Slashdot Mirror

"we are quite along way away from an affordable processor than can replace a render farm"

Very true, but I think you do not fully understand real-time graphics.

Render farms are general purpose computers engaged in grid computing where the method is escentially "throw as much power as possible at rendering". Rendering packages such as Renderman use very sophistocated, realistic, and GENERAL techniques. Games and other real-time graphics applications, on the other hand, utilize SPECIALIZED techniques that are unique to their application. They are carefully optimized for hte game world and because of this, can achieve significantly superior performance at the cost of generality.

Just take a look at Fight Night 3 for XBOX 360: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/sports/fightnightr ound3/screenindex.html

Sony may have Squeenix and it's mainstream series still in their pocket, but Microsoft and Nintendo have Mistwalker Studios.

Sakaguchi's new company is already working on 2 RPGs for the 360, Last Odyssey and Blue Dragon, plus ASH for the Nintendo DS(Sakaguchi lays out Mistwalker plans). Sakaguchi is basically considered the father of the FF series, having been either been a producer or director on all the Final Fantasy games(even FFXII from what the IMDB says). IMO, he alone is enough to tip the tide for the 360 in Japan. Mistwalker just has to start getting its games out!

And, after Googling for a good half-hour and finding NOTHING, I can't help but think that YOUR statistics are about as valid as nex's, although it is fairly difficult to link to nothing for proof.

Not very good at googling are we? Here's a couple sources for ps2 numbers that back the 500/510k numbers besides Wikipedia. Also from NPD directly a story that cites $168m PS2 sales for the first weekend, which is in line with the numbers in the IGN story which say $149m PS2 sales first day. Here's a quick hit that mentions around a million in first weekend sales in Japan, which matches up with the 980k Japan weekend number, which already has a cited source article on Wikipedia you can check out.

A source for 360 sales numbers, for good measure, both Japan (2) and US. Although the US numbers after restating by NPD were a slightly lower 326k, rather than the 332k I mentioned that were in the initial report. Thanks for playing.

By the way, this post took me longer to fomat and type than to google up these links, I'm sure I could find more than just these few if I used a good half-hour for just googling. I'd ask my fifth grade teacher, but after 20-some-odd years, I wonder if he's still even alive?

So, I decided to look at games for the Amiga, sorted by year, but there are some odd results here: http://www.gamespot.com/games.html?type=games&plat form=24&mode=all&sort=release&dlx_type=all&sortdir =desc
Another World came out in 1985? I can't remember that. Defender of the Crown I do remember, as everyone I showed it too were flabbergasted at the polished gameplay. Again though, I would say Dungeon Master really showed what the 16 bits could do. It's still impressive to this day.

First of all that list is way too short. If you want to credit people that have benefited the industry in 2005, AND include people from all related areas, it should be a top-100. Second, the most innovative game I played in 2005 was Fahrenheit, aka Indigo Prophecy, and David Cage should be on that list for making it. How many new games that were completely different from what came before did you see in 2005?

I will admit that I don't know much about the hardcopy game magazines. Those definitely seem to be pretty substance-free, at least from the few times I've glanced through one. However, I think that some of the online game sites are actually quite good. For example, Gamespot, which I've seen trashed here in a few comments on other topics, does as excellent job of reviewing most games. They tend to be pretty harsh as well. For example, in their most recent 14 reviews, they gave an average score of 5.8 (out of 10) which represents the craptacular quality of recent games. Like Hollywood, the gaming industry has fallen into a pretty serious funk, with little or no innovation.

I also give Gamespot a lot of credit for pointing out such gems as Darwinia, which they reviewed in import form long before it was available in the US. And, while they certainly did their fair share of hyping the Xbox 360, I think much of the aversion to that on Slashdot stems from the cultural bias here against Microsoft. As the owner of a (thus far) non-crashing, non-scratching Xbox 360, I have been pretty impressed with the interface and initial set of games. The ability to download new content, including entire games, is a major step forward for consoles and may herald the further decline of PC gaming. That's assuming the gaming industry as a whole doesn't continue to screw itself...but I digress.

