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Xbox - Past, Present, And Future
Thanks to EGM for their interview with Microsoft's Ed Fries, discussing the state of the Xbox. He talks about the specialization of Microsoft's first-party Xbox publishing efforts, saying: "When we were starting, not only were we learning about how to be a console publisher, but we were also trying to make sure we had games in every genre because we really didn't know what kind of third-party support we were gonna get." Fries also quibbles with Nintendo's lack of voice acting in their games, mentioning: "someone asked [Miyamoto and Iwata] why none of their games had voices. And they talked about cost and the time and trouble to localize it... and I just felt like I was listening to silent-movie directors talking [about how films work fine without sound]", and arguing: "I feel like that's just part of the price of doing business nowadays, and it's something everyone should be doing."
I started off today late. Work starts at 8:00 sharp and I had just crept onto Route 69 South at 8:02. My truck was freezing. I had a minute and a half of 75MPH travel before I hit the I-435 East and West exits, which are a big slowdown. So I was trying to make good time before I got locked in traffic.
Well, just like every other day, everyone slowed to about 45MPH at the I-435 exits. As I was sitting there eyeing the cars around me for hot girls (there were none, it was a bunch of ugly office bitches wearing sunglasses and yuppie faggots with their little spiked-forward haircuts and Honda Civics) when I saw this atrocious car enter Route 69 from I-435. It was a very old Dodge Omni and it was blowing smoke all over. Laughing out loud, I watched as it merged with traffic and stunk out the person behind them. Oddly enough, the windows were tinted on this car too. What the fuck?
After another false start and subsequent halt, I noticed the smell carrying from this offensive little car. Whoever owned that piece of shit needed to change their oil. Badly. That and their fucking breaks, which were making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. God, what kind of moron can't take care of simple maintenance on their car? The thing had gone from funny to annoying at this point, between the sound and smell, and it was then that I noticed the stickers.
The back end of this idiot's car looked like a small billboard. It has sticker upon sticker upon overlapping sticker piled across the back. The only thing not skinned by the stickers was his license plate (oddly from Pennsylvania, I noted), which read "LNUX!" What the fuck!? Darting my eyes over the stickers I noticed there were several "LNX" and "Open Source: Love It or Leave It" bumper-stickers, as well as a "America = Gun Ownership" and "WILL ROLEPLAY FOR FOOD." Whoever was in this car was clearly-- between the condition of the vehicle and their fascination with role playing, guns, and Linux-- disattached from reality. Someone else who shouldn't be on the road.
Traffic started moving again and I revved my V6 into gear in the far left lane, trying to make up for lost time. It was already 08:08. Then I heard a bunch of honking beside me and off to my right. Had my bed's gate come open in the back? If it had I'd be spilling garbage all over the highway (LOL!). Glancing around, however, I saw there was nothing wrong with me. Then I caught what the commotion was all about-- it was that God-damned little Omni, weaving in and out of traffic, cutting across three lanes, and heading straight toward me! I'd seen this happen before, when some hapless loser wants to make time and charges into the passing lane, but this guy seemed not to even notice any traffic around him at all!
In a split second the Omni was next to me. Traffic was in full motion now, so I lead footed it and climbed to 70MPH. Whatever this guy was up to he could be up to it 50 feet behind me. Then I hear this terrible sound like a tricked out Civic exhaust system with bronchitis and the guy's next to me again. His car is shaking like it's gonna fall apart too. I pushed it to 80MPH and the same thing-- the car shook harder and it sounded like the engine was gonna blow, but he was up beside me again.
I tried looking through the tinting on the Omni's windows but it was no good. For all I knew this Omni could be a driverless Transformer drunk off of bad energon cubes. So I braked. He braked. Everyone behind us was keeping their distance by about 15 cars. I began reaching for my celphone in case I couldn't get away from this guy and needed to call the state police when the window began rolling down. Then I saw this dickhead.
The man behind it was short, stout, had a mess of greasy red hair on his head, a drooping red musta