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There just aren't enough home theater PCs

Why the hell not?

I've attempted to cover the reasons I know of for lack of HTPC penetration in this article. But now, from C++ vs. C# to cross-platform APIs vs. XNA to PCs vs. consoles, we've strayed way off-topic; let's please continue on the article's discussion page.

Non-DRMed, but still lossy.

Here's a hint: Everything is lossy. CDs are lossy; they have only about 93 dB of SNR and lose all audio above 22 kHz. So I settle for the smallest representation of the recording where I can't tell the difference from the original. And in mobile listening environments, even 96 kbps Vorbis qualifies.

Most of the myths of "ZOMG, Hello World is HUEG!!!!!eleventyone!!" have been statically linking the language runtime library in C++ but not in C.

Rest assured I took this into account. Every executable for Game Boy Advance is statically linked because its BIOS does not implement even the C standard library, let alone that of C++. So I built each of these:

• C++ Hello World with statically linked Newlib <cstdio> and a tty supporting ANSI escapes from devkitPro's libgba: 25 KiB, much of that for an ANSI tty.
• C++ Hello World with custom conio-style tty: even smaller than that.
• C++ Hello World with statically linked GNU libstdc++ <iostream>: much bigger.

And even on Windows, programs compiled with MinGW (port of GCC) haven't been able to dynamically link to Microsoft's C++ library due to incompatible ABIs. C++ ABIs as a rule tend to be far less compatible across compiler vendors than C ABIs, and that's probably the solid basis underlying this myth you speak of.

I written small (but non-trivial) programs that were in the 30K range on Windows.

The size of a program includes the size of any DLLs that you are required to include with it. Which implementation of the C++ standard library are you using?

How do you recommend that one author animations for The Absence Of Flash?

JavaScript?

I've written an article about specific SWF advantages over JavaScript + HTML5 DOM, and I'd appreciate your rebuttal on the talk page.

Well, variable declared at the top of the function are the least evil c-ism.

Furthermore, this requirement hasn't been in C for a decade.

The real problem is a lack of understanding of RAII, and a fear of exceptions.

Fear of exceptions, STL containers, iostream, and the like may come from having worked on a platform with less than a megabyte of RAM. Case in point: Hello World takes 180 KiB out of a handheld device's 256 KiB of program RAM, and that's after turning on size optimizations, Thumb (compressed instructions), and experimental dead-code elimination in the linker.

My point is that some person is responsible.

The problem comes when this person isn't responsible to the people. The responsibility in hiring and firing the responsible person may be diluted several times through appointed officials, and even elected officials are in a way appointed by the media.

it's a lot easier to do it if you start with the XNA framework (with the .NET language of your choice, possibly even C++).

Ordinarily, when porting a game, one would start with a game that has been designed with proper separation of model and view and writing a graphics engine as a new view. For example, one could start with a Windows or Linux game written in standard C++ and add an Objective-C view for Mac OS X or iOS and a Java view for Android. But XNA doesn't support standard C++ because standard C++ doesn't compile to 100% pure verifiably type-safe IL. C++/CLI with /clr:safe does, but this language isn't standard C++: it uses an incompatible syntax for pointers and arrays, and as I understand it, porting a game written in standard C++ to XNA would involve a line-by-line rewrite of both the model and view.

it's a lot easier to do it if you start with the XNA framework (with the .NET language of your choice, possibly even C++).

Ordinarily, when porting a game, one would start with a game that has been designed with proper separation of model and view and writing a graphics engine as a new view. For example, one could start with a Windows or Linux game written in standard C++ and add an Objective-C view for Mac OS X or iOS and a Java view for Android. But XNA doesn't support standard C++ because standard C++ doesn't compile to 100% pure verifiably type-safe IL. C++/CLI with /clr:safe does, but this language isn't standard C++: it uses an incompatible syntax for pointers and arrays, and as I understand it, porting a game written in standard C++ to XNA would involve a line-by-line rewrite of both the model and view.

