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For me real problem is this:
"...Each new single player campaign will come with upgrades and changes to the multiplayer..." from here

Personally I don't play single player mode in RTS much. I DO play MP quite a bit and this seems (as others have stated) to be a push to force users like me to upgrade 3 times (its not clear if you will be able to buy SC2 and expansion 3 only?? i.e. not Expansion 2? Doubt it)

Granted most games come with an expansion after a few months - however i am getting the impression EA will _deliberately_ hold off on what would have otherwise been available content. If this turns out to be the case and the initial SC2 doesn't hold up when compared to the expansion version - I will not be very pleased. If it does and SC2 stand-alone is full featured enough to last the test of time without the expansions... well maybe that will be ok.

This with the likely DRM (limited installs) is making me seriously consider not buying it - even though I'm a big RTS fan. Pisses me off no end.

For what it's worth, Turbine (LotRO, DDO, AC) has announced that they're developing a console MMO. It might be a port of LotRO, or an entirely new game.

i thought the BD live content was extra content only downloaded once when you first play the disc--things like bonus scenes, soundtracks, ringtones, and other promo material--rather than just video streamed live each time you play it. i mean, that's the impression this kotaku article gives.

so all this is just so that the BD you bought will show you the latest movie advertisements each time it's played? that hardly seems worthwhile. preview trailers are something you skip over, not something you waste bandwidth on.

i wouldn't have thought that Sony or the movie studios would waste money and resources to provide each BD release with an ever-changing online video stream. just keeping the servers up would be expensive enough, but they'd also have to pay people to constantly update the live content for each disc they put out. and for 5 years? how much would it cost to produce or license 5 years worth of live content? that's like running a really unprofitable TV station that people only watch for 15-20 minutes once every few months.

New Pikmin? False.

Not according to Kotaku.

*whoosh* Sorry. I was using board games as familiar examples of the difference between public and private information, not actual titles. Did you gloss over the part of my post where I mentioned their video gaming counterparts such as Bomberman and NBA Jam?

Yep. :) In particular, sports games tend to stick to consoles (in my oh-so-humble opinion) because many of the players that buy these games are more comfortable with consoles, due to PCs being "too hard" or "for nerds". But everyone understands and is comfortable with an Xbox or PS3, because it's almost like a DVD player. Other symmetric games? Fall back to culture and the controller aspect.

And a port for a USB hub into which one can plug four Logitech Dual Action controllers. The TurboGrafx-16 needed a hub for more than one player too, as did the NES, Genesis, Super NES, PS1, and PS2 for more than two players.
As are consoles, which are bundled with only one controller. You have to buy either extra controllers or extra entire systems for simultaneous multiplayer. So why don't PC games take advantage of gamepads plugged into a USB hub?

Yeah, I remember the 4-way thingies for earlier consoles.

Some things do take advantage of multiple USB gamepads - MAME for example (not really a game itself, but whatever). Others have joystick/gamepad support, but usually only for one player, and it's optional.

Controllers are not standardized though, and if you wrote a game that required people to buy controllers to play it - well, nobody is going to buy $20 + 4 x $xx for the controller. And what if they buy the wrong controller - one with too few buttons, or no analog stick, etc. So you have to write your game to not require specific controllers, and you're back to being forced to use keyboard/mouse as the default. At that point, controller support is an extra or nice-to-have, so often doesn't make it.

Controllers for consoles, though, are standardized and people understand and expect that you need one for every player. Nobody expects to buy one for PCs, nor would they know how.

I think I mentioned it, but there's also the toaster aspect to consoles and console controllers - there's no configuration, you just throw the game in and plug in the controller. PCs? You might have to fiddle with your USB stack, configure the game to match the controller,

A $60 major label console game for four players costs $60. A $20 indie PC game for four players costs $80 because it doesn't recognize multiple USB gamepads.

True. $10 or $15 for the indie game, or 2-3 players, would make it cheaper. :)

Why does this continue to be the case? How can indie developers gain access to "the living room with the TV, and lots of people can sit around on the couch playing"?

Why? PCs are for one person to sit and and play keyboard/mouse games, consoles are for the living room. This is the way it's been, and I doubt much will change it. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

Aside from culture, controllers, and seating, don't forget a lot of people have 15" monitors and 30" TVs. Which would you rather crowd 4 people around?

How to fix it? They can't. It's a bummer.

Something that might change indie developer access to consoles is either more web-based games accessed from the console (see Homestar Runner on the Wii for example) or console systems opening up their development (not likely).

