There's basically two kinds of people who buy $400 graphics cards. People who have so much money it's chump change, and people for whom PC gaming is their big hobby. For either of those groups, it's really not that much money. Think about it. The best gaming rig in the world still won't top $10K (and that's going REALLY off-the-wall extreme) which is peanuts compared to some hobbies. And you can build a really good gaming rig that has pretty much all of the best-of-the-best including a $400 graphics card for $2,500 which is on the low end of what most people spend on their hobby in a year these days.
And then there's the rest of us who like PC gaming for various reasons - some perhaps because it's "more extreme" than console gaming, but mostly just because we want to play games not available on consoles or because we vastly prefer the control systems available for PC. We're the ones who wait to buy a new graphics card until it's like the third generation back and selling for $75, but still quite capable of playing all the latest and greatest PC games (albeit in some cases not quite at maximum settings, which by the way still look nicer than console games). We're the group who build our gaming rig for a tidy $500 (or less), which is right around the price of some consoles these days. And our PCs not only play many games consoles cannot, they also do nifty things like open web browsers and word processors in 1 or 2 seconds instead of 20 and such.
Not only that, the supposed "quote" in the summary isn't in the MacWorld article at all. Unless it got removed for being stupid, it's a complete fabrication by whoever wrote the stupid summary.
The GP used "hardcore gamers" a bit incorrectly (I think he meant something more like a hardcore geek) but his point is valid. Most video games purchases are not by people who know a lot about PCs and download things like Steam. Most are by teens/college kids who like to hang out with their friends (often this includes trips to the local shopping mall) and parents who's kids pester them until they give in. Now, if Valve wanted to throw a lot of money into the works and have Steam installed on all the home PCs sold by say Dell and HP with an icon plastered on the desktop, then they might be as profitable as a b&m store.
Of course, if steam were to go out of business, you'd lose access to those games.. I believe they require a server authentication to make them work, correct? No, I don't believe so. I haven't used Steam in a while, but if memory serves the only thing you couldn't do if Steam went belly-up is reinstall the games you bought from them online, as well as download updates for games you purchased on disks.
Yes, and that's why the world is better off with the fact that Teh Vista's market share doesn't even exceed the installed base of Windows 2000. In fact... it's barely beating Windows 98. There, fixed it for you.
Right. So because you're lucky enough to not experience some of the annoyances about Vista, that means it's not possible for anyone else (possibly even the majority of everyone else) to? I knew people who liked Windows ME too, and said they never had problems with it. We all know how good that OS was.
So I'll take your 1 anecdote and raise you a few dozen. By far the majority of the "made for Vista" machines I've had to work on, and help set up new for customers had issues with slow performance, as well as all the other complaints made in TFA.
The guy that wrote this article should consider working for the Onion. It's hilarious that he can't seem to figure out how to shut down the computer. I mean, it's the first freaking button next to the search box, and it doesn't even ask for confirmation anymore. I leave the thing on all the time so I'm not big on the shutdown shortcuts, but whatever. Are you that stupid? Really? Seriously? He didn't say he couldn't figure out how to shut it down. He gave it as one small example of all the annoying little changes they made in Vista simply for the sake of change, rendering a lot of the old quick and familiar shortcuts we use in XP useless in Vista. And the majority of these changes don't improve anything in any way. Perhaps you need to take some logic and reading comprehension courses?
Not only is your comment not "informative", it's pretty much the polar opposite. But I guess some people thrive on spreading misinformation.
1)Windows is the only OS with a fuck-ton of viruses and malware out there masquerading as good software packages. 2)Again, Windows is the only OS that has a serious need for a firewall. 3)Password? Are you serious? What password, and for what? Unless you keep your PC in a public place where any shmuck can walk up and use it, an OS password won't make much difference at all. Especially not on Windows. 4)Yeah, security updates help. Except again, they're a lot more crucial on Windows than any other OS. And a lot more plentiful too. 5)Right. You mentioned IE why? I'll admit, it's probably the biggest gaping security Windows has, but everyone on this site already knew that.
So you make five random "points" for your straw-man argument, and assume that coupled with your anecdotes proves Windows is not more problematic than other OSes.
Well, I've had my awesome little made-in-China wrench set for a whole 6 months without breaking them and I know at least 50 other people who have too, so they must be as good as a nice set of Snap-On wrenches!
I didn't say there's anything wrong with having multiple versions of Ubuntu. I said it's the type of thing that's part of the problem keeping Linux from ever being truly mainstream. Sure, there's multiple versions of Vista. Except really not. They're all the exact same OS, the only difference is some of the "versions" have various features disabled. The same disk is used to install all of them. And you don't even need to install anything extra to go from Home Basic to Ultimate. All you need to do is enter the right key.
