runner in mobile internet devices with the iPod touch and iPhone, has secured unique Imagination technology for its own exclusive use, and is using Samsung to manufacture the new SoC parts for future models. "
And yet the only statements even related to the relationship with Imagination in NO WAY imply an EXCLUSIVE license. All that it is saying is that Samsung doesn't have a design license for the new tech --- meaning it can only manufacturer designs produced by other companies with the proper license, AKA Apple:
"Imagination licenses both its VXD codec cores and the new SGX graphics processor core designs to chip manufacturers, but access to the latest generation of its intellectual property has been negotiated in a new way....
....The source reports that Samsung does not have a license to design chips that include the cores, only to produce them. This is different from previous licensing agreements related to the MBX graphics core, for which Samsung does have a design license."
Besides just the article, Wikipedia reports that the very next-gen SGX graphics core that Apple supposedly has an exclusive on, is already licensed to other companies like Intel, TI, NEC, Sigmatel, and others that have already designed and released products based on the SGX technology.
List of products including Imagination SGX 3D graphics core:
- NEC auto GPS/car information center
- Renesas "SH-Mobile G3"
- Texas instruments OMAP 3000 series cellphones SoC (system-on-a-chip)
- Intel Canmore (SoC for TVs, set-top boxes, other embedded consumer electronics )
- Intel Moorestown (second generation, Intel Atom/Silverthorne x86 platform (SoC for cell phones and mobile internet devices - coming 2009)
The only thing I can think of is that there are different versions of the SGX 3d graphics core with a progressive level of performance. Maybe Apple has an exclusive on just one tweaked version of the core?? Or maybe there are actually two generations of the SGX GPU core, albeit with the same name, and Apple has an exclusive on the new one?
However you cut it, This is a poorly written article that leaves out a lot of critical information to understanding what Apple has really achieved here.
These iPhone rumors are all over the place.
I think there is someone(s) at Apple who is(are) disseminating bogus info.
I would if I were Apple marketing.
The article's primary point is that Apple has been able to obtain an exclusive license on Imagination's new tech including the SGX 3D graphics core, however, they present ZERO evidence that the licensing is an exclusive one!!
Nice research.
That is very interesting. I always thought that dedicated gaming devices would be faster than generic computers. Since the iphone/ipod is almost the same price as PSP/DS and is also a touch screen mobile PDA with ipod and in the case of the iphone, a phone, it starts to look like great value for money even considering the phone contract pricing.
Well, to be fair, the Playstation portable first came out in Japan in December 2004, which means the hardware design was probably finalized at some point in early 2004. Considering how fast technology moves, it's not really surprising that the iPhone is more powerful.
Which brings up something interesting. Most gaming machines, portable or not, maintain nearly the same hardware, overall performance, and compatibility over the lifetime of the machine, even if some unimportant components are swapped or the main processors see a die shrink. I figured the iPhone would remain the same way, at least for the first two models. This keeps it easy for developers who do not then have to worry about supporting two different performance profiles and optimizations for their game or other software. It appears if this article is correct, and they are referring to the 3G iPhone, then this will not be the case, with it getting the new SGX graphics core.
Whoa, I maybe slow, but it just struck me, reading these two articles today.
and
Crytek, Epic lost billions of dollars because of piracy
This is what they have been doing all the time, ingenious, create secure delivery system with volume, and they will come. Guarantee them piracy freedom, and big game houses will run to you.
That's actually a GREAT point. Although I'm not naive enough to think that piracy will be completely prevented on the iPhone, there are many natural barriers to widescale piracy that I think will provide a great environment for game developers, which obviously is becoming VERY important after seeing piracy numbers like the ones in that tgdaily article.
1) Software for the iPhone is only available through one source, the iTunes Store.
2) It looks as though mobile phone software is much cheaper than PC equivalents, with most games probably selling for less than $10.
3) All the security features/components including encrypted firmware, digitally signed applications, etc.
I bet Apple will eventually find a way to not necessarily stop the firmware cracking, but to encourage end-users not to do it through some system. Maybe they will institute a system that only makes certain features available if the iPhone is recognized as having "genuine firmware" by itunes, such as keeping people from being able to download apps or blocking multiplayer gaming or something.
Although, again, I'm sure most of these ideas can be hacked as well. But I still do think they'll come up with a "carrot and stick" method of discouraging cracking and piracy.
