Wow, so you played an entire two games out of the Xbox catalog and decided there was nothing else to play. Well done. Confessing to a troll (the "what's next?" comment) is rare on/.
You're right that cheating on the part of the provider isn't a high-percentage move. Not only would it be fairly easy to figure out (one or two people or chairs constantly getting top hands), but the casual gamblers would stop showing up if they lost constantly.
There is a kind of cheating that DOES go on, however, and that's when two or more people at a table know each other and are in communication outside the poker program. Knowing those extra cards can make it a LOT easier to fleece the rest of the table, assuming the cheaters are smart of course. Not good.
There's one more graphics advance that will stun people and that's when material/environmental science is applied to every set of polygons in a game. For example, not only will you see a newspaper blowing along the post-apocalyptic street you're walking down in the latest FPS, but the newspaper will realistically alter in shape according to how the wind blows and how it hits the ground or other objects. Instead of blowing up a brick wall, breaking it into predetermined bits; the brick wall will break apart differently - dictated by realistic physics - depending on what was used to blow it up, the size of the bricks used in construction and the mortar holding it together.
I consider this an advance in graphics, in addition to an advance in gameplay and game physics, because it enhances the visual realism of the gaming experience. Shooting a chandelier and making it fall onto enemies is cool. Shooting down that same chandelier and watching it hit the enemy and ground, breaking into realistic pieces flying in realistic patterns would be awesome.
My main issue is this, the knowledge base is huge - there are thousands of articles, therefore although the article is there how many *normal* people actually read it ?
Folks who don't use the knowledge base themselves will have the information read to them by the support person (at the company who sold them their computer or at Microsoft) they call when they have trouble relating to the issue.
I don't know. All the "techie" type people I know use non-IE browsers. All it took to put my sister (non-techie) on Firebird was to tell her over the phone to go to mozilla.org and download it. She loved it from the start - although, admittedly, I did have to convince her that she didn't really need her weird, crash-causing IE toolbar (don't recall the name) and that CometCursor was not very cool at all.:)
I didn't know that production costs and retail prices on the next iteration of Xbox had been released. Thanks, therefore, for letting me know (well over a year before anyone sees the thing) that Microsoft will be losing money on the next Xbox.
If they dropped the price more, say to $200, then they leave a larger middle position open for competitors. For example, Creative sells their Zen cheaper than the iPod and with more storage space (specifically, $270 for the 30GB Nomad Zen Xtra - prices here).
They don't actually have to make more profit to make the prospect attractive - they just have to make around the same profit and produce fewer minis.
Then again, I could be completely wrong. I'm open to that concept as well.:)
What you (and others) are describing may be exactly the reason to price the mini at $250. If they hold production on the mini down below the levels of the main line, they could make out like bandits in the following scenario: Customer walks in the store looking to spend $250 max on an MP3 player and sees the mini 4-gig as the best deal at that price; they then see the 15-gig iPod at $300 and decide "what the heck" and spend the extra $50.
I have to wonder if Nintendo is too busy supporting the Gameboy Advance (understandably with its monstrous installed base) and the upcoming "DS" system. Nintendo has said that the DS system will be an addition to their line as opposed to a GBA replacement. That means that Nintendo will be supporting [at least] three different consoles. This seems like an odd choice to me given the dearth of interesting Gamecube titles alluded to in this story, and it can only suck even more resources away from the Gamecube and, presumably, its eventual successor.
In most cases, I'd agree that the "Why not just buy Tivo?" comments are senseless. Most of these do-it-yourself PVR articles are about people who know what they're doing, have worked in Linux (often a good deal) before and already know the technical hurdles up to the actual PVR functionality.
In this case, though, the subject of the article initially went with a ReplayTV (see additional comments below) and then throughout the page himself asks the question "Why didn't we just get TiVo?" That certainly would have been the obvious choice for someone dissatisfied with ReplayTV and without the requisite computer savvy to do a PC PVR.
On ReplayTV: The initial setup CAN be daunting, especially setting up the channels. For example, I had to wade through all of the satellite channels (the ones I could have but don't) in order to get down to the channels I actually have (this was even worse when ReplayTV was adjusting to satellite broadcasts of local channels). That being said, the instructions to do this are right there in the manual and they're fairly simple. Even if he couldn't translate the manual himself, visting AVSForum and asking a question there would have likely resulted in finding the problem and fixing it.
This is one of the weirder project pages I've ever read. This is someone to whom price was initially a big deal, yet he springs for a wireless bridge to do networking instead of running a much cheaper length of cable. He apparently wanted ease of use (evidenced by not solving the ReplayTV problem), yet went immediately to Linux for a solution. TiVo (I own ReplayTV but give TiVo its "props") could have been dropped in at any point and provided the desired functionality, by his own admission for a better price.