What do you want them to do? Provide a bunch of C wrappers all of which do nothing but translate C idioms to Objective-C idioms?

Ideally, it'd be an Objective-C front-end and a back-end in some other language, using model-view-controller or some other multitier architecture. But some platform gatekeepers dictate what languages can be used even for the back-end, encouraging development of a new application from the ground up over porting an existing application from another platform.

I seem to recall Android's done in Java, and I'm not aware of any support for using Objective-C for Windows XP, Windows 7

GNUstep is a free clone of Cocoa for GNU/Linux and Windows.

Windows Phone 7

This is because Microsoft provides no way to P/Invoke native code or load unsafe IL on Windows Phone 7. Objective-C includes C as a subset, and C does not map well onto the CLR.

Android

DroidStep is a free proof-of-concept clone of Cocoa Touch for Android NDK, based on GNUstep.

You can develop for Windows Mobile 7 in VS and it compiles to .NET and then runs that in an Arm emulator which is running the Windows Mobile 7 OS.

If your application is 100% Pure .NET, it won't easily be portable outside a .NET environment. Unlike a C++ application, whose back-end can be shared among front-ends for each platform (see multitier and model-view-controller), a .NET application runs only on platforms with the .NET framework.

If your application uses a C++ back-end (for portability) and a .NET front-end, it won't even run. As soon as an app running on Windows Phone 7 tries to P/Invoke or otherwise execute code that isn't verifiably type-safe, it gets a security exception. C++/CLI exists, but the syntax of its verifiably type-safe subset is incompatible with standard C++.

Imagine placing your mobile phone

My mobile phone is an Audiovox 8610 flip phone whose service for a year costs as much as a month's smartphone service.

in the docking station on top of your TV and it instantly being transformed in a full-blown desktop-capable PC functionally similar to an average PC of today.

People appear unwilling to learn to configure an operating system's DPI to account for the difference in pixel density and seating distance between a desktop PC monitor and a living room TV. What makes you think they'll be ready to do so for a smartphone?

The grandparent is spreading FUD. GNUstep has theme support and the project leader spent Christmas working on

Christmas was less than two weeks ago. I prefer to assume good faith: not having checked on a long-standing situation in the past two weeks is lag, not FUD.

a GNOME theme that mimics the currently-selected GTK theme [...] There is also a Windows theme that does something similar with the UXTheme API

Good steps.

Unrelated WTF: Why can I no longer paste into Slashdot text boxes? Is this some kind of anti-troll thing?

The JavaScript used on idle.slashdot.org and *.slashdot.org/story/ is defective. Google Chrome won't let me paste into a "Reply to This" textarea on a /story/ page unless it's empty. You can try editing the entire comment in Notepad or Gedit and then paste it once it's finished. The JavaScript used on comments.pl works better; try opening a comment ID (e.g. #34766084) in a new window before you click "Reply to This", and pasting into a textarea will work fine. Or under Firefox, you can middle-click "Reply to This" to get the pre-D2 comment interface.

Depriving the user of control is all the reason they need

Depriving the user of control allegedly makes technical support easier, as it's harder for the end user to fcuk something up.

solutions like building an HTPC

Only geeks build their own PCs, let alone HTPCs. It's not like I can walk into a Best Buy and walk out with something marketed as an HTPC.

or plugging your TV into your existing PC.

A set-top box is more likely to have SDTV outputs and analog YPbPr component video for use with a "television" monitor as opposed to a "computer" monitor, and it's more likely to already be in the same room as your television.

you can't trust telcos (or any sufficiently large business), but you can control politicians to some degree.

Can you control a telco? You can vote with your dollars - unsubscribe from the only Internet connection available in your area, or if you're lucky, switch to their only competitor who's no better...and that's about all you can do. Good luck convincing all your neighbors and nearby businesses to do the same.