The article's primary point is that Apple has been able to obtain an exclusive license on Imagination's new tech including the SGX 3D graphics core, however, they present ZERO evidence that the licensing is an exclusive one!!
look at the following quotes:
And yet the only statements even related to the relationship with Imagination in NO WAY imply an EXCLUSIVE license. All that it is saying is that Samsung doesn't have a design license for the new tech --- meaning it can only manufacturer designs produced by other companies with the proper license, AKA Apple:
Besides just the article, Wikipedia reports that the very next-gen SGX graphics core that Apple supposedly has an exclusive on, is already licensed to other companies like Intel, TI, NEC, Sigmatel, and others that have already designed and released products based on the SGX technology.
List of products including Imagination SGX 3D graphics core:
- NEC auto GPS/car information center
- Renesas "SH-Mobile G3"
- Texas instruments OMAP 3000 series cellphones SoC (system-on-a-chip)
- Intel Canmore (SoC for TVs, set-top boxes, other embedded consumer electronics )
- Intel Moorestown (second generation, Intel Atom/Silverthorne x86 platform (SoC for cell phones and mobile internet devices - coming 2009)
The only thing I can think of is that there are different versions of the SGX 3d graphics core with a progressive level of performance. Maybe Apple has an exclusive on just one tweaked version of the core?? Or maybe there are actually two generations of the SGX GPU core, albeit with the same name, and Apple has an exclusive on the new one?
However you cut it, This is a poorly written article that leaves out a lot of critical information to understanding what Apple has really achieved here.
Whatever the accuracy if this article, PLEASE don't ever use Wikipedia for a reference about Apple's plans, or licensing. They know no more about that than anyone here.
Whatever the accuracy if this article, PLEASE don't ever use Wikipedia for a reference about Apple's plans, or licensing. They know no more about that than anyone here.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. I did NOT use Wikipedia to reference ANYTHING about Apple's plans or licensing. I simply used wikipedia to gather a list of devices currently using the technology that the article is claiming to be an exclusive of Apple. In addition, the list of products have URL references to their respective manufacturers for more information, which I then confirmed.
side note: Acknowledging the problems and imperfections related to a quasi-public collaborative environment, Wikipedia is actually an excellent source of general information if you understand how the process works. In the true "open source" style, everything that is contributed from the public HAS to have a citation/reference, and all the information is checked and rechecked by other members. Through the extensive content history and change log, false, misleading information is quickly spotted and removed. Similarly, information without references, and information using unofficial/inappropriate references is also quickly flagged, discussed, and removed and/or corrected.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. I did NOT use Wikipedia to reference ANYTHING about Apple's plans or licensing. I simply used wikipedia to gather a list of devices currently using the technology that the article is claiming to be an exclusive of Apple. In addition, the list of products have URL references to their respective manufacturers for more information, which I then confirmed.
Ok, your explanation is understood.
side note: Acknowledging the problems and imperfections related to a quasi-public collaborative environment, Wikipedia is actually an excellent source of general information if you understand how the process works. In the true "open source" style, everything that is contributed from the public HAS to have a citation/reference, and all the information is checked and rechecked by other members. Through the extensive content history and change log, false, misleading information is quickly spotted and removed. Similarly, information without references, and information using unofficial/inappropriate references is also quickly flagged, discussed, and removed and/or corrected.
Unfortunately, there have been more than a few scandals over this. A large number of pages have been altered, and took a while before anyone noticed. Numerous other articles have been shown to have incorrect information.
Governments and corporations, as well as individuals, continually alter articles to remove negative statements, information, etc.
Wikipedia is anything but reliable.
It isn't that a vast number of alterations, or just plain incorrect information resides there, but the uncertainty caused by what is continually being done, lowers the expectation that anything is correct, unless something you are using for a reference is something that you already know to be true.
Well, to be fair, the Playstation portable first came out in Japan in December 2004, which means the hardware design was probably finalized at some point in early 2004. Considering how fast technology moves, it's not really surprising that the iPhone is more powerful.
Only 3 years though and the iphone was not designed for gaming. In the desktop space, it took about 5 years for low end desktops to match a PS2 and even then, the cost was still a factor of 4 higher. The iphone costs the same amount, is faster and the time frame is 3 years as well as exceeding the gaming devices in terms of features and usability. Technology does move quickly I agree but I still think it's impressive.
It appears if this article is correct, and they are referring to the 3G iPhone, then this will not be the case, with it getting the new SGX graphics core.