It's called Steamcloud. They announced it: http://kotaku.com/5011756/valve-announce-steamcloud-sounds-great although I haven't heard anything about it since. Knowing Valve, it could be tomorrow or it could be years before it sees the light of day.

FYI, Nintendo has officially responded to this rumor:

We are always developing new products. However, since nothing has been announced officially, we are unable to comment at this time.

Hmm... playing close to their chest, aren't they?

with a 'no comment' style reply, here:
http://kotaku.com/5056082/nintendo-on-that-new-ds-rumor

Register for what? I can browse it without a registration just fine.

Would it make you feel better if it came straight from EA's mouth? Apparently, the guy who made that bold red statement doesn't even work for EA, he's an "over-zealous community volunteer".

Kotaku covered the same thing, and debunked it here.

And Here's the page in a thread where the guy posting your thread (jpfrostfox) said he screwed up, with the forum moderator (sporemasterladym) trying to do damage control.

Can't take the time to register.

He did not say he screwed up, he did nothing wrong. The moderator who was sacked certainly did though. His apology was personal, to the moderators who were decent for making their job more difficult because of his questions and the sensational reaction they caused. It was no admonition of guilt.

There's really some quite sad points in the full ruling against Thompson [PDF]. Testimony from the judge in Alabama, Judge Moore, is presented at length. He talks about how Thompson's false accusations of influencing cases affected him, and how deeply he was offended by it, both personally and because of the reaction in the rest of the community. Because Thompson was representing himself, Thompson got to directly question the judge about it in the disciplinary hearing. It couldn't have been easy for the judge to sit there answering questions in cross examination from the same idiot that he booted out of his courtroom. You can just tell that the judge didn't quite know what to do with someone so irrational and malicious as Thompson, and who wouldn't comply with his orders in Alabama. The judge was getting multiple faxes and messages every day in his courthouse, and it is a small courthouse -- he only has one assistant. Thompson was sending the same offensive stuff out to everyone in the media, and they were calling the courthouse too. He turned the place upside-down.

All of this was AFTER Thompson had been ejected from the court case -- lost his status as a lawyer in Alabama -- and after Thompson had misrepresented the status of his application to participate in the first place. Basically, he made a filing in the case over which Judge Moore was presiding, but Thompson hadn't actually applied yet to be treated as a lawyer in Alabama! Upon properly applying, the judge said okay, but eventually he couldn't put up with Thompson's antics. Unfortunately, as has come out in the hearing, Thompson had also neglected to truthfully answer the question that asks about prior disciplinary hearings: have you been subject to prior disciplinary hearings is a pretty clear-cut question, isn't it? Thompson said "no". Had he truthfully answered the question he probably wouldn't have been allowed in in the first place. It's pretty unbelievable stuff.

In the end, Judge Moore made the complaint to the Florida Bar, which he says was the first time he had ever filed a complaint about any lawyer.

And it just keeps going! I mean, I knew from the media reports that Thompson was bad, but those reports scratch the surface. If you read through that 169-page report, it's just astonishing! The guy is MEAN. NASTY. Let alone questions of professional conduct, the guy is a cruel and contemptible bully. I had significant sympathy for him before, because I figured he was merely insane and in need of professional counseling, but his behavior is vicious. The malice in the things he did is just awful. I thought permanent disbarment was going overboard as a reaction. To permanently take away someone's livelihood is a pretty brutal punishment, and I figured 10 years would be sufficient for him to get help and a clue.

But no, he deserves it all. I still think he needs professional help, I hope he gets it, and I have pity for his mental condition, but for what he has done and the harsh repercussions from it, I have no sympathy at all. Some kind of serious punishment is fully deserved, and it would be irresponsible for the bar to let him continue to practice. He shows no remorse at all, and has indicated he intends to continue. What choice did they really have?

Read the Kotaku link on it... as of this writing, it's still up, while the other one is slashdotted...

http://kotaku.com/5054772/jack-thompson-disbarred

The document they posted is quite brief, but for those who don't feel like reading the whole thing, the paragraph that answers your question is paragraph 4:

Among the extensive findings of fact presented in the report, the Court takes particular note of the following which occurred during the three-year period at issue in five counts in these cases: (1) respondent made false statements of material fact to courts and repeatedly violated a court order; (2) respondent communicated the subject of representation directly with clients of opposing counsel; (3) respondent engaged in prohibited ex parte communications; (4) respondent publicized and sent hundreds of pages of vitriolic and disparaging missives, letters, faxes, and press releases, to the affected individuals; (5) respondent targeted an individual who was not involved with respondent in any way, merely due to "the position [the individual] holds in state and national politics;" (6) respondent falsely, recklessly, and publicly accused a judge as being amenable to the "fixing" of cases; (7) respondent sent courts inappropriate and offensive sexual materials; (8) respondent falsely and publicly accused various attorneys and their clients of engaging in a conspiracy/enterprise involving "the criminal distribution of sexual materials to minors" and attempted to get prosecuting authorities to charge these attorneys and their clients for racketeering and extortion; (9) respondent harassed the former client of an attorney in an effort to get the client to use its influence to persuade the attorney to withdraw a defamation suit filed by the attorney against respondent; and (10) respondent retaliated against attorneys who filed Bar complaints against him for his unethical conduct by asserting to their clients, government officials, politicians, the media, female lawyers in their law firm, employees, personal friends, acquaintances, and their wives, that the attorneys were criminal Case Nos. SC07-80 and SC07-354 Page Three pornographers who objectify women.

Quoted, unmodified. Every paragraph of the filing is pertinent... it's only about a page's worth of text, so well worth the read. And IMHO, it's well worth disbarring him. And the only way he's affected *me* personally was that, thanks to one of his initiatives, I had to ask the staff at EB Games to sell me a copy of Bully, because they didn't have it actually *on* the shelves.

It has seen the end of Jack Thompson,
It has seen the end of a RIAA lawsuit,
The end of copyright cops,
The end of Comcast's forging of RST packets,
It will soon see the end of the Empire itself!

The Gamepolitics link is to the recommendation, not the approval. My bad. The correct link is this.

Kotaku covered the same thing, and debunked it here.
And Here's the page in a thread where the guy posting your thread (jpfrostfox) said he screwed up, with the forum moderator (sporemasterladym) trying to do damage control.

For me to consider it a flop it would have to be selling as badly as the PSP.

The PSP is outselling the PS3 by about 2:1. Really!

So the PS3 is actually selling substantially worse than the PSP, which meets your definition of flop.

Apparently this is one of the problems with the Wii is that very few people buy very many games for and most of the games purchased for it ARE Nintendo first party games.

There's still plenty left for third parties.

The Wii has a nice price point, likely to drop now I think in wake of moves by the other two

I doubt that, they have no reason to drop it. The Wii doesn't have to be the cheapest system on the block since it's the only system of its class (appeals to groups outside the standard gamer group)

As to graphical limitations of the Wii, it should be entirely possible for them to take the higher resolution models/textures/etc. and down samplle them very nicely to something suitable to other less "powerful" platforms.

Automatic polygon reduction is messy and shaders can change the approach taken for texturing. Most companies aren't trying to get normalmapping running on the Wii and just give it a PSP port.

That'll bring the kids in, right? Right?

I did have to laugh that PAX promised that fatal1ty wouldn't be there -- I think it's clear which convention understands their market.

Linking Space Invaders with the tragedy of 9/11 was just in poor taste and lacked any artistic value. It was created to purely shock people, and nothing else.

The artistic statement is pretty clear to me: the "war on terror" works as well as the "war on Space Invaders", in that there's an unlimited number of them and you're going to eventually get blown up. As the Convention write-up put it "the players must prevent the catastrophe by controlling the well- known cannon at the lower screen border with their bodies and firing it using arm movements. Like the original, this trial is ultimately unsuccessful, thus creating an articulated and critical commentary about the current war strategy."

This review says it "may be unsettling, with its blending of archaic gameplay and modern day catastrophe, but it's also an impressive accomplishment in that it delivers complex messages via simple means. Despite its perceived insensitivity, Stanley's ability to use video games as a medium of artistic expression will likely be an important step in the form being taken seriously (by people who take things seriously)."

You might not like that statement, you may disagree with it, you may find the way it's expressed to be in poor taste. But to claim that it has no artistic value, only shock value, is off the mark.

He could of said, "I tried making a statement. You don't understand it or appreciate it. I apologize to all offended". Instead he did not explain anything, but created a cluster fuck of a smoke screen and walked away.

("Could have said" or "could've said", not "could of said". Sorry, pet peeve, and I will now be fated to introduce at least one grammatical error into this post.)

An artist's job is to make art, not to explain it or apologize for it.

Or maybe... game creators could get people to pay them directly and skip the middleman in China. (And that's a single-player RPG!)

ORLY?
Slashdot you say?