Likewise, can you control a politician? You can vote with your ballot - don't vote, or if you're lucky, switch to the only other candidate who's no better...and that's about all you can do. Good luck convincing all your neighbors and nearby businesses to do the same. In the United States, for example, the news media control what issues and candidates the public cares about, and the movie studios control the news media. As long as this remains the case, elections will continue to have the problem of poor-quality candidates.

any citizen can vote to control a politician

Not if your favored candidate is eliminated before the primary election even reaches your state, or if nobody runs on your pet issue.

I think companies would turn a blind eye if the vast majority of people used these hacks for homebrew only because it sells more hardware and can lead to more software sales.

Not necessarily. Homebrew competes with legitimate sales of commercial games that use the same rules. Nintendo might argue for every copy of Lockjaw DS that gets downloaded and installed on an R4, it can't sell a copy of Tetris DS. Or Sony: for every copy of gpSP running Gleam or Luminesweeper, it can't sell a copy of Lumines or Lumines II.

I think companies would turn a blind eye if the vast majority of people used these hacks for homebrew only because it sells more hardware and can lead to more software sales.

Not necessarily. Homebrew competes with legitimate sales of commercial games that use the same rules. Nintendo might argue for every copy of Lockjaw DS that gets downloaded and installed on an R4, it can't sell a copy of Tetris DS. Or Sony: for every copy of gpSP running Gleam or Luminesweeper, it can't sell a copy of Lumines or Lumines II.

TVs are massive because they're meant to be viewed from a distance by several people at once, while monitors tend to much smaller

So "monitors" are better for single-player and "TVs" are better for multiplayer. Now all we have to do is figure out how to convince the less geeky crowd to connect "TVs" to PCs for use with Hulu and PC games. In fact, the networks appear to be making it easier by blocking Google TV.

and more suitable for reading text at non-eye-straining distances.

I figured out the formula for how to set a usable DPI for surfing the web from your couch, given the TV size, resolution, and seating distance.

We need to keep in mind that online game sales are intangible products. Sure, as a publisher you're paying a few pennies for the download, but the difference is quite negligible, whether you sell 10 copies at $50, or 100 copies at $5.

Not necessarily. The game may be based on an underlying work or setting that is licensed under terms requiring a fixed royalty per copy, as opposed to one purely based on an up-front buyout or a percentage.

It seems to me the best approach is just to hook a computer up to your TV.

I'm working on an article about why connecting a PC to a TV isn't common. The issues that I know of include build vs. buy (most dedicated HTPCs are built from parts by a PC-enthusiast end user, not ready-to-run), aesthetics (most PC cases would look out of place next to a TV), 10-foot usability, and the fact that there aren't a lot of PC games designed specifically for HTPCs.

I just built a new gaming HTPC cause I was tired of the Xbox360/PS3 shenanigans.

Because of low penetration, very few games made for PC are designed with a mode optimized for HTPCs. In a lot of cases, the features that would make a game perfect for HTPCs are present on the Wii or Xbox 360 version but cut from the PC version. These include, for example, gamepad support and split-screen cooperative play. In other cases, major label games in some genres rarely reach the PC at all, especially fighting games and other arcade style games whose multiplayer mode doesn't need to split the screen. Can you recommend some good HTPC games other than the ones listed on this HTPC gaming advocacy page?

I just built a new gaming HTPC cause I was tired of the Xbox360/PS3 shenanigans.

Because of low penetration, very few games made for PC are designed with a mode optimized for HTPCs. In a lot of cases, the features that would make a game perfect for HTPCs are present on the Wii or Xbox 360 version but cut from the PC version. These include, for example, gamepad support and split-screen cooperative play. In other cases, major label games in some genres rarely reach the PC at all, especially fighting games and other arcade style games whose multiplayer mode doesn't need to split the screen. Can you recommend some good HTPC games other than the ones listed on this HTPC gaming advocacy page?

I consider that selling me a network-enabled game without letting me use the network features without shelling out more cash is thievery on their part

Their defense is that they let you use the Internet, and instead of playing against people in your own household, you should be playing against people from other households.