When they said about the iphone being faster than the PSP though, don't they mean the current iphone? If that's the case, all that'll happen is that games can run in different modes so the newer phone can run with better textures or whatever. If the games can match the quality of the PSP on the original iphone then there's nothing to worry about regarding compatibility.
which obviously is becoming VERY important after seeing piracy numbers like the ones in that tgdaily article.
Piracy numbers are always greatly exaggerated. The numbers quoted count access times using illegal codes, which is a ridiculous statistic - no more reliable than an online poll that uses session ids. Check out any piracy site and you can see the most people downloading a popular file is about 100,000 at most and it drops down to a few thousand after a month or so. Assuming that a game of typical size as Crysis takes 2 days to download, the numbers are way less than the organizations want you to believe. Nowhere do they take account of gamers who buy the game after trying it or people who bought the game and lost the disc or it broke or was stolen.
Piracy is not a major issue. What is a major issue is the irrationality surrounding piracy amongst developers and this is what is helped with tighter security over game distribution. However this method of distribution is not without its headaches. The amount of trouble I had with steam put me off that kind of system for good. Not only that, you can't sell your games second-hand in a lot of cases.
There's no way I will ever pay £40 for a video game and this is typically what new games cost. Portable devices tend to be slightly lower but my average buying price was always £15 per game. Forcing me to always buy new games is just going to put me off altogether and secured downloads typically always prevent second-hand sales. In a way digital downloads will always prevent this because there's not really such a thing as a second-hand digital copy as there is no quality loss.
The only solution is lower prices for online content. Judging by the pricing of online movies, this has not been the case.
Ok, your explanation is understood.
Unfortunately, there have been more than a few scandals over this. A large number of pages have been altered, and took a while before anyone noticed. Numerous other articles have been shown to have incorrect information.
Governments and corporations, as well as individuals, continually alter articles to remove negative statements, information, etc.
Wikipedia is anything but reliable.
It isn't that a vast number of alterations, or just plain incorrect information resides there, but the uncertainty caused by what is continually being done, lowers the expectation that anything is correct, unless something you are using for a reference is something that you already know to be true.
Yeah, it's definitely not perfect, but its the most comprehensive resource for general information on the net. Just like everything else on the internet, you have to be skeptical, and especially so on ANY type of controversial topic. Like, I wouldn't recommend finalizing an opinion on the Arab-Israeli conflict from the content at the wikipedia page. That said, It is very informative and as a general rule, again not including controversial topics or political topics, most of the information can be assumed to be accurate.
Only 3 years though and the iphone was not designed for gaming. In the desktop space, it took about 5 years for low end desktops to match a PS2 and even then, the cost was still a factor of 4 higher. The iphone costs the same amount, is faster and the time frame is 3 years as well as exceeding the gaming devices in terms of features and usability. Technology does move quickly I agree but I still think it's impressive.
Don't get me wrong, I agree as well -- it is impressive. I'm not sure about the desktop analogy, since you used "low-end desktops" and the iPhone is certainly in the high-end of cellphones. Either way, it looks like future versions with that new Imagination core will even be significantly faster than the iPhone now!
I can't believe that it contains a full universal shader architecture in hardware! Pixel, Vertex, and Geometry shaders with support for OpenGL ES 2.0, Directx10, and shader model 4. That is incredible!
If I'm not mistaken, even Intel's integrated graphics for computers COULDN'T SUPPORT SHADERS until the last revision!
When they said about the iphone being faster than the PSP though, don't they mean the current iphone? If that's the case, all that'll happen is that games can run in different modes so the newer phone can run with better textures or whatever. If the games can match the quality of the PSP on the original iphone then there's nothing to worry about regarding compatibility.
Yes, the current iPhone is faster than the PSP. The article does not mention if the Imagination SGX chip will be going into the soon-released 3G iPhone or a future variant. Either way, the SGX chip is indeed backwards compatible with the MBX chip on the original iPhone.
The issue i raised was that if the 3G iphone has a new graphics chip, then developers will have to independently optimize their games for two different hardware performance profiles (assuming the resolution stays the same).
This is not a huge deal, but it does add complexity and ultimately additional cost to the development process. That is the reason why the Playstation portable continues to use the same primary hardware throughout it's multiple revisions.
Piracy numbers are always greatly exaggerated. The numbers quoted count access times using illegal codes, which is a ridiculous statistic - no more reliable than an online poll that uses session ids. Check out any piracy site and you can see the most people downloading a popular file is about 100,000 at most and it drops down to a few thousand after a month or so. Assuming that a game of typical size as Crysis takes 2 days to download, the numbers are way less than the organizations want you to believe. Nowhere do they take account of gamers who buy the game after trying it or people who bought the game and lost the disc or it broke or was stolen.
