Apr 08
Join us for the ELR style crackdown on 8 or 9 new techs and how long we think they’ll survive in this world. They include: OnLive, Quake Live, Kindle, DSi, Netbooks, Android, AIR, Steam, Hulu / Netflix, and MORE!
Additional thanks to GoDaddy (codes LIFE1, LIFE2, and LIFE3), YouBuyNow.com, O, Brian, Mark, Scott Fletcher, Rob Goobers, Skyhawk, Sebastiaan van Dijk, various contributors, and YOU!
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First!
The Kindle 2 has got a feature that lets the book be read to you:
“Read-to-Me: With the new text-to-speech feature, Kindle can read every newspaper, magazine, blog, and book out loud to you, unless the book is disabled by the rights holder”.
Nevertheless, great show.
Stupid ‘first’ remark was due to being from the future, but you all knew that didn’t you?
This was a fun show for me. I hope all enjoyed.
I had a ball. If me and brian had fun, what else matters?
Your idea of netbooks as underpowered seems constrained by the fact that they are small and thus will always be underpowered. Dual-core netbooks are soon to be expected and they will eventually catch-up with the RAM needed to run Vista.
Of course the fact that I’m expecting the delivery of my own netbook today might have something to do with the fact that I feel like dissing your opinion
Things I agree on though: this market is too crowded with netbooks that are all alike: cheap computers running an Intel Atom CPU, and that the very smallests netbooks will eventually disapear under the pressure of fancier phones and other palmtop devices.
Also note that I don’t plan to run XP for one on mine. I’ll install Linux on that and I’ll be done.
Oh and I also agree that Apple will make one that will put all other netbooks to shame, but it’ll be expensive and I won’t buy it.
The eight-ball was AMAZINGLY accurate. I’d love to see you guys go back over these predictions in a year.
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Onlive: It’ll function, but have some quality issues, especially the farther you go from the server farm. The main problem will be its profitability within a price range that people are willing to buy into.
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Quake Live: It’ll stick around and improve over time. You guys don’t really give enough credit to the core Quake players. The statistics are awesome. (and no, I’m not a Quake player)
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Kindle: There’s a market for this and the price will come down as e-ink technology matures. It’ll be a long time until any digital version of books will take over printed versions, but it’s inevitable. It’s going to be tough to overcome the amazon service tie-in for competition, just like the ipod/itunes fiasco, but we need competition.
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DSi: It’ll be bought like all the other Nintendo stuff and then be replaced with another version in a year or two. If this is only about the store, of course it’ll be successful. Downloads are the future of handhelds and will dominate in the next generation, perhaps even replacing cartridges altogether.
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Netbook: Not too profitable for companies, but will stick around strongly. Apple probably won’t make one because of disinterest in the slim profit margins. It has a strong niche as a satellite computer, not a primary computer. It has the price to fit that niche.
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Android: Tough market since few manufacturers are interested in an open platform, but they may be forced by demand later. Unfortunately iPhone takes the steam out of demand.
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AIR: I’m not a fan of installing an app to use other apps, but it’s going to stick around. *sigh* I don’t see it getting too much bigger though.
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Steam: I’m a huge fan. It’ll stick around, but there might be a monopoly issue down the road. It’s going to get more awesome features like for Steam cloud and Steam community. Onlive won’t touch it. Gamers who would use Onlive generally wouldn’t have used Steam much.
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Streaming video services: Will become standard someday (ondemand)… the only thing holding it back are publisher demands on the services (and cheap compatible settop boxes). Putting things on Hulu a week late and then taking them off 3 weeks later is NOT cool. Guess what I do when that happens, publisher, I stream it from illegal sites. Trying to block settop boxes from streaming them? VERY not cool.
@RealityIntern
Great responses…I’d like to see where other people stand.
Dieing to listen to this EP now. Me and RealityIntern doesn’t always see eye to eye but reading his responses (Again I have yet to listen) he is pretty spot on with his comments on the said subjects.
QuakeLive is a blast and I hope they toss in a few of the good Quake3 Mods (they might already be planning this and I’m not out of the loop) for options to play.
Just listened to some of the post cast and I don’t understand why Brian thought it was hard to get going. You just sign-up downloaded the file and install it and reload the browser.
Also RI already touched on the dedication of Quake players and they will play for years. This will also be used for tournaments and such which should prove to be a bug success.
Also I think we’re all missing the big picture on what QuakeLive really is and it’s the tech behind how to deliver new games. id is more into delivering a platform for other developers these days then making games. The game is a second thought at times wrapped around a new engine or technology.
wow I made a bunch of errors in the above. The comments need a edit button. QuakeLive will prove to be a big success I think and not with the game but on how it delivers the game.
It’s also worth noting that Quake 3/Live is listed in the top 10 most popular multiplayer FPS games on Gamespy stats. I think pre-Live it was consistently in the top 20.
Hey,
My impressions were that Quake Live was suppose to be an instant action technology. I don’t see where this is any different than installing Quake from a CD or a exe file. Took as long as a cd or longer. I just don’t see the benefit other than it’s free and I don’t have to find my cd if I want to install it.
This is coming from a huge Quake fan by the way.
Brian D.