But then you have Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and I don't know what else. They don't even share the same GUI. Sure, to someone familiar with Linux in general and Ubuntu specifically that's such a non-issue it doesn't matter. But when you're a software developer trying to maximize your potential marketshare for your effort, it matters. So you want your package to integrate with the GUI. Do you make it for Gnome, or KDE, or perhaps even a different popular GUI? And who's package manager should you develop for? And so on. To you, Mr. Every-Day-Linux-User these differences are so easy to work around it's nothing. But like I said earlier, developers who are not so familiar with Linux don't even want to worry about perceived differences. Because they see lots of time involved in not only coding, but also testing. Sure, you can leave it up to the various distributors to do the final packaging, etc. to make it work with their own GUI and package manager, but then that means the software publisher is leaving his potential marketshare decisions to someone else. To make sure his software is available to all those distributions and variations, he has to do all the work himself. So in the repackaging and retesting process they see hours of extra labor for each slight variation, often times for what would amount to a few hundred more sales at best, if that.
So until it's so easy that a software developer can make the equivalent of one or two different.exe's that work on ALL current distributions and variations of Linux, with a simple double-click to install and no extra tweaks needed, it's just not going to happen.
If it wasn't for the fact that this is really the only hope of ever breaking MS's stranglehold on the desktop market, I wouldn't be bothered at all. But since I still find myself forced to use Windows for my PC games because no one wants to tweak their game for umpteen variations of Linux, (not to mention the lack of display drivers, which can also be attributed to this) I find myself very frustrated.
The only way I ever see this happening is with some kind of Ubuntu project funded by a true big-leagues company such as Google. So until we've got a one-size-fits-all Goobuntu, it's a pipe-dream.
When I first beat Shadow of the Colossus, I'm sure i'm not the only one who thought, "My god, what have I done?" Cool! Who else wondered what you had done?
Bogus? No, it's not. You're wrong. This whole thread is about how much money the MPAA is losing, and the fact that their actual losses are not nearly as high as the losses they claim. This particular thread has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of copyright infringement.
Therefore the post you responded to and claimed as "bogus" is spot on. Where the MPAA would claim at probably several hundred dollars of loss (but certainly at least $20) the actual loss would have been less than $3.
Perhaps you should learn to read posts a bit more carefully before you post stupid responses.
Linux is never really going to "take off". That's because the whole Linux/FOSS model is anathema to what it takes for a desktop OS to really take off. What Linux needs to "take off" is a single, easy-to-use viable distro for the public. Which is not going to happen, because Linux and FOSS are all about having lots of choices and having everyone customize it for themselves. Sorry, not going to work. Software developers don't want to worry about working around the differences (whether real or perceived) in umpteen dozen different distributions (and variations of those distributions), most of which have significantly less than.1% of total desktop market-share. Heck even Ubuntu (currently the distro that most nearly meets these requirements) has at least three variations.
My favorite idiot line had to be "By the way, ban my IP for all I care. There's plenty of computers at the library I can use to open new accounts to troll with.".
But the guy who was most certainly not Will Robinson was the funniest.
Wow. Just wow. This kind of bullshit really makes my blood boil. This shows how completely broken copyright is now.
Copyright duration really needs to be chopped down to 10 years, with a total maximum of 15 possible after a 5-year extension. NO copyright at all would be a hundred times better than the crap we have now.
Not in the long run. Halo3 might outsell initially, but then when it's done it's done. Meanwhile Mario Galaxies will still be selling five years from now when the Wii is in the same bargain bin the GC has been the last couple years. Not to mention the virtual console sales for the Wii's successor. NES and SNES games are still chalking up "new" sales, while XBox games aren't even available any more except on the used market.
And that's the difference between the 'flavor of the month' games vs. the true classics.
Of course no one can tell for certain yet that Galaxies will be another classic, but given the track record of the past Mario games, it's a pretty safe bet.
Please, RTFA people. It's not about MMOs. The article talks about how it's going to affect FPSs. MMOs are already a lot more forgiving with lag; the 150-500MS lag that this new stuff is supposed to help with is not generally that big a deal in an MMO. For some anecdotal evidence, my latency in WoW is usually about 100-200MS higher than any online FPS, and still perfectly playable.
Nevertheless, the numbers he quoted sound a lot more accurate than the ones posted by GP. IIRC, Xbox360 had sold some 8 million units by the end of last year already. Frankly I'm surprised to see Wikipedia so inaccurate.
