I'm fairly certain Ultima IX did this 4 or 5 years ago. I remember reading that Origin had a new sound system put in, that THX can and inspected it and everything (I think it even had the THX logo on the box). Which make senses, given that that article says that EA had to do much the same thing.
So if I'm right EA is NOT the first to get the THX certification...and this isn't a new idea.
I think then, that it should be clarified what we mean by bad taste. Making a game based in Vietnam, shooting at VietCong soldiars (or as VietCong, shooting at Americans & French) should, in theory be fine and unobjectionable. Despite all the controversy about the Vietnam war, the fact remains that by far the majority of any action seen in the conflict was of a 'clean' kind, i.e. straight-up soldiar vs. soldiar warfare. Why should a game that simulates this be more offensive than a game that does the same for WWII? Or even a movie that highlights the minority of heinous war crimes from the Vietnam war?
That said, I think we can all agree that if a Vietnam game had a segment where the player wandered into a VietCong village and was induced to shoot civillians and children that this would certainly be in bad taste. But no more so, say, than a WWII game that brought you into a concentration camp and told/encouraged you to start shooting jews.
They'll spin you every which yarn they can think of to convince you otherwise. But in the end, it simply boils down to one of the oldest tricks in the book: divide and conquer.
From what I remember of economics theory, it has to do with something called market specialization. In other word, divide up the market and charge each piece whatever it can bear.
Take Asia and, say, the UK or example. Try to sell the same game for the same price in both regions and you will see substandard income in one of them; either the price will be to high in Asia (less affluent generally, more piracy) or too low in the UK (ie. they would be will to pay a lot more). So by region locking they can charge $X in Asian and 3 * $X in the UK. If they didn't have region locking everyone in the UK would simply import the games from Asia because the costs of importing/modding are less than the price difference. This is analagous to chargind different rates at the movies depending on your age.
This is the same for DVDs. Why do you think they could get away with charging 80 pounds for GoldenEye in the UK when it was sold in the NA for $30?
I've noticed that a lot of the discussion on DirectFB is like all other X 'replacements' -- half the people talk about how great it will be because it will jettison the useless bloat in what they call outdated technology, while the other half rail about the loss of the network-transparency that they can't live without.
Well, this may seem naive, but maybe both sides are right? I mean, sure, network-transparency is wonderful but how many people are really using it? 1 in 20? Maybe? At the same time though, that one person is probably using it for somthing uber-useful, like eliminating 200 desktops in lieu of dummy terminals:)
So here's the stupid question: why didn't (or hasn't) someone build a graphical syb-system that's modular? Why can't you have a well-written, clean API (I've heard horror stories from people who've had to write code directly to X) that lets you plugin in modules like 'network-transparency' or 'anti-alisased fonts', or even everyone's favourite 'alpha-blended windows'?
I'm not saying this would be trivial, but surely it'd be worth the time and effort so that the 95% of users who don't want it can simply turn off network-transparency, and the 5% who do can plug it in without a lot of hassle.
He's the guy who invented a lot of that stuff like the Pocket Fisherman(tm). If you haven't heard of him or his stuff (crap?) you obviously haven't watched enough late night TV infomercials:)
In some ways, backwards compatibility hurt the PS2. I remember reading in its first year that Sony was having trouble convincing developers to make PS2 games instead of PSX games. And the developers had good reasons:
proven development tools for the PSX
PSX had a huuuuuge market share compared to the PS2, even after several months
writing a game for the PSX meant the PS2 market was open to the game, but not vice versa
Now, obviously the first reason applies to any new console, but given the general crappiness of the PS2's development tools (by every account I ever read they were shoddy as hell -- hopefully Sony paid attention and will do better on that score with the PS3) developers were leary of committing time to learning the new tools and learning the ins and outs of the new hardware given that with no new effort they could make a PSX game that'd work on 25 million units.
What you ended up with was a whole whack-load of developers who teetered on the fence for the first year of the PS2 trying to figure out when the best time was to jump on the bandwagon. Without the the backwards compatibility, certainly some of those developers would have jumped to the PS2 earlier. Okay, so Sony wasn't exactly hurting for games, but you have to wonder what some of those games from the end of the PSX era might have looked like a on a console that was truly capable of 3D rendering!:)
1. Now all of a sudden a lot of really good games that may have been produced and released on different platforms are only going to be for the X-Box. I was hoping to see the PS2 doing a sequel to Perfect Dark or Conker's but I guess that won't happen.
Not sure why you thought a PS2 sequel would ever be in the offing from a company where 49% was owned by the Big N, but hey, hope blooms eternal:) And at any rate, the Rare-Nintendo relationship was going strong for a long time -- after all, if not for Nintendo lending Rare the DK license, who knows where Rare'd be? Sure there was Golden Eye...but that was a long time after DK Country 1,2,3!
2. This is EXACTLY what Microsoft needs for the floundering X-Box. So far the machine has had only a handful of decent games that are exclusive to the machine, and a whole lot being developed for all platforms. If I own a PS2, why should I bother getting an X-Box for a game that is available on my machine? The more imaginative developers jump on to the X-Box bandwagon (or in this case are lassoed and pulled onto the bandwagon) the better it is for the platform.
Unfortunately you're not going to get much on the 'imaginative developers' from Rare-as-it-is-now:( I forget which game it was (either Perfect Dark or Goldeneye) but most of the developers left a year or so ago to form a new company. I think I read they were working on a new GC game, something with monkeys (could be WAY off on that though).
And with the Rare founding brothers leaving...what's left for MS? Sure, Perfect Dark, JFG & Conkers...but none of them sold exceptionally well (to Rare & Nintendo's lament). Good, but not great; certainly nothing in Golden Eye country. And since the Rare coders will have to learn X-Box coding (a far cry from having input into the GC's hardware design!), it'll be a while before something good appears from Rare, for X-Box. Unless MS rushes them...and that would kill the only real thing MS got out of this deal: the Rare name and reputation (which some would argue is getting a little worn).
I'll admit I don't think much of the X-Box, but I have enough warm feelings about Rare to wish them well...I'm just optimistic about where they're headed now:(
...I think. I seem to recall something from a sociology class discussing the French transition after inventing the Metric system. I believe there was also a metric time -- certainly there was a metric calendar system -- but it failed miserably
The reasoning was -- I think -- (this is why I learned it in sociology) that people were prepared to switch how they measured most things, but not time/dates because the latter at least is grounded in religous dogma (ie. Thursday was Thor's Day or whatever, etc.). I was never quite sure if I bought it, but the points remains that although it might be funny to think "Ha ha! Divide up the day into ten metric-style pieces! Fun-ny!", it's been tried. I guess it's still sorta funny:)
Lastly, for those saying it's too hard/expensive/whatever, remember that Canada used to be Imperial. It was well before my time, but my parents told me it was a pain in the ass for a couple of years, but it worked out. Now, we don't have your gi-normous road infrastructure (though we're not exactly road-poor) but surely it can't be that bad. 'Sides, spending money on something like this may hurt, but it's a primo opportunity for some politician to get elected for "creating jobs for thousands of out of work Americans":)
I'm not contradicting you, because I know you're just cut 'n pasting, but a couple of quick 'fixes' for some of the so-called 'bugs':
Where did Spider-man get his new costume from - surely he wasn't capable of making it himself?
