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In alt.games.video.sony-playstation2 Zackman <> wrote:

> Even so, not seven times more. Seven times! That means for every hour one
> person watches TV, there are seven hours worth of videogames being played. I
> seem to recall reading a stat that said the average household's TV is
> watched three to four hours a day. No matter how many hardcore gamers you
> have playing games six hours a night or how big the market for game consoles
> and PC gaming becomes (currently most PC owners use their machines for Net
> access more often than gaming), it's never going to equal seven times the
> amount of TV watching. Not in five years, no chance. It's just another
> bullshit statistic being spouted by these dumbasses.

That statistic is probably a little out of date. And besides, the study
being cited was looking at the next 5 years.

Most people my age are watching way less TV than we did when were
younger. Even so, I'm guessing this is where the current stat of 3 or 4
hours a day is coming from.

However, people 10 and 20 years younger than me are watching even less TV.

Figure in 5 years, these will be the primary market of 18-25, and I can
easily see TV viewing falling from 3-4 hours a day, to 3-4 hours a week.
Between DVDs, the internet and computer games, who needs it? I myself
have gone a month without any TV on ocassion. Surely, I can't be that
freakish

Don't believe me? Why do you think TV shows seem much more...desparate...
now-a-days? They're losing their audience, and they know it. TV
viewership is down and continues to decrease. Even the specialty cable
channels find themselves having to compete more and more for fewer and
fewer viewers. I mean, why else would Bravo, of all channels, suddenly
break out with "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy"?

In alt.games.video.sony-playstation2 RickB <> wrote:

> > Throw in the ever growing number of PVR/TiVo devices, all which only
> decreases
> > the amount of TV you watch (seriously...) and this statement isn't so
> wacky
> > as it first sounds.

> I totally disagree on this statement. Having Tivo has actually made/allowed
> me to watch *more* TV than I normally did before having Tivo. I now get to
> watch TV shows that I couldn't before due to them being on while I was at
> work, during the summer softball league, and weekends where social events,
> family get toghethers and nights out with the wife would normally cause me
> to miss TV shows. Now with Tivo I can watch them anytime.

Yeah, that happend to me at first as well... Loaded up TiVo with some 50
or so shows in its ToDo list, and off it went.

But now, almost 2 years since buying the thing, I find that I only really
watch about 4 or 5 different shows religiously, with everything else being
a "Well, if I'm bored, I'll watch it..." type of thing. I haven't been
bored much lately, either.

Even then, you can blow through a show in 1/3 less time by fast forwarding
through the commercials. For some shows, that's still not enough and I'll
start skipping through the show as well My girlfriend, for instance,
likes Trading Spaces, but only watches the last 5 minutes where the people
get to see their new rooms.

I heartily agree about Tivo being able to free you from the television so
you can do other things rather than rush home to watch your programs when
the networks want you to watch your programs. In fact I often find myself
wanting to talk about something I saw last night, only to remember that
for everyone else, that was last month's episode

"Doug Jacobs" <> wrote in message
news:...
> In alt.games.video.sony-playstation2 Zackman
<> wrote:
>
> > Even so, not seven times more. Seven times! That means for every hour
one
> > person watches TV, there are seven hours worth of videogames being
played. I
> > seem to recall reading a stat that said the average household's TV is
> > watched three to four hours a day. No matter how many hardcore gamers
you
> > have playing games six hours a night or how big the market for game
consoles
> > and PC gaming becomes (currently most PC owners use their machines for
Net
> > access more often than gaming), it's never going to equal seven times
the
> > amount of TV watching. Not in five years, no chance. It's just another
> > bullshit statistic being spouted by these dumbasses.
>
> That statistic is probably a little out of date. And besides, the study
> being cited was looking at the next 5 years.
>
> Most people my age are watching way less TV than we did when were
> younger. Even so, I'm guessing this is where the current stat of 3 or 4
> hours a day is coming from.
>
> However, people 10 and 20 years younger than me are watching even less TV.
>
> Figure in 5 years, these will be the primary market of 18-25, and I can
> easily see TV viewing falling from 3-4 hours a day, to 3-4 hours a week.
> Between DVDs, the internet and computer games, who needs it? I myself
> have gone a month without any TV on ocassion. Surely, I can't be that
> freakish
>
> Don't believe me? Why do you think TV shows seem much more...desparate...
> now-a-days? They're losing their audience, and they know it. TV
> viewership is down and continues to decrease. Even the specialty cable
> channels find themselves having to compete more and more for fewer and
> fewer viewers. I mean, why else would Bravo, of all channels, suddenly
> break out with "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy"?

TV viewing is more spread out among multiple channels, thus the competition
(or desperation, as you put it) and the attempt to find something different
that might connect with people. That doesn't mean that overall viewership
has dropped or will drop as dramatically as you are saying. Just that it
will be harder than ever for any given show to pull in a decent share.

