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People like drinkypoo appear to think no games benefit from a controller, and thumb gestures on a flat sheet of glass are more flexible than physical buttons. I have my own counterarguments, but I'd like to hear others.

I'm pretty sure that most people here already have such a setup or use their computer for TV purposes these days.

CronoCloud and others would wholeheartedly disagree with you. Most people don't connect a PC to a TV, apart from the geek demographic overrepresented among Slashdot regulars. Non-geeks would have a lot more trouble figuring out how to connect a PC to a TV.

Or €150 for an Archos Gamepad

Which launches "in early Q1 2013" with support for Google Play Store.

easily mappable for the tons of older games that lack button support.

But how much time are people willing to spend mapping as opposed to playing? I'm told they're already turned off by the plethora of layouts of non-Xbox 360 controllers on the PC.

The game does not need to know what kind of controller I have just that I pressed stick one forward and depressed button seven.

Is button seven jump, or fire, or lean left, or pause? If Bluetooth controllers are anything like USB controllers, each one will have a different layout of the button numbers. Among my sample set, button seven is either the Select button or one of the left shoulder buttons, depending on what brand of controller is plugged in.

How is this special?

As I understand it, Bluetooth game controllers are like USB game controllers in that each has a different button layout. If developers standardize on one button layout, it'll make it easier to start to play each game because the user can just install an app, start it, and play. Otherwise, the user has to go through a setup phase for each game: this button is jump, this button is fire, do you want movement on the primary analog stick or the primary POV hat, etc.

I bought Sonic 4 Episode II on the first day I owned my Nexus7

I've never played Sonic 4, but the Sonic games for the Genesis are special cases because those games only use the C button. Have you tried games that use more than one trigger button under the right thumb? I'd try it myself, but the Google Play Store product page for Sonic 4 Episode II LITE by Sega of America seems to have a lot of one star ratings for force closing immediately on start. Cracked Reader Lite has the same problem since I upgraded to 4.2; might that be part of it? And there's another advantage of consoles: operating system upgrades are less likely to make licensed games fail.

The on-screen d-pad is entirely usable.

How can you tell whether you're pressing Right or Down+Right or Up+Right?

I mean, it's not as good as the ones on a Nintendo controller, but what is?

True, Logitech and Gravis products are at least as bad as the Xbox 360 Controller's directional pad, but I've had good luck with controllers for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 through the EMS USB2 Dual Shooter adapter.

Hell, even wristwatches have vanished

I still wear a wristwatch because using a cell phone as a pocket watch would require reaching into a pocket to check the time. There's a reason that companies sold wristbands for the iPod nano 6.

I've probably bought a dozen gamepads for my PCs over the years, and I might still have half that many, if you count adapters which permit plugging in console controllers.

So have I. But as CronoCloud might say, you and I are edge cases. I'm told most PC gamers associate the PC platform with one mouse, keyboard, and monitor per player, and most players appear to expect major PC games (apart from some token cases) to be designed around this assumption. A developer apparently must pay his dues by developing successful mouse-and-keyboard or touch-screen games before being allowed to develop games that take full advantage of a capability that consoles are known for and PCs have had since 1999 but PC users tend to underuse because of tradition.

I've probably bought a dozen gamepads for my PCs over the years, and I might still have half that many, if you count adapters which permit plugging in console controllers.

So have I. But as CronoCloud might say, you and I are edge cases. I'm told most PC gamers associate the PC platform with one mouse, keyboard, and monitor per player, and most players appear to expect major PC games (apart from some token cases) to be designed around this assumption. A developer apparently must pay his dues by developing successful mouse-and-keyboard or touch-screen games before being allowed to develop games that take full advantage of a capability that consoles are known for and PCs have had since 1999 but PC users tend to underuse because of tradition.

If you want to do something really edgy an original, you can do it, just don't go to Paramount (or EA in this case) and expect them to front you the money, and you're much more likely getting your money back if you premiere on Netflix.