Why not? He did in the comics!:)
During the movie, Peter aquires a "spider sense" that warns him of danger even if he dosen't see it himself. In the apartment fire scene the Green Goblin disguises himself as a woman with a blanket to surprise Spider-man, every one in the cinema can easily see it is the Goblin thanks to the shape of the blanket over the awkward pointy mask, Spider-man even reaches out for the "woman" and nearly taps her in the shoulder yet the spider sense never goes off.
The answer -- though not obvious to the casual movie-goer -- would be that of course Spidey's spider-sense was going off like mad. He was standing in the middle of a burning building! The Goblin got the drop on him because there there was danger all around him; the Goblin just 'blended in' . I have no doubt that would be the official 'No-Prize' answer if you spotted this in the comics.
Why didnt Green Goblin just take off Spiderman's mask when he knocked him out with sleeping gas? Wasn't he interested in knowing who Spiderman really was?
This isn't a bug so much as a plot hole...though even then, it's not like the writer didn't think of this too. Probably he just reasoned "They do this kind of thing in the comics so...". Maybe the Goblin truly wanted him as an ally and though he'd have a better chance if he respected his privacy? *shrug* Doesn't matter in the end. Though the image of the two of them shooting the shit made me and my brother laugh (both of us are longtime Spidey collectors). I dunno, it seemed somehow okay to us, if humerous. Your mileage may vary:)
We all know that Peter Parker wears his Spidey suit under his clothes in case of an emergency, that way he can make a quick change. But what about the boots to his Spidey suit? He can't wear them under his shoes because they are too thick and isn't seen holding a big enough bag. So where does he keep them?
Is this really a big deal? The same question applies to the comics. He must keep the somewhere. The same goes for his mask. Maybe he specially tailors his clothes with hidden pockets. This is hardly a movie bug, if anything it's a longtime comic book problem -- one that plagues almost every superhero who wears a mask:)
If Peter had to sign consent forms for the wrestling match, wouldn't the promoter know his real identity and tell everyone who Spidey was once Spider-Man was in the news? He had seen Peter's face and would DEFINITELY remember the creep who let the robber get away.
Perhaps the most valid plothole. Although in the comics, Peter never showed them his face, one sort of wonders how he received the money from his agent (in the comics he had a short-lived entertainment career before he turned crime-fighter) -- so certainly his agent had some idea? In the movie, the promoter saw his face, but never got a name. There might have been a signed consent form, but from the size of the line waiting to fight Bonesaw you might have some trouble figuring how which was his signature. Then you'd have decipher it, assuming it wasn't illegible:) Still, one could certainly think that unless that promoter was stupid (which he might be) that he'd figured it out.
The spider bite gives Peter heightened perception as demontrated in the hallway of the school (after the lunch tray incident). As the bully is about to punch Peter from behind, Peter 'sees' a paper airplane being thrown, a fly and a spitwad all in the split second before he moves to avoid the punch. Later in the final battle between The Goblin and Spiderman, Peter doesn't notice the glider come up behind him until the last moment when he sees Goblin is up to something.
I disagree. Just as this scene happened in the comics, there was no threat until the moment the glider came at Peter. He didn't avoid it because he knew the Goblin was up to something, he jumped because when the glider tried to kill him his spider-sense warned him. A floating glider doing nothing is not a threat. Otherwise idling cars would set off his spider-sense:)
Anyways, don't know if anyone cares, but ther'es my 0.02 -- still think it was a great film because it was a good, entertaining flick that didn't insult the comic fan in me, or even make me cringe once.
Yeah, I played SoA -- that was a sweet ass RPG, much better IMHO than anything Square's done for a while (sniff). My brother says there are a lot of rumours floating about that say SoA2 is GameCube bound...but I'm not getting my hopes up until I see the press release:)
Thank you. I was so irritated by their inclusion the list that I wrote them and bitched.
I mean, granted, they're late. They wanted it out in 2001. But for God's sake, that idiot at Wired had it on the list for 2000 and that makes no sense whatsoever. Either he had a spot to fill or he's got some sort of anti-Blizzard stick up his ass.
I guess the defination of vapour is "something that doesn't come out when promised" but I think a little refinement is needed. More like "something that is hyped for a while and then you never hear about it again for whatever reason". TF2 and iSmell fall into that category but Blizzard's been faithfully feeding us screenies, unit descriptions (almost daily!) and fan chats. Contrast that with TF2's last news update of January 23rd, 2001. Kind of a disparity there huh?:)
Both sides were pretty snooty to one another. Square actually 'started it' by kicking up a fuss when the N64 was in development. They said they would refuse to make games for a cartridge-based system. Now, granted, there are a whole host of reasons to go with CDs over cartridges but a couple of the counters were (i) slow-ass load times with the CD-ROMs they put in the consoles back then and -- far more importantly -- (ii) the head of Nintendo was deadset on cartridges (interestingly, the heir apparent was hardcore for CDs...but he wasn't in charge, don't know if he is now or not).
So of course Nintendo fired back some inappropriate remarks. Not that this was intelligent, but as I read it Square was sounding awfully arrogant. I remember reading it and thinking that Square was essentially saying that without them Nintendo was screwed. Nintendo wasn't going to cave-in to a 3rd party developer (they relations with 3rd parties back then was much more 'feudal lord' than it is today, much to do with the Square debacle I think), but it's a shame they couldn't have just let the remarks slide. Hell, who knows? If they hadn't snipped back maybe Square would have made games anyways for the N64. I guess we'll never know.
As for Square's recent apology, there are a couple of things there that should be said. Like a lot of FF fans I was quite happy when they issued the apology, thinking there might be games headed the 'Cube-way because my brother is a hardcore Nintendite so choice of console was never in doubt. But then he cynically pointed to the Game Boy as the chief reason for the apology.