Doug Jacobs <> wrote in message news:<>...
> Of all the things to flame this idiot for, this one can actually hold water.
>
> A friend of mine is in advertising (writes ads for magazines, billboards,
> newspapers) but has seen several studies that all point to sharply declining
> time people 12-25 spend watching TV. Video games and the internet are the
> top two cited reasons for this drop.
>
> As a gamer (of course you're a gamer, otherwise you wouldn't be here...)
> what would you rather do? Watch TV or play a game?
>
> Throw in the ever growing number of PVR/TiVo devices, all which only decreases
> the amount of TV you watch (seriously...) and this statement isn't so wacky
> as it first sounds.
>
> The rest of the article, not to mention the company/product itself, on the
> other hand...

No one is disputing that game playing is increasingly eating into what
used to be time completely taken up by television. But SEVEN TIMES
more likely to play games than watch TV? come on!

> > > With a 2-3 GHz processor and a 120 gig hard drive, component video,
> > > cable modem, RF receiver all built into the system and the best video
> > > card on the market, the Phantom looks to make a huge impact on the
> > > gaming world.
>
> > Until the PS3 and Xbox2 come out a year or so later and make it obsolete.
>
> The thing is already obsolete, and will be even more obsolete when it
> hits the market - assuming it *ever* hits the market. I can't think of
> anyone who would be interested in this thing.

Not unless it keeps revising the stats every few months, ie: in 3
months its going to be 4 G, and 5 G in a year.

On Fri, 01 Aug 2003 03:28:41 -0000, Doug Jacobs
<> wrote:

>In alt.games.video.sony-playstation2 Kevin Sullivan <> wrote:
>
>> For starters it'll be a lot cheaper than a PC, it'll be easier to run
>> games on, the service will let you download games instantly. It may
>> not be something you're interested in but you need to look at it from
>> the mass market standpoint.
>
>It's the whole "download games instantly" that's got me wondering... If
>we're talking your typical PC game, that's a lot of data. I've seen
>installs range from 300mb to over 2GB. You (and Phantom) are telling me I
>can download/install games like these?


Yeah it definitely isn't going to be instant but on my cable
connection I could download 300MB in 15 minutes. Even a full 5GB DVD
game could be downloaded in a matter of hours.

That's all assuming they have consistently fast servers. If I'm
downloading a 5GB game at less than 100KB/s I'm not gonna be a happy
gamer.

>Granted, older PC games won't be as large, and if by some chance, Phantom
>managed to figure out lawyer limbo and can legally distribute ROM images,
>turning the Phantom into a set-top MAME console, then this is certainly
>possible...but is it business-worthy? Are folks really going to want to
>spend money so they can play games that are potentially older than they
>are?
>
>It just doesn't add up.

That's the whole thing. Just like with any other system they need to
have games. Infinium boasts tons of games will be available with the
system but you know that a majority of those are going to be like
Minesweeper and Solitaire and crap like that.

If they could get some decent third party support though I think they
might be on to something. A business model that completely cuts out
retail has got to be pretty attractive to publishers and definitely
developers.

I'm not trying to make it out like the Phantom is going to be the best
console ever, I'm just as skeptical as anyone else. I'm just playing
devil's advocate where everyone else is dismissing every single thing
about the console out of hand. Do I think the console is going to
succeed? Probably not. Do I think they have some good ideas? Hell yes.

I don't particularly like the idea of paying to download games and not
getting a case and manual and a physical disc or cart any more than I
do the idea of downloading albums as opposed to buying an actual CD
but you can't deny the appeal for most people who ruin their games and
throw the box and manual out anyway. If they can save some money and
not have to get off their fat ass to go to the store and buy the game
that's even better. The thing is, that alone isn't enough to get
someone to buy a system. I think the Phantom is a good example of what
consoles could be someday but I don't think it's going to be the
system to bring it into the mainstream. The whole idea of the system
relies on broadband and not enough people have it. Even most of those
who do don't have fast enough connections to download a full DVD in
just a couple hours. And even if you DO have a really fast connection
you can only download as fast as Infinium's servers can upload. I know
with my connection most of the transfer rates I get are far less than
the bandwidth I have available to me.

10 years from now though bandwidth will possibly be at the point where
it's not even an issue. That's when a system like the Phantom has a
better chance of success and that's when Sony and Microsoft and
Nintendo will start doing it themselves.

I'd love to see Nintendo's next console have some kind of service
where you could download old NES, SNES, GB and N64 games for a small
fee. Along with backwards compatibility with GC discs you'd be able to
play games from every Nintendo console ever made all on one system. In
Japan, Sega actually did something like that with the Dreamcast.

I bet third parties like Konami and Capcom would love to jump on that
bandwagon as they both have dozens of classics on the NES and SNES
that the masses would gladly pay a few bucks a ROM to download. It
sure beats people downloading them for free and playing them on
emulators on their PC's. Sure people will do that anyway but the
average person is clueless to stuff like that. Even if they know about
it they can't be bothered to do it themselves.