Actually, Phantom is supposed to be using embedded Windows (don't recall which flavor) as its OS, so they probably waived the non-compete clause which probably WAS in his contract because he went to a Microsoft "partner."
What kind of sauce or seasoning should I use on crow. If this console makes it to market (and it's certainly gaining legitimacy), I'll be eating several helpings.
Thief and Thief 2 may be considered "classics" now but the PC gaming crowd didn't buy them in large numbers the first time around. Why should a developer believe that the third iteration is going to break through in any significant fashion by sticking with the same formula?
There's a reason Looking Glass is out of business: As brilliant as their games were, nobody was buying them.
The only real problem is that it makes the game less realistic, as you'll be able to see people around corners and behind your character's head, most likely.
Does it really make it that much more unrealistic than a first-person shooter? In real life, I always know exactly where every part of my body is (unless I'm "impaired"), I can stick just my head and eyes past a wall in order to see around (with a concomitent reduction in counter-detection), I have peripheral vision and I can turn my head without turning my entire body - all things the first-person perspective in video games traditionally has trouble with.
Whining about this news (and there's a LOT of whining posted here so far, though not in your post) is a knee-jerk FPS-centric reaction considering nobody here has played even a minute of the game. I guess it's just the double-edged sword of hype in that a game can have interest stoked well in advance of release, and/or a game can be raked over the coals without ever having been seen or played.
Morrowind for Xbox managed to make very quick load transitions that gave the illusion of one huge, seamless world. Don't blame it entirely on the RAM - blame it on developers who don't want to do the extra work.
Now that companies like this are going through full-blown corporate mergers, is it just a matter of time before selling property like this to gamers becomes a viable business model?
It's ALREADY a viable business model. A viable business doesn't necessarily require a huge customer base. What it requires is a large enough customer base to make the venture profitable.
For example, you can have a viable business building custom cars. While the vast majority of the car-buying public will at most look at them and never buy, there is a customer base (a tiny minority in comparison) out there consisting of people willing to pay $100,000 (or far more) per project to have a custom car.
The simplistic version is this: If you sell your product(s) for a profit (specifically, a profit over and above your expenses, including cost of acquiring/creating the product), you have a viable business.
I know where you're going and I'll go down that road a piece.:)
Here's how I'd see it: Whether I was guilty of sharing copyrighted material or entirely innocent, I would consider the action in question a step towards turning my name over to the RIAA for a subsequent lawsuit. Whether that lawsuit had merit or not, it would cost money to fight - or even RESPOND to - and I don't need the aggravation in any case. Thus, I'd toss my ISP aside like a dirty Kleenex and go with a company with no reputation for cooperating with the RIAA.
Sending out threatening letters to customers is a bad business move, and I think the lack of ISP cooperation is for THAT reason rather than any monetary cost involved.
Fifty cents a pop - or even twenty bucks a pop - isn't going to make up for the customers lost once people start getting these letters. I'd be on another ISP in a heartbeat if I got a letter like this, and I don't think I'm the only one.
Um, Punch-Out and Super Punch-Out are classic two-monitor games that have been emulated on MAME for years.
I would also note that using a PC to display a game originally played on a three-inch screen - or on two three-inch screens - is cake. Neither size nor resolution would be an issue.
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And it wasn't so much the FBI as it was the Treasury Department's Prohibition Unit (which later became the ATF we know and love today).
Wow, so you played an entire two games out of the Xbox catalog and decided there was nothing else to play. Well done. Confessing to a troll (the "what's next?" comment) is rare on /.
I agree! After all, Microsoft has never developed anything for Macs before, and, of course, Macs aren't PCs.
There is a kind of cheating that DOES go on, however, and that's when two or more people at a table know each other and are in communication outside the poker program. Knowing those extra cards can make it a LOT easier to fleece the rest of the table, assuming the cheaters are smart of course. Not good.
I consider this an advance in graphics, in addition to an advance in gameplay and game physics, because it enhances the visual realism of the gaming experience. Shooting a chandelier and making it fall onto enemies is cool. Shooting down that same chandelier and watching it hit the enemy and ground, breaking into realistic pieces flying in realistic patterns would be awesome.
Folks who don't use the knowledge base themselves will have the information read to them by the support person (at the company who sold them their computer or at Microsoft) they call when they have trouble relating to the issue.
I don't know. All the "techie" type people I know use non-IE browsers. All it took to put my sister (non-techie) on Firebird was to tell her over the phone to go to mozilla.org and download it. She loved it from the start - although, admittedly, I did have to convince her that she didn't really need her weird, crash-causing IE toolbar (don't recall the name) and that CometCursor was not very cool at all. :)
Yes, trusting Sony is a great idea. I particularly like their movie advertising as it pertains to honesty.
They don't actually have to make more profit to make the prospect attractive - they just have to make around the same profit and produce fewer minis.