Thank to someone's genius idea, the Game Boy Color is almost 100% compatible with NES games. As such, you can pretty much just take an old NES and dump it to a GBC cartridge, tweak for a week and have a 1 million seller on yours hands (for Square at least:). I'm not sure about the GBA, but I've heard it's more advanced than the SNES, so it might be easy(ish) to port SNES games to GBA (witness Mario Kart Advance, which looks identical to the original SNES version). Since some of the most popular (and actually their best IMHO) games were FF1-3 (1,4 & 6 in Japan) it would be an easy way to net some serious cash.
One problem: Nintendo knows that while the glamorous battle is in the desktop console, the real money maker is the Game Boy. That goddamn thing makes them more money than almost all the systems of their competitors put together (I mean, geez!) And they have used this from time to time to force developers to support their desktop console. Square is the perfect example.
From what I read, it seems that originally Square made private overtures of peace and was looking to get into Game Boy games again (after all, their FFL series were great too!). Nintendo simply said "If you don't make games for the Gamecube, you can forget about making games for the Game Boy". I think Square might have swallowed their pride and done this (as the more public apology seemed to indicate) except that Sony went and bought a 25% share of the company. I find it hard to believe that they would invest a sizeable stake like that if they didn't mean to use it to keep Square from wandering x-platform (and no, I doubt they consider the X-Box a threat so they won't worry about that, though I'm personally still doubtful we'll see X-Box Square software).
So to sum up: Square got cocky, Nintendo got rude, none of us got Square RPGs without a PSX. Square started thinking about GB games, got contrite and Nintendo game them a condition (maybe not the most gracious thing to do, but they'd proven they didn't really need Square, at least to make a successful console -- God knows we need Square if we want a real Nintendo console RPG!). Then Sony bought a chunk of them so although it's not for sure, most people seem to think any chance of GBC, GBA or GC games out of Square are slim to none:(
Here's hoping that last bit is wrong but FF8 was so awful that I'm not exactly wringing my hands over not owning a PS2 (well, FF9 restored some faith but I remain skeptical of FFX becuase it's the same team from FF8). Hope this was helpful:)
Metroid didn't make the N64 because of one simple reason: the Japanese don't like it. Apparently Nintendo of America (NOA) practically begged Nintendo of Japan (NOA) for almost the entire life of the N64 to let them develop one in house (or at least pass it on to a Nintendo-partially-owned company) if NOJ wasn't interested. This is becuase sales in Japan were mediocre, while sales in North America were very high. The thing to remember about Sony & NOJ is that while both like making money, there's this wierd pride thing about Japan they have going on. Sometimes it's like both would take a bath in North America on a game, just so long as they get incredible, boast-worth numbers in Japan. It's a damned shame really...
At any rate, NOA eventually convinced NOJ, and Metroid 64 was in the works (via Retro Studios), but it came to late in the life cycle of the N64. So they simply shifted it to the Gamecube. So we should be getting a new Metroid sometime next year for GC.
As for Icarus...well, that's anyone's guess. That's a character who gets brought up everytime Nintendo or one of it's partually owned companies talks 'secret project'...but it's never been borne out. Too bad...Kid Icarus was a damned fun game back in the day.
BTW, I've been playing my brother's GC a little bit (little bastard took it back to university with him this morning) and I was pretty impressed. What I don't understand though is why no one's talking about Rogue Squadron on this board; it's all Luigi or Wave Race (both impressive). RS kicks major ass, and I had trouble putting it down:)
I disagree with Katz - which I'm sure most will not find surprising - on the movie. Is the original? No. Nothing could match that. Of course, if the original were released now, I have little doubt that it would garnered only a fraction of the praise it did in the 60's (ignoring for the moment the special effects). The message of the original, in the 60's shook people. I was moved by the ending when I saw it the first time (at the tender age of 12) but I doubt my reaction was a tenth that of my parents when they saw it. But that's because of the time, the historical context.
So if you go into this movie expecting to find something like the original, but for today's audience, you won't find it. But only an idiot would go in expecting that I think. After all, even with all the various plagues affecting mankind today, not one of them inspires the kind of dread/fear/nevousness that the threat of nuclear war did 35 years ago.
I thought one of the strongest points of the movie is that it didn't try to be the original (except for going for the shocking ending, about which I'm somewhat dubious, but not nearly as critical of as Katz). I thought the plot, though not particularly inspired, was better fare than most sci-fi flicks of late.
Maybe I've had my standards lowered by the absolutely awful sci-fi offerings of late, but I came away from the movie pleasantly surprised. Is the film going to win an Oscar? No. Well, maybe Tim Roth will, who was quite execellent IMHO as Thade (he's so simian at times it's unnerving). Is it fun entertainment? Yes. The only better flick that I've seen this year was Memento (admittedly, a much, much better movie but unfortunately it seems to have been panned by 98% of the slop-eating public; if you haven't seen it, SEE IT). And I don't expect to see a better sci-fi flick this year (No, I'm not including LotR, that's fantasy).
So if you're not old enough to have seen the original in theatres, I'd say you're quite safe spending - at the very least - cheap night prices on this flick. I spent the painful full-price of CDN$12.50 on it and walked out satisfied.
One of the central accomplishments of the American Revolution was the crafting a political process that peacefully absorbed different points-of-view. It has worked astonishingly well, longer than almost any previous democratic political system.
I love Americans. Good people. But a wonderfully rose-tinted-glasses view of their own history (it may be Katz saying this, but I find it true of most Americans unfortunately). Personally, I think the Civil War is a great example of not 'peacefully [absorbing] different points-of-view'. Not to say America hasn't done a pretty good job of it, but I think that might tarnish 'astonishingly well' just a little.
There's little information about it available, but back when he was still with Origin he said it was called 'X' because he thought of it as the next step in the Utlima evolution. It was never going to be an Ultima game (though many had high hopes because of cryptic comments like 'Ultima 9 will be the last game to feature the world of Britannia').
What little he did say about it, however, made it sound like a blend of Ultima Online & Ultima IX. He loved the idea of people forming parties with friends (or with strangers and making new friends) and adventuring out into the world (I'm not sure if he preceded Baldur's Gate on this). It sounds like an online game, but it seemed like he wanted people to be able to play it on their own if they really wanted to.
Most interesting, however, was that he had some good ideas about how the world would operate. He seemed to be trying to design a world that 'maintained' itself. ie. didn't require 'dungeon masters' to initiate quests (like the major events in Everquest or Ultima Online).
The example he gave was that there's a dragon in an area of the world. It eats some of the local wildlife. Eventually there is no food. So it wanders into a nearby town and periodically eats a villager. Next time a hero (player) wanders in, the townspeople react by beggin him/her to help kill the dragon.
Nothing particularly unique about this situation, but the important thing to note is that Gariett didn't think there needed to be a specific AI script for this event; if the dragon was programmed correctly, and the town's people givent he proper AI possibilities, this should all occur 'naturally'.