The trouble is that some genres work better with physical buttons than with, say, a touch screen. Most mobile devices open to indie developers lack a gamepad, and I've been told most users aren't willing to buy a gamepad just for one game. And though Xbox 360 controllers work wonderfully with a PC (or, in fact, a Nexus 7 with a USB host cable), I've been told most PC users aren't willing to plug in one Xbox 360 controller let alone two to four.

Microsoft did make a new handheld gaming system. It's called Windows Phone.

For one thing, it costs hundreds of USD more per year to own a device running Windows Phone than to own a Wi-Fi-only Nintendo 3DS or PlayStation Vita. These connect to the Internet through the DSL or cable you're probably already paying for at home and through the Wi-Fi included in your restaurant bill. For another, unlike Nintendo 3DS or PlayStation Vita, devices running Windows Phone lack a directional pad and trigger buttons, and though touch control has its advantages for some types of game, not every video game genre is conducive to play on a flat sheet of glass. For example, how would Mega Man series work?

This is my first of two questions about free software business models.

Several kinds of software have historically depended on the business model of restricting distribution. One is video games. Video games consist of far more than a computer program; they also consist of so-called "assets", such as textures, meshes, maps, audio, and other kinds of non-program works for which you don't want people using the term "content". In a world where all software is distributed under a free software license, how would the development of new video games be financed? The model of selling support, which Red Hat has successfully applied to business software, might work for massively multiplayer online games but wouldn't work so well for anything else because a single-player game doesn't need much support after the sale once it's running.

I'm curious how, "Check at start" became "Check at start and don't do anything with the info for hours." Typically, programs that check at start offer to download and launch the installer via modal dialog as soon as the check is complete.

I was trying to allude to Apple's guidelines to not interrupt the user's work flow with a modal dialog when the user first opens the application. (No, I don't remember what Google search terms I used to find those guidelines months or years ago.)

The linux software repositories have different requirements.

Such as the program being distributed under a free software license that conforms with the DFSG. This is traditionally not acceptable for several categories of application.

There should be a fee, though.

How should hobbyist developers of applications distributed for no fee afford this fee, especially when it usually ends up being a separate fee for each platform?

Which is why the OP spelled out security fixes as an exception to the general rule of not pushing updates every day.

Where I'm going is that the only time I've seen updates more than three times a week is for security problems in Ubuntu, especially right before or right after a new six-month release.

There's tons of great games for the PC but they're 99% one player/machine with mouse and keyboard.

I've been collecting a list of multiplayer-capable games, along with links to other people's lists.

At best you'll get a few console ports who kept the console controller scheme as an option

That or indie games whose developers heed Microsoft's advice that "Applications should support multiple controllers" better than the majors do. So does the whole one-machine-per-player mentality on the PC come from a belief that not enough potential customers own multiple USB game controllers and a 20" or bigger monitor? Or is it more a matter of publisher greed?

Thank you for clarifying that you meant single-screen multiplayer. Now would you be willing to connect a PC's HDMI output to a TV's HDMI input to try a particular application, such as a game or a media player, if the application had a single-screen multiplayer mode or other optimization for the TV use case?

No worries about drivers, Windows breakdowns, etc.

Instead, you have to worry about system updates that disable all your homebrew.

If you get a nice new controller, just plug it in, and it will work.

Nice new controllers just work on Windows and Linux as well. Since Windows XP Service Pack 1, Windows has come with class drivers for both standard USB HID gamepads and Xbox 360 controllers. And a few weeks ago, I tried all my USB gamepads on an Xubuntu machine; they worked.

More likely that you can do multi-player.

I've been told World of Warcraft is massively multiplayer. CronoCloud keeps telling me that single-screen multiplayer is overrated, that the advantage of multiplayer games with a separate machine per player is that you can play online at any time with a pick-up group of strangers instead of having to arrange schedules for all your real-life friends to come visit you. That and publisher greed are why PS3 and Xbox 360 games have become more likely to require a separate console per player. But there are still several PC games that support single-screen multiplayer.

