Business

1 Comment Posted on by Steve Murray Link-Off

Wednesday Link-Off: The How-to’s of Business

chrissy-teigen-beachbunny13-14If it’s the middle of the week, it must be time for some links. Let’s start today’s post with Chrissy Teigen.

Filing tax returns is probably everyone’s least favourite activity. Even less so than going to the dentist. Naturally, TurboTax, a company that profits from allowing people to do their own tax returns, doesn’t want filing your taxes to be any easier. They even lobbied to keep from getting tax filing any easier. (ProPublica)

Meanwhile, Samsung has gotten to the top spot in the smartphone market through more legitimate means. (Businessweek)

There might be some political career threatening rumours over Marco Rubio’s head. The only problem is that some outlets aren’t willing to say what the rumours are because they probably aren’t true. That begs the question: Why are you mentioning that these rumours exist if you know they aren’t true. (Gawker)

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1 Comment Posted on by Steve Murray Link-Off

Sunday Link-Off: The Business

christina-hendricks-flare13-05It’s the end of the week so it’s time for links. Formula One is back this weekend so I’ll have some racing content over the next couple of weeks. I don’t think I’ll have time for a gaming column this week because I’ll be busy playing through a few games. In the meantime, since Mad Men is on tonight, here’s Christina Hendricks.

As someone who, on occasion, considers himself a member of the media, I’m a little unnerved by the lack of attention being paid to a court case in Colorado over a journalist’s sources in the James Holmes investigation. Taking a reporter to court for reporting is the beginning of a slippery slope. (New York Times)

Justin Trudeau is seen by many as being in the shadow of his father but he is his own man and has economic policies that should make Bay Street happy. (Canadian Business)

I don’t know what Bitcoin is or why it’s having a crash but I find the fact that a virtual currency can have a crash fascinating. (Yahoo News)

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1 Comment Posted on by Steve Murray Columns, Video Games

Why March is the New Video Game Christmas

gamestop-black-fridayIt used to be that all the big products were launched in time for the Christmas shopping season (or your religion’s December equivalent). This included video games. Last year wasn’t much different with big releases in the run up to Christmas including Far Cry 3, COD: Blops 2, Hitman, Assassin’s Creed 3, among several other triple-A releases.

The reason for releasing games in the fall in the run up to Christmas is obvious. Christmas is the biggest shopping season of the year. Everyone is asking for and looking for Christmas gifts so what better time to get your big products out there than when people are spending scads of money anyway.

So why do I bring up March? If you’ve checked the release calendar, you’d have noticed that this month has more noteworthy games coming out than seemingly any single month in the past year. We’ve already had reboots for Tomb Raider and Sim City start the month and BioShock: Infinite will close it up. In the intervening time period, there you can buy StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, prequels for Gears of War and God of War, and The Walking Dead cash in from Activision.

So why has March turned into such a hotbed for big game releases?

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4 Comments Posted on by Steve Murray Columns, Video Games

Console Wars: Will The PS4 and XBox 720 Kill Console Gaming?

For the last couple of years, rumours have been flying about the next generation of video game consoles. Since, at least, the introduction of the Playstation 2 and original XBox, it seems as though the balance of power (and money) in video gaming belonged to the consoles. Very few if any big games weren’t released on console. However, with some of the recent rumours about the PS4 and the XBox 720, the console manufacturers could destroy themselves to help publishers. Continue reading →

Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Randominity

Is Alexander Keith’s Copying Rickard’s?

I saw an ad on the internet today about a new “Premium White” beer from Alexander Keith’s. They’re the same folks that bring you one of the most widely available India Pale Ales on the market and their relatively new Red Amber Ale. If you look at other Canadian breweries, there is only one other that pushes Red and White ales and that is the Molson-owned Rickard’s. Continue reading →

1 Comment Posted on by Steve Murray Randominity

Logos After The Recession

As you know, the economy sucks.  I’m not going to try and explain why the economy is on a continuous tailspin because hedge funds lost all their value because banks defaulted on loans they owe because people they loaned money to defaulted on their loans.

Instead, the global economic crisis has caused some major international corporations to update their logos to reflect the times.

Apple
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