As another example of this article's general inaccuracy, I refer to the author's statements about how Half-Life 2 reviews were more concerned with the gravity gun and water reflection than the gaming environment. Gamespot's Half-Life 2 review spent exactly one paragraph talking about the gravity gun. They spent the majority of the article talking about the game's environments, AI, storyline and pacing. They also went over the game's engine in a fair amount of detail, which is particularly relevant given the original Half-Life's heavy modder following.

Anyway, this article points out a legitimate problem in much of our media--namely that of reporters and reviewers who seem little more than drones for the entertainment industry and similar interests--but neglects to point out how easy it is to find honest sources of information out there, particularly in electronic form.

I will admit that I don't know much about the hardcopy game magazines. Those definitely seem to be pretty substance-free, at least from the few times I've glanced through one. However, I think that some of the online game sites are actually quite good. For example, Gamespot, which I've seen trashed here in a few comments on other topics, does as excellent job of reviewing most games. They tend to be pretty harsh as well. For example, in their most recent 14 reviews, they gave an average score of 5.8 (out of 10) which represents the craptacular quality of recent games. Like Hollywood, the gaming industry has fallen into a pretty serious funk, with little or no innovation.

I also give Gamespot a lot of credit for pointing out such gems as Darwinia, which they reviewed in import form long before it was available in the US. And, while they certainly did their fair share of hyping the Xbox 360, I think much of the aversion to that on Slashdot stems from the cultural bias here against Microsoft. As the owner of a (thus far) non-crashing, non-scratching Xbox 360, I have been pretty impressed with the interface and initial set of games. The ability to download new content, including entire games, is a major step forward for consoles and may herald the further decline of PC gaming. That's assuming the gaming industry as a whole doesn't continue to screw itself...but I digress.

As another example of this article's general inaccuracy, I refer to the author's statements about how Half-Life 2 reviews were more concerned with the gravity gun and water reflection than the gaming environment. Gamespot's Half-Life 2 review spent exactly one paragraph talking about the gravity gun. They spent the majority of the article talking about the game's environments, AI, storyline and pacing. They also went over the game's engine in a fair amount of detail, which is particularly relevant given the original Half-Life's heavy modder following.

Anyway, this article points out a legitimate problem in much of our media--namely that of reporters and reviewers who seem little more than drones for the entertainment industry and similar interests--but neglects to point out how easy it is to find honest sources of information out there, particularly in electronic form.

I will admit that I don't know much about the hardcopy game magazines. Those definitely seem to be pretty substance-free, at least from the few times I've glanced through one. However, I think that some of the online game sites are actually quite good. For example, Gamespot, which I've seen trashed here in a few comments on other topics, does as excellent job of reviewing most games. They tend to be pretty harsh as well. For example, in their most recent 14 reviews, they gave an average score of 5.8 (out of 10) which represents the craptacular quality of recent games. Like Hollywood, the gaming industry has fallen into a pretty serious funk, with little or no innovation.

I also give Gamespot a lot of credit for pointing out such gems as Darwinia, which they reviewed in import form long before it was available in the US. And, while they certainly did their fair share of hyping the Xbox 360, I think much of the aversion to that on Slashdot stems from the cultural bias here against Microsoft. As the owner of a (thus far) non-crashing, non-scratching Xbox 360, I have been pretty impressed with the interface and initial set of games. The ability to download new content, including entire games, is a major step forward for consoles and may herald the further decline of PC gaming. That's assuming the gaming industry as a whole doesn't continue to screw itself...but I digress.

As another example of this article's general inaccuracy, I refer to the author's statements about how Half-Life 2 reviews were more concerned with the gravity gun and water reflection than the gaming environment. Gamespot's Half-Life 2 review spent exactly one paragraph talking about the gravity gun. They spent the majority of the article talking about the game's environments, AI, storyline and pacing. They also went over the game's engine in a fair amount of detail, which is particularly relevant given the original Half-Life's heavy modder following.

Anyway, this article points out a legitimate problem in much of our media--namely that of reporters and reviewers who seem little more than drones for the entertainment industry and similar interests--but neglects to point out how easy it is to find honest sources of information out there, particularly in electronic form.