Just an FYI.. the Wii package does in fact come with a Nunchuck controller. The only reason you'd need to buy anything extra is if you need a second controller or want the Classic controller for virtual console games.
That looks like a really nice VR you're living in. Now all you need to do is find some way to make the GSOD show up later rather than sooner. Best of luck.
Of course. He's a SAFE driver, rather than an ordinary guy. How foolish of us not to realize that.
Sorry, your attempt at making a point with sarcasm fails miserably. He's a trained race car driver. Of course he's a much safer driver at high speeds than the average ordinary guy. Like anything else, the more practice and experience you have, the better you are.
Since the amount of mayhem caused in the case of an accident, the braking distance, and the reaction distance all go up as the speed of the car goes up, and the former two squared at that, I'd say that you are very wrong. Driving faster is more dangerous than driving slower, both to yourself and to everyone else on the road.
I guess that all depends on how you define "dangerous". But by the definition you're taking, airplanes should be outlawed for being much too dangerous.
No, anymore than it goes with the territory of owning a house that someone might decide to bar the doors and set it on fire because they happen to like watching the flames while you're sleeping on your bed.
Terrible analogies FTL? Fatal traffic collisions happen every day, all across the US. Psychopaths trapping and burning you in your own house are a lot more rare. And not only that, the former happens as the result of "good, safe, well-meaning" drivers who accidentally do the wrong thing. If you spend a typical amount of time on the road for a typical portion of your adult life, the odds of you never being personally involved in a traffic collision are almost zero. On the other end of the spectrum, you being intentionally trapped and burned in your own house are also almost zero. So yes, the knowledge of an imminent collision every time you find yourself in a moving automobile is a risk that goes with the territory.
Driving isn't a game. Driving is using a public utility - roads - to get from point A to point B. Drivers who can't get it through their heads that endangering others isn't okay should had their licenses and cars taken away.
So who decides what entails "endangering others" on the road? One thing is sure, it's a pretty safe bet that driving over 50MPH anytime anywhere - no matter how good a driver you are - can be considered at least some small endangerment of others. You can be driving 50MPH down a highway with a 55MPH speed limit in a car that just passed your state's rigorous safety inspection and still have a tire blowout or some mechanical failure that causes you to lose control and collide with oncoming traffic.
So please, spare us the "righteous indignation" speech. It doesn't fit you.
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I agree, except for the comment about Oblivion. I played that game at 3-15 FPS on my old system, and it was still fun dammit!
But yeah, it's a lot more fun on my new system.
Not really.
There's basically two kinds of people who buy $400 graphics cards. People who have so much money it's chump change, and people for whom PC gaming is their big hobby. For either of those groups, it's really not that much money. Think about it. The best gaming rig in the world still won't top $10K (and that's going REALLY off-the-wall extreme) which is peanuts compared to some hobbies. And you can build a really good gaming rig that has pretty much all of the best-of-the-best including a $400 graphics card for $2,500 which is on the low end of what most people spend on their hobby in a year these days.
And then there's the rest of us who like PC gaming for various reasons - some perhaps because it's "more extreme" than console gaming, but mostly just because we want to play games not available on consoles or because we vastly prefer the control systems available for PC. We're the ones who wait to buy a new graphics card until it's like the third generation back and selling for $75, but still quite capable of playing all the latest and greatest PC games (albeit in some cases not quite at maximum settings, which by the way still look nicer than console games). We're the group who build our gaming rig for a tidy $500 (or less), which is right around the price of some consoles these days. And our PCs not only play many games consoles cannot, they also do nifty things like open web browsers and word processors in 1 or 2 seconds instead of 20 and such.
Actually, the 8800 cards are just for playing games. Really. video/graphics/animation pros get something like this or a FireGL.
Actually they're not the same. The ESRB is a lot more consistent and conservative than the movie rating system.
Which just makes your second paragraph there a lot more applicable.
Not only that, the supposed "quote" in the summary isn't in the MacWorld article at all. Unless it got removed for being stupid, it's a complete fabrication by whoever wrote the stupid summary.
The GP used "hardcore gamers" a bit incorrectly (I think he meant something more like a hardcore geek) but his point is valid. Most video games purchases are not by people who know a lot about PCs and download things like Steam. Most are by teens/college kids who like to hang out with their friends (often this includes trips to the local shopping mall) and parents who's kids pester them until they give in. Now, if Valve wanted to throw a lot of money into the works and have Steam installed on all the home PCs sold by say Dell and HP with an icon plastered on the desktop, then they might be as profitable as a b&m store.