Play in the living room and connect to the TV

PCs output VGA and/or HDMI video. TVs made since about 2007 can display both, and even older TVs can display PC video through a $30 VGA-to-composite scan converter. I don't see anything stopping people from putting a media PC next to an HDTV.

If you were a gamer, and you found an indie PC game that had a mode for multiple Xbox 360 controllers connected to a home theater PC, would you try it?

I thought they made a mistake by making their own tablet instead of using phones and existing tablets as controllers

Three reasons: First, existing tablets such as the Kindle Fire, Nexus 7, and iPad wouldn't lock people into Nintendo's eShop like the Wii U GamePad does. Second, developers of Wii U games wouldn't make games targeting them because it wouldn't be guaranteed that players would own them. Owning a smartphone in particular carries the implication that a customer's entertainment budget is already taken by having to pay several hundred per year for a smartphone plan. Third, the Wii U GamePad has traditional physical buttons on the left and right sides because not all genres are amenable to touch-only control. Among major Android tablets, only the forthcoming Archos GamePad and WikiPad come with physical buttons.

I always find it amusing when Christians quote Leviticus, as they do not keep the Laws of Moses.

God has principles and purposes that do not change (Malachi 3:6), as well as plans and covenants that change from millennium to millennium. Even God's personal name Jehovah, meaning "he who proves to be" (Exodus 3:14-15), alludes to this capacity to become what is necessary. In this post, I explained several different plans that God has used.

The Mosaic Law was God's covenant with humanity during what I called the "plan C" era, and it contains rules intended to apply to all of humanity as well as rules intended specifically for the Jews. Though much of it has since been superseded by the current covenant in the body and blood of Jesus, the Mosaic Law is still useful for gaining insight on God's principles. Moreover, anything reiterated in the Greek Scriptures, such as the ban on MSM (Romans 1:27) or the ban on consuming blood (Acts 15:29), was probably intended to survive replacment of the old covenant with the new.

And you're right that a lot of people misinterpret the Mosaic Law, picking and choosing which rules they want to survive into the Christian era based on their own prejudices. For example, see what I wrote about Deuteronomy 22:5.

You can walk into the nearest Walmart and play with a couple of the latest and cheapest Android tablets.

Until Apple sues Android to death.

Besides, why the requirement? I haven't used a "showroom" for my computer purchases since my very, very first one, way back when.

Let me guess: all your computers are desktop computers, whose keyboards are replaceable. Without a showroom, I have no means to compare the feel of an input device to my hands. I recently bought a Bluetooth keyboard for my Nexus 7 tablet. When I discovered that its space bar was so short that my right thumb didn't reach it, I had to make an extra bus trip to the post office and pay to ship it back. See more about the disadvantages of the lack of a showroom.

that's hilariously fucking clever.

Some people disagreed when I showed them the story for what is now called Concentration Room.

My philosophy has always been, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

Could you imagine what the art world would look like today, if all (or any) of history's greatest artists had tempered their work based on what other people might think?

that's hilariously fucking clever.

Some people disagreed when I showed them the story for what is now called Concentration Room.

My philosophy has always been, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

Could you imagine what the art world would look like today, if all (or any) of history's greatest artists had tempered their work based on what other people might think?

Further, board games are physical objects and not software

Board games are routinely converted to software, like this one or this one.

that's hilariously fucking clever.

Some people disagreed when I showed them the story for what is now called Concentration Room.

that's hilariously fucking clever.

Some people disagreed when I showed them the story for what is now called Concentration Room.

major developers of the non-cell-phone game persuasion

So for what platform should a company develop video games if the games are in a genre that doesn't work well with a flat sheet of glass as the only input device

The touchpad isn't the only input device for the WiiU

It is for a smartphone or tablet. I imagine some developers target smartphones because those are the only handheld devices that developers not "tall enough" for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita are allowed to target.