I'm pretty sure that the engine for Thrill Kill was actually used later to make the first Wu Tang Clan fighting game. Yep, as this link puts it so well, "With a different fighting engine behind it, this could have been a much, much better game."

As far as I was ever concerned, this was one of the worst games to be squashed. There was this mythos that surrounded it as the most violent, bloody game ever, but not only was the gore way over-hyped, but the game itself was absolutely horrible. I'm sure this is why the blood and violence was added in the first place, to distract from the atrocity that was the rest of the game.

I wonder if the HD-DVD peripheral for the Xbox 360 will be just as large as this sucker.

http://www.gamespot.com/genesis/sports/mutantleagu efootball/ Probably the most enjoyable sports title I've ever played. Play calls were limited but always entertaining.

• Of course MS will make sure the 360 is well-stocked during the PS3 release. Halo 3 will be released just before the launch of the PS3 to make the 360 just that much more enticing compared to the PS3 (note: this isn't a prediction; MS stated this). However the tactic won't improve sales much (who goes in to buy a PS3, can't find one, and comes out with a 360? Sounds like a stupid thing to do to me), but like Matt said, pretty good sales overall.
• My guess is that the PS3 will be released in July or August, but there will be some shortages until the Christmas season, at which point there'll be enough to go around, but even at that time some people will still be worried about shortages even though by and large they won't exist. Gran Turismo and Killzone should be available before Christmas. My gut's telling me no GTA until early-to-mid 2007 for some reason.
• Nothing special will happen to the PSP. A few good games will come out for it, and it will drop in price slightly. UMD production will be steady.
• The Revo won't "steal the show" because people were already having visions of using the remote control at TGS. The extra material (Smash Bros and Zelda demos for sure) will be exciting, but other companies will have good games to show as well. Kiosks will be Nintendo's most important weapon; not everyone listens to E3-goers, but everyone goes to stores. The kiosks will be placed where non-gamers will see them, ie, not in an EB Games. Miyamoto's new franchise... that's a tough one... I'll say he will be ready and it will be available near launch like Pikmin was.
• No new GBA, no new DS ('cept maybe new colours, that's it), probably a small price drop ($10) for all their portables. The mainstream media won't shut up about New Super Mario Bros precisely because the gameplay is so "old". I think the main flaw of the game is that Mario/Luigi will have slow running speeds, and possibly won't be maneuvarable enough in the air.
• I think every last game Nintendo has made for the NES and SNES will be available at launch. N64 games might be delayed for possible additions (again, not a predicion, Nintendo is actively considering making games like Mario Party online). They'll try to get other companies to offer their games as well, of course, but they probably won't agree to it at launch. Any game that was complete but cancelled will probably find it's way to the Revo sooner or later. Japan Only games will probably be available untranslated, in fact I'll say that Nintendo's portal of games that you can buy online is international, so someone from the US can buy a Japanese game, after being warned that it's untranslated. They might even translate Mother, but don't count on it (unless it's already been translated? I don't know). Incompleted games: Nintendo won't want to spend their time finishing them, especially since they'd have to work with old NES/SNES programming.
• Will Sega make a good Sonic game? Hard to say. On one hand, Sega promised they'd re-invent Sonic, on the other hand, Sega has had a bad track record with their mascot as of late outside of the portable realm. My money's on the new console Sonics being slightly better but still weaksauce, but the new portable ones still being pretty good.
• As for Capcom I'll say... RE5 will be another awesome game but a little too much like 4, nothing big for Street Fighter this year, and a mediocore Mega Man game that will be available for the PS2/XBox/(maybe GCN), and a promise for a good Megaman game in 2007 on the new consoles.
• I also think there will be footage of a very dark Castlevania for PS3/360 at E3. Not so sure about a compilation, though.
• EA: same old. Some the new stuff that they just acquired will be good, most of the old stuff will be the same as last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. In my opinion.

What was that Asshat?

I guess what we can take away from this is that Michael Pachter is a complete moron.

MySQL even claim that if you implement your own client, it speaks the MySQL protocol, and as such is a derivative work of the MySQL server and so must be made available under the GPL.

