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I wouldn't phrase it quite like that, but you're absolutely right that PC gamers should wait for a bit. I picked up Rage for the PC right when it came out, and it was a complete mess. Carmack even apologized for it. He's not at id Software anymore, but hopefully the folks who are remember that lesson.

You have any proof for that slander you're slinging around? He's pretty well known for being a super nice, soft-spoken guy. And you realize he doesn't actually own the IP for any of those games, right?

Gamestop doesn't sell computer games anyway. As long as consoles remain popular and games come on a disk, I don't see them going away. And that seems like it's going to be true for at least the next seven years.

Except for the fact that GameStop does sell PC games. It has its own digital download service:
http://www.shacknews.com/article/67981/gamestop-buys-impulse-spawn-labs
http://www.impulsedriven.com/

You mean the title that won a number of awards? Also, I hope you're not referring to the driver issue which was ATI and their glorious OpenGL implementation. Launch day driver issues are a reoccurring theme for ATI. Carmack makes engines, not games. You're also conveniently ignoring Doom3 and Quake Wars (mega texture tech was used in this, too). While I don't think megatexture was the best choice simply for accessibility, but it's an interesting concept. You may or may not be aware that the delay for RAGE was mainly due to the art teams, most of the engine heavy lifting was completed years prior.

No it was because they balanced the price and quality over the PS3 which was priced much highers. Also the fact that they had a more developer friendly system than the PS3 was a huge factor. The PS3 is still not likely seeing it's full potential and that was a mistake on Sony's part. So you sit a PS3 and an xbox 360 side by side and even when you don't downscale the PS3 gfx you still have something at least comparable for less of a price point up front. The 360 did offer through their live service for years a better community. Yes you had to pay but most seen it as worth it at the time. That's not the case anymore but it was when it was released and like I said for years after.

I think the thing about this launch that's really bad is that you're still paying for a good online service in an environment where the other two main competitors arn't and have comparable online services. The PS4 apparently has upped their game as far as developer friendliness which is huge, they have also made a huge improvement in hardware and exceeds the XBone. Essentially Nintendo decided to stay the course on their innovation, PS learned from their mistake and what put them behind the xbox in NA(A huge market not sure why you're knocking it). I'm not sure what Microsoft learned, but what they should have learned is, make a great CONSOLE then roll out new services and bring in other users. Get your fan base excited before you go out targeting new users. They had millions of people willing to be loyal now ready to jump ship. If they had done their game announcement before their hardware TV kinect announcement it would have went better I think. I don't think they are hooped but they better fucking show up for E3.

Numbers for consoles in 2010 http://www.shacknews.com/article/63785/worldwide-console-sales-numbers-revealed
Numbers for consoles in 2011 http://www.andrewfreedman.net/post/16987501105/xbox-360-tops-global-yearly-sales-2011

2012 numbers aren't a very good picture as people were anticipating the release of new consoles.

And what makes you think that? Got any citations? This could well be THE SteamBox touted by Newell and co. It's probably just that the company which made the HW decided to have it previewed at CES before having Valve make the big announcement at GDC. Note the lack of detailed specs which definitely hints at the commitment to ensure that the components remain in secret before the big announcement; this is quite typical of consumer electronics releases.

The interwebs are overflowing of reports that this could be the device.

It's even on bbc:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20949071

And by "function fine for eons" you mean high-profile games suffered from corruption issues and performance issues with the Catalyst drivers, right? And that's hardly the only example one can find.

> Valve pointed out when they sold L4D 2 at some crazy low price like $10 their profits for that game went up something like 1700%

Actually L4D1 was 3000% more sales ;-)

You're probably thinking of the 1600% new steam customers.
i.e.
"Newell also mentioned that new Steam customers jumped 1600% over the same weekend, according to G4TV. Retail sales remained constant."

They also revealed gamers are extremely sensitive to pricing. (Digressing slightly, Hell most of my steam friends don't buy new games until they go one sale for $10. We already got a big backlog of great games to play, we'll get all the patches, plus we'll have better hardware to run a 2-year old game on.)