Then again, I could be completely wrong. I'm open to that concept as well. :)
What you (and others) are describing may be exactly the reason to price the mini at $250. If they hold production on the mini down below the levels of the main line, they could make out like bandits in the following scenario: Customer walks in the store looking to spend $250 max on an MP3 player and sees the mini 4-gig as the best deal at that price; they then see the 15-gig iPod at $300 and decide "what the heck" and spend the extra $50.
Unfortunately, half of your neighbor's READING experience is probably feeling your surround experience in their stomach.
I have to wonder if Nintendo is too busy supporting the Gameboy Advance (understandably with its monstrous installed base) and the upcoming "DS" system. Nintendo has said that the DS system will be an addition to their line as opposed to a GBA replacement. That means that Nintendo will be supporting [at least] three different consoles. This seems like an odd choice to me given the dearth of interesting Gamecube titles alluded to in this story, and it can only suck even more resources away from the Gamecube and, presumably, its eventual successor.
In this case, though, the subject of the article initially went with a ReplayTV (see additional comments below) and then throughout the page himself asks the question "Why didn't we just get TiVo?" That certainly would have been the obvious choice for someone dissatisfied with ReplayTV and without the requisite computer savvy to do a PC PVR.
On ReplayTV: The initial setup CAN be daunting, especially setting up the channels. For example, I had to wade through all of the satellite channels (the ones I could have but don't) in order to get down to the channels I actually have (this was even worse when ReplayTV was adjusting to satellite broadcasts of local channels). That being said, the instructions to do this are right there in the manual and they're fairly simple. Even if he couldn't translate the manual himself, visting AVSForum and asking a question there would have likely resulted in finding the problem and fixing it.
This is one of the weirder project pages I've ever read. This is someone to whom price was initially a big deal, yet he springs for a wireless bridge to do networking instead of running a much cheaper length of cable. He apparently wanted ease of use (evidenced by not solving the ReplayTV problem), yet went immediately to Linux for a solution. TiVo (I own ReplayTV but give TiVo its "props") could have been dropped in at any point and provided the desired functionality, by his own admission for a better price.
Actually, Phantom is supposed to be using embedded Windows (don't recall which flavor) as its OS, so they probably waived the non-compete clause which probably WAS in his contract because he went to a Microsoft "partner."
What kind of sauce or seasoning should I use on crow. If this console makes it to market (and it's certainly gaining legitimacy), I'll be eating several helpings.
There's a reason Looking Glass is out of business: As brilliant as their games were, nobody was buying them.
All I know is that I could travel long distances in the world without being kicked to a 30+-second loading screen.
Does it really make it that much more unrealistic than a first-person shooter? In real life, I always know exactly where every part of my body is (unless I'm "impaired"), I can stick just my head and eyes past a wall in order to see around (with a concomitent reduction in counter-detection), I have peripheral vision and I can turn my head without turning my entire body - all things the first-person perspective in video games traditionally has trouble with.
Whining about this news (and there's a LOT of whining posted here so far, though not in your post) is a knee-jerk FPS-centric reaction considering nobody here has played even a minute of the game. I guess it's just the double-edged sword of hype in that a game can have interest stoked well in advance of release, and/or a game can be raked over the coals without ever having been seen or played.
Morrowind for Xbox managed to make very quick load transitions that gave the illusion of one huge, seamless world. Don't blame it entirely on the RAM - blame it on developers who don't want to do the extra work.
It's ALREADY a viable business model. A viable business doesn't necessarily require a huge customer base. What it requires is a large enough customer base to make the venture profitable.
For example, you can have a viable business building custom cars. While the vast majority of the car-buying public will at most look at them and never buy, there is a customer base (a tiny minority in comparison) out there consisting of people willing to pay $100,000 (or far more) per project to have a custom car.
The simplistic version is this: If you sell your product(s) for a profit (specifically, a profit over and above your expenses, including cost of acquiring/creating the product), you have a viable business.
Here's how I'd see it: Whether I was guilty of sharing copyrighted material or entirely innocent, I would consider the action in question a step towards turning my name over to the RIAA for a subsequent lawsuit. Whether that lawsuit had merit or not, it would cost money to fight - or even RESPOND to - and I don't need the aggravation in any case. Thus, I'd toss my ISP aside like a dirty Kleenex and go with a company with no reputation for cooperating with the RIAA.
Sending out threatening letters to customers is a bad business move, and I think the lack of ISP cooperation is for THAT reason rather than any monetary cost involved.
Fifty cents a pop - or even twenty bucks a pop - isn't going to make up for the customers lost once people start getting these letters. I'd be on another ISP in a heartbeat if I got a letter like this, and I don't think I'm the only one.
I would also note that using a PC to display a game originally played on a three-inch screen - or on two three-inch screens - is cake. Neither size nor resolution would be an issue.
Get with the times (and with the Slashdot CW): Enterprise ITSELF is an unforgivable continuity breach. :)