"..and I seriously doubt they LOSE money on each Console sale as they claim"

Why do you seriously doubt that? Do the math.

Unless M$ are somehow warping the very fabric of capitalism they are paying (very approximately) as much for their chips and circuit boards as anyone else. Sure, I bet they get a great deal from all their vendors, but in this case, the hardware is universally agreed to be some expensive shit to make. I saw an estimate of around $100 for the GPU+EDRAM alone. On the other end, what about the retailer markup? Sure, that's negotiable, but not by very much.

An 1.2-mm thick polycarbonate disc costs well under a buck. Let's say $1.50 with packaging. Throw handful of bucks to the publisher, another ten or so to the retailer, and considering a game retails for say $50, you can see where the money lies.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6140574.html

Sony recently sold 100 million PS2s; but over the years a total of 1.8 BILLION games have been sold for the PS1 and PS2. Let's just say Sony made $5 a game (which is likely a significant underestimate)...

Sounds like a cheap ripoff of the nuke wargame GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR ...

At least around when I was looking at the FX 5xxx series there were cards that supported TV-in from NVidia. Look for the "Personal Cinema" line as they would have the functionality you mention

Realistically though, the reason I didn't go with the "personal cinema" line is that for the price given you might as well spend the extra couple bucks and get a seperate TV-in card. That way when you upgrade you're extra-cost TV features out the door.

Still, if you're still interested the 5000 line had one such as this and I'd imagine the newer lines do as well.

No games supporting multiple threads? PGR3 uses all 3 cores. So do almost every other launch game.

I don't think he was trying to flamebait. The single threaded launch games story was all over the gaming news sites.

One example. According to that link it was an incorrect rumor, but again, it was everywhere.

Poor launch lineup? Compared to what?

This is bad logic. Getting punched in the nose is better than getting kicked in the nuts, but neither one could be construed as good. The launch lineup is pretty crappy. The fact that there have been crappier ones is irrelevant.

Pitiful pricing structure? Then why are they being sold out?

Because they decided to do a global launch instead of a regional launch.

http://www.gamespot.com/gba/puzzle/thebiblegame/in dex.html?q=bible%20game
Then again knowing the Bible it might even be unacceptable for him.

Zonk, from what I can tell you never did acknowledge nor deny anything about getting a free HDTV from Microsoft when they gave them away to attendants at their 2005 Game Developer Conference keynotes.

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest coming to PS3 and 360?
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6139901.html

remember that sony screwed square enix when they released the small form factor ps2

Fun arcade style racing game
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/fullauto/

The first of two epic RPG projects for Microsoft by Mistwalker, the studio founded by Square-Enix's Hironobu Sakaguchi. Blue Dragon features characters by designer Akira Toriyama, and tells the story of a young boy named Shu who has special adventure with hs two friends and a mythical blue dragon.
http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/728/728023.html

http://xbox360.ign.com/ for previews of xbox 360 games

well i hope whichever system you choose has your lame FF army of clone games to keep you busy for the 600 boring hours itll take to play them

make me some pie

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest coming to PS3 and 360?
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6139901.html

remember that sony screwed square enix when they released the small form factor ps2

Fun arcade style racing game
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/fullauto/

The first of two epic RPG projects for Microsoft by Mistwalker, the studio founded by Square-Enix's Hironobu Sakaguchi. Blue Dragon features characters by designer Akira Toriyama, and tells the story of a young boy named Shu who has special adventure with hs two friends and a mythical blue dragon.
http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/728/728023.html

http://xbox360.ign.com/ for previews of xbox 360 games

well i hope whichever system you choose has your lame FF army of clone games to keep you busy for the 600 boring hours itll take to play them

make me some pie

My favorite site for game reviews
http://www.gamespot.com/games.html?platform=&categ ory=Massively+Multiplayer&date_filter=all&type=top _rated

Another site that ranks games based on dozens of reviews(WoW has 60 reviews!)
http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/simplerat ings.asp

The critics seem to agree that World of Warcraft is the best MMORPG ever made, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

I wonder who will be the first to write the ultimate article titled: The rise and fall of Google.

