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Journalist to MS: Take your $800 Halo 3 bribe back, Halo 3 isn't all that
http://www.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?81352-Journalist-to-MS-Take-your-800-Halo-3-bribe-back-Halo-3-isn-t-all-that

Yeah, those Shiny Green Bunny Hopping Power Ranger Halo games are so 'amazing' Microsoft is forced to bribe reviewers with 800 dollar 'gift bags'...

Jailbreaking is distinctly different from circumventing a copy / rights protection mechanism. But of course Apple DID object to it and cited the DMCA amongst other laws. They failed because their case wasn't strong enough.

what does MS do to non commercial pirates? nothing. (except for the genuine advantage check)

People have extrapolated that because MS privately prefers pirates to be using their desktop OS than a rival's somehow it applies to consoles or other matters. It doesn't. Indeed they took down cryptome.org using the DMCA. Used it as the basis to bring criminal charges against modchip importers. And even used it to shut down a popular "homebrew" modding site JTAG hacks. In other words MS has been as active in stamping on modders / homebrew as Sony ever was.

And of course Nintendo is as active at prosecuting hackers / cart importers.

People seem to think that Sony is acting out of turn here when it isn't. It's actions are precisely in keeping with other console manufacturers, stamping on the hackers / importers and banning end users who mod. Colour me surprised. If you buy a closed system where copy protection / DRM is implicit to the model you can expect the full weight of the platform holder to come down on anyone who threatens that model. And in most jurisdictions they'll have the law on their side.

Just be happy you didn't have it plugged into a surge protector

I believe GeoHot might disagree with you in that regard

Actually GeoHot quited a few days ago.

There were at least 6 suits filed: http://www.maxconsole.net/content.php?40318-Sixth-PS3-Other-OS-lawsuit-filed-against-Sony

Well, the XBox is still basically a money pit for Microsoft, and the PS3 is extremely profitable for Sony, so I'd say that the sales of PS3 are, in general, better than those the XBox, if not numerically larger.

Additionally, this is hardly relevant to anything I was actually talking about.

Since the author remains in possession of the original book after I make a copy, It's not stealing.

There's already a name for it, It's called copying.

So, If I BUY a copy of the book from the author, and make a copy of it, is that stealing?

Does reading it and memorizing the book still count as copying it? Does mentioning the book to a friend count as trademark violation?

This is stupid.

http://www.maxconsole.net/content_img/pirnotheft.jpg

As far as the price tag, Finance 101 my friend. They keep the quantities on the shelf low to generate some hype, and come out with some quirky "game" (WiiFit) every now and then to generate more hype to keep demand up.

Right. Nintendo increased production from 1.6M to 2.4M in a year, to try to meet the near-unprecedented demand. (See http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=33095) Where are they storing all those millions of consoles? The truth is, it's the consumers who make sure the Wii can't be found on shelves, by buying the damn things as fast as they get back in stock.

And Wii games aren't exactly contenders for Game of the Year, again niche market.

Riiiiight, games like Super Mario Galaxy can never win such prestigious awards...

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/game-of-the-year-2007/best-overall-game-of-2007/1177115
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/29286.html

Not that I really disagree with you all that much, Nintendo have been careful about ramping up their production to not allow Wiis to pile up in stores, and *most* Wii games are shitty.

Both of those are attributable to common sense, though: Produce too many of an item, and you're paying to lease more factories than you actually need, and on top of that you also have to store your excess stock in expensive warehouses.

As to the shitty games, that's just down to the Wii being the market leader, and thus the target of shovelware publishers who want to maximise their sales by releasing games to the largest install base possible. Oh yeah, the Wii is cheaper to develop for, too!

Another good one is maxconsole and the forums there.

http://www.maxconsole.net/content_img/mc_psp_morbo.jpg

'THE WEB' DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!

You mean the same PS3 that is beating the Wii right now in sales?

Source: http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=23011

The fact that despite the massive foothold in the market place it's still not making money for the company means that there's a failure.

You are being explicitly rewarded for the growing sadism of your kills.

Reports indicate that in Manhunt 2 players are not rewarded for the kind of thing you describe. As a matter of fact, players are penalized for engaging the most gruesome scenarios.*

"The version of Manhunt 2 that was supposed to hit shelves next week featured multiple endings depending on your actions throughout the game."

