Yeah, see, I don't think YOU read what the poster said. What he's saying is that the way in which it was implemented is nasty. First, there are no ancillary downloads listed (the only way to know if there are addons for XBL games while browsing the Marketplace) and, second, when you go to buy the game it tells you you're buying the full game. In other words, it's not about having to pay more for additional content but rather about the presentation of the game within the structure of the MS online store.
Now perhaps I'll stop replying to people, and the thread can die a natural death - next time I'm irritated by someone, I'll not bother posting, I reckon!
Yeah, that works just fine for me. OR, you could post your anti-US government rants in one of the innumerable discussions on Slashdot about bad US policies.
By your tone, you'd think that Slashdot was a haven for anti-EU propaganda, when in truth this site far more frequently demonstrates a distrust of the US government and distaste for many of its policies (especially in terms of violations of the Bill of Rights).
Again, though, you're right. You should definitely just shed a tear, turn off your PC and refuse to discuss things with we meanies here on the US-based Slashdot. Perhaps you could cry on the shoulders of a webmaster of a.co.uk domain who might actually give a damn about the subject of the actual article here?
Okay, then I'll ask civilly: What does any of that have to do with the article or the OP? If you really feel the need to go off-topic and rant about how awful it is in the USA, it's probably good etiquette to start your own thread instead of crapping on someone else's post (even from an AC).
Wow. That was the quickest reverse slam on the US I've seen on Slashdot yet. The article has nothing to do with the US, the person you're replying to didn't mention the US, yet you managed to make it all about the US. Well played, asshat!
You know, until PC video card manufacturers can start releasing no more than one new $500 video card each every year, I think gamers should consider releasing a $400-500 game console every 4-6 years quite reasonable.
Good point. I should have just said "humans" and left it at that. I certainly have no sympathy for the cows, chickens and fish I happily consume on a daily basis. Some veal sounds really good right now...
She didn't like Gridmaster, either, while I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's probably due to her farsightedness - the puzzles in the books are much larger than is possible on the DS.
Yes, children are resilient, but another instinct that is supposedly hardwired into us is protection of our offspring. This (perhaps more than the "I want government to raise our kids" thing) is a big factor in heightened reactions to crimes against children. Add in the more rational sympathy for living beings that can't protect themselves like adults can, and you can end up with people overreacting to, and often overestimating the frequency of, these crimes.
My personal feeling on this specific issue is that I don't think MySpace has any true responsibility to monitor this, any more than other social networking programs/websites (like the many IM programs). The only real recourse society has in this case (barring violation of MySpace's rights) would be to legislate them into things like requiring credit cards for access (thus supposedly proving adult status), boycotting the service or going "vigilante," rooting out the pedophiles Dateline style.
Oh, bullshit. It may be a PR nightmare for them, but the truth is that they likely don't have a true liability in the situation, any more than ICQ/AOL, MSN, Yahoo, etc. would have liability if their software was used by a pedophile to make contact with a child.
In fact, the question could be posed whether they would have liability if they went hunting for "sexual predators" and made a public spectacle of someone who could be guilty of nothing more than propositioning a police officer posing as a street walker - in other words, someone who could be required by their state to be registered as a sex offender but has shown no predilection towards the exploitation of children or forcing sexual contact on someone.
My mom was enjoying her DS for quite a while, mostly with puzzle games. Unfortunately, I put a stop to it when I introducer her to Sudoku in Brain Age. At that point, she decided that a) she liked the game but b) she didn't like to work the puzzles on the handheld. She therefore went out and bought a book of Sudoku puzzles and has been doing her gaming on paper ever since...I'll have to find the right DS game to get her back on videogames.:)
I suspect that others are correct that they're pricing this in a way such that it doesn't compete with the satellite business, but I also suspect that streaming via the web costs them as much as their satellite broadcasts (apart from the startup costs, which of course are already on the books). The Internet service costs them more every time someone accesses it, while the cost of satellite transmission is fixed and each additional subscriber defrays the cost.
Rumor has it, Stern was paranoid that people would steal his show and rebroadcast it so that he wouldn't get as much money.
Wow. Talk about bullshit. No, Stern wasn't "paranoid" about internet broadcasts (as long as they're paid for - this is a subscription-based business). He was talking about how they needed an Internet stream from virtually the day he arrived on the air.
Stern and Sirius are no more "paranoid" that people will steal their shit than anyone else who has a service they're trying to tell - in other words, they don't want you to steal their shit.
I can speak for certain that I am not as dumber as other people.