TFA was nice. Old games can be hard to find. Compilations (or reissues) make it a lot easier. Even not-so-old games (2-6 years old) can be difficult to find at times.

Speaking of compilations, I've got a few of my own. I'm an old-school RPG fan. My personal favorites are:

The Ultima Collection: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/ultimacollection/
(Ultima I-VIII)

The Ultimate RPG Archives: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/ultimaterpgarchives /index.html?q=rpg%20archives

The Ultimate Wizardry Archives: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 01QEP9/103-7875370-8027035?v=glance
(Wizardry I-VII)

Forgotten Realms Archives: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 01QEP7/qid=1135045711/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8__i1_xgl63/10 3-7875370-8027035?v=glance&s=videogames&n=229534
(Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, Hillsfar, Eye of the Beholder, Eye of the Beholder II, Eye of the Beholder III, Dungeon Hack, Menzoberranzan, Blood and Magic, and the Baldur's Gate interactive demo.)

The Ultimate Might & Magic Archives: http://www.mobygames.com/game/ultimate-might-and-m agic-archives
(Might & Magic I-V)

Nothing beats old-school gameplay. These collections aren't for you if you're looking for eye-candy though. The games are at least 10 years old, maybe more.

TFA was nice. Old games can be hard to find. Compilations (or reissues) make it a lot easier. Even not-so-old games (2-6 years old) can be difficult to find at times.

Speaking of compilations, I've got a few of my own. I'm an old-school RPG fan. My personal favorites are:

The Ultima Collection: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/ultimacollection/
(Ultima I-VIII)

The Ultimate RPG Archives: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/ultimaterpgarchives /index.html?q=rpg%20archives

The Ultimate Wizardry Archives: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 01QEP9/103-7875370-8027035?v=glance
(Wizardry I-VII)

Forgotten Realms Archives: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 01QEP7/qid=1135045711/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8__i1_xgl63/10 3-7875370-8027035?v=glance&s=videogames&n=229534
(Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, Hillsfar, Eye of the Beholder, Eye of the Beholder II, Eye of the Beholder III, Dungeon Hack, Menzoberranzan, Blood and Magic, and the Baldur's Gate interactive demo.)

The Ultimate Might & Magic Archives: http://www.mobygames.com/game/ultimate-might-and-m agic-archives
(Might & Magic I-V)

Nothing beats old-school gameplay. These collections aren't for you if you're looking for eye-candy though. The games are at least 10 years old, maybe more.

Very beginning of 2005, but close to last year.

I've noted to myself several times that 2005 has been a bad year for games. Everyone will have different tastes, but the only two that really held my attention were Super Mario Strikers and Guitar Hero. Regardless of tastes, though, there couldn't have been too many games that any one person could really fall in love with.

Reference Gamespot's platform picks and see how many you liked. Of course Strikers didn't even make a blip on their radar, which I'm disappointed in.

They also don't have gameplay videos, large screenshots, and up-to-the-minute news.

http://www.gamespot.com/

*breaks into a fit of rage and carves "DIE SONY DIE" into his chest with a knife*

*composes himself*

Don't forget that Lucas Arts had something to do with that also. As you can see in that article, Lucas Arts constantly got involved on what the professions should be and how they should be played.

Oh, that tattoo on my chest? No no, that's German for "the Sony, the."

How about some links to real reviews?

Such as:

http://laptopmag.com/Review/WidowPC-Sting-917.htm
http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-23446-x-1-3- 1
and
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=WidowPC+Sting +917+

While this is an interesting writeup... lack of REAL information AND LINKS makes this kinda pointless (At least he didn't link to his blog that has the same writeup)

How this post got modded insightful i'll never understand.. maybe because its anti-microsoft...

The x-box was supposed to have the higher tech and the live advantage and it bombed.

I direct you to here: the xbox outsells the gamecube everywhere except Japan. http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11 067. If that means it bombed then the gamecube bombed too.

The x-box had it and it didn't sell. Nobody has ever in my opinion come up with a satisfactory reason for the failure of the x-box.

See point one.