"Through the publication it has been confirmed that the version they played came complete with alternate endings and also completely different final levels depending on how the game was played."

"A game which punishes people for being violent and rewards them for not being violent has been deemed unsuitable and unacceptable?"

* These reports are based on what we will politely call "previews" of the version of Manhunt 2 that was originally submitted for ratings. There is telling whether this structure will remain in the game, should it eventually be released.

It's true, this level of control on the part of the audience makes playing this video game somewhat different from reading a book. On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of deeper introspection in which we might expect an adult audience to express an interest. A lot of people are clearly fixated on the horror in this game. They should be excited to learn that the game gives people who are so fascinated an opportunity to further explore that subject in the context of this work, either by engaging the macabre or attempting to find some other response to the situation.

Additionally, it's worth pointing out that if you find yourself drawn into video games for "days or even weeks, at a stretch," your behavior isn't normal and you would probably benefit from psychiatric assistance. I don't care if you're playing Manhunt 2, Mazes and Monsters or Barbie Horse Adventures -- please seek help!

Mod parent up. This is a prime example of the advantages of cross-platform (and likely, open source as well) libraries and APIs. Had they developed on an SDL-OGL-OAL system in the first place, porting the game would boil down to nothing more than re-doing the online features. As it is, however, they likely have to scrap and rebuild the entirety of the graphics, sound, and input code, before they can even think about the PS3 (which they're not even doing).

Smarthouse news in Australia is reporting that more than 30% of Australian XBox360 owners are returning the consoles with the "Red Ring of Death", which occurs when the console suffers a hardware failure http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/13201/Retaile rs_Claim_360_Failure_Rate_Is_Over_30.html.

It appears that the failures are caused by a fundamental design flaw in the cooling of the GPU.

When the GPU heats up enough, not only does it reflow the solder in the ball grid array slightly, it can cause the entire mainboard to flex - a phenomenon largely caused by the X-shaped brackets that hold the heatsinks on under the mainboard. http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/13140/Xbox_36 0_Failures_Explained.html

Some European Xbox 360's are being repaired by Microsoft with extra cooling http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=17870. Hopefully they will now admit the design flaw and retrofit the same repair for the rest of their customers.

Here!
Or is that not what you meant?

Datel released this months ago. I have seen it in my local Best Buy for a couple months at least. No, I am not confusing it with their Action Replay or Max Media products. In fact, this very product was recalled because one of the homebrew titles could show something "inappropriate" (probably pornography). Information about the recall:
http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=14541

its not really a matter of "cutting it out" it has to do with the fact of how fast the cpu could parse the code. even just going by some googled specs:

http://www.myoldcomputers.com/museum/comp/c64.htm
http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=8802

The wii is going to be 729 times as fast, cpu wise, and the bus on it is goning to be at least 243 times faster, and 8 times as wide.
Even if they dont optomise the emulator, the wii will be able to load the game faster than the C64 could ever dream. even if you use the bus speed for an ugly example ie 2 minute load time (120 seconds) / 243(wii bus)= 0.49387 seconds to pass the same amount of info, while the CPU sits there twiddling its thumbs even running at this decreased rate. now, granted, an emulator is not always as good as the real hardware its emulating, but even if you assume a 50% efficency rate, HOLY CRAP LOOK AT THAT, its still only 1 second to load. as for the use of "disk swapping" the emulator could just be set up to do it when the game tries to promt for the second disk, like placing the files for multiple cds in a video game install (like UT2004 for example) onto a DVD, I have done this several times with my games to make installing easier, not to mention faster.