I could answer that with "the Xbox 360" but their Indie games aren't that well promoted

And not even available for sale in most countries outside the USA, I'm told.

plus they require that you use XNA and C#.

And requiring a specific language breaks the advantages of model-view separation, unless there's some way to translate game logic written in some other language to C#.

The best platform for Indie games at the current point is still PC to a greater extent

Could a PC-exclusive fighting game sell? Could a PC-exclusive cooperative platformer (like a PC counterpart to New Super Mario Bros. Wii) sell? These genres tend to be more satisfying when played in person with friends than when played online with strangers. I've been told by other Slashdot users that PC gamers are by and large unwilling to connect multiple gamepads to a PC despite the fact that the Xbox 360 Controller works well on a PC, that desktop PC monitors are at least as big as bedroom TVs used to be back in the days of Street Fighter and split-screen Mario Kart, and that it has become easy to connect a PC with VGA+audio or HDMI out to an HDTV with VGA+audio or HDMI in. Or do indie games absolutely have to focus on single-player or online play with strangers?

demand is driving incredible improvements in mobile devices. when people can get pretty good games on mobile devices

That'll take a while. There are plenty of genres that work much better with a physical gamepad than with a flat sheet of glass, for reasons I've explained. Nor have I seen any indication that smartphone owners are buying external gamepads such as the iControlPad.

consoles will be relegated to selling into the niche market of hard core gamers that don't game on PCs

There are certain genres thought not to work well on PCs. Fighting games are one example; the only series I can think of that gets PC ports is Street Fighter. Another is party games intended to be a centerpiece of in-person social interaction, such as Mario Party. Or cooperative platformers such as New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Think of it another way: If it's feasible to make money on a video game with a free engine and proprietary data, then why aren't there more popular video games built on engines that have been free from day one?

Not sure what you're asking, the first part of this question is completely disconnected from the second.

Then let me rephrase the question using grammatical parallelism to reconnect the first part to the second: If it's feasible to derive a source of revenue from releasing a video game with a free engine and proprietary data, then why haven't companies taken advantage of this feasibility and released popular video games with a free engine and proprietary data?

And they both completely disregard what I've said above.

Which is why I introduced that question with "Think of it another way". I was trying to establish the criterion of whether or not a particular business model has the potential for profit, as opposed to the criterion of whether or not a particular platform has the potential for perfect secrecy.

As for Hollywood and game companies, they're not exactly poster children for moving with the times and waking up to the realities of technology.

For companies that are behind the times, the six companies that make up "Hollywood" exert a disproportionate influence on legislation. My hypothesis is that this is due to campaign contributions, both overt (remember Chris Dodd's complaints after SOPA failed that Congress wasn't bought enough?) and as in-kind donations of airtime from their affiliated TV news outlets.

Could you elaborate on the "economic reasons" certain categories cannot be released as free software?

Certainly. I've started on this essay.

The entirety of congress is at fault for this travesty and the damage this copyright/IP farce is causing to our economy.

Is Congress at fault, or are constituents at fault for not paying attention to political news sources other than those operated by movie studios? In a way, news coverage of a candidate for federal elected office can be seen as a stealth in-kind donation to the candidate's election campaign. To bury a candidate that doesn't toe the party line on expansion of copyright, the major TV news outlets (Disney's ABC, Universal's NBC, Paramount's CBS, Last Century Fox's Fox News, and Warner Bros.' CNN) can just fail to remind viewers that the candidate exists.

Neither can Nintendo, without an emulator.

I was under the impression that Nintendo tended to avoid "emulation" in marketing materials for Virtual Console so as to distance Virtual Console from community-made emulators that rely on (usually illegally traded) ROM images.

Use a USB controller adapter to enhance the experience with your actual contollers.