Piracy is not a major issue. What is a major issue is the irrationality surrounding piracy amongst developers and this is what is helped with tighter security over game distribution. However this method of distribution is not without its headaches. The amount of trouble I had with steam put me off that kind of system for good. Not only that, you can't sell your games second-hand in a lot of cases.
There's no way I will ever pay £40 for a video game and this is typically what new games cost. Portable devices tend to be slightly lower but my average buying price was always £15 per game. Forcing me to always buy new games is just going to put me off altogether and secured downloads typically always prevent second-hand sales. In a way digital downloads will always prevent this because there's not really such a thing as a second-hand digital copy as there is no quality loss.
I agree that piracy and especially the losses due to piracy are both greatly exaggerated. All I am saying is that If the perception of the developer is that piracy is a big deal, then I'm sure they'll see the iTunes "single-point-of-installation" to be a good thing for the iPhone platform. Hopefully that is the case, and we see a large community of development for the iPhone and iPod Touch
Piracy numbers are always greatly exaggerated. The numbers quoted count access times using illegal codes, which is a ridiculous statistic - no more reliable than an online poll that uses session ids. Check out any piracy site and you can see the most people downloading a popular file is about 100,000 at most and it drops down to a few thousand after a month or so. Assuming that a game of typical size as Crysis takes 2 days to download, the numbers are way less than the organizations want you to believe. Nowhere do they take account of gamers who buy the game after trying it or people who bought the game and lost the disc or it broke or was stolen.
Piracy is not a major issue. What is a major issue is the irrationality surrounding piracy amongst developers and this is what is helped with tighter security over game distribution. However this method of distribution is not without its headaches. The amount of trouble I had with steam put me off that kind of system for good. Not only that, you can't sell your games second-hand in a lot of cases.
You are correct there, that the numbers companies give are always exaggerated, but I think that the access times with illegal codes is still the most accurate way of measuring piracy. You talk about people who might actually own legal version, but have lost or broken their disk, and that for downloads copy, but why wouldn't they use their legal serial number with it? Or people who try before buying, isn't that illegal in your books either? I don't think using piracy site statistics is really any more presentative, because people have also many more channels to get their hands on software. In the era of digital media, concept of second-hand doesn't really work any more, because there really isn't anything to sell forward. Digital media companies aren't selling you physical goods, but experiences, and those you really aren't yours to give away. Because of piracy developers have slowly changed towards subscription based games. So now we come back to my original idea, if Apple creates secure and hassle free channel for developers to monetize their creations, Apple certainly becomes very interesting partner. Additional to sell channel, Apple could also provide developers stabile platforms, not only iPhone, but mac and tv platform as well.
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Piracy numbers are always greatly exaggerated. The numbers quoted count access times using illegal codes, which is a ridiculous statistic - no more reliable than an online poll that uses session ids. Check out any piracy site and you can see the most people downloading a popular file is about 100,000 at most and it drops down to a few thousand after a month or so. Assuming that a game of typical size as Crysis takes 2 days to download, the numbers are way less than the organizations want you to believe. Nowhere do they take account of gamers who buy the game after trying it or people who bought the game and lost the disc or it broke or was stolen.
Piracy is not a major issue. What is a major issue is the irrationality surrounding piracy amongst developers and this is what is helped with tighter security over game distribution. However this method of distribution is not without its headaches. The amount of trouble I had with steam put me off that kind of system for good. Not only that, you can't sell your games second-hand in a lot of cases.
There's no way I will ever pay £40 for a video game and this is typically what new games cost. Portable devices tend to be slightly lower but my average buying price was always £15 per game. Forcing me to always buy new games is just going to put me off altogether and secured downloads typically always prevent second-hand sales. In a way digital downloads will always prevent this because there's not really such a thing as a second-hand digital copy as there is no quality loss.
The only solution is lower prices for online content. Judging by the pricing of online movies, this has not been the case.
You're certainly wrong about that.
You're not including the vast number of times people who do download those games (and other programs) give them away to their friends as well. And that repeats itself numerous times.
And just how many of these piracy sites are there? I've seen estimates that there could be thousands. I wouldn't be surprised.
I can't believe that it contains a full universal shader architecture in hardware! Pixel, Vertex, and Geometry shaders with support for OpenGL ES 2.0, Directx10, and shader model 4. That is incredible!