A tall order, sure, but an interesting one. Other than that, I haven't heard a peep out of RG since he left Origin. Hopefully he'll pop back up somewhere soon and give us the skinny on what's he's working on and if it's still 'X' (might not be since I noticed at least some of the information in the bios was several months out of date - like Sid Meier's cancelled 'Dinosaur' project being listed as 'in the early stages of development')
Okay, some of their picks were good. But what about some of those great text adventures, like
Zork? Or some of the orginal MUDs that spawed the MMUDs of today? And I have to ask: how can you ignore Roberta & Ken William's enormous contribution to gaming while pick at least five racing game devlopers?!
Now, granted, I'm hardly a racing game fan. But how much influence can a racing car game have? I mean, give it to whichever of the three of them deserve it, but don't clutter up an oddball list with five people who made 'good racing games'.
Also, there are too many folks on that list who are one-trick ponies. The guy who created Resident Evil? Okay, a decent
game I'm told, but if that all you've ever done maybe they should leave you off the list until you make a little more of a mark? The same goes for Hideo Kojima; Metal Gear Solid was a good game, but it's one game. And all he's really done besides that is the forthcoming sequel. That makes him worthy of godfather-hood? You could almost say the same of Gariett & Wright except they have - over the years - proved their versatility. Gariett may only have really done the Ultima series, but only an idiot would say it was the same old thing each time. Wright's proved himself at long last with The Sims, though it'd be hard to dispute the influence SimCity has had on it's own.
Really, I think this list should have maybe 15 people on it. Too many who don't deserve it (but may in time) and a few obvious ones that are missing!
Regular people were going to be able to install their favorite Linux variant and have a powerful, customizable, infinitely tweakable operating system at their command, complete with a stable of software that could be freely downloaded and compiled.
Er, isn't that what Linux already is? OSX - while a pretty good OS on many points - is only about half of that. It certainly doesn't come with 'a stable of software that [can] be freely download and compiled. For one thing, Mac apps still ain't free. Neither is their source available. And the OS - for all of it's options - clearly isn't 'infinitely tweakble' given that some of perfectly intelligent UI criticisms I read about weren't built into the final product.
I'm still not 100% convinced the "OSless" box is such a fantastic idea in general but I definately could be convinced of the possibilities on set top boxes, etc. After all I suppose that is the general idea of WebTV et al.
As for Microsoft porting Office to Java, etc., one only as to look so far to see why they didn't do that:.NET. Someone above pointed out that in typical Microsoft fashion, they moved swiftly to destroy the Netscape/Java threat, waited a few years and are now trying to accomplish the very thing they destroyed...under a Microsoft banner. All too typical of course. I wonder if anyone at the DOJ was paying attention to that?
And as for Mac IE, I think the PC version is better myself. I used to be indifferent but as a web developer in the last two weeks I've run into a number of monumentally poor rendering/javascript problems (like the fact that the JS Image object will report a width & height of 1 before it's properly loaded when in fact it should stay at zero until it's fully in memory - Grrr!) that make little or no sense. Of course, I don't use Mac IE beyond testing, so if there are other differneces that make it better it's because the Mac IE project and the Windows IE project are almost completely independent (from what I've been told). The two teams basically meet every so often to discuss what common features they should have and then they implement them independently. Which is why Mac IE sucks horribly on some things but whips PC IE on others.
Katz has IMO missed one or two things in his summary. The key to Microsoft's guild is, I think, in the motive.
One could suppose, as Katz put it, that any company that didn't try to tie it's browser to it's "much-hyped OS" would be committinc corporate suicide. Fair enough. The real question is not "Should they be allowed to do it?" but rather "Why did they try to do it?".
The key to that question is not to try and answer the question through hindsight. We have to put ourselves in Bill's shoes when he made the decisions he made. Let's break it down back in 1995 or thereabouts:
The web is exploding; it is slowly (and painfully) becoming clear to Gates et al. that it is not just a passing fad.
There is much talk about Java & Netscape and that the web could be come a "platform-less" world; that combining a browser and Java user would not necessarily need an OS, just a device to plug and go. They can always use apps over the web right?
Bill starts freaking out a little bit; could this mean that Netscape etc. could replace Windows? This could be the end of the Microsoft dynasty since such a phenomenon would mean that all players would start on an equal footing. It's easy to say now that this seems unlikley but you have to remember that to Bill this was a definate threat (see all the emails included in the trial).
Microsoft identifies Netscape as central to the threat; they produce (buy) their own browser Internet Explorer. It's usage numbers are not encouraging.
The solution? Bundle IE with Windows. After all, they reason, if the user already has a perfectly good browser, they won't go download Netscape. So long as the user does not stray from the Microsoft pen, even if the browser replaces the OS, Microsoft is safe. Again, even though this may seem silly now, it's important to remember that it did not seemt his way then!
Microsoft is slapped with an injuction against shipping. The defy it, fight and ultimately beat it. Again, the motive here is to keep Netscape from being used by shipping IE with the OS. This is clearly using market dominance to achieve superiority in another market. I'm not 100% sure, but that sounds like anti-trust violoation. At any rate, Microsoft more or less comes away clean from this.
To avoid this mess but maintain their strategy, Microsoft decides to tie the browser to the OS. There are seveal points here that should be noted:
Microsoft is not doing this because they want to benefit the consumer; it's clear from emails in the trial that is, if even considered, merely a side effect. They do it to 'choke' Netscape.
The 'integration' is hardly true; it's mostly made up taking the exisiting IE functionality and 'sprinkling' it amongst other OS system DLLs. There is no good technical reason to do this. It's done simply so that Microsoft can say "See? The browser is integrated!" There was expert testimony on this specifically at the trial.
The DOJ's tech consultants managed to remove IE from the OS without harmful effect. How integrated could it be? Well, okay, that's up for debate but it's hardly a point in Microsoft's favour.
Which brings us more or less to today. It's easy to look back and say "Well, Microsoft should be allowed to integrate the OS and the browser, it's an obvious step." Sure it is. Of course, Microsoft probably stumbled onto it by accident, and it's ludicrous to decide that they should never be allowed to do this natural step just because they did it orginally for malicious purposes.
But that's the point! They did it for malicious purposes! They tried to use their existing monopoly to destroy a competitor. That's an anti-trust violation. It all comes down to motive. It's like an old legal riddle. If a man tries to fire a gun at you but doesn't know it's filled with blanks, what is he guilty of? He's still guilty of Attempted Murder even if he couldn't have suceeded becuase in his mind he was trying to do the deed. Simillarly for Microsoft; there may have been no actual threat (not really) but they sure tried to quash it and they should pay the price for their abusive actions.