Seriously, though, I test pretty well for intelligence, but being fat is part of a vicious cycle with laziness and depression, leading to a lack of achievement. I wonder, in fact, if the results would be similar in the population of people with untreated major depression regardless of BMI. Based on no scientific data at all, I would suspect increased BMI as being a symptom of another problem which could be the causative factor in the poor IQ showing.
1) You're only partially right on why Gamestop and EB do preorders on games. While it's true that they want to limit new-game inventory, the reason they do so is because their real business is selling used games. The company as a whole couldn't care less if anyone ever bought a new game at their stores again, as long as people kept bringing in their old games to sell/trade. 2) The reason they want people to preorder consoles is nearly the same. It gives them a read on the demand for the console, so that they can limit their supply, and Gamestop/EB has been doing a brisk business in used hardware the last several years as well.
It's a bonus that a portion of the hardcore gamer crowd has been made to believe that preordering is actually a smart thing to do. A friend and I were in Gamestop on Friday (not for Wii - both of us want one but neither of us would be likely to preorder) and my friend bought a WoW strategy guide. The salesperson proceeded to give him the hard sell to preorder the upcoming WoW expansion because "they're going to be rare." And the thing is, I'm sure there are people who say "Really?" and then proceed to put $5 down on software that will be available everywhere, and for at least the next couple years (until it's bundled with the main game).
I guess if one is desperate to have a console as soon as possible, and if the store can be trusted (Gamestop/EB shouldn't be trusted in this regard), then a hardware preorder makes as much sense as any dumb early-adopter move (I've made many of these myself, though never in consoles). A software preorder, unless a game is truly going to be rare/obscure, is just dumb in that it locks one into a store and a purchase (I suppose one can get out of a preorder and get the deposit back, but since I've made 3 preorders in my life I don't know) without the information that would be available post release.
For example, I'm highly interested in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. All the previews I've read have made the game seem like exactly what I want. But, I'm not going to preorder because a) there will be plenty of copies available and b) previews rarely give negative information, even if such information is available. So, I'll grab the game after I've had a chance to let others (the people who DO grab games day 1) check it out for me...uhhhhh, so I guess anyone who preorders and/or buys items on day 1 should just ignore everything I (and others) have said to discourage you. Go forth, be fruitful and beta-test for the rest of us!
This is an excellent point. PS3 developers/publishers are either rolling their own or using services like XFire or Gamespy to get their games online. That could (based on the history of the PS2) mean multiple logins to access multiple games. I just can't imagine developers being happy with that compared to the ease of use cited with Xbox Live from just about its beginning on the first Xbox.
Past the initial setup, Xbox Live access has been completely transparent with my 360. I start the console, I'm immediately logged in, any game I insert checks for updates and has multiplayer ready to go when I select the appropriate mentu options. The most I ever have to think about is how many XBL points I have when I'm looking at perhaps downloading something.
Maybe Sony will have similar functionality that allows the third-party online services to utilize Sony's login, but we haven't seen any evidence of that, yet. The bottom line is that if Sony's online complexity varies on a game-by-game basis, then it will continue to suffer in comparison to Xbox Live.
PS- I should note that XBL multiplayer is by no means perfect across all games. Lag is reported as an issue in some games while being a virtual non-factor (except on a connection-by-connection basis) in others, so obviously there is still code that depends on the developer. MS and developers still have some work to do in this area, but as far as convenience and ease of use they seem to have things down pat.
If you're going to pick one up for a first play, I'd suggest going with Vice City ($20 new for PC/PS2/Xbox). I think it's the best of the lot so far, and the 80s vibe is a blast.:)
What are you talking about? Since you decided to provide a wiki link to public nuisance, you should probably read the one on prior restraint. JT is attempting to prevent publication of material based on its content - that is the definition of prior restraint. The idea that his suit could possibly have merit (the courts have made very few rulings upholding prior restraint, and usually only do so when the government makes national security claims) is just silly. One might as well have argued that "Kill Bill" should have been sued out of existence - oh, but that's right, movies are art while Rockstar's videogames are "murder simulators."
You might have a point if this was a non-lawyer acting without counsel, but JT is a lawyer who is supposed to know better and not file frivolous, baseless lawsuits. [Insert usual disclaimer] but this seems to me an attempt at "prior restraint." Unless somehow this videogame is a threat to "national security" (e.g., containing top-secret material as opposed to containing potentially, morally objectionable material) then until Bully is actually on store shelves there shouldn't be any reasonable legal case regarding its content. The fact that the judge is even entertaining JT's frivolity is just a damn shame and makes the court system look stupid.
