Mass Deduction (née scrapking)'s discussions

Microsoft was losing money on every Xbox they sold. Lots of money as they'd had to match Sony's PS2 price drop of $149.99 in the U.S. (console gaming's biggest market) when they pulled the plug. Read more

The Xbox 360 has an optional hard drive. The 4GB 360 has flash memory, not an HDD. Since when has the 360 *not* had an optional hard drive? Read more

It's still not clear if it's a software difference, or a hardware difference. At least, not clear in anything I can find on the internet yet. Some or all of the improvements may be implemented on the Xbox in a future update. Read more

Game systems have long been sold at cost, or even at a loss, but game console accessories are typically sold at good margins. Kinect has been selling at a profit since day 1, and Microsoft has realised cost advantages (through simplified internals and economies of scale) since then. Read more

Who, Fahey or the commentator he's highlighting? Read more

Laugh it up all you want, the 360 has already outsold the NES/Famicom and a lot of other legendary systems, and it keeps growing in year-over-year sales (most other systems peak in sales at the 2.5 year mark, whereas the 360 has yet to peak, despite now having 6 years under its belt). Read more

I'm 38 so not sure if I count as an "oldster", but I do remember The Time Tunnel. I watched in repeats as a child. I found it difficult to get past the two of them showing up in, say, roman times, and no one finds their atire (a business suit, and a turtleneck, respectively) or their language strange. :) Read more

Cue people missing the fact that this was not an opinion piece by Mike Fahey. Read more

Expect The Xbox 360 to be doing the same five years from now. The 360 is popular enough, powerful enough, with enough opportunity for future cost/size reductions, and a large enough game library to remain relevant for a long time to come, just as the PS2 has (for all those same reasons). Read more

Here's the Total Recall 2070 intro, for those interested. The show included not only Michael Easton, who has done some other genre work, but also at least one actor who later went on to be a cylon.

If we're including animated shows, I'd additionally suggest Exo Squad.

There were things I enjoyed about Space: Above and Beyond, but compared to its contemporaries (Babylon 5 springs to mind), I think it wasn't that great. Read more

At least we're now at the crux of the matter. Read more

"You forget that there's a whole world out there, besides the U.S." Read more

A lot of people are taking you to task here, and it's not largely because they disagree with you. You're stating opinion as if it's fact, using a lot of profanity, making statements that don't stand up to any level of objective scrutiny (eg. Kinect has no good games no matter what reviews say), and seeming to reframe… Read more

"And it has none." Read more

I submit to you that to say half or more of those units are no longer in circulation is a total exaggeration, given Microsoft has repaired so many that they took a one-time *billion* dollar charge in repair bills, and had already paid some before, and continued to pay some afterward. The majority of dead 360s are… Read more

Lots of people don't, but those people are admittedly among the least likely to shop at Gamestop. Console sales this gen will likely slow at Gamestop sooner, and faster, than at other merchants. Read more

Good point. Thanks to the Family Gold offer, there are some Xboxes with several Gold accounts. Read more

Many millions of those dead 360s got repaired under warranty, so your 3x million is waaaaaay off. Read more