There are, of course, other issues in the trial. The OEM licensing thing is IMO a damned good illustration of abuse of monopoly in and of itself and was part of the trial but doesn't get the coverage to the same degree that Netscape or Sun does. And at the end of the day, the truth is the trial demonstrated that Microsoft makes use of all its applications and software to defend it's OS monopoly. Although breaking them is hardly an ideal solution (even IMO), it would at least divest their OS division of an arsenal that it's been using to stave off the slightest bit of compitition. Which creates new products and ideas (I will not use the dreaded I-word if I can help it!) which is good for consumers. And if you don't take that into account when deciding if Microsoft's monopoly is good for consumers, you're just not seeing the whole picture.
Talking about the "American Way" is like comparing somone to being a Nazi: it more or less ends the discussion:) Can't justify your opinion? Just say it's contrary to the mythical American Way, which has been used to justify just about anything you back up with facts
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It's mentioned in the second last paragraph at the bottom.I did a little googling and found an article [www.computergames.ro] that backs up my admittedly hazy memory.
Whoops, true enough. I suppose what I mean is not that EA isn't first, but rather those games the article listed aren't the first ones. My bad :)
I'm fairly certain Ultima IX did this 4 or 5 years ago. I remember reading that Origin had a new sound system put in, that THX can and inspected it and everything (I think it even had the THX logo on the box). Which make senses, given that that article says that EA had to do much the same thing.
So if I'm right EA is NOT the first to get the THX certification...and this isn't a new idea.
I think then, that it should be clarified what we mean by bad taste. Making a game based in Vietnam, shooting at VietCong soldiars (or as VietCong, shooting at Americans & French) should, in theory be fine and unobjectionable. Despite all the controversy about the Vietnam war, the fact remains that by far the majority of any action seen in the conflict was of a 'clean' kind, i.e. straight-up soldiar vs. soldiar warfare. Why should a game that simulates this be more offensive than a game that does the same for WWII? Or even a movie that highlights the minority of heinous war crimes from the Vietnam war?
That said, I think we can all agree that if a Vietnam game had a segment where the player wandered into a VietCong village and was induced to shoot civillians and children that this would certainly be in bad taste. But no more so, say, than a WWII game that brought you into a concentration camp and told/encouraged you to start shooting jews.
They'll spin you every which yarn they can think of to convince you otherwise. But in the end, it simply boils down to one of the oldest tricks in the book: divide and conquer.
From what I remember of economics theory, it has to do with something called market specialization. In other word, divide up the market and charge each piece whatever it can bear.
Take Asia and, say, the UK or example. Try to sell the same game for the same price in both regions and you will see substandard income in one of them; either the price will be to high in Asia (less affluent generally, more piracy) or too low in the UK (ie. they would be will to pay a lot more). So by region locking they can charge $X in Asian and 3 * $X in the UK. If they didn't have region locking everyone in the UK would simply import the games from Asia because the costs of importing/modding are less than the price difference. This is analagous to chargind different rates at the movies depending on your age.
This is the same for DVDs. Why do you think they could get away with charging 80 pounds for GoldenEye in the UK when it was sold in the NA for $30?
I've noticed that a lot of the discussion on DirectFB is like all other X 'replacements' -- half the people talk about how great it will be because it will jettison the useless bloat in what they call outdated technology, while the other half rail about the loss of the network-transparency that they can't live without.
Well, this may seem naive, but maybe both sides are right? I mean, sure, network-transparency is wonderful but how many people are really using it? 1 in 20? Maybe? At the same time though, that one person is probably using it for somthing uber-useful, like eliminating 200 desktops in lieu of dummy terminals :)
So here's the stupid question: why didn't (or hasn't) someone build a graphical syb-system that's modular? Why can't you have a well-written, clean API (I've heard horror stories from people who've had to write code directly to X) that lets you plugin in modules like 'network-transparency' or 'anti-alisased fonts', or even everyone's favourite 'alpha-blended windows'?
I'm not saying this would be trivial, but surely it'd be worth the time and effort so that the 95% of users who don't want it can simply turn off network-transparency, and the 5% who do can plug it in without a lot of hassle.
As I said, surely this is naive. So flame away.
He's the guy who invented a lot of that stuff like the Pocket Fisherman(tm). If you haven't heard of him or his stuff (crap?) you obviously haven't watched enough late night TV infomercials :)
Learn a little about him on his website
In some ways, backwards compatibility hurt the PS2. I remember reading in its first year that Sony was having trouble convincing developers to make PS2 games instead of PSX games. And the developers had good reasons:
- proven development tools for the PSX
- PSX had a huuuuuge market share compared to the PS2, even after several months
- writing a game for the PSX meant the PS2 market was open to the game, but not vice versa
Now, obviously the first reason applies to any new console, but given the general crappiness of the PS2's development tools (by every account I ever read they were shoddy as hell -- hopefully Sony paid attention and will do better on that score with the PS3) developers were leary of committing time to learning the new tools and learning the ins and outs of the new hardware given that with no new effort they could make a PSX game that'd work on 25 million units.What you ended up with was a whole whack-load of developers who teetered on the fence for the first year of the PS2 trying to figure out when the best time was to jump on the bandwagon. Without the the backwards compatibility, certainly some of those developers would have jumped to the PS2 earlier. Okay, so Sony wasn't exactly hurting for games, but you have to wonder what some of those games from the end of the PSX era might have looked like a on a console that was truly capable of 3D rendering! :)
1. Now all of a sudden a lot of really good games that may have been produced and released on different platforms are only going to be for the X-Box. I was hoping to see the PS2 doing a sequel to Perfect Dark or Conker's but I guess that won't happen.
Not sure why you thought a PS2 sequel would ever be in the offing from a company where 49% was owned by the Big N, but hey, hope blooms eternal :) And at any rate, the Rare-Nintendo relationship was going strong for a long time -- after all, if not for Nintendo lending Rare the DK license, who knows where Rare'd be? Sure there was Golden Eye...but that was a long time after DK Country 1,2,3!
2. This is EXACTLY what Microsoft needs for the floundering X-Box. So far the machine has had only a handful of decent games that are exclusive to the machine, and a whole lot being developed for all platforms. If I own a PS2, why should I bother getting an X-Box for a game that is available on my machine? The more imaginative developers jump on to the X-Box bandwagon (or in this case are lassoed and pulled onto the bandwagon) the better it is for the platform.
Unfortunately you're not going to get much on the 'imaginative developers' from Rare-as-it-is-now :( I forget which game it was (either Perfect Dark or Goldeneye) but most of the developers left a year or so ago to form a new company. I think I read they were working on a new GC game, something with monkeys (could be WAY off on that though).