I had one PC using the big 42 inch TV as a monitor

I gather from the comments of other Slashdot users such as CronoCloud that you are in a minority. Only geeks tend to have HTPCs, and there appear not to be enough geeks to support a market for HTPC-optimized modes in major-label PC games.

and when the press is under control of 4 corporations to a 80% extent, no dissenting opinion will have a chance of being heard by a significant percentage of people either. like news in us.

Is it true that the MPAA controls the news?

when I can just a good monitor and put a small Eee pc behind it with hdmi, gigabit ethernet, basically the whole Internet and any "app" I want, those Internet Ready devices fall flat.

Except home theater PCs aren't very common except among geeks. One reason is connecting a stock PC with a stock desktop OS to a TV falls flat on user interface. Most such devices aren't preconfigured for a 10-foot UI to start playing music, videos, web pages, and PC games. Nor do they even come with an easy tool to calibrate text size for your combination of TV size, resolution, and seating distance. I've asked other users about the problems with HTPCs and compiled some of their thoughts here.

Why would I limit myself to today's hyped snapshot of the Internet experience?

Because "today's hyped snapshot" is easier to learn to use from one's couch with a TV-style remote control.

without knowing the game it is just a shot in the dark.

The game currently exists only as design documents; I'm asking this as part of my market research to complete my business plan. But it will allow up to four players to play at once, and it won't be too much more graphically complex than WoW. Some scenes will use a split screen, but others will show all players in the same room in much the same manner as Bomberman or Street Fighter. I am aware of three options for such a game: running it on a console, running it on four PCs in one house, running it on four PCs in different houses, or running it on one PC.

• Console makers tend not to serve developers with nontraditional business structures, such as a family business operating out of a home or a company that relies on telecommuting. In past articles about PC vs. console, I've repeatedly been told that indie video game developers are not entitled to have a platform on which to run their games, that any developer wanting a device on which to run its game can and should make and sell a device itself.
• A LAN with one machine for each player is a waste of hardware if all four players would be seeing exactly the same view. For example, in Bomberman or Street Fighter or NBA Jam, what would be the advantage of providing a separate view for each player? And families with children tend to have fewer gaming PCs than people.
• Internet play is an option that can't be ignored. But relying exclusively on Internet play fails to reach some use cases that I've observed, where people are already gathered together for a purpose other than video gaming and end up wanting to play a game together.
• As for running it on a PC, this would be fine for single-player mode. Xbox 360 gamepads work on a PC (apart from DirectInput clients only being able to read LT-RT and not LT+RT), and players 2 through 4 could plug gamepads into the front USB ports through a USB hub. But most existing PCs are connected to monitors that are too small for four warm bodies to fit around: a 17" monitor as opposed to a 27" television. TVs made in the past four years have VGA+audio and HDMI inputs to display PC video, and even older TVs can display PC video through a $40 VGA to SDTV adapter cable. I've already written a guide to connecting a PC to a TV, but connecting a PC to a TV has had little acceptance among the general public. For one thing, a lot of people aren't willing to put a traditional mini-tower next to a TV for aesthetic reasons, so if I want to recommend a PC for people to buy to play this game, it has to be no bigger than an Xbox 360. Your GameCube-sized Zino looks interesting, especially if an integrated Radeon can handle GameCube/Wii-class graphics.

without knowing the game it is just a shot in the dark.

The game currently exists only as design documents; I'm asking this as part of my market research to complete my business plan. But it will allow up to four players to play at once, and it won't be too much more graphically complex than WoW. Some scenes will use a split screen, but others will show all players in the same room in much the same manner as Bomberman or Street Fighter. I am aware of three options for such a game: running it on a console, running it on four PCs in one house, running it on four PCs in different houses, or running it on one PC.