"The massive Steam holiday sale was also a big win for Valve and its partners. The following holiday sales data was released, showing the sales breakdown organized by price reduction:"
                10% sale = 35% increase in sales (real dollars, not units shipped)
                25% sale = 245% increase in sales
                50% sale = 320% increase in sales
                75% sale = 1470% increase in sales

References:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/20/steams-left-4-dead-sale-increased-purchase-infection-by-3000/
http://www.shacknews.com/article/57308/valve-left-4-dead-half

My info came from here. Admittedly, its looks like they don't mention Kickstarter, but old school games are still being built. Like Legend of Grimrock, but without Kickstarter. My bad. Also the official BG Site has a good bit of news on it. I am looking forward to this one. They are remaking the entire series.

The only company that's tried it is Valve and they have said that's it's a huge success.... http://www.shacknews.com/article/57308/valve-left-4-dead-half

This story was on Shacknews in October: http://www.shacknews.com/article/70757/diablo-3-lead-console-designer-still-wont-announce-console-port

1. The sound patent bumps into a bit of an ugly area that I have a history with. I'll just say to search for Konami based patents. And if you're working in this area, Harmonix and Activision too.
2. Crazy Taxi arrow patent - U.S. Patent 6200138. And yes, they've upheld this one over and over again.
3. The haptic patent is from Immersion, which covers vibration based feedback. There are some strange limitations and extensions here, (nintendo has a different vibration feedback patent, for example) so if this is your issue you might want to get a skilled lawyer and engineer in a room together. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_v._Sony.
4. This is a KOEI patent. http://www.patentarcade.com/2007/07/patent-us-pat-no-6729954-attack-power.html.
5. Cloud-based gaming patent. http://www.shacknews.com/article/66833/onlive-claims-patent-for-cloud.

I am not a lawyer. From my interactions with lots of patent lawyers, even they don't quite understand this stuff, so expect weird / odd / contradictory interpretations. In short, if you're not going to go to the expense of a head-on attack to get one of these invalidated, and you don't have patents of your own that you can use as counterfire, stay the hell away from anything patented.

I will also say, that these represent a very small fraction of the game-related patents out there. There are many, and many of them cover pretty mundane things. I believe Sony, for example, had a patent on feeding a camera's direct signal into a game world. And, of course, Namco has a patent on playing minigames while waiting for the main game to load (Ridge Racer). It's silly / crazy the stuff that has been patented.

This is one of the games that I was really looking forward to, but I'm not going to support "always connected" DRM. Thankfully I looked it up and it appears that the decision for this game has been reversed.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111941-From-Dust-Always-On-DRM-Rumors-Denied-UPDATED
*Check the update

Unfortunately the reversal only went part-way. Apparently the game will still phone-home on launch, though, which is basically as bad.
http://www.shacknews.com/article/69474/from-dust-pc-doesnt-use-always-online-drm

Yeah, I'm not buying it.

They previously said it's a stand-alone game, so expect full game price for it.
Blizzard is part of Activision, so what'd ya expect? Greedy bastards.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/60020/blizzard-on-starcraft-2-expansions

""We effectively look at it internally as expansions," said Sigaty. "So we'll see what that means for the price--we're not just going to raise it and call it that for the purposes of that. We would need to offer the same content.""

Of course, more than a few people figured this was bullshit to begin with. As someone said above, they can price it at 60 bucks and still make boatloads - hence they will.

Its quite obvious to do, how long they can hold on to standard definition formats ? They had to make a move and they have to make it fast before ps4 and xbox720 chomps away the next gen.

Just like the Microsoft and Sony sales chomped away at the current generation right? Like when Xbox sold 28 million worldwide by Jan 2009, and Sony had sold 20 million by the same time, and Nintendo had outsold both of them combined Jan 2009? http://www.shacknews.com/article/56613/xbox-360-tops-28-million http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2009/090129e.pdf#page=11

Or how Nintendo has made a profit on every console sold, unlike MS and Sony who some still believe are taking a loss on the console itself and trying to make their profit from accessories and software sales?

Or that the Wii has still outsold both MS and Sony each and every month (with current totals being 85million Wii's, 50 million Xbox360's, and 48 million PS3's sold worldwide?