If I'm not mistaken, even Intel's integrated graphics for computers COULDN'T SUPPORT SHADERS until the last revision!
Yeah, even the iphone's going to be faster than the Mac Mini now. I see what you are saying with that, with those features the backwards support could suffer - that's been the case with a few games that support advanced shader engines like Splinter Cell. Imagine Playing Splinter Cell with a gesture based interface though. Online play with other games should be easy with 3G.
I think that the access times with illegal codes is still the most accurate way of measuring piracy.
As long as it's using unique IPs.
why wouldn't they use their legal serial number with it?
'Illegal' apps can let you play without the CD in the drive (less lag, less noise). If you compare even PSP games, there are comparisons online showing how much faster a game loads and runs if you do it from the SD card vs UMD. You can actually do this using a copy you own. This is one thing that's always irritated me about methods that companies use to secure intellectual property. They almost always degrade the quality of the experience for legitimate buyers instead of the people who stole the product.
People who steal PSP games get free games, early releases as they get US titles, faster gameplay, access to cheats and mods whereas legit buyers like me get stuck with noisy, slow UMD discs, expensive games and I have to wait months for a title to come out in Europe vs the US and I get no access to a cheats system. Until companies start focusing on customer experience instead of profits, crime will always pay.
If you get a better experience for free, why would you pay for a worse experience? Guilt isn't enough.
You're not including the vast number of times people who do download those games (and other programs) give them away to their friends as well. And that repeats itself numerous times.
True but it's also the fact it's counted as a lost sale when it may not be. Take for example GTA 4. It costs £45. If I stole it, it assumes that I stole it rather than bought it, which is false because I wouldn't have bought it at that price so it's not a lost sale. The games companies can make up whatever numbers they want because they have no real information about how much damage is caused. As movie makers have said, all the actors still get paid, all the technical staff get paid so who is losing out? The faceless corporation who could've make $125 million profit instead of $120 million? Nobody really knows - the stats are simply used as a way to incite hate-mongering against theft, which I'll admit isn't necessarily a bad thing but it leads to irrational behaviour.
And just how many of these piracy sites are there? I've seen estimates that there could be thousands. I wouldn't be surprised.
Nah, I'd say hundreds at most. Plus they tend to share common stats. So 100,000 downloaders on one site is a lot of the time the same ones on another and like I say, that number is pretty rare. Typically, you're talking about a few thousand. I added up total downloads of Crysis from a site and the number is around 400,000 since the release.
Assuming there are 5 sites with similar popularity (which is a reasonable estimate), that makes 2 million downloads. Other less popular sites will get downloads that are a fraction of that. Decentralized P2P apps like Limewire aren't that significant here because they are not popular for large downloads due to reliability.
Stats of 2 million also don't take account of people who downloaded more than once as one particular copy might not have worked. Not to mention downloads due to the game not being available such as in some eastern countries.
My estimation is that companies exaggerate their claims by an order of magnitude at least and as I say, nobody knows what percentage of those people wouldn't have bought the game in the first place so you can't count it as a lost sale.
So while I think that it's great to discourage software theft, I don't want to see it at the expense of a good customer experience, which it so often is. The main issue for me is no second-hand sales and no competing sales to drive down prices. One store might sell less than the RRP on some titles than others. By shopping around, you get a better deal. A single store means that Apple as always are in control of everything. What do they care if their computers and BTO options are overpriced? No one can have a competing service to drive down prices.
Since iphone app downloads are exclusive to itunes, Apple control the pricing.
Yeah, even the iphone's going to be faster than the Mac Mini now. I see what you are saying with that, with those features the backwards support could suffer - that's been the case with a few games that support advanced shader engines like Splinter Cell. Imagine Playing Splinter Cell with a gesture based interface though. Online play with other games should be easy with 3G.
As long as it's using unique IPs.
'Illegal' apps can let you play without the CD in the drive (less lag, less noise). If you compare even PSP games, there are comparisons online showing how much faster a game loads and runs if you do it from the SD card vs UMD. You can actually do this using a copy you own. This is one thing that's always irritated me about methods that companies use to secure intellectual property. They almost always degrade the quality of the experience for legitimate buyers instead of the people who stole the product.
People who steal PSP games get free games, early releases as they get US titles, faster gameplay, access to cheats and mods whereas legit buyers like me get stuck with noisy, slow UMD discs, expensive games and I have to wait months for a title to come out in Europe vs the US and I get no access to a cheats system. Until companies start focusing on customer experience instead of profits, crime will always pay.