• Console makers tend not to serve developers with nontraditional business structures, such as a family business operating out of a home or a company that relies on telecommuting. In past articles about PC vs. console, I've repeatedly been told that indie video game developers are not entitled to have a platform on which to run their games, that any developer wanting a device on which to run its game can and should make and sell a device itself.
• A LAN with one machine for each player is a waste of hardware if all four players would be seeing exactly the same view. For example, in Bomberman or Street Fighter or NBA Jam, what would be the advantage of providing a separate view for each player? And families with children tend to have fewer gaming PCs than people.
• Internet play is an option that can't be ignored. But relying exclusively on Internet play fails to reach some use cases that I've observed, where people are already gathered together for a purpose other than video gaming and end up wanting to play a game together.
• As for running it on a PC, this would be fine for single-player mode. Xbox 360 gamepads work on a PC (apart from DirectInput clients only being able to read LT-RT and not LT+RT), and players 2 through 4 could plug gamepads into the front USB ports through a USB hub. But most existing PCs are connected to monitors that are too small for four warm bodies to fit around: a 17" monitor as opposed to a 27" television. TVs made in the past four years have VGA+audio and HDMI inputs to display PC video, and even older TVs can display PC video through a $40 VGA to SDTV adapter cable. I've already written a guide to connecting a PC to a TV, but connecting a PC to a TV has had little acceptance among the general public. For one thing, a lot of people aren't willing to put a traditional mini-tower next to a TV for aesthetic reasons, so if I want to recommend a PC for people to buy to play this game, it has to be no bigger than an Xbox 360. Your GameCube-sized Zino looks interesting, especially if an integrated Radeon can handle GameCube/Wii-class graphics.

phones take a lot more work to develop -real- games for

How so? The devkit for an iPod touch costs $1,000: $600 for a Mac mini on which to run Xcode, $300 for an iPod touch, and $100 for your first year of the iPhone developer program. Android is cheaper to buy the PC but more expensive to buy the device because the platform has no direct counterpart to the iPod touch; the flagship Nexus One developer handset is an unlocked telephone, not a PDA or MP3 player. The devkit for a DS is far more expensive: first you have to have an office, and then you have to have a prior published title on someone else's platform, and even once you've satisfied those requirements, the devkit reportedly costs far more than $1,000.

You can't port the same UI for a game expected to run on something like the Galaxy S and one running on something more low end with no multi-touch or a smaller screen.

But as long as different platforms can run programs written in the same programming language, you can share the effort to develop the game rules and then use the model-view-controller paradigm to abstract the UI. The problem comes when Apple wants only Objective-C++, Microsoft wants only C#, RIM wants only Java, etc.

No parent wants to buy their kid a cell phone

Except for parents who have cut the land line and put their kids on the family plan, like my aunt.

It's like we're living in some Bizarro world where virtual "intellectual property" rights are more important than real, physical, property rights! Do you not see the problem with that?

I do, but Congress doesn't. This might have something to do with the fact that one can't get elected to federal office without the help of MPAA members.

But BlackBerry runs only Java. What's the easiest way to port the business logic of an application written in C++ or Objective-C to the Java virtual machine

this is also true for Android isn't it?

Android runs Dalvik (pseudo-Java), but it also runs native code. So an app can use a pseudo-Java UI with C++ business logic, shared with Windows, Mac, Linux, and iOS version.

On the other hand, if you fully separate your core business logic out from your UI

Model-view-controller and other multitier architectures are exactly what I was talking about. For example, when I was into GBA homebrew, I was compiling the GBA and PC versions of a game from the same source tree, with different input, sound, and video routines connected to the same game logic. Each version had a main loop that looked like this:

1. Read player input
2. Run the (platform-independent) game model to advance it by one time quantum (16.7 ms). This handles physics and other object behaviors.
3. Render video
4. Play sounds
5. If game not over go to 1

But this breaks down when your target platforms don't share a language in which to write step 2.

The only other path that I'm aware of is to move your business logic out to a server component

Which would make the app fail when it can't connect to the Internet, such as use on an Archos device, an iPod touch, or an iPad with Wi-Fi, or on an airplane. By that time, one might as well write a web application.

You're probably just being a douche and not expecting an actual answer

I was looking for more suggestions to extend my list beyond a few token titles.

iTunes is simply not written for Windows Phone 7 yet.