PS - I should also note that this spin could be entirely attributable to the author of the article, or, for that matter, to my own prejudices (I have them, though I try to suppress them and be fair).:)
I won't pretend to be able to speak for the OP (or his "gaming politics") but my inference from what he said is that Sony is putting a spin on this that is unnecessarily bad. While Nintendo announces that their OS is upgradeable so that consumers get new features, Sony announces that their OS was a) not final at a very recent trade show (with only about 2 months to launch) and b) upgradeable to fix potential problems.
It would be like me running a deli and telling a customer that it'll take me about 10 minutes to make their sandwich because I have to finish some fresh meatballs, while the guy running the deli next door tells the customer it'll take about 10 minutes because he has to make sure his meatballs haven't gone bad.:)
Hardware returns (for at least a month at decent retailers) are pretty easy in the US, too. And, yes, there will be many ways to update the OS (as Sony indicates) besides the Internet. It just seems like another bad sign for a console that already takes an Internet PR beating every week. I would also wonder whether this non-finalized OS affects developers. I'm not sure how Sony is handling their interface, but on the X360 there are parts of the Dashboard (such as music playback, XBL messaging and such) that are available at all times. In fact, with Dead Rising (one of the three "big-box" games I've played so far) the game "knows" whether or not you're playing music and will mute the cutscenes (while retaining subtitles) if you're on either play or pause in the music player. It could be pretty ugly if game developers use an aspect of the OS that turns out to be buggy or changed when their game actually hits the streets.
Ah well, as with anything, we won't know jack until people actually have the boxes in their homes. Release week will be a lot of fun for we onlookers, and hopefully for the people who buy the system, too.:)
I would think the main problem is the implication (who knows if it's true) that the OS hasn't been fully tested (how could it be if the software isn't finalized?). If, for example, the PS3 is released and requires an update out of the box to fix a problem, then the buyer would have to find a way to get that update, such as by connecting the box to the Internet, even if that buyer had no initial intention of doing so. While I recall hearing about X360 hardware problems, I don't remember many (any) complaints about how the software worked out of the box.
While it's hard to imagine someone spending $500-600 on a PS3 and then not connecting it to the Internet (where, presumably, OS updates would come through automagically), still, if there are showstopping OS bugs left when the PS3 ships then people are [rightly] going to be upset.
Why would we be worried that the PS3 software isn't ready to go when the hardware specs weren't even final until recently? I mean, software is easy, right? Besides, nobody would mind if they had to update their PS3's operating system to get it to work properly. After all, game consoles don't cost that much that we should expect perfection...
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Yeah, see, I don't think YOU read what the poster said. What he's saying is that the way in which it was implemented is nasty. First, there are no ancillary downloads listed (the only way to know if there are addons for XBL games while browsing the Marketplace) and, second, when you go to buy the game it tells you you're buying the full game. In other words, it's not about having to pay more for additional content but rather about the presentation of the game within the structure of the MS online store.
Yeah, that works just fine for me. OR, you could post your anti-US government rants in one of the innumerable discussions on Slashdot about bad US policies.
By your tone, you'd think that Slashdot was a haven for anti-EU propaganda, when in truth this site far more frequently demonstrates a distrust of the US government and distaste for many of its policies (especially in terms of violations of the Bill of Rights).
Again, though, you're right. You should definitely just shed a tear, turn off your PC and refuse to discuss things with we meanies here on the US-based Slashdot. Perhaps you could cry on the shoulders of a webmaster of a
Okay, then I'll ask civilly: What does any of that have to do with the article or the OP? If you really feel the need to go off-topic and rant about how awful it is in the USA, it's probably good etiquette to start your own thread instead of crapping on someone else's post (even from an AC).
Wow. That was the quickest reverse slam on the US I've seen on Slashdot yet. The article has nothing to do with the US, the person you're replying to didn't mention the US, yet you managed to make it all about the US. Well played, asshat!
Data, facts...What's the difference?
You know, until PC video card manufacturers can start releasing no more than one new $500 video card each every year, I think gamers should consider releasing a $400-500 game console every 4-6 years quite reasonable.
Good point. I should have just said "humans" and left it at that. I certainly have no sympathy for the cows, chickens and fish I happily consume on a daily basis. Some veal sounds really good right now...
She didn't like Gridmaster, either, while I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's probably due to her farsightedness - the puzzles in the books are much larger than is possible on the DS.
Yes, children are resilient, but another instinct that is supposedly hardwired into us is protection of our offspring. This (perhaps more than the "I want government to raise our kids" thing) is a big factor in heightened reactions to crimes against children. Add in the more rational sympathy for living beings that can't protect themselves like adults can, and you can end up with people overreacting to, and often overestimating the frequency of, these crimes.