Another one that amazed me is that one post said the x-box had signed the big names. Bungie and EA. Wtf? Bungie IS NOT a big name. They got 1 game and that is it. EA is big but EA signs on to anything. Getting EA to endorse your new console is like getting a hooker to go out with you for money. Even /.ers should be able to manage that.

Erm what? Xbox already had EA supporting them, and Microsoft owns bungie so obviously Bungie would be supporting Microsoft. Also, bungie only got one game? Clearly you don't know your history, Bungie was out and out the most critically successful Mac games producer ever, also making very critically successful games for pc. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/myth2soulbligh ter/ Myth II is about as good as a computer game can possibly be. To all those who followed Halo's development, Microsofts initial purchase of them was most definitely a big thing, given that it was clear even from early dev shots that halo could be something special.

As for the graphics being amazing. Oh please. I already play at higher resolutions on my now 2yr old PC. Richer friends won't accept anything less then 1600x1200 while sony's own games like eq2 can already make use of 512mb video cards despite the fact they were not even out. Other recent games to can make use of hardware features that even top of the range pc's don't have let alone these weak consoles.

You seem to be confused about the difference between a computer monitor and a TV screen. See this article: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dtv2.htm Weak Consoles, do you realise the xbox360 has a triple core processor? How many of these do you see in your local PC shop? The current fastest dual core AMD is the 4800 X2, which is dual core 2.4ghz per core. Which costs around 800 dollars! http://shopper.cnet.com/AMD_Athlon_64_X2_4800/4014 -3086_9-31396324.html. Note: The cheaper xbox360 costs 300 dollars. Want to carry on comparing the un-comparable? I suggest you start with melons and small off-duty Czechoslovakian traffic wardens.

The 360 is lacking launch titles and has not got the mindshare with the general public.

Xbox360 Launch Line up: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6139695.html
PS2 Launch Line up: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&cl ient=safari&rls=en&as_qdr=all&q=+%22ps2+launch+lin e+up%22+worst&btnG=Search
Indeed, most people regard PS2's launch as one of the worst ever with the DC being one of the best ever. The ps2 steam rollered the DC thus meaning that the initial launch means nothing.

How this post got modded insightful i'll never understand.. maybe because its anti-microsoft...

The x-box was supposed to have the higher tech and the live advantage and it bombed.

I direct you to here: the xbox outsells the gamecube everywhere except Japan. http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11 067. If that means it bombed then the gamecube bombed too.

The x-box had it and it didn't sell. Nobody has ever in my opinion come up with a satisfactory reason for the failure of the x-box.

See point one.

Another one that amazed me is that one post said the x-box had signed the big names. Bungie and EA. Wtf? Bungie IS NOT a big name. They got 1 game and that is it. EA is big but EA signs on to anything. Getting EA to endorse your new console is like getting a hooker to go out with you for money. Even /.ers should be able to manage that.

Erm what? Xbox already had EA supporting them, and Microsoft owns bungie so obviously Bungie would be supporting Microsoft. Also, bungie only got one game? Clearly you don't know your history, Bungie was out and out the most critically successful Mac games producer ever, also making very critically successful games for pc. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/myth2soulbligh ter/ Myth II is about as good as a computer game can possibly be. To all those who followed Halo's development, Microsofts initial purchase of them was most definitely a big thing, given that it was clear even from early dev shots that halo could be something special.

As for the graphics being amazing. Oh please. I already play at higher resolutions on my now 2yr old PC. Richer friends won't accept anything less then 1600x1200 while sony's own games like eq2 can already make use of 512mb video cards despite the fact they were not even out. Other recent games to can make use of hardware features that even top of the range pc's don't have let alone these weak consoles.

You seem to be confused about the difference between a computer monitor and a TV screen. See this article: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dtv2.htm Weak Consoles, do you realise the xbox360 has a triple core processor? How many of these do you see in your local PC shop? The current fastest dual core AMD is the 4800 X2, which is dual core 2.4ghz per core. Which costs around 800 dollars! http://shopper.cnet.com/AMD_Athlon_64_X2_4800/4014 -3086_9-31396324.html. Note: The cheaper xbox360 costs 300 dollars. Want to carry on comparing the un-comparable? I suggest you start with melons and small off-duty Czechoslovakian traffic wardens.

