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What To Get A Millionaire Gamer For Xmas?
Thanks to CNN Money for their article discussing gifts for the obscenely rich videogamer, as they buck the trend of budget-conscious holiday game shopping and try to pick "the nifty gifts the uber-wealthy will receive this holiday season from their uber-wealthy friends." Picks include Tsunami Visual's TsuMo Deluxe, a $20,000 arcade game which has an adapted version of Crimson Skies as a game option, and Hanaho Games' $5,000 ArcadePC Deluxe, an officially Capcom-licensed 50-game arcade machine which is apparently "extraordinarily popular among professional athletes." If money was genuinely no object, what gaming goodies would you buy for yourself and your friends this holiday season?
I dont know about you guys, but this problem comes up time and time again and just haunts me! What to do, ohhh, what to do?!?!
Phredd - "I have found people tend to take you far less seriously once you start waving your genitals at them..."
No questions about it. If money is no objection, I would get my game-geek friend a bit of 'outside time' and put them in a Russian MIG for a bit of reality...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I'd hire a ground team to dig up all those lonely E.T carts.
that $20 mil space ticket sounds too good to be true, for example...
I'd buy myself a DDR 8th Mix machine, then make my friends pay to play.
If I use it to take a picture of a video game, does this count?
I could always get one of those realistic flight sims the government uses to train fighter pilots.
"When God kisses Satan and the Incarnations applaud." "Death is dead. Long live Death!"
Two chicks at the same time.
Why am I, the non-millionaire, getting gifts for the millionaire gamer?
Can someone forward this list to a couple of millionaires and let them know I'd like these things? Hell, I'll be happy with just a Gamecube and a copy of Double Dash.
"What to get the man who has everything?" A Post-It note saying "Give away some of your stuff you greedy buffoon."
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
How about a life ?
...was no object? The same thing I'd get any gamer if money was no object;
A box of N-Gages, and a sledgehammer.
All generalizations are inaccurate...except that one about gen....fsck it.
A Cave, with all the graphics systems (Linux available from SGI), will set you back a few units of currency more than 20K. I have seen a demo of Quake on this thing, so there is at least one game you can play on it.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
How about a live-action full-scale Quake arena?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
That's the first device I've seen that looks like both a Canon and a cannon.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The way I see it, we should be encouraging people who can afford it not to play games, but to do the real-life thing! So, here's my cost lineup:
1 Full-auto paintball gun with outfit: ~$500
1 Over-under shotgun and hunting clothes: ~$3500
1 Hunting club membership: ~$2000
1 Set of golf clubs and membership: ~$15,000
1 2003 Ferrari Enzo: ~$645,000
1 Tank of 99 Octane gas: ~$75
1 Private jet lease to go drive on the autobahn:: ~$15,000
1 Slightly used MiG-29: ~$250,000
Watching the look on the guy's face as he gets nailed by customs trying to get all this shit into the country: Priceless.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
How about Steel Battalion for the Xbox? Sure, it's *only* $200.
You could buy them 235,000 offshore programmers...
Make them into a sculpture of the Goatse.cx guy and leave it on Spielberg's driveway with a big bow around it?
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Well, there is one thing I would get.
A solid 24 karat gold Zelda 1 NES cartridge. If one doesn't exist I'll have it made.
Also, I would get the ultimate racing game. Or the other ultimate racing game.
Or the extremely rare Virtua Racing 2 machine. I know I played it at least once at Epcot Center.
OOh, Ooh, one of those ms. pac-man galaga machines. Those are hot!
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Duke Nukem Forever... :-p
-------------------------
slashdot@com.jarnot (swap the domain)
- A good pc for gaming
- One of each current consoles. Maybe more than one to test lan play, might need additional TVs too. I mean you can't be too cautious.
- A copy of every newly released game
And I will give our little millionaire gamer buddy plenty of unbiased reviews of games without any kind of hype. I won't even charge him for my time.Think of it as a priceless gift for a gamer who doesn't know how to spend his money and time.
You could buy him an election and let him play president. If Bush Jr. doesn't put in another quarter.
Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
I'd get him a time machine! I don't know how you guys do it, but with all the RPGs, mods, and tons of unlockable features in more recent games (most notably in racing games) I'd get him a time machine so he'd have time to get through them all. Without cheating.
Now, I'm twisting the original question around a little bit. I'd set up the long awaited National Video Game Museum of History. This way, I can have every video game ever made on the planet and be altruistic by sharing it with every fan at the same time. It would be Christmas 365 days a year!
I'm not rich- but I'm not poor either.
I have some relatives who are in the very-rich category ($100 million plus)
I do not envy them at all. I'm not saying that I wouldn't like to be rich, but it is not the be-all and end-all. I am not suggesting that you feel you are better than the rest of us, or you feel that being rich is the most important thing- this just seemed like a good place to post this.
My rich relatives:
- Spend(and spent) most of their lives thinking about money. Thinking about how to make more- where I feel that even a tenth of what they have is 'enough'. This is one of the primary reasons they are rich, and I am not (luck and talent being others). Being rich is their primary desire. (Me? Good sex, comfortable shoes, and a warm place to go to the bathroom)
- Still get sick, have colds, and get constipated. Having really good doctors just gives them better access to pharmaceuticals. But when you are lying in bed feeling miserable, having a shit-load of money really doesn't help.
- They watch the same crappy TV shows, but on bigger screens.
- Read the same books, see the same movies, play the same video games. Once again, they may do it a few weeks sooner than me, and in nicer places, but in the end it is all the same.
- They see more live entertainment. Most of it, I hate, and the only thrill of going with them for the yearly 'Nutcracker Suite' performance is checking out the other people in the audience.
- They go on rocking vacations, and spend most of their time complaining about bad service, bad food, etc. I go on the same vacation (or on my own crappy vacations), and think everything is fantastic. I enjoy it much more. Their money just raises their expectations much higher.
- They are afraid to die. Hell, with all that money, dying would seem like a real waste. "But I haven't spent all of it yet!" I've never met people who feared death more than any very rich people. Why not just enjoy life now?
So- I don't hate rich people. I wouldn't mind being rich, but it isn't my dream. I'd love to be able to quit working, but then again, I get bored on a long 5-day weekend. So what the hell do I want...I guess it all comes back to the good sex, comfortable shoes thing...
These are just my own ramblings- I was not the intial person with the 'eat the rich' attitude.
No reason to lie.
I know two rich people, and I'm working on trying to become rich myself. The two who already are rich started their own companies, with no assets and themselves as their only employees (two seperate people, two seperate companies). They worked their asses off, hired help, and expanded. 80 hours a week is like a vacation. Try 100. Try putting up with lazy employees like you, who want to get paid, but want to do a half-assed job and sit around doing nothing for as long as possible, and then whine when you want them to actually do something, and steal stuff when you're not looking. These guys took the risks, put in the hours, and earned their money. Right now, my wife and I are the only employees of our company, and we're easily working 80 ~ 90 hours a week each for very little money. Hopefully, after another decade of this, we can join the ranks of the wealthy, too. If you don't want to do all that work, and would rather work only 40 hours a week for somebody else, that's fine. But don't complain when I have more money than you do.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
logicool, the japanese arm of logitech just released the ultimate drive game setup for crazies. Look here. The setup features an actual Sparco seat from the Italian manufactuer with mounted petals and wheel setup from Logicool's new 900 degree GT Force Pro wheel. The whole setup costs a cool $850 US, if you throw in a Plasma and a dedicated PS2, you can have the ultimate driving simulator for under 5k. And by ultimate I mean that profressional driving schools use a similar setup to train for driving line, applied breaking techniques and 4wheel drift. Note the 30 so inch HDTVs here. The whole setup may 'only' be 5k but with games like GT4, R: Evolution the whole setup beats the pants of most arcade driving games (the only thing lacking is force feed back seats). Even millionares can't drive 500+ cars (not to mention the fantasy drift of the Ridge Racer games).
If you're looking for an extravagant christmas present for the richo gamer freak, why not put down the cash for a decent game developer. US$9 million should get you your own GTA or half-assed RPG game developer, you'd be able to give the kid EXACTLY the game it always wanted to have!