Emulators can't tell in general which button is in which position on each brand of controller or adapter. This means the user has to set up the button mappings for each PC game or emulator. I'm told people don't have much patience to set up in every single game or every single emulator, and that's why they use official emulators on consoles. In addition, a console is more likely to have a case designed to fit in well next to a television (as opposed to a typical tower PC case), which is important if a game uses offline multiplayer.

As humans take back ownership of their content consumption and creation environments enabled by these fully mobile devices

Creation? Good luck entering large amounts of text or drawing things with pixel precision using only a capacitive multitouch screen. Even what some people call "consumption" (which makes me think of TB) is crippled on a completely flat sheet of glass; it's hard to control a character in a platform game without being able to feel where the on-screen buttons are. I'm working on an essay about the implications of using a touch screen as a device's only input device.

until eventually I wean him off the crippled system his mother insisted we get for him.

Until companies start selling devices that are crippled in another way: they use cryptography to block execution of software that the device's manufacturer doesn't approve. This is already the case with phones and tablets by Apple and Microsoft, and if they wanted, they could wipe Android off the map of this country with patent lawsuits.

Another alternative is to buy Linux pre-installed.

I would, but I don't know of any dealers with showrooms in Fort Wayne, Indiana, so that I can try out a laptop's keyboard and screen before I buy. Mail ordering is fine for desktop PCs, but it has its drawbacks for laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

I buy nearly all my electronics online now. I don't think I'm unusual in that respect. My online experience has in general been much better than my retail store experience lately and you just can't beat the convenience. Usually, you can't beat the online prices either, even with delivery. Factor in the time spent travelling to/from the store, parking, getting new door dents etc, and the deal is sealed.

If you want to know if the keyboard is ergnonomic, read the reviews. I find it especially helpful to look at the photos. Finally, if you really care about ergonomic, don't get a laptop, there is no such thing as an ergonomic laptop. Laptops are pure carpal tunnel zone.

Another alternative is to buy Linux pre-installed.

I would, but I don't know of any dealers with showrooms in Fort Wayne, Indiana, so that I can try out a laptop's keyboard and screen before I buy. Mail ordering is fine for desktop PCs, but it has its drawbacks for laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

Built in X-Box Live and Zune. Having a system built into a phone for online gaming etc that has been tested and proven for years is great.

In games for Windows Phone 7, how do you feel where your thumbs are relative to the on-screen directional pad and trigger buttons at the sides of the screen so that you can press them while looking at the action in the middle of the screen? Android solves this with devices that use physical buttons (the Xperia Play and the forthcoming Archos GamePad) and a Wii Remote driver application.

If his proposals are such a good idea, how come nothing has been picked up by a legislator?

Because legislators represent their campaign donors, and the pro-patent lobby has more money to spend on donations than the anti-patent lobby. It's the same reason why anti-copyright candidates never get elected to the U.S. Congress: news coverage is an in-kind donation from the MPAA-affiliated TV news outlets.

I don't quite understand this zero sum attitude towards it, where only one type can exist at once.

Time is money. Multiplayer modes take time to make, debug, and balance. Based on my impressions of the past threads where Slashdot users hashed all this out before (see my collection of links to past threads), I guess the assumption is that a publisher is going to be willing to pay for only one multiplayer mode in a PC game: online or shared screen, but not both. And because few PC gamers are willing to buy gamepads and use a big TV as a monitor, online will cause more PC gamers to buy the game than shared screen will. If a particular game is substantially better shared-screen than online, any major developer will be big enough to be able to afford the overhead of console game development. This causes genres most suited to shared screen, such as fighting games and cooperative platformers, to be heavily underrepresented on PC compared to the consoles.

Arguing that PC games give players too many configuration options (even if they choose to use them) is ridiculous.

The problem is that players have to use them. In general, PC game controllers present their face buttons in an unpredictable order. So unless your controller happens to bean Xbox 360 game controller and the game you are playing happens to use "XInput" (specific support for Xbox 360 controllers under Windows), you have to go through at least some sort of configuration form before the computer knows which button to use for jump, attack, switch weapon, and pause.