My personal feeling on this specific issue is that I don't think MySpace has any true responsibility to monitor this, any more than other social networking programs/websites (like the many IM programs). The only real recourse society has in this case (barring violation of MySpace's rights) would be to legislate them into things like requiring credit cards for access (thus supposedly proving adult status), boycotting the service or going "vigilante," rooting out the pedophiles Dateline style.
Oh, bullshit. It may be a PR nightmare for them, but the truth is that they likely don't have a true liability in the situation, any more than ICQ/AOL, MSN, Yahoo, etc. would have liability if their software was used by a pedophile to make contact with a child.
In fact, the question could be posed whether they would have liability if they went hunting for "sexual predators" and made a public spectacle of someone who could be guilty of nothing more than propositioning a police officer posing as a street walker - in other words, someone who could be required by their state to be registered as a sex offender but has shown no predilection towards the exploitation of children or forcing sexual contact on someone.
My mom was enjoying her DS for quite a while, mostly with puzzle games. Unfortunately, I put a stop to it when I introducer her to Sudoku in Brain Age. At that point, she decided that a) she liked the game but b) she didn't like to work the puzzles on the handheld. She therefore went out and bought a book of Sudoku puzzles and has been doing her gaming on paper ever since...I'll have to find the right DS game to get her back on videogames. :)
I suspect that others are correct that they're pricing this in a way such that it doesn't compete with the satellite business, but I also suspect that streaming via the web costs them as much as their satellite broadcasts (apart from the startup costs, which of course are already on the books). The Internet service costs them more every time someone accesses it, while the cost of satellite transmission is fixed and each additional subscriber defrays the cost.
Wow. Talk about bullshit. No, Stern wasn't "paranoid" about internet broadcasts (as long as they're paid for - this is a subscription-based business). He was talking about how they needed an Internet stream from virtually the day he arrived on the air.
Stern and Sirius are no more "paranoid" that people will steal their shit than anyone else who has a service they're trying to tell - in other words, they don't want you to steal their shit.
I'm going to pray that you're joking. If not, then I'm going to have to ask for your height, weight and percentage of body fat.
I can speak for certain that I am not as dumber as other people.
Seriously, though, I test pretty well for intelligence, but being fat is part of a vicious cycle with laziness and depression, leading to a lack of achievement. I wonder, in fact, if the results would be similar in the population of people with untreated major depression regardless of BMI. Based on no scientific data at all, I would suspect increased BMI as being a symptom of another problem which could be the causative factor in the poor IQ showing.
1) You're only partially right on why Gamestop and EB do preorders on games. While it's true that they want to limit new-game inventory, the reason they do so is because their real business is selling used games. The company as a whole couldn't care less if anyone ever bought a new game at their stores again, as long as people kept bringing in their old games to sell/trade.
2) The reason they want people to preorder consoles is nearly the same. It gives them a read on the demand for the console, so that they can limit their supply, and Gamestop/EB has been doing a brisk business in used hardware the last several years as well.
It's a bonus that a portion of the hardcore gamer crowd has been made to believe that preordering is actually a smart thing to do. A friend and I were in Gamestop on Friday (not for Wii - both of us want one but neither of us would be likely to preorder) and my friend bought a WoW strategy guide. The salesperson proceeded to give him the hard sell to preorder the upcoming WoW expansion because "they're going to be rare." And the thing is, I'm sure there are people who say "Really?" and then proceed to put $5 down on software that will be available everywhere, and for at least the next couple years (until it's bundled with the main game).
I guess if one is desperate to have a console as soon as possible, and if the store can be trusted (Gamestop/EB shouldn't be trusted in this regard), then a hardware preorder makes as much sense as any dumb early-adopter move (I've made many of these myself, though never in consoles). A software preorder, unless a game is truly going to be rare/obscure, is just dumb in that it locks one into a store and a purchase (I suppose one can get out of a preorder and get the deposit back, but since I've made 3 preorders in my life I don't know) without the information that would be available post release.
For example, I'm highly interested in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. All the previews I've read have made the game seem like exactly what I want. But, I'm not going to preorder because a) there will be plenty of copies available and b) previews rarely give negative information, even if such information is available. So, I'll grab the game after I've had a chance to let others (the people who DO grab games day 1) check it out for me...uhhhhh, so I guess anyone who preorders and/or buys items on day 1 should just ignore everything I (and others) have said to discourage you. Go forth, be fruitful and beta-test for the rest of us!
This is an excellent point. PS3 developers/publishers are either rolling their own or using services like XFire or Gamespy to get their games online. That could (based on the history of the PS2) mean multiple logins to access multiple games. I just can't imagine developers being happy with that compared to the ease of use cited with Xbox Live from just about its beginning on the first Xbox.