And with the Rare founding brothers leaving...what's left for MS? Sure, Perfect Dark, JFG & Conkers...but none of them sold exceptionally well (to Rare & Nintendo's lament). Good, but not great; certainly nothing in Golden Eye country. And since the Rare coders will have to learn X-Box coding (a far cry from having input into the GC's hardware design!), it'll be a while before something good appears from Rare, for X-Box. Unless MS rushes them...and that would kill the only real thing MS got out of this deal: the Rare name and reputation (which some would argue is getting a little worn).
I'll admit I don't think much of the X-Box, but I have enough warm feelings about Rare to wish them well...I'm just optimistic about where they're headed now :(
The reasoning was -- I think -- (this is why I learned it in sociology) that people were prepared to switch how they measured most things, but not time/dates because the latter at least is grounded in religous dogma (ie. Thursday was Thor's Day or whatever, etc.). I was never quite sure if I bought it, but the points remains that although it might be funny to think "Ha ha! Divide up the day into ten metric-style pieces! Fun-ny!", it's been tried. I guess it's still sorta funny :)
Lastly, for those saying it's too hard/expensive/whatever, remember that Canada used to be Imperial. It was well before my time, but my parents told me it was a pain in the ass for a couple of years, but it worked out. Now, we don't have your gi-normous road infrastructure (though we're not exactly road-poor) but surely it can't be that bad. 'Sides, spending money on something like this may hurt, but it's a primo opportunity for some politician to get elected for "creating jobs for thousands of out of work Americans" :)
I'm not contradicting you, because I know you're just cut 'n pasting, but a couple of quick 'fixes' for some of the so-called 'bugs':
Where did Spider-man get his new costume from - surely he wasn't capable of making it himself?
Why not? He did in the comics! :)
During the movie, Peter aquires a "spider sense" that warns him of danger even if he dosen't see it himself. In the apartment fire scene the Green Goblin disguises himself as a woman with a blanket to surprise Spider-man, every one in the cinema can easily see it is the Goblin thanks to the shape of the blanket over the awkward pointy mask, Spider-man even reaches out for the "woman" and nearly taps her in the shoulder yet the spider sense never goes off.
The answer -- though not obvious to the casual movie-goer -- would be that of course Spidey's spider-sense was going off like mad. He was standing in the middle of a burning building! The Goblin got the drop on him because there there was danger all around him; the Goblin just 'blended in' . I have no doubt that would be the official 'No-Prize' answer if you spotted this in the comics.
Why didnt Green Goblin just take off Spiderman's mask when he knocked him out with sleeping gas? Wasn't he interested in knowing who Spiderman really was?
This isn't a bug so much as a plot hole...though even then, it's not like the writer didn't think of this too. Probably he just reasoned "They do this kind of thing in the comics so...". Maybe the Goblin truly wanted him as an ally and though he'd have a better chance if he respected his privacy? *shrug* Doesn't matter in the end. Though the image of the two of them shooting the shit made me and my brother laugh (both of us are longtime Spidey collectors). I dunno, it seemed somehow okay to us, if humerous. Your mileage may vary :)
We all know that Peter Parker wears his Spidey suit under his clothes in case of an emergency, that way he can make a quick change. But what about the boots to his Spidey suit? He can't wear them under his shoes because they are too thick and isn't seen holding a big enough bag. So where does he keep them?
Is this really a big deal? The same question applies to the comics. He must keep the somewhere. The same goes for his mask. Maybe he specially tailors his clothes with hidden pockets. This is hardly a movie bug, if anything it's a longtime comic book problem -- one that plagues almost every superhero who wears a mask :)
If Peter had to sign consent forms for the wrestling match, wouldn't the promoter know his real identity and tell everyone who Spidey was once Spider-Man was in the news? He had seen Peter's face and would DEFINITELY remember the creep who let the robber get away.
Perhaps the most valid plothole. Although in the comics, Peter never showed them his face, one sort of wonders how he received the money from his agent (in the comics he had a short-lived entertainment career before he turned crime-fighter) -- so certainly his agent had some idea? In the movie, the promoter saw his face, but never got a name. There might have been a signed consent form, but from the size of the line waiting to fight Bonesaw you might have some trouble figuring how which was his signature. Then you'd have decipher it, assuming it wasn't illegible :) Still, one could certainly think that unless that promoter was stupid (which he might be) that he'd figured it out.
The spider bite gives Peter heightened perception as demontrated in the hallway of the school (after the lunch tray incident). As the bully is about to punch Peter from behind, Peter 'sees' a paper airplane being thrown, a fly and a spitwad all in the split second before he moves to avoid the punch. Later in the final battle between The Goblin and Spiderman, Peter doesn't notice the glider come up behind him until the last moment when he sees Goblin is up to something.
I disagree. Just as this scene happened in the comics, there was no threat until the moment the glider came at Peter. He didn't avoid it because he knew the Goblin was up to something, he jumped because when the glider tried to kill him his spider-sense warned him. A floating glider doing nothing is not a threat. Otherwise idling cars would set off his spider-sense :)
Anyways, don't know if anyone cares, but ther'es my 0.02 -- still think it was a great film because it was a good, entertaining flick that didn't insult the comic fan in me, or even make me cringe once.
Yeah, I played SoA -- that was a sweet ass RPG, much better IMHO than anything Square's done for a while (sniff). My brother says there are a lot of rumours floating about that say SoA2 is GameCube bound...but I'm not getting my hopes up until I see the press release :)
Thank you. I was so irritated by their inclusion the list that I wrote them and bitched.
I mean, granted, they're late. They wanted it out in 2001. But for God's sake, that idiot at Wired had it on the list for 2000 and that makes no sense whatsoever. Either he had a spot to fill or he's got some sort of anti-Blizzard stick up his ass.
I guess the defination of vapour is "something that doesn't come out when promised" but I think a little refinement is needed. More like "something that is hyped for a while and then you never hear about it again for whatever reason". TF2 and iSmell fall into that category but Blizzard's been faithfully feeding us screenies, unit descriptions (almost daily!) and fan chats. Contrast that with TF2's last news update of January 23rd, 2001. Kind of a disparity there huh? :)
Both sides were pretty snooty to one another. Square actually 'started it' by kicking up a fuss when the N64 was in development. They said they would refuse to make games for a cartridge-based system. Now, granted, there are a whole host of reasons to go with CDs over cartridges but a couple of the counters were (i) slow-ass load times with the CD-ROMs they put in the consoles back then and -- far more importantly -- (ii) the head of Nintendo was deadset on cartridges (interestingly, the heir apparent was hardcore for CDs...but he wasn't in charge, don't know if he is now or not).
