My friends are awesome
We’re doing family style at Maggianno’s on Friday, so Al made a Google Spreadsheet to tally menu item votes.
It’s easy to see what dessert is in the lead.
Strong Opinions @marksbirch: The Slow Extinction of Waiting
Look around the next time you are in a long queue or sitting in an office for an appointment. People are looking down at their phones. It is not just one or two people, it is everyone. It is on the subway, at the DMV, waiting at the checkout line at the supermarket, driving in our cars. There was…
This sums up much of how I feel about mobile tech and it’s influence on our lives.
Into The Forrst: On what's next.
I’m really, really excited to be writing this post today. Big things are afoot at Forrst, and I’d like to share a few of them with you.
I am pleased to announce that Forrst is part of the latest 500startups Accelerator batch. Dave participated in our seed round in March, and when he asked…
This is amazing! Go Forrst!
What If Mario Jumped To The iPhone?
If Nintendo were to do this, their hardware business would effectively be done.
BUT, the software sales would be beyond massive. How many copies of Mario and Zelda would Nintendo sell on the iPhone? What about the iPad? What about Apple TV?
Nintendo is in the unique position where they could certainly have leverage to strike a special deal with Apple here. The end result could be game-changing.
1 Up.
Interesting idea. Reblogging for my more knowledgable video game friends to comment (Hey, Chris!)
Sega is a company that comes to mind that abandoned hardware for pure software and they seem awfully irrelevant now. But then again, they were mostly irrelevant at the time they switched.
People who follow the game industry have thrown the Apple-buying-Nintendo “what if” situation around for years. It’ll never happen ( at least, any time soon ) for the following reasons:
Objectively,
- Thanks to decades of prosperity, Nintendo currently has around $10 billion in cash. One quarterly loss hasn’t moved the needle very far.
- Nintendo’s corporate culture is too proud to consider an acquisition strategy. A leadership change could alter this, but displacing Iwata at this stage would be an insane move considering it’s his leadership that saw Nintendo become the undisputed sales leader of both the console and handheld videogame markets.
- Regardless of hype, the Nintendo DS still has a larger install base than the iPhone ( 147+ million units worldwide ).
- The home console market is larger than it has ever been, and Nintendo currently rules the roost there with nearly double the installed base of its closest competitor.
- All of Nintendo’s past experiments with licensing their properties to non-Nintendo hardware have been dismal at best. See the CD-i Zelda games, Mario is Missing, etc.
- Nintendo has traditionally taken a “wait and see” approach with new technology. This policy has supplied critics with ammunition during the launches of the Nintendo 64 ( it lacked optical disk-based media ), the Gamecube ( it lacked built-in online functionality ), and the Wii ( it lacked high definition output ). It has, however, allowed Nintendo to integrate technology only after it has become ubiquitous and cheap.
- The stock prices of all Japanese technology companies have taken steeper-than-average nosedives in the aftermath of the recession and tsunami / earthquake / nuclear disaster. Very little about the actual performance of these companies is reflected in the prices of their stock.
Subjectively,
- The iPhone would be a bad platform for Nintendo’s most famous franchises. Playing a Mario game without physical buttons would be painful.
- Nintendo would be unwilling to sell its games for the prices popularized by the current app store mentality. Sharing a percentage of that already lowered revenue with an outside entity for every title sold would be a hell of a pill to swallow.
- Judging from the stories of mobile game developers, the current popular practice of selling games for $1 is unsustainable. The short-term successes of companies like Zynga and Rovio have yet to prove that they have any staying power.
- With very few exceptions, games built for mobile phones are simply not as compelling as those built for custom-purposed systems. They’re still at a stage where they provide just enough mindless entertainment to occupy short subway rides. I believe this is a symptom of both the hardware’s form factor and the cash-in mentality of mobile developers.
- The 3DS is a great system and will likely do very well this holiday season. The original DS took at least an entire year to deliver on the promise of steady software, and until that point it also struggled.
Ice Cream Festival 2011
Because Type II Diabetes simply isn’t prevalent enough, our annual tradition of attending the Philadelphia Ice Cream Festival is still going strong.
This year’s festivities proceeded at a more relaxed pace than that of years prior. No one succumbed to the dangers of lactose overload, and everyone had room for celebratory cheesesteaks afterward.
The Final Tallies
Caitlin: 12 scoops ( Previous best: 17 scoops in 2009 and 2010 )
Kelly: 13 scoops ( Previous best: 15 scoops in 2009 )
Steve: 15 scoops ( Previous best: 21 scoops in 2009 )
John: 20 scoops ( Previous best: 23 scoops in 2009 )
Julie: 20 scoops ( Previous best: 19 scoops in 2009 )
Non: 20 scoops ( Previous best: 35 scoops in 2008 )
Chris: 30 scoops ( Previous best: 47 scoops in 2010 )
The Conglomo-Tower: 115 cups high!
Once again, thanks to everyone who came out and helped make 2011 awesome!