Press the following buttons
in order:
[Up], Down, Left, Right,
Jump, Attack, Change Tool,
Pause

??? What commercial game have you played from the last 10 years that required that kind of configuration? The standard keybindings are very well known now. WASD+mouse to move about, [space] (usually) to jump, numeric keys to change weapons, etc. There will always be defaults. Just like most games now will automatically choose the graphic settings during the first launch. Of course these can all be overridden if desired, just like consoles allow the player to change the key bindings (as I recall). Of course there's little point in allow graphics options on a console - it's pretty much doing what it can.

Since when is choice a bad thing?

Since researchers discovered that people freeze up when they see too many choices. From this page:

Preferences can confuse many users. Take the famous too many clocks example. A significant number of test subjects were so surprised to have 5 choices of clock they couldn't figure out how to add a clock to their panel. This cost of preferences is invariably underestimated by us technical types.

This is a completely different use case. This is someone's first exposure to an unfamiliar UI. I don't "freeze up" every time I launch a game because there are graphic options somewhere under a settings menu. The same way I don't "freeze up" when I open my wardrobe and choose a shirt and tie. your type of thinking lead Apple to the 1-button mouse.

For FPS' - let's face it, the vast majority of console games

For this to be true, more than 50 percent of console titles this generation would have to be first-person shooters. I haven't seen evidence that this is anything but an exaggeration.

Consoles are a bad deal all around

Even when there are plenty of multiplayer console games that work with one copy per household, as opposed to the tendency of one copy per player on a PC?

Arguing that PC games give players too many configuration options (even if they choose to use them) is ridiculous.

The problem is that players have to use them. In general, PC game controllers present their face buttons in an unpredictable order. So unless your controller happens to bean Xbox 360 game controller and the game you are playing happens to use "XInput" (specific support for Xbox 360 controllers under Windows), you have to go through at least some sort of configuration form before the computer knows which button to use for jump, attack, switch weapon, and pause.

Press the following buttons
in order:
[Up], Down, Left, Right,
Jump, Attack, Change Tool,
Pause

Since when it choice a bad thing?

Since researchers discovered that people freeze up when they see too many choices. From this page:

Preferences can confuse many users. Take the famous too many clocks example. A significant number of test subjects were so surprised to have 5 choices of clock they couldn't figure out how to add a clock to their panel. This cost of preferences is invariably underestimated by us technical types.

a video game that works wonderfully with a wireless gamepad

This does not appear to exist.

I've been collecting a few. True, my list is not as long as I had hoped, but it's longer than the zero that you're appearing to claim.

I would suspect that an awful lot of the gamepads use the same numbered buttons for what would be start, select, a,b,x,y.

Unfortunately, what you suspected turned out not to be the case. I plugged five different HID controllers and one Xbox 360 controller into my Linux box, and most of them had their numbered buttons in different layouts. See my results. The only constant I could find among buttons was that Start and Select are late in the order, and at least the first four buttons are primary face buttons in some order.

From there, you just use the directional pad which is going to be the same on all controllers

Not necessarily. Some map the Control Pad to buttons, others to a hat switch, others to the primary axes. But one consistent thing is that all controllers with an analog stick map the left stick to the primary axes, and all controllers without one map the Control Pad to the primary axes.

I have used a device called the "Romulator". It has been more than a few years since I dumped the roms, but the unit supported SNES and Genesis.

A similar device nowadays is called the Retrode. It presents the cartridge as a file in a file system.

I don't think there is any way at this time to make a large scale business with devices that download rom images from SNES carts without having legal troubles.