I could go on, but Nintendo clearly won this generation, and since they made a profit the entire time it has existed, they don't need to continue to squeeze the stones to get those last drops of blood...err....profit out of them, and can happily release a new product to continue to keep the pressure on Microsoft and Sony who have been struggling to make a profit on the current generation systems.

The original Railroad Tycoon had an anti-piracy check like that. The first two pages of the manual were pictures of various engines, and on startup, it showed a picture and 4 or 5 choices of engines. Pick the wrong one, and you were limited to a total quantity of 3 engines while you played.

It's free now, though. Props to publishers who release their old stuff rather than suing anybody who dares to try and obtain a game that can't be bought anywhere.
http://www.shacknews.com/file/9680/railroad-tycoon-free-game

Vac makes mistakes http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/64897

February called, they want their news back

Also your link doesn't say a word about pedophiles, and Fisher Price already makes little pink video cameras for toddlers 3 and up and the Nintendo DS has had a camera since 2008. Fisher Price even had a camera for kids 8 and up way back in 1987

If you're worried about children taking inappropriate photos or videos and uploading them it's too late, cameras have been marketed to kids for many years and I haven't heard any stories about young children uploading inappropriate videos. More fear mongering at it's best, what's next souping and trampolining?

But what is the rest of the coverage besides recycled PR anyway? Personally I just try and get a sense of a game I'm interested in and then stop looking at coverage on it. I just want to see the basic idea of the game and what mechanics it uses, as soon as I'm interested then I cut off coverage because I don't want anything spoiled, not even the introduction. In other media I also avoid trailers because of how much they will spoil the actual movie for example. The way a game starts is meant to draw you in and intrigue you, and if you hear a lot about it beforehand, it doesn't have the same impact when you actually play the game.

There have been situations with games such as Super Smash Bros Brawl where they drip feed you with information, every day you see a new character, or a new move, or a new item you will be using in the game. By the time the game comes out I'm sick of it already and I don't even want to see it anymore. Or sometimes development time will drag on and paying attention to a game's coverage is like torturing yourself, such as with Dragon Quest IX or Duke Nukem Forever. In that case, coverage will often turn me off of a game, and if I already know I want to play it, what's the point? I've got better things to do.

Nowadays I just listen to a few podcasts where people don't talk so formally about their experiences and they often talk game theory which is much more interesting to me compared to regurgitated PR. I would recommend A Life Well Wasted, The Brainy Gamer, Gamasutra Podcast, In-Game Chat, Irrational Behavior, Mobcast, and Retronauts. If you also like those, you might like Geekbox, RebelFM, 1up Oddcast, Weekend Confirmed, Player One Podcast, Joystiq Podcast, Gamers with Jobs, Drunken Gamers Radio, IGN GameScoop and CAGCast. Hey, it makes work and commutes go by fast.

Actually it looks like you're in the minority. According to Metacritic, Doom 3 averages a respectable 87 Rating, it even garners a little over 7 in the user average. Additionally, id software moved over 3.5 million copies of Doom 3 as of 2007

So, I'm going to call bologna that "the vast, vast majority of people disagree", because it seems a large majority of people actually agree that Doom 3 was a decent game.

According to shacknews:

"Through "Steam Play", the Mac client will allow players who have already purchased compatible products in the Windows version to re-download the Mac versions at no cost, allowing them to continue to play the game on the other platform. The Steam Cloud will be cross-platform compatible. Multiplayer games are also cross-compatible, allowing Windows and Mac players to play with each other."

Based on a number of different sources, the thing is hard to hold on to for any decent length of time. Nearly every review I have read makes mention of this, regardless of whether it heralds the iPad as the second coming of christ or as a piece of junk.

Just like supermodels with eating disorders, being too skinny can be a bad thing.

"Even now, a lot of people only use like 30gb worth of disk space. Sure, they have more, but they don't use it."

Your source? A single game now days takes over 10gb. Grand Theft Auto IV, which was released for PC in 2008, requires 16gb, Red Alert 3, also released in 2008, required 6 to 12 gb, Assassin's Creed, released 2008, required 12gb.