Hmm, I guess since this is using the exact pin-layout of a CF flash card this implies high compatibility (i.e., will work with GBAMP NDS Firmware Hack and the GBAMP FAT driver. I was wondering which DS flash card to buy, and I was eying the M3 lite for DS, but given all the compatibility problems, I'm leaning towards a CF solution, now, even though this sticks out of my Nintendo DS lite as much as a mile..
Or can anybody recommend something else that's compatible with homebrew (M3 CF (or SD) lite, or one of the Supercards)

Hmm, I guess since this is using the exact pin-layout of a CF flash card this implies high compatibility (i.e., will work with GBAMP NDS Firmware Hack and the GBAMP FAT driver. I was wondering which DS flash card to buy, and I was eying the M3 lite for DS, but given all the compatibility problems, I'm leaning towards a CF solution, now, even though this sticks out of my Nintendo DS lite as much as a mile..
Or can anybody recommend something else that's compatible with homebrew (M3 CF (or SD) lite, or one of the Supercards)

The makers behind the M3 and G6 have released a FAT library which will work with the M3-SD and G6. You can find it here: http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?p=2192 03#post219203

The DVD playing function is optional.

If MS can deliver a solid price drop (maybe $250 to $300 for the premium system, dropping the core model) by the time wii and PS3 arrive

No such thing though.

According to Bloomberg, Microsoft have stated that they will be not adjusting the 360's price in light of the launch of the PS3. An MS rep commented there is currently no schedule in place to cut prices.

http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=8710

http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=7135

Mod parent up.

As an amateur Nintend DS developer:
In the "good old days" one could buy a device called a PassMe (a glorified device that performs a JMP into the GBA cartridge's ROM thus executing unencrypted code. They come in several variations such as the PassMe and the SuperPass). Nintendo was not happy with the PassMe and made all the recent DS systems (after and including firmware 4.0) and made the handshaking between the DS and the DS cartridge a bit more complicated and on a game-by-game basis. Now, one needs a device called a PassMe2 which essentially pretends to be a game. Beyond this, there are "NoPass" devices which don't have to do the handshaking with the DS.

As it stands you can't use the rumble addon like the article implies, largely because both slots on the DS are taken up with the current state of homebrew (a GBA cart containing the code you want to run and a PassMe-like device in the DS slot). The DS section of this article is misleading. For more information, I suggest DualScene.net and MaxConsole.net for information on homebrew games and programs. One can check DSLinux.org for information on, appropriately, DS Linux, and one can check GBADev.org for information on DS and GBA development.

Several people at MaxConsole are reporting that this has not prevented them from running their backups with the hacked DVD firmware.

Source: http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=7645

Software updates?

Forget about the 360 hardware defects when the service packs or whatever you want to call them are killing peoples machines:

http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=6296

Scary.

Glad I went with a new pc card than the mess the 360 has turned out to be.

A device that plays DVDs, AND can read files from a SMB (Windows, or Samba) share. Maybe something else. I don't care, as many of the available devices force you to navigate a directory heirarchy anyway. Plays mp3, ogg, mpeg2 and 4, avi (Divx and xvid), qt, etc. Preferably with the ability to update codecs/container formats as required, but even being able to play what was current a year ago today would be nice.

1. Get an xbox for 100 bucks
2. Softmod it
3. Install XBox Media Center
4. There is no step 4.

Theres another exploit here and thats the commercial exploit of the Homebrew scene by Content Holdings.com who brought the PSPhacker domain and when the japs released the hello world and early releases they repackaged the releases as their own and add to that the 3 dollars a month to remove ads that "premium" members pay and also the free psp (and we know thats a scam) site they have and not to mention the fact that if a release is on a site they consider a rival they either say they were emailed the release or another lie. Well at least the site admins can collect more cash now thanks to Slashdot and others, why on earth they didnt link to the coders is beyond anyone but if you remember the BochsPSP news they linked to their own site then also. If your looking for decent news sites for PSP then try http://www.maxconsole.net/ http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/ or http://psp-archive.de/

Ghetto Keyboard PSP Mod

Looks scary tho'...

Mirrored just in case.

We apologize for the somewhat poor quality pictures... the creator of this masterpiece says that soon he will let us know exactly how he created this hardware modification, of course the software side of things is not fully functional."

So, basically what you're saying is that I can take anything with cables, connect it to a PSP adaptor with electrical tape, take low resolution pictures which show absolutely nothing definitive, declare that I've done a hack, and you will then declare it a masterpiece while posting it on the front page of your news section, thus somehow fooling someone (not to mention CmdrTaco) into thinking that this is material worthy of the /. community's attention.

Tempting...

--
I'm not a troll; I'm just a skeptic.