Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo and Microsoft Team Up To Promote Cross-Play, While Sony Remains Silent (theverge.com)
Minecraft for the Nintendo Switch is getting a big update today that will enable cross-play with PC, Xbox One, and smartphones -- but notably not the PlayStation 4. "Sony is blocking cross-play for Fortnite, Rocket League, and Minecraft so PS4 players can't play against Xbox One or Nintendo Switch owners," reports The Verge. "Meanwhile, Nintendo and Microsoft are partnering to utilize cross-play as a marketing weapon today." From the report: The Minecraft cross-play trailer specifically focuses on the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch being able to play together. It also includes the rare sight of an Xbox One controller in a Switch commercial. If that's not enough of a partnership, the ad even encourages players to create, explore, and survive together in Minecraft on Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
How young Donald Trump was slapped and punched until he made his bed
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/donald-trump-fellow-cadet-article-1.3401110
My last conversation with Donald Trump was at the New York Military Academy, where we were both cadets. It was 1964, the year he graduated. We were walking together near the baseball field where, he reminded me, he'd played exceptionally well. He demanded that I tell him the story of one of his greatest games.
"The bases were loaded," I told him. "We were losing by three. You hit the ball just over the third baseman's head. Neither the third baseman nor the left fielder could get to the ball in time. All four of our runs came in; we won the game."
"No," he said. "That's not the way it happened. I want you to remember this: I hit the ball out of the ballpark! Remember that. I hit it out of the ballpark!"
Ballpark? I thought. We were talking about a high school practice field. There was no park to hit a ball out of. And anyway, his hit was a blooper the fielders misplayed.
But I wasn't going to argue with Donald. What was the harm in a little embellishment, if it helped him survive New York Military Academy?
NYMA, the private boarding school where Trump's parents sent him and where mine sent me, could be a brutal place where grown men who were veterans of the real military ruled with threats and force.
Trump's first year, under the command of Major Theodore Dobias, was hellish. Dobias slapped and punched him until he learned to make his bed and polish his shoes — things that Donald, an aggressive little wiseguy, had at first refused to do.
At some point Dobias assumed that he had broken Trump and eased up. More probably, Trump had figured out Dobias' weak points and had begun to exploit them. He flattered the major and became one of his "winners" who was favored with privileges and praised.
As the Academy's unofficial PR man, Dobias even contributed to the Trump myth, eventually telling Rolling Stone that pro scouts vied to sign Trump. As with many things Dobias asserted about Trump, this story may or may not be true.
Besides sports, most of Donald's years at the Academy were unremarkable. In his junior year, he was a supply sergeant in charge of the World War II M1s rifles we all lugged around at parade. But even in this laid-back position he was brash and assertive.
A member of the school band recallsTrump throwing shoes at him and yelling at him to shut up when this young man stood too close to the barracks trumpeting Reveille. Rumor had it that he got away with stuff like this because his father donated large sums to the school.
In his senior year, Donald was promoted to captain of A Company. Unlike other cadet captains who took an interest in the lives of the adolescents in their charge, Trump commanded at a remove. Aside from a determination that cadets in his care would always polish their brass belt buckles and keep the spit-shine on their boots, come evening he'd retreat to his room.
My friend Peter Ticktin, who was an A Company platoon sergeant, emailed me recently to say he saw Trump as someone who kept his thoughts to himself and delegated his responsibilities. "DT put his trust in me," Ticktin wrote . "(Although trust) may be too strong (a word), as I was not a confidant as to his personal thoughts. No one was. He was much to himself. A good guy, but no one's real buddy."
Trump couldn't remain aloof after one of his minions allegedly hazed a younger cadet. Ignoring the unwritten barracks rule that no report to the adult authorities be made, this cadet finked to his parents, who demanded a meeting with the superintendent. It resulted in Donald's removal as captain.
Any other cadet caught in such a scandal would have been busted to a lower rank and exiled to a different barracks. But Donald was transferred, with no loss of rank, to what was probably intended as a desk job. (He called it a promotion.)
While Donald had not succeeded as a manager of young men,
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When BSD puts out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When BSDs embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When BSD has crost the bar.
I'm going to go ahead and guess Microsoft is pushing some proprietary networking standard that favours them. They love to pretend they support crossplay, while denying the open standards we've been using for decades.
Uh, I hope they know what "cross-play" means.
I promise to actually pay for my copy of Microsoft Office if Gates or Nadella put that on. Deal?
Table-ized A.I.
What happened to the competitive advantage of one system over another; isn't it bad to mix players from different systems? I remember PC players having a huge advantage over console players in the past. I haven't played fortnite, it's not my type of game, so why is it different?
by leaps and bounds. The Switch and XBox are playing catch up so it's too their advantage right now to support cross play. If the position was reversed either way they'd be the ones blocking cross play while the other two allowed it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The only thing The Last Jedi lacked was a gay pride parade.
sony blocks use of a game's player account on any other platform. even without cross play. want to use your fortnite account that's linked to ps4 account on a different platform... or move to it completely... even though you can't cross play? 'fuck you', says sony. all that progress and all those cosmetics, etc you bought are going to sit and rot on the ps4 if you want to switch.
cross play is secondary. THIS is the main gripe players have. not being able to move their shit from one platform to another.. when the game developer otherwise permits such a move. some don't (because there may be competitive differences or advantages between platforms) but many do or would.
... for the console players until the console producers start making mouse & keyboard peripherals for them.
Without out that, all the console 12yr olds are going to get slaughtered by people using PCs with mouse and keyboard
Minecraft for the Nintendo Switch is getting a big update today that will enable cross-play with PC, Xbox One, and smartphones -- but notably not the PlayStation 4.
Mac is also absent.
Nintendo has used that sort of cross-play as a plot point. Super Mario Adventures , a graphic novel first serialized across 12 issues of Nintendo Power in 1992, has an arc where Luigi and Peach swap outfits. Scenes in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and Super Mario Odyssey call back to this swap.
The 'cross play' will of course be with the 'new' version of Minecraft that Microsoft has emphasized since they purchased Mojang. They are dead-set on marooning the Java version that most people I know play on. Which is actually and authentically cross-platform, running on any platform with a JVM.
You know how it goes. Give them a finger, they will bite the whole hand
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
The account locking is the problem. Lack of cross-play is actually a boon, preventing cheaters from proliferating. Xbox has unfortunately had to put up with this ever since MS allowed PC gamers to start connecting, and there is nothing gamers can do to stop it.
what they think is M17estones, telling
I thought that MS tried this with an FPS back when the original Xbox came out, and PC players owned console players so bad they had to disable it so the console players could enjoy the game...