How about Kotaku?
http://kotaku.com/5035242/ninty-forbids-miyamoto-to-discuss-his-hobbies

Or Gizmodo?
http://gizmodo.com/5036013/miyamoto-gagged-by-nintendo-apple-style

I know Slashdot bashing is very popular, but then again, what are you doing here if you hate it that much?

They had something on Kotaku about the "ADULT" themed peripherals that at least one company is making.

Well you can have roads at any angle in this Wii Sim City game, looking at the screenshots:

http://kotaku.com/photogallery/simcitycreatorjuly/1002981495

Looks like the buildings arrange themselves at 45 degree angles in the spaces between the roads though.

Might get this if it gets good reviews.

You can say all you want but facts show otherwise.

You have facts that show Europeans and Oceanians actually want higher prices? Would you care to give a link to these facts?

*ALL* of us vote with our wallets. And the ones that, like you, vote "no" are a minority compared with those that vote "yes".

True. But then there are some who vote with their wallets AND their broadband connection parked squarely on ThePirateBay 24/7. These are the ones that ruin it for the rest of us.

They can claim what they want (that high prices is due to piracy, for example) but the fact is that they sell they price they do because they understand that's the price they'll get maximum profits (or else, they'd sell even more expensively).

No, the fact is that Oceanic distributors dictate their prices based on Europe, and Europe is higher priced based on higher morals (=less piracy) and the need to translate into 100 different languages.

The "they pay a higher price so they must want to!" argument is obviously a logical fallacy, but even the "they charge what people are willing to pay" argument is a fallacy. They will charge whatever their accountants predict will be the maximum price a person will pay (compensating for competitor's prices, economic factors, piracy etc, then decreasing prices until they hit the right point), and the rest of us have to ante up or miss out. Or perhaps you honestly believe that there is an affordable but ridiculously high price point where no one will pay? Tell you what, release a popular game at a, say, USD$99 price point, then see how many people still buy it. Oh wait, don't bother! Somebody beat you to it. Looks like USians must want to pay USD$100 for all their games.

In addition, Hasbro has delivered to Facebook, which hosts the Scrabulous game, a notification of copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or the "DMCA") requesting that they remove the Scrabulous application in the U.S. and Canada as soon as possible.

This burns me up in so many ways. >:(

Not only is this a trademark case rather than a copyright one (as far I can tell, no lawyer here), but as a Canadian, it disgusts me that they're using the DMCA to dictate what can or cannot be published in Canada. We're having a tough enough time keeping crap legislation like that out of our country without amoral corporations smearing it across the boarder.

The one where in order to enjoy any entertainment products at all, we have to pay per , per license. Your apathy only brings us closer.

I believe this story, which has a video, is about the same robot. And if not, close enough.

http://kotaku.com/5021575/sony-pulls-ps3-240-firmware-after-reported-problems Looks like it needs a bit more QA.

In the comments I could not find anyone who had a problem. There are plenty who are upset and nervous about upgrading or just waiting on a so called "fix", but I could not find anyone who's PS3 had been bricked.

http://kotaku.com/5021575/sony-pulls-ps3-240-firmware-after-reported-problems Looks like it needs a bit more QA.

3D Realms has been doing this for nearly a decade with somewhat impressive results.

While not my favorite magazine, EGM takes at least a partial stand against this type of thing. They refused to go along with the ridiculous restrictions Konami wanted to place on reviews of Metal Gear Solid 4, choosing to tell their readers about Konami's actions and publishing a round table discussion about the game instead of a review. They also declined to give it a score, although I think they plan to do a proper review later after obtaining a retail copy on their own. They've also talked about this type of thing in the past, I remember an editor's note about it. There are companies that won't give EGM any pre-release info on games at all because EGM refuses to play along with their restrictions.

Lambda The Ultimate (programming languages): http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/rss.xml

Greg Costikyan (culture): http://feeds.feedburner.com/costik/gXjD

Darius Kazemi (gamedev networking): http://tinysubversions.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Warren Spector (design): http://junctionpoint.wordpress.com/feed/

Tom Forsyth (graphics): http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.xml

Christer Ericson (collision detection): http://realtimecollisiondetection.net/blog/?feed=rss2

Erin Catto (physics): http://www.gphysics.com/feed

Duncan Fyfe? (writing): http://www.hitselfdestruct.com/feeds/posts/default

Soren Johnson (design): http://feeds.feedburner.com/Designer-notes

Fun Motion (physics games): http://www.fun-motion.com/feed/

Play This Thing (short reviews & commentary): http://playthisthing.com/allposts/feed

