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I raise you this.

Let's not forget that Thompson does this for profit, a hell of a lot more than the Penny Arcade guys get. Thompson has orchistrated multiple lawsuits and class-action suits against the industry over the years, and has profitedly handsomly from it. Thompson inhabits a space that attempts to restrict expression for personal profit. That's a lot more tenuous than the position of Penny Arcade where they express themselves and get paid for it.

Thompson is very relevant to Penny Arcade. They've sold "I hate Jack Thompson" t-shirts for years. He claims that Electronic Arts sells pornography via Sims2 to children and that videogames caused Columbine. Penny Arcade is a webcomic about videogame culture. Thompson is a part of that culture. There is a clear connection there, and a clear reason for Penny Arcade to e-mail this very public figure.

He then called them. On the phone. In meatspace. Of his own volition. Which of course they post about, as Penny Arcade is a blog that posts about videogame relevant experiences these two people have. That's what they do. And having tons of readers, some respond by making baseless threats. That's the nature of the modern instantaneous communication and not at all PA's fault. If you haven't had at least one nut job claim you're going to be staring down the end of a 357, you're not trying hard enough.

And Thompson did a lot to fan the flames. Like pretending to contact the police, when in fact he was faxing everyone but them. And now the feds. Oh, and the whole open challenge to the video game industry PR stunt followed by "my promise to donate to charity was a farce." And he happened to be in the news anyway, what with the National Institute on Media and the Family distancing itself from him.

Not to put it too bluntly, but Penny Arcade has raised over 1/2 million dollars for toys for children's hospitals. Jack Thompson just copped out on making a promised 10,000 dollar donation to charity. That's basically what they said to him, and it's true.

Either way, he's a lawyer. He's supposed to be held to a higher moral standard. He's not supposed to make baseless threats, scream obscenities at media people, or mislead about legal actions he's pursuing.

On the other hand, the Penny Arcade blog, the modern equivalent of a morning radio show, has been posting inflammatory things like:

Jack is not special. He is not a unique snow flake as they say. He is just the latest vocal opponent of whatever is "corrupting" our youth at the moment. When my dad was growing up it was rock and roll devil music. Then it was comic books then movies and rap music. Today its videogames. If we were to succeed in getting Jack blacklisted from the major news outlets someone else would simply take his place. Imagine him as an actor playing a part in a play. The point is that Jack Thompson is not important. If he were to be fired a new actor would simply take up the role. The same lines would still be delivered in the same way and the same audience would pay to see it. We are actually fortunate that the current actor is so impotent in his role. Imagine what might happen if some charming, efficacious attorney took his place. The more I consider it the more I think we may be lucky to have Jack playing the part of the alarmist. The alternative might be someone who is actually capable.

That's major inducement to harass right there.

I've been trying to get this posted here for days so I'll post it here...

It's semi off topic, but id stuff is posted a lot here, so here it goes:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid= 11868
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/09/27/news_61345 36.html

Adrian Carmack (one of 4 founders of id software) was fired over some stock despute (RTFA). What's more interesting (depends how you take it) is that Activision tried buying id for $105 million dollars. Read the rest in the links.

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.

Looks like the some rightist orgs, like the National Institute on Media and the Family, recently denounced ties to him as well, reported here.

Write to your members of Congress, inform them that you vote and you actively follow the issues that are important to you, and then tell them that if they associate with Jack Thompson, you will vote against them when they are next up for re-election. It might be helpful to include links to Jack's initial offer, and the open letter ending his association with NIMF.

Initial offer and game description:
http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5883

NIMF letter:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid= 12259

Be polite, be civil, and be sure to include your full, real name, and your full, real address. Ask for a reply. You'll probably get one.

Believe it or not, members of Congress pay close attention to these things. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on staff and supplies for constituent relations. I know it's cool to think that only big corporations get things done in Washington, but it's not true. When enough people speak up, they can move the government.

You can be sure that those who agree with Jack are writing letters once a week. Only by matching or beating that can we fight back.