They'd have legal troubles, but dumping one's own cartridges to play them on a different machine is explicitly "not an infringement of copyright" in at least United States copyright law, 17 USC 117(a)(1).

does this mean that you're generally okay with the arrangement where you do have to make some considerable extra effort to sideload apps, so long as it's free as in beer? (i.e. the way Win8 Store apps work)

I don't own a copy of Windows 8 yet, so I can't make specific comments on whether the "considerable extra effort" to sideload a WinRT application into Windows 8 is excessive.

But what I can say is that it is tied to a Microsoft account. Something I recently learned about Microsoft accounts while trying to integrate OpenID and other delegated authentication mechanisms into a project at work is that the Code of Conduct incorporated by reference into the terms for a Microsoft account appears to dictate the design of fictional characters in applications, videos, and other works that users create using products and services that require a Microsoft account: "You will not [...] use the service in a way that: [...] depicts nudity of any sort including full or partial human nudity or nudity in non-human forms such as cartoons, fantasy art or manga." In other words, animal characters have to be wearing clothes. For example, Arthur Read OK, Spyro bad. Simon Seville from the 1980s OK, Tigger bad. I hope I'm grossly misinterpreting this line of the Code of Conduct.

What gave it away; was it the dudes hanging out with each other out in the desert, wearing nothing but flowing robes?

I don't follow about what's wrong with men wearing flowing robes. After Adam and Eve sinned for the first time and became aware of their nakedness, God made clothes for them. Genesis 3:21 identifies these as tunics, or shirts long enough to cover at least the kneecaps. (Some English translations use imprecise terms in this verse, such as "coats" or "garments", but the Hebrew word is kethoneth which means a tunic.) Centuries later, man would invent trousers, but only for riding horses. But even given Deuteronomy 22:5, there's nothing wrong with men wearing masculine styles of flowing robes.

What gave it away; was it the dudes hanging out with each other out in the desert, wearing nothing but flowing robes?

I don't follow about what's wrong with men wearing flowing robes. After Adam and Eve sinned for the first time and became aware of their nakedness, God made clothes for them. Genesis 3:21 identifies these as tunics, or shirts long enough to cover at least the kneecaps. (Some English translations use imprecise terms in this verse, such as "coats" or "garments", but the Hebrew word is kethoneth which means a tunic.) Centuries later, man would invent trousers, but only for riding horses. But even given Deuteronomy 22:5, there's nothing wrong with men wearing masculine styles of flowing robes.

If you keep reelecting them

Unfortunately, I am outvoted by the majority, who out of apathy vote for whomever they see on TV news. And TV news channels are known to have a conflict of interest with their co-owned movie studios.

They have something that is called "local storage" for something called "apps".

Provided that you're on an Android tablet or that Apple or Microsoft approves the app. Otherwise, you have to run the app on a remote computer and display it through SSH, VNC, or HTTPS.

I mean, what were you going to use a laptop for without wi-fi?

The same thing I usually do on my bus commute to and from work: read web pages saved with Pocket and write code for hobby projects. The first can be done on any major tablet; the second cannot on an iPad or RT tablet. Yes, I understand that the second is out of the ordinary, so let me give an example of something more common: A lot of people write articles, and it's a lot easier to type large amounts of text on a physical keyboard than on a touch screen. Sure, you could carry a Bluetooth keyboard, but by that point, you might as well carry a 10" laptop.

cellular

How many tablet owners actually 1. pay extra for a tablet supporting cellular and 2. pay per month for a cellular data subscription for the tablet?

Considering that (at least in China) sub-$50 Android tablets with capacitive screens are already here

The problem with trying to type (or to game) on a tablet with a capacitive touch screen is that most such screens have no texture to indicate the positions of the keys. A touch typist positions his hands relative to the keys by feeling the bumps on the F and J keys and the edges of the other keys, and he can't do that on a typical tablet.

The Gamepad doesn't offer anything in the "wow-factor" to pull consumers in. Touch-screens have been around for quite some time (the original DS had a touch screen, after all) and everyone is tablet-crazy these days so it acts like a me-too. In addition, it integrates all those scary buttons.