Even if you're not playing games, with 12+ MP images and HD video cameras common now days you're going to burn through 30gb in no time, with blu-ray HD being 40mbps.

So while it might be true your grandma only needs 30gb, anyone that has installed a game made in the last 2 years or takes the occasional picture or video is going to need a bit more.

"Even now, a lot of people only use like 30gb worth of disk space. Sure, they have more, but they don't use it."

Your source? A single game now days takes over 10gb. Grand Theft Auto IV, which was released for PC in 2008, requires 16gb, Red Alert 3, also released in 2008, required 6 to 12 gb, Assassin's Creed, released 2008, required 12gb.

Even if you're not playing games, with 12+ MP images and HD video cameras common now days you're going to burn through 30gb in no time, with blu-ray HD being 40mbps.

So while it might be true your grandma only needs 30gb, anyone that has installed a game made in the last 2 years or takes the occasional picture or video is going to need a bit more.

PS3 may actually be compatible with just a firmware update, as this tech has already been demonstrated by Pioneer several years back with a firmware modified (but otherwise standard) PS3.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/56200

I was skeptical about them ever d3d porting as well, but were these images released the other day a gag?

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62617

Then I thought, if they have converted to opengl, could a linux port ever come down the pipeline?

A gamer can dream, right?

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62617 Valve has released a series of images in the style of well known Apple ads including a TF2 Heavy in an Ipod-like image, a TF2 sentry gun with the words "I'm a PC" next to a Portal sentry gun, a "Think Different" style ad featuring L4D's Francis with the text "I hate different" and an old Macintosh ad with text about bringing a gaming download system to another operating system.

Day one, Activision unexpectedly axes the heads of the studio that created CoD. Day Two, Activision announces that it is whoring out the IP for every last dollar ala Halo.

Coincidence? I think not.

PC Minimum Requirements:

* Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1/Windows 7
* 2.2 Ghz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
* 1 GB system RAM/1.5 GB for Vista and Windows 7
* 128 MB NVidia GeForce 6600 GT/ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card
* 1024x768 minimum display resolution
* 4 GB free hard space (Beta)
* Broadband connection

Nice to know my trusty old 3.0Ghz P4 with 1GB RAM and an NVidia GeForce 6800GT is still available for friends who can't bring their box to Starcraft LANs! Well, assuming Blizzard allows it.

People have complained for years about the 100 tag limit on friends list and other seemingly stupid limitations put into place. The reasoning offered by MS then was that in order to maintain compatabilty with original xbox games the limitations in the original live service had to follow over to the 360.

MS has decided after 5 years of the 360 to remove the legacy caps by removing support for a platform that hasnt been sold in 5 years. You cant really have it both ways...

Not only that, but the main reason we've stuck with it for 5 years is because of ONE game. Halo 2.

That's practically the only Live game played with a significant audience, and it's been #1 on the original Xbox live games chart for years now.

Now, will Microsoft actually withdraw Halo 2 support? Unlikely - they'll probably have a patch on the 360 so you can play Halo 2 with the "new" Live, probably by sending out a new Halo 2 binary combined with emulator changes. Probably something difficult to do with the original Xbox...

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59918

Or the only way that Apple could get that content was to agree to higher prices from the publisher. I think all of the book companies have seen how much of a pain in the ass it was for the music industry to get Apple to raise prices and don't want them to have that kind of control over them. It's only self-interest on the part of the publishers. Apple is pretty late to the digital book market, so I imagine they were willing to agree with whatever terms they needed to in order to make the deal.

Besides, as long as the Kindle store is available on the iPad (They already have an iPhone app so I don't see why Amazon wouldn't be able to sell books.) consumers will be able to shop around for the best price. Personally I wish all of the online digital media stores would take a page from Valve's book and have weekly deals like Steam does. A lot of game publishers have fould that a half-off sale will net them a ridiculous number of sales. I recall reading that one independent developer sold more copies of his game during a one day holiday sale than had sold during all other days (Prior to that point.) combined.

I've found I'm a lot more willing to purchase something I may have only been mildly interested in previously if it's on sale. Valve saw a 3000% increase in sales of Left for Dead when they offered it half-off for a weekend. They also said that they sold more copies of the game during the sale than when it was first released, which almost never happens with video games.

in fact didn't Valve hire the author of bittorrent to do exactly this to distribute their DRM'd material?