Here's a good site to get started, for free. Find your representative and senators and write today!

http://www3.capwiz.com/y/dbq/officials/

And now he's trying to say the "experts" that he had quoted to fight against violent video games are distancing themselves from him cause they're funded by the video game industry.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?sect ion_name=pub&aid=12296

Second note, after Jack's last little spat, pro-family groups are starting to realize that there's crazy, and then there's CRAZY. So they are distancing themselves from Jack. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid= 12259

Quote Dr. Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family, "I know that you [Jack] share that common concern and I am well aware that you [Jack] have frequently cited me and our organisation as a source of scientific information," Walsh continues.

"However, over the past few months, I and members of my board have a growing concern that your [Jack] use of our name, without our permission, has had a negative influence as we try to educate the public on this important issue."

"Consequently, I ask that you cease using the institute's or my name in any way that would give the impression that we support your efforts." Walsh also requests that Thompson remove the link to the institute's website from his own site.

I thought I was well read on this wack job, but when did Jack do this?

"Doug Lowenstein whom Thompson has previously compared to Hitler."

don't forget the article linked by penny-arcade as well. mr. thompson is not winning the hearts of anyone anymore...

Microsoft do XBox 360, Sony do PS3, XBox 360 hasn't gone for either HD-DVD or Blu-ray. If HD-DVD was so real why didn't they pick it for XBox 360?

Correction... 4 million.

Ant Slayer

More Sources: GamesIndustry.biz/a> and News Corp themselves.

The one million mark was passed in June. There have been a couple of months since then.

I seem to remember that some studios want to bundle UMDs with DVDs. While this hasn't spread across the market like the plague, it will start to impede on my selection of purchases. Sure, you only pay an extra couple of bucks to get the UMD with the DVD, but I don't want the UMD.

As I've said, I've not been afflicted yet, but how long will it be before I am? Maybe I'm just paranoid, but Sony's trying to cram it down our throats... just like the Memory Stick, the MD, and the BetaMax formats. And before I face any heat for this comment, I am the proud owner of a MZ-R50 MiniDisc recorder.

Don't believe me? See for yourself.

Accord to this article on Gamesindustry.biz gamers in the UK will be expected to fork out,

£299 for the "Core System"
and £399 for the full system.

If this is right then it means the full system in the UK is a whopping $720!

Why is it that when they decide to bring the goods over here they just replace the $ with a £?

What will end up making or breaking the Xbox 360 are the games that are available when the product launches. This article has a list of probable launch titles for the Xbox 360. Team Xbox also has a few predictions. The question is, are any of these killer apps that I just need to have and that I won't be able to get anywhere else?

A quick glance at the list and I know there isn't anything on there that I just have to play right away. Some of you might differ, but to me it looks like a lot of those games are more of the same old that will probably see PS3 versions with the possibility of slightly better graphics.

The launch titles are especially important for the Xbox 360 because there are still a lot of doubts about the compatibility of Xbox games. Apparently, some explanation has been given about hos it will work, but I've heard a few rumors that say backwards compatibility won't be there. If there aren't any games I need to have for the Xbox 360 and I can't play my Xbox games on them right out of the box, then do I really need an Xbox 360 right away?

The final factor is the price and what I get for it. Sony has called the Xbox 360, the Xbox 1.5, which I won't entirely believe, but does have a few points. Right now it has a plain old DVD drive in it. Where's the next-gen media format support? A recent EGM article hinted that this might be upgradable to HD-DVD if MS feels the need to do it. The Xbox will also serve as a media center, which I really don't need. So is $300 worth the price of admission? Considering that the PS3 is expected to launch for $400 or more and include more next-gen bells and whistles, I might consider waiting for that if I needed a media center. Then again, Nintendo is trying to ship their console for $200 or less. Granted that Nintendo isn't offering an all-in-one package, but it is an affordable gaming console. The only problem is that I'd have to wait almost another year for it to come out.

As metioned in the article, brand loyalty will certainly play a part in what people decide to do. Since I own all three major consoles, I don't really see myself as loyal to any particular brand. Each has its merits though.