GoGamer (game deals): http://feeds.feedburner.com/Gogamercom48hourMadnessSpecial

CheapAssGamer (game deals): http://feeds.feedburner.com/cheapassgamer

Kotaku (news & commentary): http://kotaku.com/index.xml

Rock, Paper, Shotgun (PC gaming): http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?feed=rss2

• Dilbert - do I need to describe this?
• Explosm.com - Cyanide and Happiness comic
• Fokke & Sukke - Dutch comic. Popular daily cartoon (yes, I'm dutch and the name is intentional)
• Little Gamers - gaming comic
• Penny Arcade - gaming comic
• FAIL blog - epic fail every day

Finance & Economy

• BusinessWeek Online -- Most Popular Stories
• Calculated Risk - general blog
• The Economist - News analysis and views
• NRC | EconomieDutch newspaper, economy section

Space

• Bad Astronomy - Phil Plait's blog about astronomy and skepticism
• Chris Lintott's Universe - Astronomer, Galaxy Zoo co-founder and co-host of BBC's The Sky at Night
• NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
• New Scientist, Space - Astronomy section of New Scientist
• Space.com - More space news...
• Starts With a Bang! - Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, tries to answer some common but very complex astronomy questions.
• Universe Today - One of the most well known astronomy blogs

Tech

• Engadget - THE gadget blog
• Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories - making crazy electronic stuff (and drooling over niche market product catalogues)
• Gametrailers' ScrewAttack - funny gaming videos
• Kotaku - THE games blog
• Reuters Science
• Reuters Technology
• Slashdot
• The Brainy Gamer - in-depth articles about (the history of) games in general
• Tweakers.net - the dutch Slashdot

Misc

• Greggman - American gamedev'er who lived in Japan
• Jort Kelder - Dutch dandy. Ex-editor-in-chief of Quote, a magazine about entrepeneurs and the life of the nouveau rich. Co-host of the dutch Dragons Den.
• Scalzi's Whatever - Sciencefiction author.
• The Sartorialist - Fashion photographer. If you'd like to dress like a man with some class, instead of a fake tan metrosexual...look here for inspiration.

Yeah I'm a Canadian and don't like to be forgotten about, but that Rock Band nonsense last Christmas was ridiculous. To give numbers to your comment, US population should be about 300M. Canadian population is over 30M, but good enough to make 10% more of the US market assuming the same purchasing trends. So 110% of $10.7B USD is ~$11.8B USD. It's bad enough that the figure used is USD. Perhaps unit sales would be better to rate it since a unit in Japan, North America or Europe is the same and not a variable 1.2 or 1.5 bit chunk.

Would be better if all numbers conformed to reporting North American sales stats, but yeah.
Here's something on Square Enix's worldwide performance in FY2007 which I find interesting (I'm a big Dragon Quest fan). But of course, those are UNIT sales which is different. It's an exercise for the reader to get a list of all the games SE released in each region with sales figures and multiply by the cost of the game (or even better the profit margin for SE).. But too much work.

Long story short, next year, the North American market will seem bigger again due to GTA IV (just like how SE's data showed a drop from FY06 without FFXII being released). Whether it was bigger continuously through all this time or was smaller than Europe or Japan is yet to be seen I think.

Turns out Europe overtook the US gaming market for FY2007.

I hate hearing the whining of the article repeated elsewhere: "We're seeing companies ignore their largest market simply because they can make a greater profit elsewhere." That link I just posted says Japan is #1 in sales at $11.5 B USD, Europe is #2 at $11.4 B USD and US only pulled in $10.7 B USD. So companies aren't ignoring their largest market; they're giving the leftovers to the third largest market. Deal.

According to an interview with Michael Ansel BG&E2 will release on PS3 and XBox 360.

Honestly, Beyond Good and Evil is a great game. I'm really excited for the game even if the trailer makes things a little too realistic looking. The original seemed to have a few more filters running through it giving it a unique look, but of course this is an early video of the game. As long as the story continues from the last game's cliffhanger, I'll be happy.

I can't see any obvious links to the trailer on Gamespot's website, so here's a link to it:

http://kotaku.com/5011404/ubisoft-officially-announces-beyond-good--evil-2

Some people can't help themselves.

There probably isn't a lot of love for EA around here (or many parts of the internet in general) but you do have to admit that they responded fairly well to the situation. From what I've read the approach that they're planning to take now is actually pretty good, if not better than what most of us are probably used to dealing with. The fact that I don't need to have the CD in the drive while playing the game is a nice touch, especially for anyone who likes to switch between games frequently.