The 360 is lacking launch titles and has not got the mindshare with the general public.

Xbox360 Launch Line up: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6139695.html
PS2 Launch Line up: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&cl ient=safari&rls=en&as_qdr=all&q=+%22ps2+launch+lin e+up%22+worst&btnG=Search
Indeed, most people regard PS2's launch as one of the worst ever with the DC being one of the best ever. The ps2 steam rollered the DC thus meaning that the initial launch means nothing.

>After all, the engine for BGE was used in all of the very successful Prince of Persia sequels.

It wasn't, at least for Sands of Time (and probably the rest, but I can't say since I haven't played any of the subsequent ones). At first they used it, then they switched to some other engine developed in their Chinese studios with more muscle. From Gamespot:

In early January, the programmers realized that the JADE graphics engine was no longer capable of supporting the game's huge levels and detailed visual effects. "The programming team came in and basically said, 'Yannis, we have some bad news. We need to create a totally new rendering system for the game,'" says Mallat.

And in the next page:

As the deadlines began to approach for creating an E3 demo, the JADE rendering engine was removed from the game. It was replaced by a 3D rendering engine created by members of Ubisoft's Shanghai, China, design studio. Almost immediately the team began seeing results. The game was running faster, and, most importantly, the visuals were improving, thanks to effects like in-game fog and streams of light in the environment.

Nevertheless, I agree that it's weird they demoted the lead programmer when the game was actually pretty good. So, it didn't sell but got glowing reviews in several places and not much in the form of negativity from those people who did play it... and the one to blame is the programmer. Riiiiight.

Also, Microsoft already owns and develops a software called VirtualPC that enables x86 code (like XBox I) to run on PowerPC Mac OS X. Adding some
wrappers that intercept the graphic function calls would be fairly simple. Don't forget that you emulate a ~700 MHz x86 on a ~3 GHz PowerPC, so it would be a fairly acceptable emulation....

However, game developers often use hardware-specific tweaks, sometimes undocumented, to get maximum performance out of a console. So it is not surprising that Microsoft is needing to come up with tweaked emulators for each title. It's not yet clear what approach Sony will take to emulate the PS2 on the PS3 and whether it will be better or worse than Microsoft's approach; the PS2 essentially incorporated the PS1 hardware, but even then there were some games that wouldn't play; there are even some games that won't play on all PS2 models.

Why would a game development firm have the programmers open incoming e-mail ? They are busy enough trying to get the game out before christmas. PR department opens the e-mail - you just can't trust the developers to think of PR when responding to some flamebait letter after an all-nighter. And why, oh why would the programmer have Excel on the development machine ?

Why don't you ask Valve those questions?

But in this case, I think Vivendi should get their dues. This is a good thing done by them, and hopefully will continue in the future. It just seems like most slashdot posts, hell most internet posts, are people bitching about not getting what they want. In this case, we got what we want, and (gasp!) - I'm leaving a positive post!

It seems it's all about slashing through as many enemies as possible before the game ends. It's really disheartening. I did really like Fable, but before that one, I think Planescape was the last good one. I wish someone could come up with something that had the quality of Ultima 7 and the visuals of Fable :).

I hadn't heard of Magna Carta, is this the one: http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/magnacarta/review. html
If so, it doesn't seem quite like my cup of tea, but thanks for the heads up anyway.

You'll find out in 2006.

No. Look at the last image on this page:
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/image_viewer/frame.p hp?pid=&img=1&sid=6125078

My opinion is here. But anyway, what about Vagrant Story?

Just curious, last time I played it, while it's almost as shallow as say a godzilla film, it seemed to do things you mention well.

"Don't jump the gun. For all you know, the Revolution controller will function like a floaty, laggy air-joystick."

Actually, the PS2 RISK game IS network-enabled.

No public footage. However, several demos were shown to the press (http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-15143-2567- x-x-x). It sounded like it was more "proof of concept" type of stuff. We'll have to see how it pans out in the end.