If I had to make a prediction, I'm going to guess that the Xbox 360 will do quite well in America taking the number 2 spot and picking up market share, but will do poorly in Japan.

The problem with IGN/GameSpy sites is that there is too little content for too much advertisements (I'd say the content to advertisement ratio would be about 1:2, without hesitating). They force a full-screen advertisement down your throat, often several times per day, and once you have bypassed that, you still have advertisement banners of considerable size (thank God for Adblock!).

I much prefer sites such as Eurogamer and its sister site GamesIndustry.biz which don't attempt to have you eat their advertisements, yet provide satisfactory content nevertheless.

Well, actually just one Ethernet port... And it's debatable whether it'll be gigabit or not: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/news.php?aid=10033. We can probably expect this sort of thing to happen again before the PS3 ever ships (hopefully without that hideous Dual Shock 3 controller).

The problem, it says, is down to hardware incompatibility - since the current Xbox uses an Intel processor, but the 360 will use IBM's PowerPC architecture, while NVIDIA's graphics solution is being replaced with an ATI one.

Sony and Nintendo have already confirmed that their next-gen consoles - the PS3 and Revolution - will play all the games in their respective back catalogues, offering consumers a huge choice of titles at launch.

It's hard to believe they don't have more reliable data, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt. What the heck. I have nothing against Sony ( except a distaste for proprietary memory card formats and MagicGate, admittedly ).

500,000 still seems like a small number when you consider that's the same number of PSPs that sold in the US during the first two days after it's launch. Especially when you consider there's no way 500k UMDs have actually sold...

What I'm really curious about is the previous statement that "25 movies" would be available on UMD for the European release. It seems like an odd statement because there are 113 UMD movies listed on Amazon right now. Why wouldn't the same 113 titles be ready for europe? Is the market not there ? Odd...

That would be pretty damned hard to do considering NVIDIA hasn't finished the PS3 GPU yet.

Nintendo may not look like the most technologically advanced, but at least they're looking like that most mature at the moment. I'm sure they'll eventually come out the door guns blazing.

by the release of porn on UMD.

Um, care to explain why four of the top ten games in Japan are for the DS then, and why none of them are for the PSP? Perhaps your facts also need some checking.

Once again you show your ignorance while trying to find holes that aren't there in my argument. Ya know, sometimes people do actually know what they are talking about, and yes sometimes it is counter to your beliefs. I know I took the low road first with the assclown comment but I truly want you to understand where you are wrong here.

You again are basing your 7 titles and points 1 and 2 on a *summary* of the real article that leaves out huge chunks of what Midway Actually said. Here is the real article: Midway to support PS3 at launch, but not Xbox 360 The amazing thing is the article was edited after the first day to take out the stament where the CEO of Midway calls the Xbox 360 "a niche player" and replaced it with: "pretty small install base..." removing the niche comment. To also puncture your attempt to make it seem as if I'm not up on Midway or the game industry... from your article it states: "Midway is fully supporting the Xbox 360 and we have games in development at all of our internal studios," (emphasis added) The first part also was never actually said by Midway, it was claimed by an update on the gamespot article, I spoke with a rep. (its funny too that they state this statement comes from an un-named "rep.")from Midway and they stated no one would be authorized to make that statement at this time

I have been in contact with five developers for five different studios - one being owned by MS, and he is the only one that had anything good to say but also stated there were issues he was aware of at the moment that he couldn't go into. The others all openly stated their displeasure with the architecture of the 360, the toolsets so far, the costs and time involvement. One even went as far as to breakdown a current game development cycle and approximated a 360 title and the cost rose by over 50%.

Again, I understand that /. is filled with B.S. and B.S.'ers but I am not one and I can back up all of may claims quite easily, my game and game industry knowledge goes back to the Atari 2600, I wouldn't make a statement if it wasn't fact or couldn't be backed with fact and claim it to be so.

hahaha, mod me a troll all you want and all the claims that "I have no industry inside contacts," but Midway has just announced publicly they have not interest in Xbox 360!

Midway to support PS3 at launch, but not Xbox 360

Time for a number of you to piss off now, realize developers are not supporting the Xbox.

