Michael-5 said:
1. US Auto industry died because the Japanese auto industry took them over. Since the mid 1980's Japanese companies have been slowly gaining sales, and now Toyota and GM are on even grounds WW. It's because GM planned their cars to concurrently break down after a period of time. Before the Japanese entered the market it was 3 years (or 90k), and GM was able to make nice looking/driving cars. After the Japanese entered it was 10 years (or 250k), and GM cars all still sold for the same price, but were made of crappier plastic materials in order to balance profit. I know a ridiculous amount about cars. GM and Crysler fell apart because of poor management. Simple as that. Ford survived because they actually make cars that appeal outside of the US (in Europe you might actually find people driving ford Fiestas and Focus's :-O!) and since the Japanese have entered the market, they have done a good amount to improve quality (largly from partly owning Mazda). What most US corporations do is make crap products, make them in slave labour conditions in China, and sell them way over priced. I mean iPhones have over a 5,000% profit margin in factories with ridiculously high suicide rates. Nike Shoes cost less then 40 cents to make and transport, and just overall US companies make me sick. I didn't realize this until recently when my iPhone and X-Box broke on me multiple times. 1.5 - Kinect is cool, overpriced IMO, but cool. Forza 4 is awesome, and XBL is great. I'm not disspointed in quality of MS products, just market strategy. 2. Duh, but not everything is about profit. Sony also realized the main complaint with the PS3 is the high price tag and they lowered it to make it more available to customers. 3. 3 Month XBL gold costs 50% as much as 12 months. Why pay double? Where are the 1 month or 1 week cards? or pre-paid online hours? What if I want to get XLBG just to play Gears 3 online for a week? What if I want to play XBLG all year, but I only want to play an hour or two a month? am I forced to pay $5 an hour? So many flaws with XBL pricing, MS basically forces you to subscribe annually. You know, XLB Silver accounts used to grant you online access to old games, or XBL games which have PC ports? I used to play Lost Planet online with my silver account until the mandetory XBL update of 2009. Why? I mean if XBL for Windows is free, why do they charge console gamers only? Why am I forced to pay to play old games online which used to be free to play online? The game is too pld for patches and service updates, so I am literally paying for nothing. I fall into this category because I typically want to play XBL for only a couple days a month. So I have to choose to either pay a ridiculous amount to play Halo in April, or limit my online to 3 month bursts from Sept-Dec. 4. So many things I dislike about MS as a company. As a system, I love my 360, as a company I have little respect for MS. |
You know, you do know a ridiculous amount of stuff.
So, GM designs cars to break down after a while. Really? Next time I see an '73 Impala or a '71 Challenger R/T outpricing a Toyota Crown at an auction, I'll submit a written protest.
Apple products are now crappy because they're manufactured by underpaid, overworked, suicidal chinamen? Maybe you missed post-war Japan. What about Adidas, or Asics, or Puma? Do you think better of them, because their shoes cost more than $0.40 to produce and transport? US companies and their subsidiaries employ the largest amount of workers in China, apart from domestic firms. When labor conditions improve in China, prepare to pay premium for exactly the same thing.
If you're complaining about cost, maybe you should give the (free, for now) PSN a try. From what I hear, when it's not down, it's quite a competent alternative. If you want to squeeze every cent out of your paid LIVE subscription, I sugest you play more.