Ideally, the versions of an application that run on different platforms should share whatever code isn't related to the user interface or other input and output. This should be straightforward with a multitier architecture, such as the model-view-controller model, as long as different platforms can run code written in the same language. But is it even possible to write an app for Windows Phone 7 and an app for Carbon, Cocoa, or Cocoa Touch that share any of their code base?

A different way to do is to decompose your GUI along MVC (Model View Controller) lines and make different View layers for the different OS's/toolkits.

I advocate such a multitier architecture as well where it is practicable. But it breaks once your customers demand ports to platforms that cannot run the language of your application. For example, the publicly available tools for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 devices can run only verifiably type-safe CIL, and standard C++ compiled to CIL[1] is not verifiably type-safe. BlackBerry can't run C++ either; it can run only Java bytecode.

[1] Details: C++/CLI allows mixing managed and unmanaged pointers but uses two incompatible syntaxes. Code using the managed syntax will not compile in a standard C++ compiler, and code using the unmanaged syntax will compile to CIL that fails verification.

After playing I fully recommend [...] Lumines

If you don't own a PSP or a copy of Windows, is Luminesweeper an acceptable substitute? It's a GPL clone of Lumines that runs on GBA and DS with a flash card and on PC with an emulator.

You refused to post your Credit Account number.

Authentication is much more like a trade secret than like a copyright. Please don't listen to people who claim that copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets should be treated equally just because they're all "intellectual property".

getting elected and changing the copyright laws.

Anyone who runs for the U.S. Congress on a copyright reform platform will get buried by the major U.S. TV news organizations, all of which share a corporate parent with a major movie studio.

You mention the Boston tea party of 1773. But as I understand it, that was long before the news media developed its conflict of interest with publishers of fiction. If the modern tea party movement wants to keep its cozy relationship with Fox News Channel, it can't adopt copyright reform policies that would hurt Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, which shares a corporate parent with Fox News Channel.

Indeed.. even though Linus disagrees.

Then what term might Linus use to distinguish Linux systems on laptop PCs, desktop PCs, and servers (which tend to include glibc, Bash, GNU Coreutils, and other components of a GNU system) from Linux systems in appliances (which tend to include uClibc/Newlib/Bionic, BusyBox, and BusyBox instead, and generally far less GNU software)? In careful writing, I use GNU/Linux to describe the former and especially to distinguish it from the latter.

In other words, Windows supports more PC hardware, Linux supports more hardware?

The difference here is that "Windows" is best known as a brand of a PC operating system. When people hear "Linux" they think of GNU/Linux, the kind of Linux used on PCs, not the kind of Linux used in a phone. Including both GNU/Linux and Android in Linux is like including both Windows NT, Windows Mobile, and Xbox 360 in Windows.

With Facebook, the resource you are accessing is not necessarily the social network platform itself but its other users, and the users of Diaspora and Appleseed are a rounding error. It'd be like trying to start an alternative to AT&T before the breakup: if all your contacts are on the big network, and you can't call anyone on the big network from an alternative network, you have no choice but to use the big network. Likewise, as far as I know, you can't use Appleseed or Diaspora to friend someone on Facebook or like a group on Facebook, and you can't use Tumblr to follow the feed of a Twitter user. And under "Comparison of VoIP software", can software other than Skype call a Skype user?

For Apple you recommended Microsoft and Ubuntu. Like Facebook, Apple provides a platform for the resources you want to reach, namely applications. The applications that one can run on an iPod touch are usually not available for Zune or for whatever Ubuntu-powered handheld device you are thinking of.

What alternative do you recommend to the Microsoft-Nintendo-Sony oligopoly on local multiplayer video gaming? Apparently there aren't a lot of games with a mode designed for PCs connected to TVs because there aren't a lot of PCs connected to TVs, and vice versa.

The political innovation that made markets work so well is to counterbalance them with democracy, where the guiding principle is "one person one vote" (i.e. votes can't be traded away - the opposite of markets).

Mass media broke this. The parent companies of five movie studios control U.S. television news, which in turn controls the general public's awareness of issues and of candidates. Notice that TV news hasn't covered ACTA or other issues where the public could stand to gain at the expense of the MPAA or vice versa.