Yup.
And Half-Life 2 got released exactly that way : a crypted package, Peer-2-peer distributed over the steam network. So most users could pre-download the bulk of the data, and unlock the game and start playing it as soon as the official release date. (well, in theory. In practice, the servers got so much overloaded that my brother had to wait a couple of days before being able to unlock his boxed copy).

This was all in 2004, the year *before* MS even applied for this patent.

Absolutely indeed, in fact didn't Valve hire the author of bittorrent to do exactly this to distribute their DRM'd material?

That article is missing a LOT of facts. Until the lawsuit is settled, you won't know the full story.

Which naturally got the "Well how could you even know?" response, to which he responded:

I was the producer at take two on dnf. So yes. Yes I know the real story. This article has a few things that are blatantly false, and others that are assumptions from people who weren't there.

Granted this is from someone who used to work at Take Two, which is the company somewhat demonized in the article, so there may be some bias in play there, but it sounds like some of the stuff in this article may just be flat wrong.

That said, this article is probably the best it can be under the circumstances, given that no one can really talk too much about it because of the lawsuit.

That article is missing a LOT of facts. Until the lawsuit is settled, you won't know the full story.

Which naturally got the "Well how could you even know?" response, to which he responded:

I was the producer at take two on dnf. So yes. Yes I know the real story. This article has a few things that are blatantly false, and others that are assumptions from people who weren't there.

Granted this is from someone who used to work at Take Two, which is the company somewhat demonized in the article, so there may be some bias in play there, but it sounds like some of the stuff in this article may just be flat wrong.

That said, this article is probably the best it can be under the circumstances, given that no one can really talk too much about it because of the lawsuit.

That article is missing a LOT of facts. Until the lawsuit is settled, you won't know the full story.

Which naturally got the "Well how could you even know?" response, to which he responded:

I was the producer at take two on dnf. So yes. Yes I know the real story. This article has a few things that are blatantly false, and others that are assumptions from people who weren't there.

Granted this is from someone who used to work at Take Two, which is the company somewhat demonized in the article, so there may be some bias in play there, but it sounds like some of the stuff in this article may just be flat wrong.

That said, this article is probably the best it can be under the circumstances, given that no one can really talk too much about it because of the lawsuit.

That article is missing a LOT of facts. Until the lawsuit is settled, you won't know the full story.

Which naturally got the "Well how could you even know?" response, to which he responded:

I was the producer at take two on dnf. So yes. Yes I know the real story. This article has a few things that are blatantly false, and others that are assumptions from people who weren't there.

Granted this is from someone who used to work at Take Two, which is the company somewhat demonized in the article, so there may be some bias in play there, but it sounds like some of the stuff in this article may just be flat wrong.

That said, this article is probably the best it can be under the circumstances, given that no one can really talk too much about it because of the lawsuit.

That article is missing a LOT of facts. Until the lawsuit is settled, you won't know the full story.

Which naturally got the "Well how could you even know?" response, to which he responded:

I was the producer at take two on dnf. So yes. Yes I know the real story. This article has a few things that are blatantly false, and others that are assumptions from people who weren't there.

Granted this is from someone who used to work at Take Two, which is the company somewhat demonized in the article, so there may be some bias in play there, but it sounds like some of the stuff in this article may just be flat wrong.

That said, this article is probably the best it can be under the circumstances, given that no one can really talk too much about it because of the lawsuit.

wow, you don't have much imagination, do you?

oh alright, lets go over the _possible_ reasons that people might want to modify their Xbox

- to fix security issues that microsoft/Xbox Live hasn't patched yet. e.g.
        http://www.totalvideogames.com/Xbox-360/news/Xbox-360-Website-Security-Flaw-Patched-7405.html
this wouldn't be possible if microsoft had banned these guys from researching a fix.

- to fix hardware issues that microsoft/Xbox Live refuses to fix
        http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/101070/court-filing-microsoft-knew-about-refused-to-fix-xbox-360-flaw.html
        http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/47671
so microsoft stiffed you with a dead box. why can't you fix it yourself? because inserting a different hard disc can already be considered a mod! yay!