At a guess, I'd expect Linux to run on the normal-CPU PPC core, with use of the SPEs left as an exercise to the user. At least initially, because restructuring the whole OS to match the Cell structure would be a huge task.

But even so, it would be a start for using things like Cell-based workstations, see also:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?sect ion_name=dev&aid=3451

Blurb from Rockstar.com:

"Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is an entirely new game in the Grand Theft Auto series and brings an unprecedented mobile dimension to this epic experience. The original storyline and all new missions take place in Liberty City, featuring the interactive, open environment, superb voice talent and diverse music that have become pioneering trademarks of the series."

Sounds like it will be better than the Gameboy one looked... I'm excited, and I'm really hoping for WiFi multiplayer...

I mean, seriously, half the G4 coverage w.r.t. the PS2 last night addressed that issue. Then I thought about what I'd seen. In the PS3 "ducky" demo, there was that bald SCEE VP allegedly tweaking the duck's movement. Was it live, or was it Memorex? We've no idea. We have to take the presenters at their word until somebody can lay their hands on a demo, which at this point, will not be the final hardware, or the game's engine isn't properly tweaked, or something.

Besides which, so what? The PS3 tech demos were, IMHO, better than anything MS showed, so why didn't MS show prerendered stuff too? Or did they, and it just doesn't look that good?

I suppose it's just one of those "lies, damnable lies, and benchmarks" kind of things, but it's a little absurd devoting much effort to a discussion.

How about a thread re: the estimated $400 console price on both the Xbox2 and PS3? I know that's going to keep me on my trusty PS2 for at least another year.

Most European friends say meh to XBOX 360 apparently.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid= 8834
E3 Opinion: Xbox 360 is outgunned and outclassed by Sony's PS3
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59 135
Xbox 360 fails to convince in LA

Picking up the FF franchise will swing a lot of people away from Sony over to Xbox. The only new games my wife and I get anymore are FF and GTA.

Porting one game in the series (and a MMORPG at that) is hardly picking up the franchise.

Just like a whole helluva lot of XBox games, it'll be a port - wake me when the XBox has one of the "real" FF games exclusively, and not something that's been on the PS2 and PC for a few years now.

Not to mention that Square has already voiced that they will strongly support Nintendo's new offerings.

Microsoft has already ruined themselves. Sony raised the stakes years ago by pretty much requiring that all consoles be backwards compatible. Nintendo finally learned this. Microsoft's gaming devision is still too young to "get it", and the lack of Xbox compatibility in the 360 will be it's own undoing, Xbox Live or no Xbox Live. Show me an actual article that says the XBox 360 is not or is going to be backwards compatible. Because all i've seen is speculation articles. Until I see someone produce a press release that even mentions backwards compatability or lack there of, your speculation holds exactly zero weight. However, since we're plaing the speculation game...two years ago microsoft happened to purchase a little known company called Connectix. Known for such products virtual game station, which allowed Playstation games to run unmodified on a mac or a pc. Sony later bought acquired it from connectix to do away with it after losing several court battles. However, they're more well known product, Virtual PC for the mac, (later released on the PC) does exactly what microsoft needs to to do. It allows x86 code (Namely Windows or possibly x86 Linux) to run on a PPC system. Also, apparently the Xbox and Virtual PC teams have done some work together. So let's recap, Microsoft aqcuired the Connectix team that has not only suceeded in running Windows on a PPC system, but also the Sony Playstation at better than native speeds, supporting nearly every game released for it. In my honest opinion, if anyone can pull this feat off, it's the team from Connectix.

The Xbox has definitely lost Microsoft a HUGE wad of cash. MS is a large publicly traded corp and has to file all kinds of financial reports, including what their different divisions profits were. It was big news when the Xbox division finally made a profit for one quarter.

Whether MS loses money per XBox is questionable, but whether the "Xbox venture" has been financially profitable is not.

For any company but Microsoft the Xbox would have been an unmitigated failure. I just hope they don't kill off the real video game industry.