I never said you were lazy or a thief. I said my friends' employees are often lazy thieves. One of my friends is a landscape contractor. His employees mow grass for a living. Most of them are on drugs, and most of them stand around doing absolutely nothing when a supervisor isn't watching them.
Now, your attitude about your work is just fine. You want to work 40 hours a week, make a modest living, and enjoy it. Great. I want a little more than that. I want to be my own boss, own my business, and set my own salary. I do not like people telling me what to do and when to do it. That's just me. In the process, I'd also like to make a lot more money, so I can retire early. Actually, I don't think I ever will retire, as I really love my job. Regardless, what works for you does not work for me, and vice-versa. What DOES bother me is your previous posts, where you accuse all rich people of having stolen their wealth from you, and not deserving it. Does that mean you deserve it instead, despite not having taken the risks and put forth the effort they did? How about this: you live your life the way you want to, and be happy, and let others live theirs the way they want and be happy for them. You act like you're happy with your life, but then, why are you so pissed off at and jealous of people who did better than you did?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
How can Namco get $2,772 for a machine that plays Space Invaders when an arcade operator could spend a little more and get the ArcadePC Deluxe and 50 games? (besides breaking the licensing).
What, me worry?
If money was genuinely no object, what gaming goodies would you buy for yourself and your friends this holiday season?
If money was genuinely no object? I'd buy Microsoft.
Why does someone who took a risk need to be rich? This country isn't perfect, but its pretty damn cool. Its cool because some people risked their lives to make it that way. They didn't turn around and declare themselves kings. They declared themselves equal. That deserves respect, not greedy people who only risked money.
The other thing I noticed is a cycle. Someone doesn't like their work situation and they start their own business to create an environment just like it. Exactly like the child abuse cycle (thats the part that makes me ill). Break the cycle, or at least quit gloating about how great you are.
Should wealthy people pay more as a percentage of their worth than poor people?
No. They should pay the same as a percentage of their worth as poor people. But that's a big difference from paying the same as a percentage of their income as poor people.
See here.
This is not my sig.
I agree completely. If i won 50 million dollars, i would make my whole family rich, etc... If i quit working, i don't know what i would do. I would have to work, i can't spend 3 days out of work without going stir crazy. I just want to be comfortable, the rich always seem to end up with problems. Don't know, i just really liked your point of view, refreshing.
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
Sorry about calling you lazy.
When the money comes in from the project my employees and I created, I pay all the expenses associated with that project, pay the employees what they agreed to do the work for, reinvest some of it, and keep what's leftover. If the employee agreed that he'd work for $40k/year, why should he get any more than that?
Now what happens when the money from the project doesn't come in? I still have to pay the employees. When they screw up, I still have to pay them. See, that's the tradeoff they accepted. They accepted that they might not make as much, but they'll get a paycheck every two weeks. I'm self employed, so I don't have a steady paycheck. Sometimes I get a huge paycheck. Sometimes I go two months without a paycheck.
What happens when the money really doesn't come in, for a long time, and the company goes under? My employees are out of a job. They go get another one. I've lost my whole company, and my whole career. I invested all my money in it, I took out loans, I worked harder and longer than any of my employees, I created something out of nothing, and then it all fell apart, and I get less than nothing. I get debt.
So why the hell shouldn't I keep more of the money when things are going well? I took all the damn risks. My employees risked absolutely nothing. There are many reasons I work for myself. However, I'll tell you right now, that if I didn't have the chance to make significantly more money than I could working for somebody else, there is no way in hell I would open my own company. So, I'm supposed to take everything I own, open a business, work nights and weekends for years on end, handle all the stress and responsibility...and then get paid exactly the same as the guys working 40 hours a week, who risked precisely jack shit to earn their paycheck? Hell no.