So I'll take your 1 anecdote and raise you a few dozen. By far the majority of the "made for Vista" machines I've had to work on, and help set up new for customers had issues with slow performance, as well as all the other complaints made in TFA. The guy that wrote this article should consider working for the Onion. It's hilarious that he can't seem to figure out how to shut down the computer. I mean, it's the first freaking button next to the search box, and it doesn't even ask for confirmation anymore. I leave the thing on all the time so I'm not big on the shutdown shortcuts, but whatever. Are you that stupid? Really? Seriously? He didn't say he couldn't figure out how to shut it down. He gave it as one small example of all the annoying little changes they made in Vista simply for the sake of change, rendering a lot of the old quick and familiar shortcuts we use in XP useless in Vista. And the majority of these changes don't improve anything in any way. Perhaps you need to take some logic and reading comprehension courses?
Not only is your comment not "informative", it's pretty much the polar opposite. But I guess some people thrive on spreading misinformation.
1)Windows is the only OS with a fuck-ton of viruses and malware out there masquerading as good software packages.
2)Again, Windows is the only OS that has a serious need for a firewall.
3)Password? Are you serious? What password, and for what? Unless you keep your PC in a public place where any shmuck can walk up and use it, an OS password won't make much difference at all. Especially not on Windows.
4)Yeah, security updates help. Except again, they're a lot more crucial on Windows than any other OS. And a lot more plentiful too.
5)Right. You mentioned IE why? I'll admit, it's probably the biggest gaping security Windows has, but everyone on this site already knew that.
So you make five random "points" for your straw-man argument, and assume that coupled with your anecdotes proves Windows is not more problematic than other OSes.
Well, I've had my awesome little made-in-China wrench set for a whole 6 months without breaking them and I know at least 50 other people who have too, so they must be as good as a nice set of Snap-On wrenches!
I didn't say there's anything wrong with having multiple versions of Ubuntu. I said it's the type of thing that's part of the problem keeping Linux from ever being truly mainstream. Sure, there's multiple versions of Vista. Except really not. They're all the exact same OS, the only difference is some of the "versions" have various features disabled. The same disk is used to install all of them. And you don't even need to install anything extra to go from Home Basic to Ultimate. All you need to do is enter the right key.
.exe's that work on ALL current distributions and variations of Linux, with a simple double-click to install and no extra tweaks needed, it's just not going to happen.
But then you have Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and I don't know what else. They don't even share the same GUI. Sure, to someone familiar with Linux in general and Ubuntu specifically that's such a non-issue it doesn't matter. But when you're a software developer trying to maximize your potential marketshare for your effort, it matters. So you want your package to integrate with the GUI. Do you make it for Gnome, or KDE, or perhaps even a different popular GUI? And who's package manager should you develop for? And so on. To you, Mr. Every-Day-Linux-User these differences are so easy to work around it's nothing. But like I said earlier, developers who are not so familiar with Linux don't even want to worry about perceived differences. Because they see lots of time involved in not only coding, but also testing. Sure, you can leave it up to the various distributors to do the final packaging, etc. to make it work with their own GUI and package manager, but then that means the software publisher is leaving his potential marketshare decisions to someone else. To make sure his software is available to all those distributions and variations, he has to do all the work himself. So in the repackaging and retesting process they see hours of extra labor for each slight variation, often times for what would amount to a few hundred more sales at best, if that.
So until it's so easy that a software developer can make the equivalent of one or two different
If it wasn't for the fact that this is really the only hope of ever breaking MS's stranglehold on the desktop market, I wouldn't be bothered at all. But since I still find myself forced to use Windows for my PC games because no one wants to tweak their game for umpteen variations of Linux, (not to mention the lack of display drivers, which can also be attributed to this) I find myself very frustrated.
The only way I ever see this happening is with some kind of Ubuntu project funded by a true big-leagues company such as Google. So until we've got a one-size-fits-all Goobuntu, it's a pipe-dream.
Bogus? No, it's not. You're wrong. This whole thread is about how much money the MPAA is losing, and the fact that their actual losses are not nearly as high as the losses they claim. This particular thread has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of copyright infringement.
Therefore the post you responded to and claimed as "bogus" is spot on. Where the MPAA would claim at probably several hundred dollars of loss (but certainly at least $20) the actual loss would have been less than $3.
Perhaps you should learn to read posts a bit more carefully before you post stupid responses.
Linux is never really going to "take off". That's because the whole Linux/FOSS model is anathema to what it takes for a desktop OS to really take off. What Linux needs to "take off" is a single, easy-to-use viable distro for the public. Which is not going to happen, because Linux and FOSS are all about having lots of choices and having everyone customize it for themselves. Sorry, not going to work. Software developers don't want to worry about working around the differences (whether real or perceived) in umpteen dozen different distributions (and variations of those distributions), most of which have significantly less than .1% of total desktop market-share. Heck even Ubuntu (currently the distro that most nearly meets these requirements) has at least three variations.