The only thing that you could really complain about is the necessity of an internet connection to validate on install. The only other time it bothers to validate is if you're downloading an update or using some other online feature which means you're already connected to the internet.

As someone who was a little put off by the overly encumbering DRM that was originally planned to be included, I'd like to tip my hat to EA for listening to their customers and making a wise decision.

If you're sick of Uwe Boll, sign the petition!

http://www.petitiononline.com/RRH53888/petition.html

He has stated he will quit making films if there are a million signatures.

http://kotaku.com/376625/make-uwe-boll-disappear-yeah-riiiiight

Of course, he'd probably move on to television or something, but you never know!

At the very least the next boxing match should be less one sided. I'm bringing a baseball bat.

If WoW chills him out, I'd hate to see what he looks like when he's wound up.

This is an interview with the same guy, by the way, relaxing with a stogie and alcohol, the old fashioned way.

More than a possibility.

Civilization: Revolution is coming out for PS3, Xbox 360 and the DS soon, and from what I've read it's not too bad. Unfortunately they Wii version is on hold at the moment, as I was hoping the Wii controls would finally bring a lot of these "PC Friendly" games to consoles.

The high end game industry lives in its own (un)reality.

How the hell is it Intel and the PC's manufacturer's fault for integrated graphics, when most PC's are for business use, where they, at best, play card games on. People won't pay for power they don't need.

The market for insanely fast, high-end games seems to have shrunk in favour of casual games, MMOs, and "gameplay" games. Instead of working on graphics engines, the hotspot for innovation seems to be game play and game experience. Examples abound: Wii Sports, Bio Shock, Mass Effect, World in Conflict, the endless stream of "war games" like Gears of War and Call of Duty, etc.

None of these games can be played with Integrated graphics; WoW will run max ~10-15 fps on X3100 Integrated graphics, and will probably degrade without aftermarket cooling. Almost all sales people at Best Buy or even at the Apple Store are very clear about what models are meant for games, and which ones aren't. Yet Tim claims that poor, blind, customers are being sold PC's that won't play games. I guess he's never heard of a "2 week return policy"?

I think Doom 3 killed the market -- after that experience, people don't want to buy the same old 10 year old game with new graphics and some minor gameplay improvements.

For example, if you improve the graphics (a bit) AND the gameplay AND change the setting or genre, you may have a winner... The current graphics champ, Crysis, has done fairly well, selling 1 million through the end of January, despite early reports that it was flunking as bad as UT3. Gears of War 2 is hotly anticipated and I bet will slam UT3's sales despite being on the same engine. I haven't heard what UT3's sales are, last I saw it was 1.2 million for PS3 + PC combined, which seems to indicate PC sales sucked.

^_^ The funny part is that they are planning on releasing Crysis 1.5 on the PS3.
Not only will it be coming to the console, it will contain 50% more stuff.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/cry-on/crytek-says-crysis-for-consoles-possible-284534.php
http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/03/03/rumor-crysis-for-ps3-looking-probable-will-be-an-almost-50-n/

Talking about sprites, did you see the teaser video for King of Fighters XII? So. Fuckin'. Beautiful.

"What exactly was your point about MS being better?"

Ways in which Microsoft is "better":

-A key point for me, is that Microsoft wasn't trying to push a NEW and UNNECESSARY "standard" on me when I purchased my GAME CONSOLE. That's an abstract thing, but I still appreciate not being someone's media format guinea pig. 2 points MS!

-DVD is CHEAP! It's more than capable of holding enough data for 9 out of 10 games. If it doesn't, then slap another DVD in the box and call it a day. Let's say you actually NEEDED 50GB of storage for a game. A regular DVD holds 9GB (Dual Layer), so you'd need (50 / 9 = 5.555) 6 DVD's. OK fine. How much are the actual discs though?

According to:

http://www.mediasupply.com/bluray.html
TDK DVD 25GB BD-R (Recordable) Single-Layer Blu-ray Disc
$19.90

That's $19.90 PER DISK!

http://www.mediasupply.com/mama.html
MAM-A/Mitsui 4.7GB Gold Archive DVD-R - 50 Ct.
$99.00
(99 \ 50 = 1.98)

That's $1.98 PER DISK!

(6 x $1.98 = $11.88)
So even if you needed 6 DVDs to hold your game, you'd still be paying ALMOST half the price for just the physical media! Granted, I'm sure the prices are much different in bulk, but the principle is the same. Nine times out of 10, cheaper without any real drawbacks is better "Just Because".
Score two more points for Microsoft.