As for my friend the landscaping contractor, it is quite obvious that you have never worked in landscaping. I have. It is a shit job, that nobody wants to do. Most people in town pay $8 ~ $12/hour for labor. My friend starts his employees at $12, and they can go up from there. I think his crew chiefs are making $18 ~ $20. He gives them company trucks to drive, cell phones, health insurance (which none of them take advantage of, because they would rather keep the $5/month it costs to enroll in the program). Hell, he even has a 401(k) plan for them. By all accounts, he already pays his guys more than anybody else in town, and he still can't keep employees. Like I said, almost all of them use drugs (mostly pot). They come to work on drugs, or run off to use drugs during their lunch break. They steal parts from him. They get into fights over who controls the radio station in the truck. When one crew gets a new edger, the other crews break their edgers on purpose, so they can get a new one, too. They drive like idiots, and cause traffic accidents, which my friend has to pay for. Then, sometimes, they just decide to not show up for work. They don't feel like doing it that day, and they don't really need a check right then, so they'd rather just stay home. Of course, grass still needs to get cut, trees need trimming, and plants need planting. When that happens, my friend the rich landscaping contractor can be seen out there, riding the mower on a Sunday himself, because it's gotta get done. If I've got the time, I go help him.
You are completely ignorant of what it takes to run a business. Hell, successful business owners don't make enough in my opinion. How about, instead of a pile of shit, you give your rich boss a nice fruit basket (if you can afford it) and say, "Thank you, sir, for risking everything you had, and working all those nights and weekends when everybody else went home, and sweating out those sleepless nights when business didn't look so good, so I could have a paycheck, and insurance, to support my modest lifestyle. Thank you."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
That story on sensors that hook up directly to your brain seems appropriate. It would work now to control games, but it's not a mass-market thing. Sure, it may be a $99.99 "control cap" years from now, but a superior customized setup should be doable now if you've got the cash.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
I'd just rent time in one of those air combat games where you fly real planes. Or maybe just permanently hire pilots that will be housed at my private airstrip and fly my planes whenever I want to play.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
Why not buy a pinball machine?
:)
The new "Lord Of The Rings" game is out, and it's available for roughly $4,000.00 from local distributors. It's said to be the best Stern pinball game to date (Stern is the only pinball manufacturer still standing).
http://www.sternpinball.com/LordoftheRings.htm
It's the perfect antidote to looking at video screens all day. Pinball is popular here in the Bay Area because so many people stare at monitors all day and don't want to be entertained simply by staring at another monitor!
And, in a dark room, the gentle twinkling of the pinball machine's lights (when it isn't being played) is almost like a Christmas tree....
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
Shockingly i've noticed no suggestions of neogeo hardware. With games like Metal Slug ($2750 approx), Winning 11 ($5000 approx) and Kizuna Encounter ($11000 approx) to buy surely a millionaire gamer could easily be catered for? Admittedly you'd have to actually find the games, but NeoGeo is surely the rich-mans 16-bit dream?
"Everlasting peace will come to Earth when the last man kills the last but one." - Adolf Hitler
this is an easy question:
if i knew a millionaire gamer, i'd give them the free tote bag and lanyard i got from E3 last year.
out.
You forget: Quake's source is freely available, and could therefore be modified to be playable on this CAVE. What other games are like this? The only one I can think of is UT.
So, there you go. You can play Quake and UT. Happy with that?
"The most looniest, zaniest, spontaneous, sporadic Impulsive thinker, compulsive drinker, addict"
how about descent, I think the whole series is open source, closed data now
Need a Catering Connection
Thats not a bad idea. I have Descent 1 right here by my left elbow: I never finished it, it proved too hard for me. I always thought it would benefit from some sort of VR immersion system-descent *does* support VR goggles (which I have never used, known anyone who has, or seen any. 90's fad, I do believe)
The CAVE is..PERFECTION!!!
"The most looniest, zaniest, spontaneous, sporadic Impulsive thinker, compulsive drinker, addict"
An Athlon 64 FX-51, 4 GB DDR500 RAM, 5x 1TB Drives in a RAID 0+1 array, Sound Blaster Live! Audigy Platinum 2, Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 speakrs, and a Radeon 9800 XT to power my gaming habits. :) Of course, money is a problem, so maybe nothing :(
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."