So for a touch-screen-only device, how would you recommend making effective control for a platformer without scary physical buttons? I tried playing a game using the on-screen gamepad paradigm on a tablet, and I kept missing the buttons because I couldn't feel where my thumbs were relative to the buttons. That frustration is part of why the Wii U GamePad still has buttons instead of relying on a single flat surface with a capacitive sensor.

Neither. As in political reporting, the concept of "sides" is one way that journalists turn stories into BS because they have vested interests in the public not learning what's really going on.

What if every type of game was available for the PC instead

Does this include games for which a good keyboard-and-mouse control scheme hasn't yet been devised, such as fighting games and 2.5-D platformers? And does it include arcade-style games for which part of the draw is that you're playing on one screen, such as party games and (again) fighting games? Very few games support multiple mice and multiple keyboards; the only one I can think of is Rag Doll Kung Fu.

All those players that want "the console/TV/couch experience" would be able to build or buy a multitude of small form factor and home theater gaming PC.

They can now. But most people haven't felt a need to build or buy a second PC to put next to the big monitor in the living room. To them, consoles are for the living room and PCs are for desks and never the twain shall meet. I used to believe as you do, but other Slashdot users have since told me that apart from hardcore geeks, people just don't want something perceived as "a computer" in the living room. I can cite more such comments on request.

Look at how the Xbox 360 controllers and headsets (or compatible XInput style controller) has become the "de facto" gaming controller on PC.

How many multiplayer PC games actually support multiple DirectInput or XInput game controllers, as opposed to one PC, monitor, and copy of the game per player?

I'm a little disenchanted by the fact the tablet controllers, as far as I've heard, are basically single touch resistive touch screens instead of multitouch capacitive - why toss old tech besides the new?

I assume the single-touch is 1. to keep costs down and 2. to allow for drawing games that require the precision of a stylus.

I'd much rather if I could just invest in the WiiU Tablet and Pro controller

Then have someone program a tech demo of a PC game that uses a Nexus 7 tablet as its controller.

What if every type of game was available for the PC instead

Does this include games for which a good keyboard-and-mouse control scheme hasn't yet been devised, such as fighting games and 2.5-D platformers? And does it include arcade-style games for which part of the draw is that you're playing on one screen, such as party games and (again) fighting games? Very few games support multiple mice and multiple keyboards; the only one I can think of is Rag Doll Kung Fu.

All those players that want "the console/TV/couch experience" would be able to build or buy a multitude of small form factor and home theater gaming PC.

They can now. But most people haven't felt a need to build or buy a second PC to put next to the big monitor in the living room. To them, consoles are for the living room and PCs are for desks and never the twain shall meet. I used to believe as you do, but other Slashdot users have since told me that apart from hardcore geeks, people just don't want something perceived as "a computer" in the living room. I can cite more such comments on request.

Look at how the Xbox 360 controllers and headsets (or compatible XInput style controller) has become the "de facto" gaming controller on PC.

How many multiplayer PC games actually support multiple DirectInput or XInput game controllers, as opposed to one PC, monitor, and copy of the game per player?

I'm a little disenchanted by the fact the tablet controllers, as far as I've heard, are basically single touch resistive touch screens instead of multitouch capacitive - why toss old tech besides the new?

I assume the single-touch is 1. to keep costs down and 2. to allow for drawing games that require the precision of a stylus.

I'd much rather if I could just invest in the WiiU Tablet and Pro controller

Then have someone program a tech demo of a PC game that uses a Nexus 7 tablet as its controller.

The vast majority of people doesn't use the news in their day to day activities

That's the problem. Without some form of news, how would people become aware of legislative attacks on the public's freedom such as the PROTECTIP bill? Sure, this one in particular didn't hit the mainstream news media until the Wikipedia-led blackout because the movie studios co-owned by the mainstream news media would have benefited from it, but how else are people supposed to learn of legislative developments that affect their lives?