-Screw the movie companies! I didn't want to get caught up in their format pissing contest anyway. By buying a DVD based console, I basically told BOTH sides in the HDDVD v BD pissing match to go screw themselves and sat down to a nice game of Rainbow Six. That's always fun! Score!

-This is more of a subjective thing, but quite honestly, alot of the PS3 library is CRAP! Outside of a handful of shining examples, they've been releasing noting but garbage. And even some of the better titles (Half-Life 2, UT3) are suffering from poor performance problems that, quite frankly shouldn't be there. I personally think they dropped the ball in giving their developers assistance with the hardware early on BECAUSE they were so focused on this Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD pissing contest. Microsoft! Swish!

-You could title this one "Hardware Bullshit", "Bait and Switch", or even "Playing Catchup". I really don't like Kotaku AT ALL, but I have to give them credit for their PS3 coverage. I'll let former Sony Big-Wig "Ken Kutaragi" and Kotaku do the talking:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/2007-b'c'/scee-explains-ps3-bc-backpedalling-307768.php
"So why, exactly, was backwards compatibility dropped from the PS3? What was once a "core value" and "necessary" according to Sony Computer Entertainment's Phil Harrison--not to mention a boastful talking point when asked about the Xbox 360's BC-- is now clearly not at all necessary, with the company's priorities on "developing innovative new features and services for PS3 and not on backwards compatibility."

http://kotaku.com/gaming/business/dumb-exec-quote-round+up-rodeo-327776.php
(PlayStation Father Ken Kutaragi on the PS3's intial price tag:
"It's probably too cheap... We want consumers to think to themselves, 'I will work more hours to buy one.'")

http://kotaku.com/gaming/tgs06/tgs06-kutaragis-keynote-a-rerun-202907.php
He's even upfront about Sony's media agenda on occasion: "Sony has Sony's agenda. But (I) want a very open platform, equal for every person."

http://kotaku.com/gaming/tgs06/tgs06-liveblogging-kutaragis-keynote-202427.php
Even Ken knows that using a cheap media format is a good idea. That was one of the key factors in their vi

"What exactly was your point about MS being better?"

Ways in which Microsoft is "better":

-A key point for me, is that Microsoft wasn't trying to push a NEW and UNNECESSARY "standard" on me when I purchased my GAME CONSOLE. That's an abstract thing, but I still appreciate not being someone's media format guinea pig. 2 points MS!

-DVD is CHEAP! It's more than capable of holding enough data for 9 out of 10 games. If it doesn't, then slap another DVD in the box and call it a day. Let's say you actually NEEDED 50GB of storage for a game. A regular DVD holds 9GB (Dual Layer), so you'd need (50 / 9 = 5.555) 6 DVD's. OK fine. How much are the actual discs though?

According to:

http://www.mediasupply.com/bluray.html
TDK DVD 25GB BD-R (Recordable) Single-Layer Blu-ray Disc
$19.90

That's $19.90 PER DISK!

http://www.mediasupply.com/mama.html
MAM-A/Mitsui 4.7GB Gold Archive DVD-R - 50 Ct.
$99.00
(99 \ 50 = 1.98)

That's $1.98 PER DISK!

(6 x $1.98 = $11.88)
So even if you needed 6 DVDs to hold your game, you'd still be paying ALMOST half the price for just the physical media! Granted, I'm sure the prices are much different in bulk, but the principle is the same. Nine times out of 10, cheaper without any real drawbacks is better "Just Because".
Score two more points for Microsoft.

-Screw the movie companies! I didn't want to get caught up in their format pissing contest anyway. By buying a DVD based console, I basically told BOTH sides in the HDDVD v BD pissing match to go screw themselves and sat down to a nice game of Rainbow Six. That's always fun! Score!

-This is more of a subjective thing, but quite honestly, alot of the PS3 library is CRAP! Outside of a handful of shining examples, they've been releasing noting but garbage. And even some of the better titles (Half-Life 2, UT3) are suffering from poor performance problems that, quite frankly shouldn't be there. I personally think they dropped the ball in giving their developers assistance with the hardware early on BECAUSE they were so focused on this Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD pissing contest. Microsoft! Swish!