Governments are associated with monopolies when market forces overcome democratic forces within the government.

This has in fact happened. U.S. voters by and large do what the TV tells them.

Seriously, the DPI on my 15.4" @ 1920x1200 is way too high to use comfortably at times.

Then you might appreciate my guide to finding the appropriate system DPI setting. It was written with HDTVs in mind but should apply to any display.

Duke Nukem Forever will cure all illnesses. You ever wondered why it's not out yet? It's because of the pharma industry is concerned about their profit.

No, they're just being careful. A lab accident could lead to something like the Concentration Room incident.

but playing tetris on acid is not practicable.

It looks like someone needs to try Lockjaw: The Overdose. See also video

Authors often have to make their name writing stuff publishers like before they can actually write the novel they have wanted to do from the start.

No analogy is perfect. Authors of books have the option of self-publishing using a printing service and hiring a publicity firm to promote their books. This works because no specific hardware is needed to read a self-published book. Self-published video games in console-style genres, on the other hand, require specific, uncommon hardware, namely a home theater PC. The cause of lack of innovation is that businesses that prefer not to innovate have better access to ubiquitous hardware.

You can manufacture and sell your own console

In that case, the cause of lack of innovation is that businesses that prefer not to innovate can sell copies their works for far less: the cost of a disc or download alone rather than the cost of a disc or download plus the cost of brand-new hardware on which to play it. I have considered marketing an ION nettop as a console, but buying a console to play one game is a behavior typically associated with AAA games, not indie games. To do this, I would first have to make it suitable for things other than my company's game, such as some way to make a media center PC that the public wants.

XBOX 360

Has Microsoft fixed its hardware reliability problems yet? I know a game needs a separate graphics engine per platform, but is there a single language in which I can program a game's physics and other rules that compiles to both the unmanaged code required by Mac OS X and the verifiably type-safe managed code required by XNA?

Would marijuana law reform (analog: copyright law reform) figure into the solution? Or would the major drug and synthetic fiber companies (analog: the MPAA which controls the news media) continue to lobby so hard against it that it's considered unthinkable?

Also, note ACTA is an enforcement agreement, and doesn't really touch basic definitions of what constitutes an IP infringement

Of course it isn't an agreement on infringement of rights in IPv4 addresses. Managing address space on the Internet is not the job of countries' copyright offices. Please don't say "IP" when you mean copyright.

RIAA/MPAA-customers like to be pissed on, otherwise they would leave. Right?

I can't go into a grocery store without hearing music recorded on an RIAA label. I can't walk into a dentist's office without seeing a TV in the waiting room showing an MPAA-controlled news channel.

So other than it is "plug and play" I'm not seeing much difference.

That's the big difference. As of 2010, the major PC makers still haven't solved the problems of marketing a media center PC to the masses. These include plug-and-play usability, case aesthetics, and especially price: a name-brand slim PC with discrete video will run you at least $500, compared to a PS3 or Xbox 360 at $300, and a nettop with Windows 7 Home Premium costs $300, compared to a Roku DVP or Apple TV at $100. If you're interested in discussing the details of why HTPCs haven't been taking off, feel free to read and comment on an article that I'm working on.

imo if you want your TV to do something that your computer can do, just connect your computer to your TV, it isn't that hard

The majority don't even know that it's possible because the major PC makers have failed to adequately promote the Media Center features of Windows Home Premium. To everyone who's not a geek, computers are computers, and TV appliances are TV appliances, and never the twain shall meet.

Yes, plugging in an HDMI cable from the computer to the TV is much harder than plugging an HDMI cable from the PS3 to the TV.

It's called wife acceptance factor. It starts with chassis design: most "desktop" PCs are towers designed to be hidden under a desk, while a PS3 is designed to sit next to a television. And then it leads into ease of use: most PC-based media players don't default to 10-foot user interfaces, and most PCs don't come with a remote control. See also an article I'm working on about why HTPCs are for geeks and geeks alone.