- to make a game backup (which is 100% legal in many countries, if not everywhere)
        http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/141037

I can go on for a while... want some more?

My guess would be peer to peer. After all, it would be easier if you didn't have to set up a server to just play in a LAN party.

Then again, if it would be p2p, I don't understand why he wouldn't say that instead of being glad Rage did not lead the way away from dedicated servers...

Actually, I found this article referenced from linuxgames.com stating that it will just be geared toward single player and co-op, so maybe they think no one will care.

I did not think they would pick a customer computer to be the server.

They already advertised clients as servers via trailer. New Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer Footage Reveals Seamless Host Migration Support

Note that there's already been some counterpoints against this story posted elsewhere on the internet:
Counterpoint from John Gibson
Counterpoint from Derek Smart

Microsoft had to invested 1 billion dollar for the red-ring warranty expansion, divide that by the estimated cost of a repair and you get the number of failed boxes, divide that by boxes in total and you get the failure rate. So:

$1.000.000.000 / $150 = 6.666.666
6.666.666 / 30.000.000 = 22%

So its at the very minimum a 22% failure. Things to take into account however: A repair might cost Microsoft quite a bit less then the $150 they charge you for out of warranty repairs (especially considering a new Xbox360 cost $199 on Amazon) and newer boxes fail less then older boxes. So the failure rate for old boxes is likely to be much higher then 22%, while the failure rate for newer boxes might be lower.

Calm your rage a wee bit. Blizzard knows better than to ignore the tantrums of their fanbase, and so they are supposedly working on a pseudo-LAN solution. LAN connectivity with Battle.net authentication.

Happy?

Shacknews reports that StarCraft II will support non-free user-made maps and mods. Depending on how this is implemented, mapmakers may find their works offered for free via other distribution channels. As some iPhone app writers have discovered, it's also possible to be undercut by a free cloned or superficially changed version of their map. How does Blizzard intend to enforce author rights?

If you're a js/flash refusenik like me, here's an FLV.

This new game looks and sounds just like Doom3. Sure the engine is better, the environments are more open, there's a drive mode and the character animation a bit smoother but these weren't the only areas in which Doom3 was lacking. Why don't id get a decent screen writer and director and do something genuinely disturbing instead of these schlock-cartoon 3D engine demos?

I don't know how much WoW grossed but it is is important to remember that the account totals announced are always worldwide. WoW does not have 11 million accounts in North America/Europe. There are more accounts based in China than anywhere else. WoW does not charge $15/mo. in China.

From: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50881
Blizzard Entertainment's unavoidable MMORPG sensation World of Warcraft (PC) now sports over 10 million active subscribers, the company has announced. Of those, about 2.5 million are located in North America, 2 million in Europe, and 5.5 million in Asia."

"the subscription model for WoW in China is different from other parts of the world. Instead of a monthly subscription fee, Chinese gamers purchase WoW Points cards for 30 Yuan ($3.64) that are worth 600 points. Points expire at a rate of 9 per hour of play, so this amounts to 66 hours and 40 minutes of play for each card at an average of .45 Yuan ($.06) per hour"

The link below is the article where it was said, it is from 2006, however it has the link to the company page in China who handled WoW until recently and it is the same.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/02/11/joystiq-interview-hoyt-ma-the9/

If you're a smug 360 owner and don't give a fsck about the PC then remember the fate of the original Xbox. Sony's keeping the PS2 around forever and they'll likely do the same with the PS3, you're still gonna get new games years after the PS4 launch. MS killed the Xbox immediatly after the 360 launch. Oh, they say it's gonna be different for the 360 because they don't have to pay intel and Nvidia etc etc, which brings us back to all the crap they spout about their support for PC games.

Over a year ago Uwe Boll approached Blizzard to let him do the WoW movie.
They made it rather clear to even him, No Fng Way... :)

Easy to find articles about that, here's a couple to get you started.
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52322
http://warcraft.moviechronicles.com/2008-04/blizzard-laugh-away-uwe-boll/

"We will not sell the movie rights, not to you...especially not to you."

Ha.