-You could title this one "Hardware Bullshit", "Bait and Switch", or even "Playing Catchup". I really don't like Kotaku AT ALL, but I have to give them credit for their PS3 coverage. I'll let former Sony Big-Wig "Ken Kutaragi" and Kotaku do the talking:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/2007-b'c'/scee-explains-ps3-bc-backpedalling-307768.php
"So why, exactly, was backwards compatibility dropped from the PS3? What was once a "core value" and "necessary" according to Sony Computer Entertainment's Phil Harrison--not to mention a boastful talking point when asked about the Xbox 360's BC-- is now clearly not at all necessary, with the company's priorities on "developing innovative new features and services for PS3 and not on backwards compatibility."

http://kotaku.com/gaming/business/dumb-exec-quote-round+up-rodeo-327776.php
(PlayStation Father Ken Kutaragi on the PS3's intial price tag:
"It's probably too cheap... We want consumers to think to themselves, 'I will work more hours to buy one.'")

http://kotaku.com/gaming/tgs06/tgs06-kutaragis-keynote-a-rerun-202907.php
He's even upfront about Sony's media agenda on occasion: "Sony has Sony's agenda. But (I) want a very open platform, equal for every person."

http://kotaku.com/gaming/tgs06/tgs06-liveblogging-kutaragis-keynote-202427.php
Even Ken knows that using a cheap media format is a good idea. That was one of the key factors in their vi

"What exactly was your point about MS being better?"

Ways in which Microsoft is "better":

-A key point for me, is that Microsoft wasn't trying to push a NEW and UNNECESSARY "standard" on me when I purchased my GAME CONSOLE. That's an abstract thing, but I still appreciate not being someone's media format guinea pig. 2 points MS!

-DVD is CHEAP! It's more than capable of holding enough data for 9 out of 10 games. If it doesn't, then slap another DVD in the box and call it a day. Let's say you actually NEEDED 50GB of storage for a game. A regular DVD holds 9GB (Dual Layer), so you'd need (50 / 9 = 5.555) 6 DVD's. OK fine. How much are the actual discs though?

According to:

http://www.mediasupply.com/bluray.html
TDK DVD 25GB BD-R (Recordable) Single-Layer Blu-ray Disc
$19.90

That's $19.90 PER DISK!

http://www.mediasupply.com/mama.html
MAM-A/Mitsui 4.7GB Gold Archive DVD-R - 50 Ct.
$99.00
(99 \ 50 = 1.98)

That's $1.98 PER DISK!

(6 x $1.98 = $11.88)
So even if you needed 6 DVDs to hold your game, you'd still be paying ALMOST half the price for just the physical media! Granted, I'm sure the prices are much different in bulk, but the principle is the same. Nine times out of 10, cheaper without any real drawbacks is better "Just Because".
Score two more points for Microsoft.

-Screw the movie companies! I didn't want to get caught up in their format pissing contest anyway. By buying a DVD based console, I basically told BOTH sides in the HDDVD v BD pissing match to go screw themselves and sat down to a nice game of Rainbow Six. That's always fun! Score!

-This is more of a subjective thing, but quite honestly, alot of the PS3 library is CRAP! Outside of a handful of shining examples, they've been releasing noting but garbage. And even some of the better titles (Half-Life 2, UT3) are suffering from poor performance problems that, quite frankly shouldn't be there. I personally think they dropped the ball in giving their developers assistance with the hardware early on BECAUSE they were so focused on this Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD pissing contest. Microsoft! Swish!

-You could title this one "Hardware Bullshit", "Bait and Switch", or even "Playing Catchup". I really don't like Kotaku AT ALL, but I have to give them credit for their PS3 coverage. I'll let former Sony Big-Wig "Ken Kutaragi" and Kotaku do the talking:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/2007-b'c'/scee-explains-ps3-bc-backpedalling-307768.php
"So why, exactly, was backwards compatibility dropped from the PS3? What was once a "core value" and "necessary" according to Sony Computer Entertainment's Phil Harrison--not to mention a boastful talking point when asked about the Xbox 360's BC-- is now clearly not at all necessary, with the company's priorities on "developing innovative new features and services for PS3 and not on backwards compatibility."

http://kotaku.com/gaming/business/dumb-exec-quote-round+up-rodeo-327776.php
(PlayStation Father Ken Kutaragi on the PS3's intial price tag:
"It's probably too cheap... We want consumers to think to themselves, 'I will work more hours to buy one.'")

http://kotaku.com/gaming/tgs06/tgs06-kutaragis-keynote-a-rerun-202907.php
He's even upfront about Sony's media agenda on occasion: "Sony has Sony's agenda. But (I) want a very open platform, equal for every person."

http://kotaku.com/gaming/tgs06/tgs06-liveblogging-kutaragis-keynote-202427.php
Even Ken knows that using a cheap media format is a good idea. That was one of the key factors in their vi