Wednesday, July 11, 2007

CRISIS! (No, not an(other) enviro blah)

In a distractin turn of events, this blog suddenly is going off in a random direction, and am suddenly inspired to can the sense of humour and write something! So the topic for the day is economic crisis, and we open the floor to Doug Adams! First coming to mind of course, is the great show crisis that had engulfed Frogstar World B (My copy of the guide is elsewhere, so do not kill me for any errors) Adams speaks of how it all started with shoemakers. Eventually many many shoemakers came up as the profits in the industry rose. To keep competition at bay, prices (and corners) were cut until it became utterly uneconomic to make any more. Also demands rose so much more due to these poorly made shoes that it eventually led to a great crisis that destroyed the world and made it what it is today, the most totally evil place in the Galaxy.

Then theres the video game crash of 1983, look it up if you think im still dabbling in fantasy. The situation was curiously similar to the one Adams made up. Since video games became so nice and popular and profitable, every T D and H started making his own. Now, since there were so many anyway, no one had the money to make a new game, they merely ripped off the old ones. Eventually, the old too much supply no demand happened and there was a crash of (almost) proportions.

ok, i'm gonna get embarrassingly serious now. A few days ago we were 'treated' to a sales talk by one chap at the ps station. Ya, he spoke of numbers, loads and loads and didnt really expect us to be interested either. But he said one thing which i thought important. He spoke of how nowadays the time that it takes to make a chip (that amd-intel stuff, not frito lay) is longer than the time there is to make money out of it. Meaning it takes around 2 years to develop a chip, and only abt 1.5 years to make a profit out of it, cos theres so many newer ones hitting the world everyday. And the rift only growing wider, meaning less time to make munny. Sounds familiar? Industry with huge profits. Great amount of demand. People throwing away cellphones (yes, they have chips in them) every two months for a better one. Dropping costs of everything electronics related... Dunno abt you, but sounds verry frogstar to me. So much for the very much touted EEE, hah!

PS: I seem to have mentioned a contributors column. One Vivek 'BOB' krishnan, notes that a nilanjana bhattacharyya lists 'candle light' as one of her (many, supposedly) turn ons. In a 'flash' of inspiration, he declares this to be a manifestation of ze olde Photoelectric effect! BOB 1, Albert 1.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

eh?![:O]

Anonymous said...

well, any market when it sees a potential profit, people will flock to it and soon all the potential will be dried out. I'm sure there's a name for it.

The video game crisis exists even today, with no new ideas coming out, and companies putting pressure only on graphical quality.

I draw your attention to the game "crysis" which has unprescedented graphical quality, and yet no new features as such.

In fact, I thought that was what it was about when I saw the title.

Anonymous said...

ah yes.... anonymous comments. So, i'll have my site running soon. www.narensundar.com. It's still under construction of course, i am not sure what to put in it yet. Maybe a blog perhaps?

-Naren

Rishabh Kaul said...

video crisis in the 80's eh?

Vivek Krishnan said...

"And it is written that gaming of man will die, and rest silent. But on the eighty-fifth year of the twentieth century, it shall rise again. And its triumphant return shall be heralded by two great plumbers, and thou will know gaming has been born again"

- The Gospel according to miyamoto, chapter 6, verse 3
From the holy instruction manual of the Sacred Church of Gaming,




So, all we got to do, is wait for the plumbers

urban said...

Hmmm, I should've emphasised the point a lil louder i guess. I quoted frogstar and 83 only as precedents, even that indian dot com bust could be stated.
The EEE death is gonna be heeuuge, believe me. The funds that are going into it are far more than any of the previous, and so shall be its fall. And no plumbers are gonna save em...

Anonymous said...

candle lights...lol!

Gupta

Nilanjana said...

bhat!! bobek!!!! (indignant). my supposed "turn on"s are not for a public forum!!!!!! (and besides, photoelectric effect? i think it's more like photosynthesis... ya know, catalyst )