My favorite idiot line had to be "By the way, ban my IP for all I care. There's plenty of computers at the library I can use to open new accounts to troll with.".
But the guy who was most certainly not Will Robinson was the funniest.
Wow. Just wow. This kind of bullshit really makes my blood boil. This shows how completely broken copyright is now.
Copyright duration really needs to be chopped down to 10 years, with a total maximum of 15 possible after a 5-year extension. NO copyright at all would be a hundred times better than the crap we have now.
Not in the long run. Halo3 might outsell initially, but then when it's done it's done. Meanwhile Mario Galaxies will still be selling five years from now when the Wii is in the same bargain bin the GC has been the last couple years. Not to mention the virtual console sales for the Wii's successor. NES and SNES games are still chalking up "new" sales, while XBox games aren't even available any more except on the used market.
And that's the difference between the 'flavor of the month' games vs. the true classics.
Of course no one can tell for certain yet that Galaxies will be another classic, but given the track record of the past Mario games, it's a pretty safe bet.
Please, RTFA people. It's not about MMOs. The article talks about how it's going to affect FPSs. MMOs are already a lot more forgiving with lag; the 150-500MS lag that this new stuff is supposed to help with is not generally that big a deal in an MMO. For some anecdotal evidence, my latency in WoW is usually about 100-200MS higher than any online FPS, and still perfectly playable.
Excellent post, should be modded up.
Ah. His numbers were for US sales only (which he failed to mention). No wonder they seemed too low. Incomplete data FTL.
Nevertheless, the numbers he quoted sound a lot more accurate than the ones posted by GP. IIRC, Xbox360 had sold some 8 million units by the end of last year already. Frankly I'm surprised to see Wikipedia so inaccurate.
the ps2 is outselling the ps3 at almost 2:1? Wouldn't this be like the gamecube outselling the wii or the xbox outselling the xbox360?
Yeah.
And nobody thinks that's slightly odd for Sony?
Not really. Everyone's used to it by now. Been that way since about the second month after launch.
Just an FYI.. the Wii package does in fact come with a Nunchuck controller. The only reason you'd need to buy anything extra is if you need a second controller or want the Classic controller for virtual console games.
That looks like a really nice VR you're living in. Now all you need to do is find some way to make the GSOD show up later rather than sooner. Best of luck.
Of course. He's a SAFE driver, rather than an ordinary guy. How foolish of us not to realize that.
Sorry, your attempt at making a point with sarcasm fails miserably. He's a trained race car driver. Of course he's a much safer driver at high speeds than the average ordinary guy. Like anything else, the more practice and experience you have, the better you are.
Since the amount of mayhem caused in the case of an accident, the braking distance, and the reaction distance all go up as the speed of the car goes up, and the former two squared at that, I'd say that you are very wrong. Driving faster is more dangerous than driving slower, both to yourself and to everyone else on the road.
I guess that all depends on how you define "dangerous". But by the definition you're taking, airplanes should be outlawed for being much too dangerous.
No, anymore than it goes with the territory of owning a house that someone might decide to bar the doors and set it on fire because they happen to like watching the flames while you're sleeping on your bed.
Terrible analogies FTL? Fatal traffic collisions happen every day, all across the US. Psychopaths trapping and burning you in your own house are a lot more rare. And not only that, the former happens as the result of "good, safe, well-meaning" drivers who accidentally do the wrong thing. If you spend a typical amount of time on the road for a typical portion of your adult life, the odds of you never being personally involved in a traffic collision are almost zero. On the other end of the spectrum, you being intentionally trapped and burned in your own house are also almost zero. So yes, the knowledge of an imminent collision every time you find yourself in a moving automobile is a risk that goes with the territory.
Driving isn't a game. Driving is using a public utility - roads - to get from point A to point B. Drivers who can't get it through their heads that endangering others isn't okay should had their licenses and cars taken away.
So who decides what entails "endangering others" on the road? One thing is sure, it's a pretty safe bet that driving over 50MPH anytime anywhere - no matter how good a driver you are - can be considered at least some small endangerment of others. You can be driving 50MPH down a highway with a 55MPH speed limit in a car that just passed your state's rigorous safety inspection and still have a tire blowout or some mechanical failure that causes you to lose control and collide with oncoming traffic.
So please, spare us the "righteous indignation" speech. It doesn't fit you.