The "humorous review of real-life" is two years old, and can be found here. It's pretty funny though.

pros: Great Graphics, Vast Open-Ended Gameplay
cons: Random Start, Permadeath

It's hard to take this article seriously considering their list doesn't even include the All-Time #1 Greatest Game of All Time...

Obviously IBM designed it. But what you are forgetting is that MS designs operating systems. You cannot write an operating system (even as crappy as Windows) without having a clue about processor architecture. Microsoft and Sony specified how they wanted to be able to program the chip. Microsoft wanted their multithreaded thing and Sony wanted their SPUs. IBM ultimately had to figure out how to build it. It's quite possible Sony made a bigger contribution to the hardware design.

But that doesn't mean that Microsoft is any more dependant on IBM than Sony is. Microsoft doesn't have to have their own fabs. Most chip fabrication is outsourced. TSMC in Taiwan fabricates Nvidia's GPUs. Intel, IBM, and AMD have to operate their own fabs because desktops and server are much higher volume than console chips. Intel relies upon 3rd party fabs too. If you need to an old Intel chipset for your hardware product and Intel has stopped producing them, Intel will sell you the specs and you can go to the independant fabs to build your motherboard.

What Microsoft gained this time is the ability to control the prices. Before they were at the whim of Nvidia and Intel because they bought the chips directly from them. Now they don't need to do that. They have the circuit design so they can go to someone else and have them fabricate.

Sorry - you linked the PS3 page. There doesn't seem to be anything about unit cost on the PS2/Wiki page. No one really knows but Sony, although I would maintain most knowledgeable sources I've spoken to anecdotally (game store managers etc) do not believe Sony ever lost money, or if so then it was a tiny amount. It is very possible the cost was basically 'wholesale' when it launched. I dispute your 'every console sold at a lost back then' claim; I don't think that was true of Nintendo at any point.

Did you actually read it? "taking a financial loss (as it did with the PlayStation 2) in order to build the console's install base". Also from the article referenced in Footnote 3: http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/28/news_61282 95.html/:

"It is normal for game companies to take a loss on hardware whenever a new console launches, since they typically focus on acquiring market share rather than generating a profit during the first year. During the second year and afterward, they can recover the losses with the savings that come from mass production and with licensing fees from publishers."

Sony sold their units for a loss but still made profit overall because of game sales and accessories. Console manufacturers charge heavy royalties on games and accessories. Sega did this as well. Nintendo always made a profit on the Gamecube. I don't know about the N64 and earlier systems. But the point I was making is that it's standard practice to lose money on the console. If they still make money overall then it's a win. But in this case people are passing judgement on Microsoft without understanding the whole picture.

When I purchased the "new" WRT54G, version 5, I expected a router that would at least have better performance than my old, reliable Pentium-II firewall running Windows 2003 and Routing and Remote Services.

Boy was I wrong. Many sites, such as: http://www.tmobile.com/ http://www.realtor.com/ and http://www.gamespot.com/ all had great difficulty loading. It turns out a **LOT** of other people are having the same problem with the Version 5 WRT54G.

My longstanding issue was finally escalated to Linksys Customer Support (you will be escalated to Customer support after dealing with Technical support). At Customer Support, they RMA'd my v5 router, and replaced it with a v4 router. I demanded that they replace it with a v4 router, and I noted that a *LOT* of people on this bulletin board are having the EXACT same problem.

I have literally spent hours trying to solve this problem on the v5 router. As soon as I plugged the v4 router in, my problems were solved!

Of course, Linksys being a company that enjoys wasting their customers' time by not even admitting a problem, you will be forced to pay for shipping charges. No matter that the item is clearly flawed by engineering defects to begin with. I will never, ever, consider buying a Linksys in the future. What a mistake I made thinking they were a premium brand. The fact that they are going to sell a version that finally works as it should, under a different model number and at a higher price, rather than fix the WRT54G Version 5 tells me that they are not interested in providing a quality product. I hope their strategy blows up in their face!

And I've heard nothing about GameStop managers being fired, but I do know that they've axed EB employees in Philly, EB's former headquarters.

For crying out loud...would a 30 second Google search to check your facts kill you people?