>The "DisCover" console I heard about on Slashdot last week makes slightly
>more sense. It's literally just a small formfactor PC with, supposedly,
>some extra software to make game installation/configuration much easier.
>You still have to buy the games from the store, and stick the CD in the
>slot. Essentially, it's an attempt to consolize the PC.
>Of course, I don't know how playable any games are going to considering
>DisCover's website showed pictures of what appeared to essentially be SNES
>controllers connected to this thing... And there's still the issue that
>the resolution of your average TV is something like 4x SMALLER than what
>most modern games support as a minimum (I think DOOM2 was about the last
>FPS to support anything less than 480x600...) meaning that at best, games
>will look really horrible.
>

Yeah the DISCover and another system for which the name escapes me at
the moment are basically going to be PC's in a console body. I know
the DISCover manages patches and stuff for you so you never have to go
looking for updates to games. How it'll work in practice is anyone's
guess.

In article <3f28e10d$>, "T.N.O" <> wrote:
>"Zackman" wrote
>| It's just another
>| bullshit statistic being spouted by these dumbasses.
>
>you know that 90% of statistics are made up on the spot don't you...
>
Did you know that, in a survey of ten people, nine out of ten agreed
that in a survey of ten people one person would disagree with the other
nine?

--
Matthew Poole Auckland, New Zealand
"Veni, vidi, velcro...
I came, I saw, I stuck around"

My real e-mail is mattATp00leDOTnet

In alt.games.video.sony-playstation2 Eiji Hayashi <> wrote:

> No one is disputing that game playing is increasingly eating into what
> used to be time completely taken up by television. But SEVEN TIMES
> more likely to play games than watch TV? come on!

Today, yeah, sure. I doubt many people are spending 7x the time on games
vs. watching TV. In 5-10 years, however...

If I look at myself as an example, I was "watching" over 30 hours a week
of TV as a teenager, but that went to nearly 0 while in college.
Meanwhile, my hours spent gaming each week increased sharply in college.
Nowadays, I'm about 15 hours/week for each (possible since I leave the TV on as
background noise while playing PC games

Teenagers today are watching less TV than I and my friends did when we
were that age. If they undergo the same changes, I can easily see people
playing games 20 hours a week (3 hours a day) while only watching 3 or 4
hours of TV a week.

Since we're in the middle of the summer rerun season, it'd be real easy to
accomplish a 7-to-1 ratio of game time to TV - especially using Tivo to
skip over commercials.

And I'm sure the number of people like me will only increase over time.

> > The thing is already obsolete, and will be even more obsolete when it
> > hits the market - assuming it *ever* hits the market. I can't think of
> > anyone who would be interested in this thing.

> Not unless it keeps revising the stats every few months, ie: in 3
> months its going to be 4 G, and 5 G in a year.

At which point they're going to run into the very problems they're seeking
to avoid with regards to infinite numbers of hardware compatibility.

Besides, the bottleneck of this thing is the broadband connection.
Shoving Ms. Pac Man over a broadband connection is one thing. Shoving
Warcraft III, on the other hand, is quite another.

One thing they haven't talked about is the liscensing agreements they've
set up with the game companies to distribute their games. I mean, they
*do* have liscense agreements, right? No business would be as stupid as
to simply start selling pirated software for their hardware, would they?
Yes?

"Alan" <> wrote in message
news:qCDWa.8724$...
> "Doug Jacobs" <> wrote in message
> news:...
> > In alt.games.video.sony-playstation2 Eiji Hayashi <>
> wrote:
> >
> > > No one is disputing that game playing is increasingly eating into what
> > > used to be time completely taken up by television. But SEVEN TIMES
> > > more likely to play games than watch TV? come on!
> >
> > Today, yeah, sure. I doubt many people are spending 7x the time on
games
> > vs. watching TV. In 5-10 years, however...
> >
> > If I look at myself as an example, I was "watching" over 30 hours a week
> > of TV as a teenager, but that went to nearly 0 while in college.
> > Meanwhile, my hours spent gaming each week increased sharply in college.
> > Nowadays, I'm about 15 hours/week for each (possible since I leave the
TV
> on as
> > background noise while playing PC games
> >
> > Teenagers today are watching less TV than I and my friends did when we
> > were that age. If they undergo the same changes, I can easily see
people
> > playing games 20 hours a week (3 hours a day) while only watching 3 or 4
> > hours of TV a week.
> >
> > Since we're in the middle of the summer rerun season, it'd be real easy
to
> > accomplish a 7-to-1 ratio of game time to TV - especially using Tivo to
> > skip over commercials.
> >
> > And I'm sure the number of people like me will only increase over time.
>
> How long is it going to be before product placement becomes mainstream
> 'inside' computer games, or we're subjected to a few minutes of adverts
> every few minutes of game-time, or have to watch product promos at the end
> of a level, or while a new level loads, etc? I'm kind of surprised we
don't
> see more of this sort of 'corporate sponsorship' already.

Yeah, there already is product placement in games, though it isn't as bad as
in the movies (yet). Hell, they're even starting to do experiments with
product placement in novels! How sad is that?

I miss the old days of product placement, when it was "OK, we have a scene
where somebody drinks a soda - who wants to pay to have their name on the
can?" Now it's, "OK, Pepsi just paid us $1 million, so what kind of scene
can we write that revolves around a Pepsi can?" (For a perfect example of
this, see: The Thomas Crown Affair.)