If you get a better experience for free, why would you pay for a worse experience? Guilt isn't enough.
True but it's also the fact it's counted as a lost sale when it may not be. Take for example GTA 4. It costs £45. If I stole it, it assumes that I stole it rather than bought it, which is false because I wouldn't have bought it at that price so it's not a lost sale. The games companies can make up whatever numbers they want because they have no real information about how much damage is caused. As movie makers have said, all the actors still get paid, all the technical staff get paid so who is losing out? The faceless corporation who could've make $125 million profit instead of $120 million? Nobody really knows - the stats are simply used as a way to incite hate-mongering against theft, which I'll admit isn't necessarily a bad thing but it leads to irrational behaviour.
Nah, I'd say hundreds at most. Plus they tend to share common stats. So 100,000 downloaders on one site is a lot of the time the same ones on another and like I say, that number is pretty rare. Typically, you're talking about a few thousand. I added up total downloads of Crysis from a site and the number is around 400,000 since the release.
Assuming there are 5 sites with similar popularity (which is a reasonable estimate), that makes 2 million downloads. Other less popular sites will get downloads that are a fraction of that. Decentralized P2P apps like Limewire aren't that significant here because they are not popular for large downloads due to reliability.
Stats of 2 million also don't take account of people who downloaded more than once as one particular copy might not have worked. Not to mention downloads due to the game not being available such as in some eastern countries.
My estimation is that companies exaggerate their claims by an order of magnitude at least and as I say, nobody knows what percentage of those people wouldn't have bought the game in the first place so you can't count it as a lost sale.
So while I think that it's great to discourage software theft, I don't want to see it at the expense of a good customer experience, which it so often is. The main issue for me is no second-hand sales and no competing sales to drive down prices. One store might sell less than the RRP on some titles than others. By shopping around, you get a better deal. A single store means that Apple as always are in control of everything. What do they care if their computers and BTO options are overpriced? No one can have a competing service to drive down prices.
Since iphone app downloads are exclusive to itunes, Apple control the pricing.
I don't want to see it at the expense of good customer experience either, but I think you are clearly underestimating the impact. As I said, the original download isn't the end of it. That download gets shared any number of times. your number could easily be off by an order of magnitude.
I don't want to see it at the expense of good customer experience either, but I think you are clearly underestimating the impact. As I said, the original download isn't the end of it. That download gets shared any number of times. your number could easily be off by an order of magnitude.
And in addition, programs, and games, also end up on the newsgroups where anyone can download them. There's no way to count those downloads, but I'm willing to bet, because of the lack of the need for a password, those numbers are high.
As long as it's using unique IPs.
'Illegal' apps can let you play without the CD in the drive (less lag, less noise). If you compare even PSP games, there are comparisons online showing how much faster a game loads and runs if you do it from the SD card vs UMD. You can actually do this using a copy you own. This is one thing that's always irritated me about methods that companies use to secure intellectual property. They almost always degrade the quality of the experience for legitimate buyers instead of the people who stole the product.
People who steal PSP games get free games, early releases as they get US titles, faster gameplay, access to cheats and mods whereas legit buyers like me get stuck with noisy, slow UMD discs, expensive games and I have to wait months for a title to come out in Europe vs the US and I get no access to a cheats system. Until companies start focusing on customer experience instead of profits, crime will always pay.
If you get a better experience for free, why would you pay for a worse experience? Guilt isn't enough.
My point was that assuming we are using those access times with illegal codes as a measure, then the company clearly has lost potential money there, because someone clearly was interested in trying out the game, true they maybe wouldn't have paid the full price. And if someone has legit code, but still downloads an image for gaming, it shouldn't show up in the illegal access code list anyway, so it wouldn't count as a lost sale.
I'm with you that enhancing end user experience is the best way to combat pirates, but thinking that as long as actors and other parties get paid it doesn't matter, those same greedy companies have to also take hit from the other flopped products. Predicting what is going to be a hit, is really not straight forward.
I find it amusing Apple would put a chip on its iPhone that has hardware HD video decoding, when Apple doesn't bother to use hardware for HD (though its non-integrated video chips support it) on Macs.
It may seen funny. But, don't forget that Apple's other machines don't need this chip, while their small handheld devices do. This is also used for higher rez output to a Tv.
3G iPhone with HD streaming capabilities, a Microvision micro-projector, OLED touchscreen, video chat and thousands of applications.
Perhaps next year?
I am making plastics now.