The problem is with nVidia, and it's not technical but legal. This is an older article describing some of the problems. While some of the hardware challenges have been overcome, the nVidia problem remains.

It was widely believed, however, that Microsoft had retained a team of hardware emulation experts to work on the problem - although concerns over the viability of such an endeavour were voiced by some experts, especially regarding the company's ability to emulate the functions of the graphics unit in the Xbox without violating NVIDIA's intellectual property rights.

IIRC nVidia has patents on some GPU algorithms in their chipsets that the Xbox used. ATI can't simply copy them without permission, and nVidia is unlikely to give them permission. So the problem is that the Xbox 360 GPU will not respond correctly to an Xbox 1 game. Technically Xbox 360 could emulate the functions before passing commands to the ATI GPU, but it's quite a technical challenge to do this.

Found here http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=8733

"PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS will have similarly successful years, moving 3.5 million and 3.6 million units, respectively."

I don't understand where those numbers are coming from. Are they predicting that the DS is only going to sell 3.6 million units? That's already not true according to this article, which says that the DS has already sold over 5 million units. Or, if they're saying that these numbers are what each unit is going to sell this year, well then I still can't really believe that the DS will outsell the PSP, or that the PSP will be limited to under 4 million sales. Could someone translate all this marketing and sales analysis mumbo-jumbo?

I'm not sure where you're coming from to imply that Nintendo's sales are "marginalized" (last I checked, five million DS units sold is not indicative of marginalization, nor is a 37% overall market share), and you must of course realize that although it is a "relatively small company" when compared to Sony and Microsoft, it is certainly not small on any objective scale.

Not a wise move on Microsoft's part. Most of the major game-news outlet places essentially shut down the week leading up to E3 to travel, get settled, and be ready for the insanity that is E3. Microsoft will get lots of coverage from the mainstream press, but the folks that can make or break their console's rep in the gaming press I suspect will be in poor attendance.

G4 TV, however, is the gaming press and this in-game advertising, new revenues for games, and marketing through them, is news... So, I'm sure we can expect some news coverage of this. Will they actually endorse the game, or publicize this? Would that be a conflict of interest for G4?

The PS3 is Confirmed to be backwards compatible. So the PS2 Library is going to roll over to the PS3. Maybe with some enhancements like better AA to make games look even better on the new engine.

However the opposite is true with Xbox2. And the the game would more then likely be part of the release lineup for Xbox2, which would be limited to early adopters.

It would seem to me, that Nintendo should be fighting for it as well. Their new system is also backwards compatible.
The only reason I can see The GC not being viable, is the fact that the PS2 is in more homes then a GC.

The PS3 is Confirmed to be backwards compatible. So the PS2 Library is going to roll over to the PS3. Maybe with some enhancements like better AA to make games look even better on the new engine.

However the opposite is true with Xbox2. And the the game would more then likely be part of the release lineup for Xbox2, which would be limited to early adopters.

It would seem to me, that Nintendo should be fighting for it as well. Their new system is also backwards compatible.
The only reason I can see The GC not being viable, is the fact that the PS2 is in more homes then a GC.

A modchip is not acting as a replacement part. It does not 'unlock' or permit operation of the console. The purpose of a modchip is to bypass the signing mechanism used to prevent you from playing pirated games.

Okay, time for a list of modchip uses:

- Playing unofficial/unlicensed software (ex: Game Enhancer, which was almost definately first developed with the help of a modchip, since absolutely ZERO Sony code or patents were used to complete the software)
- Using unofficial devices (ex: New max memory devices made by Datel)
- Cheating devices (ex: Game genie by Galoob)
- Playing backups
- Bypassing region protection

These are all locks placed on the device by the manufacturer in an attempt to stop the usage of third party items, such as:

1 - Third party discs not authorized by the console manufacturer
2 - Third party software not authorized by the console manufacturer
3 - Third party hardware not authorized by the console manufacturer
4 - Authorized software from the manufacturer that was not intended to be used in your country

As far as I know, in all three situations, doing those things is legal. It is legal for me to put Maxell media in an HP burner (item 1), it's legal for me to install Windows XP to a Mac (item 2), it's legal for me to use a non sony DV tape in my Sony DV camcorder (item 3), and it's legal for me to watch a PAL videotape in the USA (item 4).