So of course Nintendo fired back some inappropriate remarks. Not that this was intelligent, but as I read it Square was sounding awfully arrogant. I remember reading it and thinking that Square was essentially saying that without them Nintendo was screwed. Nintendo wasn't going to cave-in to a 3rd party developer (they relations with 3rd parties back then was much more 'feudal lord' than it is today, much to do with the Square debacle I think), but it's a shame they couldn't have just let the remarks slide. Hell, who knows? If they hadn't snipped back maybe Square would have made games anyways for the N64. I guess we'll never know.
As for Square's recent apology, there are a couple of things there that should be said. Like a lot of FF fans I was quite happy when they issued the apology, thinking there might be games headed the 'Cube-way because my brother is a hardcore Nintendite so choice of console was never in doubt. But then he cynically pointed to the Game Boy as the chief reason for the apology.
Thank to someone's genius idea, the Game Boy Color is almost 100% compatible with NES games. As such, you can pretty much just take an old NES and dump it to a GBC cartridge, tweak for a week and have a 1 million seller on yours hands (for Square at least :). I'm not sure about the GBA, but I've heard it's more advanced than the SNES, so it might be easy(ish) to port SNES games to GBA (witness Mario Kart Advance, which looks identical to the original SNES version). Since some of the most popular (and actually their best IMHO) games were FF1-3 (1,4 & 6 in Japan) it would be an easy way to net some serious cash.
One problem: Nintendo knows that while the glamorous battle is in the desktop console, the real money maker is the Game Boy. That goddamn thing makes them more money than almost all the systems of their competitors put together (I mean, geez!) And they have used this from time to time to force developers to support their desktop console. Square is the perfect example.
From what I read, it seems that originally Square made private overtures of peace and was looking to get into Game Boy games again (after all, their FFL series were great too!). Nintendo simply said "If you don't make games for the Gamecube, you can forget about making games for the Game Boy". I think Square might have swallowed their pride and done this (as the more public apology seemed to indicate) except that Sony went and bought a 25% share of the company. I find it hard to believe that they would invest a sizeable stake like that if they didn't mean to use it to keep Square from wandering x-platform (and no, I doubt they consider the X-Box a threat so they won't worry about that, though I'm personally still doubtful we'll see X-Box Square software).
So to sum up: Square got cocky, Nintendo got rude, none of us got Square RPGs without a PSX. Square started thinking about GB games, got contrite and Nintendo game them a condition (maybe not the most gracious thing to do, but they'd proven they didn't really need Square, at least to make a successful console -- God knows we need Square if we want a real Nintendo console RPG!). Then Sony bought a chunk of them so although it's not for sure, most people seem to think any chance of GBC, GBA or GC games out of Square are slim to none :(
Here's hoping that last bit is wrong but FF8 was so awful that I'm not exactly wringing my hands over not owning a PS2 (well, FF9 restored some faith but I remain skeptical of FFX becuase it's the same team from FF8). Hope this was helpful :)
Metroid didn't make the N64 because of one simple reason: the Japanese don't like it. Apparently Nintendo of America (NOA) practically begged Nintendo of Japan (NOA) for almost the entire life of the N64 to let them develop one in house (or at least pass it on to a Nintendo-partially-owned company) if NOJ wasn't interested. This is becuase sales in Japan were mediocre, while sales in North America were very high. The thing to remember about Sony & NOJ is that while both like making money, there's this wierd pride thing about Japan they have going on. Sometimes it's like both would take a bath in North America on a game, just so long as they get incredible, boast-worth numbers in Japan. It's a damned shame really...
At any rate, NOA eventually convinced NOJ, and Metroid 64 was in the works (via Retro Studios), but it came to late in the life cycle of the N64. So they simply shifted it to the Gamecube. So we should be getting a new Metroid sometime next year for GC.
As for Icarus...well, that's anyone's guess. That's a character who gets brought up everytime Nintendo or one of it's partually owned companies talks 'secret project'...but it's never been borne out. Too bad...Kid Icarus was a damned fun game back in the day.
BTW, I've been playing my brother's GC a little bit (little bastard took it back to university with him this morning) and I was pretty impressed. What I don't understand though is why no one's talking about Rogue Squadron on this board; it's all Luigi or Wave Race (both impressive). RS kicks major ass, and I had trouble putting it down :)
I can only lament that this version was never released
Ah well. Probably out there under a different name ;)
I disagree with Katz - which I'm sure most will not find surprising - on the movie. Is the original? No. Nothing could match that. Of course, if the original were released now, I have little doubt that it would garnered only a fraction of the praise it did in the 60's (ignoring for the moment the special effects). The message of the original, in the 60's shook people. I was moved by the ending when I saw it the first time (at the tender age of 12) but I doubt my reaction was a tenth that of my parents when they saw it. But that's because of the time, the historical context.
So if you go into this movie expecting to find something like the original, but for today's audience, you won't find it. But only an idiot would go in expecting that I think. After all, even with all the various plagues affecting mankind today, not one of them inspires the kind of dread/fear/nevousness that the threat of nuclear war did 35 years ago.
I thought one of the strongest points of the movie is that it didn't try to be the original (except for going for the shocking ending, about which I'm somewhat dubious, but not nearly as critical of as Katz). I thought the plot, though not particularly inspired, was better fare than most sci-fi flicks of late.
Maybe I've had my standards lowered by the absolutely awful sci-fi offerings of late, but I came away from the movie pleasantly surprised. Is the film going to win an Oscar? No. Well, maybe Tim Roth will, who was quite execellent IMHO as Thade (he's so simian at times it's unnerving). Is it fun entertainment? Yes. The only better flick that I've seen this year was Memento (admittedly, a much, much better movie but unfortunately it seems to have been panned by 98% of the slop-eating public; if you haven't seen it, SEE IT). And I don't expect to see a better sci-fi flick this year (No, I'm not including LotR, that's fantasy).
So if you're not old enough to have seen the original in theatres, I'd say you're quite safe spending - at the very least - cheap night prices on this flick. I spent the painful full-price of CDN$12.50 on it and walked out satisfied.
Wood Shavings!
I love Americans. Good people. But a wonderfully rose-tinted-glasses view of their own history (it may be Katz saying this, but I find it true of most Americans unfortunately). Personally, I think the Civil War is a great example of not 'peacefully [absorbing] different points-of-view'. Not to say America hasn't done a pretty good job of it, but I think that might tarnish 'astonishingly well' just a little.
Wood Shavings!
There's little information about it available, but back when he was still with Origin he said it was called 'X' because he thought of it as the next step in the Utlima evolution. It was never going to be an Ultima game (though many had high hopes because of cryptic comments like 'Ultima 9 will be the last game to feature the world of Britannia').