Past the initial setup, Xbox Live access has been completely transparent with my 360. I start the console, I'm immediately logged in, any game I insert checks for updates and has multiplayer ready to go when I select the appropriate mentu options. The most I ever have to think about is how many XBL points I have when I'm looking at perhaps downloading something.
Maybe Sony will have similar functionality that allows the third-party online services to utilize Sony's login, but we haven't seen any evidence of that, yet. The bottom line is that if Sony's online complexity varies on a game-by-game basis, then it will continue to suffer in comparison to Xbox Live.
PS- I should note that XBL multiplayer is by no means perfect across all games. Lag is reported as an issue in some games while being a virtual non-factor (except on a connection-by-connection basis) in others, so obviously there is still code that depends on the developer. MS and developers still have some work to do in this area, but as far as convenience and ease of use they seem to have things down pat.
If you're going to pick one up for a first play, I'd suggest going with Vice City ($20 new for PC/PS2/Xbox). I think it's the best of the lot so far, and the 80s vibe is a blast. :)
What are you talking about? Since you decided to provide a wiki link to public nuisance, you should probably read the one on prior restraint. JT is attempting to prevent publication of material based on its content - that is the definition of prior restraint. The idea that his suit could possibly have merit (the courts have made very few rulings upholding prior restraint, and usually only do so when the government makes national security claims) is just silly. One might as well have argued that "Kill Bill" should have been sued out of existence - oh, but that's right, movies are art while Rockstar's videogames are "murder simulators."
You might have a point if this was a non-lawyer acting without counsel, but JT is a lawyer who is supposed to know better and not file frivolous, baseless lawsuits. [Insert usual disclaimer] but this seems to me an attempt at "prior restraint." Unless somehow this videogame is a threat to "national security" (e.g., containing top-secret material as opposed to containing potentially, morally objectionable material) then until Bully is actually on store shelves there shouldn't be any reasonable legal case regarding its content. The fact that the judge is even entertaining JT's frivolity is just a damn shame and makes the court system look stupid.
PS - I should also note that this spin could be entirely attributable to the author of the article, or, for that matter, to my own prejudices (I have them, though I try to suppress them and be fair). :)
I won't pretend to be able to speak for the OP (or his "gaming politics") but my inference from what he said is that Sony is putting a spin on this that is unnecessarily bad. While Nintendo announces that their OS is upgradeable so that consumers get new features, Sony announces that their OS was a) not final at a very recent trade show (with only about 2 months to launch) and b) upgradeable to fix potential problems.
:)
It would be like me running a deli and telling a customer that it'll take me about 10 minutes to make their sandwich because I have to finish some fresh meatballs, while the guy running the deli next door tells the customer it'll take about 10 minutes because he has to make sure his meatballs haven't gone bad.
Hardware returns (for at least a month at decent retailers) are pretty easy in the US, too. And, yes, there will be many ways to update the OS (as Sony indicates) besides the Internet. It just seems like another bad sign for a console that already takes an Internet PR beating every week. I would also wonder whether this non-finalized OS affects developers. I'm not sure how Sony is handling their interface, but on the X360 there are parts of the Dashboard (such as music playback, XBL messaging and such) that are available at all times. In fact, with Dead Rising (one of the three "big-box" games I've played so far) the game "knows" whether or not you're playing music and will mute the cutscenes (while retaining subtitles) if you're on either play or pause in the music player. It could be pretty ugly if game developers use an aspect of the OS that turns out to be buggy or changed when their game actually hits the streets.
:)
Ah well, as with anything, we won't know jack until people actually have the boxes in their homes. Release week will be a lot of fun for we onlookers, and hopefully for the people who buy the system, too.
I would think the main problem is the implication (who knows if it's true) that the OS hasn't been fully tested (how could it be if the software isn't finalized?). If, for example, the PS3 is released and requires an update out of the box to fix a problem, then the buyer would have to find a way to get that update, such as by connecting the box to the Internet, even if that buyer had no initial intention of doing so. While I recall hearing about X360 hardware problems, I don't remember many (any) complaints about how the software worked out of the box.
While it's hard to imagine someone spending $500-600 on a PS3 and then not connecting it to the Internet (where, presumably, OS updates would come through automagically), still, if there are showstopping OS bugs left when the PS3 ships then people are [rightly] going to be upset.
Why would we be worried that the PS3 software isn't ready to go when the hardware specs weren't even final until recently? I mean, software is easy, right? Besides, nobody would mind if they had to update their PS3's operating system to get it to work properly. After all, game consoles don't cost that much that we should expect perfection...