Now, for some reason, the person who built the device decided for me they didn't like items 1 - 4. So they built the device not to allow this. Now this law says such locks are illegal. And since the actions were legal to start with, where's your beef?

That someone might do items 1 - 4 with an illegal intent? Yeah, they could. In fact, you could install a pirated Windows XP on a Mac using an emulator. Does that make the emulator illegal? You could copy a copyrighted gameboy game into a blank flash memory cartridge and play it on your gameboy. Does that make computer memory illegal?

This is no different than banning box cutters on airlines because you think a terrorist is going to slash your throat with one. You're using an (extremely poor) band-aid to cover up what is a societal problem that already has PLENTY of legal recourse against the act, and you are inconveniencing and embarassing people as you do it. It's nasty and wrong, and, quite honestly, it makes me, as an outsider, afraid to enter your country. It's no different than trying to ban chewing gum just because someone might stick it under a desk.

I have a great quote from one of our team, actually, which describes it perfectly. He's one of our level designers who posted on a private development forum, describing what his working life is like now with Kismet.

They were talking about Unreal Engine 3, and what he said was; "Nothing to do with graphics actually - the tools just ooze creative inspiration. I've never scripted or coded in my life, but our visual scripting - which I know is not an entirely new concept - is a fucking blast to work with. I've created levels with entire mini-games in them, AI behaviours, damage systems depicting various stun events and healing, cinematics, bizarre control schemes, even physically rolling dice telling me totals based on the angle of the surfaces facing upright when the object's velocity reaches zero, which I check every 0.5 seconds."

"I've even coded a random level generator and I've needed virtually no interaction with anyone on the code side to make this work. We've had level designers implementing a fighting game in a level, a driving game with chase cam and effects, targeting systems and etc, with incredibly low learning curve. You could walk into a room in a deathmatch level and suddenly find yourself in the middle of a Dance Dance Revolution mini-game."

"Just last week a potential licensee was in-house, and described the game they wanted to build and how one of their critical game mechanics was going to work. Literally within five minutes they looked over my shoulder, I'd built that core dynamic into a level of our game. The demo went incredibly well to say the least. "

"Typically, I'll sit down with a new recruit, a designer with no scripting experience, for about two hours, and show them the basics of Kismet - how triggers work, characters, toggles, cinematic systems, conditions, variables and so on. Then I'll give them about a day to screw around with it. Within a day I'll see some absurd crap" ... Ah, I'm replacing swear words here! [laughs] "...happening in their levels that would have been an absolute nightmare to get going otherwise, even if they could describe what they were actually looking for to a programmer - and that communication would no doubt affect the outcome anyway."

"The bottom line is that engine tools dramatically affect your creative process, and our engine has been designed with far more in mind than just pretty shadows."

#1. Microsoft has already flooed the market;

#2. The XBox already costs MS more than USD$300 to produce.

Meanwhile the ruthless prosper while throwing breadcrumbs to their employees. Seems one more failure ensures the continued trend.

It's a hard world.

New form EA: Mail Order Monsters: John Madden Edition! Listen to John's witty repartee as your monster slugs it out for survival!

I've always personally enjoyed cooperative games more than competitive.

One profitable quarter out of TWELVE is NOT "bringing in the cash."

According to this GamesIndustry.biz article:

- The quarter-year ending Dec 31, 2004 was the first profitable quarter for the "Home and Entertainment Division"

- this division posted a profit of $84 million for that quarter.

- The same three month period in 2003 resulted in a $397 million loss.

What IS interesting is the issue of piracy. It greatly affected the Dreamcast and the Xbox, neither did well. But (until recently), that was not the case with the PS2, nor the case with Gamecube. So it doesn't seem to be a primary effect on market position.

Here is an article on the subject from GamesIndustry.biz. It says that Sony has demonstrated "game sharing" but not single disc multiplayer.