What little he did say about it, however, made it sound like a blend of Ultima Online & Ultima IX. He loved the idea of people forming parties with friends (or with strangers and making new friends) and adventuring out into the world (I'm not sure if he preceded Baldur's Gate on this). It sounds like an online game, but it seemed like he wanted people to be able to play it on their own if they really wanted to.
Most interesting, however, was that he had some good ideas about how the world would operate. He seemed to be trying to design a world that 'maintained' itself. ie. didn't require 'dungeon masters' to initiate quests (like the major events in Everquest or Ultima Online).
The example he gave was that there's a dragon in an area of the world. It eats some of the local wildlife. Eventually there is no food. So it wanders into a nearby town and periodically eats a villager. Next time a hero (player) wanders in, the townspeople react by beggin him/her to help kill the dragon.
Nothing particularly unique about this situation, but the important thing to note is that Gariett didn't think there needed to be a specific AI script for this event; if the dragon was programmed correctly, and the town's people givent he proper AI possibilities, this should all occur 'naturally'.
A tall order, sure, but an interesting one. Other than that, I haven't heard a peep out of RG since he left Origin. Hopefully he'll pop back up somewhere soon and give us the skinny on what's he's working on and if it's still 'X' (might not be since I noticed at least some of the information in the bios was several months out of date - like Sid Meier's cancelled 'Dinosaur' project being listed as 'in the early stages of development')
Wood Shavings!
Okay, some of their picks were good. But what about some of those great text adventures, like Zork? Or some of the orginal MUDs that spawed the MMUDs of today? And I have to ask: how can you ignore Roberta & Ken William's enormous contribution to gaming while pick at least five racing game devlopers?!
Now, granted, I'm hardly a racing game fan. But how much influence can a racing car game have? I mean, give it to whichever of the three of them deserve it, but don't clutter up an oddball list with five people who made 'good racing games'.
Also, there are too many folks on that list who are one-trick ponies. The guy who created Resident Evil? Okay, a decent game I'm told, but if that all you've ever done maybe they should leave you off the list until you make a little more of a mark? The same goes for Hideo Kojima; Metal Gear Solid was a good game, but it's one game. And all he's really done besides that is the forthcoming sequel. That makes him worthy of godfather-hood? You could almost say the same of Gariett & Wright except they have - over the years - proved their versatility. Gariett may only have really done the Ultima series, but only an idiot would say it was the same old thing each time. Wright's proved himself at long last with The Sims, though it'd be hard to dispute the influence SimCity has had on it's own.
Really, I think this list should have maybe 15 people on it. Too many who don't deserve it (but may in time) and a few obvious ones that are missing!
Wood Shavings!
Reynolds writes:
Regular people were going to be able to install their favorite Linux variant and have a powerful, customizable, infinitely tweakable operating system at their command, complete with a stable of software that could be freely downloaded and compiled.
Er, isn't that what Linux already is? OSX - while a pretty good OS on many points - is only about half of that. It certainly doesn't come with 'a stable of software that [can] be freely download and compiled. For one thing, Mac apps still ain't free. Neither is their source available. And the OS - for all of it's options - clearly isn't 'infinitely tweakble' given that some of perfectly intelligent UI criticisms I read about weren't built into the final product.
Wood Shavings!
I'm still not 100% convinced the "OSless" box is such a fantastic idea in general but I definately could be convinced of the possibilities on set top boxes, etc. After all I suppose that is the general idea of WebTV et al.
As for Microsoft porting Office to Java, etc., one only as to look so far to see why they didn't do that: .NET. Someone above pointed out that in typical Microsoft fashion, they moved swiftly to destroy the Netscape/Java threat, waited a few years and are now trying to accomplish the very thing they destroyed...under a Microsoft banner. All too typical of course. I wonder if anyone at the DOJ was paying attention to that?
And as for Mac IE, I think the PC version is better myself. I used to be indifferent but as a web developer in the last two weeks I've run into a number of monumentally poor rendering/javascript problems (like the fact that the JS Image object will report a width & height of 1 before it's properly loaded when in fact it should stay at zero until it's fully in memory - Grrr!) that make little or no sense. Of course, I don't use Mac IE beyond testing, so if there are other differneces that make it better it's because the Mac IE project and the Windows IE project are almost completely independent (from what I've been told). The two teams basically meet every so often to discuss what common features they should have and then they implement them independently. Which is why Mac IE sucks horribly on some things but whips PC IE on others.
Wood Shavings!
Katz has IMO missed one or two things in his summary. The key to Microsoft's guild is, I think, in the motive.
One could suppose, as Katz put it, that any company that didn't try to tie it's browser to it's "much-hyped OS" would be committinc corporate suicide. Fair enough. The real question is not "Should they be allowed to do it?" but rather "Why did they try to do it?".
The key to that question is not to try and answer the question through hindsight. We have to put ourselves in Bill's shoes when he made the decisions he made. Let's break it down back in 1995 or thereabouts:
Which brings us more or less to today. It's easy to look back and say "Well, Microsoft should be allowed to integrate the OS and the browser, it's an obvious step." Sure it is. Of course, Microsoft probably stumbled onto it by accident, and it's ludicrous to decide that they should never be allowed to do this natural step just because they did it orginally for malicious purposes.
But that's the point! They did it for malicious purposes! They tried to use their existing monopoly to destroy a competitor. That's an anti-trust violation. It all comes down to motive. It's like an old legal riddle. If a man tries to fire a gun at you but doesn't know it's filled with blanks, what is he guilty of? He's still guilty of Attempted Murder even if he couldn't have suceeded becuase in his mind he was trying to do the deed. Simillarly for Microsoft; there may have been no actual threat (not really) but they sure tried to quash it and they should pay the price for their abusive actions.
There are, of course, other issues in the trial. The OEM licensing thing is IMO a damned good illustration of abuse of monopoly in and of itself and was part of the trial but doesn't get the coverage to the same degree that Netscape or Sun does. And at the end of the day, the truth is the trial demonstrated that Microsoft makes use of all its applications and software to defend it's OS monopoly. Although breaking them is hardly an ideal solution (even IMO), it would at least divest their OS division of an arsenal that it's been using to stave off the slightest bit of compitition. Which creates new products and ideas (I will not use the dreaded I-word if I can help it!) which is good for consumers. And if you don't take that into account when deciding if Microsoft's monopoly is good for consumers, you're just not seeing the whole picture.
My (long-winded) $0.02
Wood Shavings!
What the the hell; godai at neomueller dot org
Wood Shavings!
Talking about the "American Way" is like comparing somone to being a Nazi: it more or less ends the discussion :) Can't justify your opinion? Just say it's contrary to the mythical American Way, which has been used to justify just about anything you back up with facts
Wood Shavings!