It's definitely not a good value for people who already have a DVR/PVR and are not interested in archiving television programs to DVD-R.
That being said, when compared to other units with similar functionality apart from the console gaming component, it appears to be a very nice value. There are units out there that do both HD recording and DVD recording, but the units in a similar price range to the PSX sport smaller hard drives and, obviously, don't have PS2s in them. It should also be noted that I had initally read that Sony would have a Tivo-like guide service available for the PSX which, if true, would set the unit farther from the competition as previous HD/DVD-R units have only provided VCR-like timer functionality. My final thought in terms of price is that it compares quite favorably to the Tivo/DVD-R unit that should be coming out soon, which is supposed to retail at nearly $1000 with the guide service.
Gamespot's point that looking at this as an HD/DVD-R product first and a gaming device second is right on the money. When you do that, buying the 120-GB unit is like getting a PS2 for next to nothing (Panasonic's cheapest HD/DVD-R unit is about $700 MSRP, 80 GB, no guide service).
For a die-hard gamer satisfied with their current TV recording, this would be a dumb purchase. For someone looking to move up the digital recording ladder and get a PS2 - spare or not - to boot, the PSX is actually a good economical choice...unless one doesn't mind waiting a year since I'm fairly sure this kind of unit (sans PS2) will be available for $500 or less by next Christmas.:)
Think of it like this: You can hook a computer with a 10 Mpbs network card to a 10/100 hub. Now, that computer is never "clocking" at 100 Mbps but that bandwidth is still available on the hub. Just like the network at your cable company may have an OC48's worth of bandwidth available to service their customers (potentially even more if they're not going hardcore on over-selling their bandwidth) but even if they somehow bring OC48 bandwidth right into your house, it's not going to do you much good if your modem/router/whatever can only do 10 Mbps - you would need 250 separate computers all doing 10 Mpbs to finally clog the bandwidth.
That's not what the USB FAQs say. After reading several documents at USB.org it appears that USB 2.0 devices meeting the spec should be able to share the bus dynamically, whatever their maximum speed. In other words, if a keyboard is "hogging" 1 mbps (wow, by the way), then there are still 479 potential mbps left for other devices. In fact, the recommendation on their website is that manufacturers design their products to work well with a max of 40-60% of the maximum USB 2.0 bandwidth.
The problems arise (in terms of USB sharing) when you stick a 1.1 device into a 2.0 chain, which does throttle down the whole bus. Even 1.1 devices have had the ability to share the [1.1] bus at the same time, since I've used a 1.1 keyboard, 1.1 mouse and 1.1 scanner at the same time without difficulty.
Realistically, this isn't an issue of USB 2.0 products needing labelling as low, full or high speed since the consumer is going to tell the difference pretty quickly on devices that could really use the extra speed (hard drives, CD-ROMs, MP3 jukeboxes, etc.) and return their hardware if it isn't satisfactory. The issue is that USB 1.1 stock has been retroactively called/labeled USB 2 on the flimsy theory that since the new spec is backward compatible, USB is USB (somewhat like 16-bit Windows 3.1 software being labeled "for Windows 95" since it can indeed run on that OS).
Unfortunately, this flimsy theory is probably supportable in court and I doubt anything is going to come of the problem except that retailers and manufacturers will be able to clear out their old stock and henceforth produce and sell "real" USB 2.0 devices.
Um, no, they basically said they're releasing ONE game this year. Grabbed by the Ghoulies is nearly done and will be released before Christmas. Nowhere in the article is any indication that Ghoulies has been pushed back into 2004.
Whatever you think about the Conker remix, you should keep in mind that a large (LARGE) number of people have never played it because the N64 never managed to get traction while competing with the Playstation. Also, he stated in the article (if you indeed RTF thing) that Conker was NOT just a port and in fact would be an essentially new game (the multiplayer, including online) combined with a remake of the single-player game:
"It's not like Rare's taking the N64 game and just porting it over either - this is a whole new engine, all new art, new control - and it's called Uncut for a reason..."
I don't disagree that it's possible that PD Zero could be pushed back to the Xbox 2, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Next year is loaded to the gills with highly anticipated releases, so anything Rare releases will be icing on what is shaping up to be a tasty 2004 cake.
To those detractors who keep harping on Rare's record on extended development time, I would suggest that berating them in the case of their Xbox titles is out of line.
We should try to be a little fair with Rare (apologies for the rhyme). They've been developing for the Xbox for a little over 12 months, and when you're trying to make good games that will hopefully at least approach ridiculously high expectations (some folks seem to think that every game Rare does should be another Goldeneye) it's going to take some time.
The truth is that if they manage to release a game this year and at least two (Conker remake and Kameo - MAYBE Perfect Dark Zero) next year, then they will be doing well as long as all three are at least good (3/4 stars, 80/100, whatever scale you like).
It should also be noted that Microsoft and, by extension, Rare are more than likely looking down the road a piece toward the Xbox 2 in addition to their already announced Xbox titles. It wouldn't surprise me at all if at E3 2005 Microsoft showed off a demo of a Rare launch title for their next console.
I would say that I have had more real-world experiences that are more exciting ( albeit, usually while pissed ) experiences than anything that I have seen "experienced" in a video game.
So do most bums in major cities. They're usually drunk as well.
Then what? Well, then you get to tell all your friends what you did and how you did it, taking perverse pleasure in the trouble it causes not only the players, but the companies themselves when they try to fix things.
I'm sure that in Diablo 2, the first person who duped Stones of Jordan (uber rings for the uninitiated) on the Realm servers was quite pleased that people started using them as basic currency ([x] item equals [y] number of incredibly rare rings which suddenly aren't as rare anymore).
In short, the cheating is a goal in and of itself. People who enjoy cheating in multiplayer environments (as opposed to people who enjoy finding and then reporting cheats without taking advantage of them) have little interest in the rest of the game, and thus don't care how it ruins the game for anyone else - except in the sense that they have a twisted notoriety in the community. Any attention is good attention.
This is less clear than you might think. While it would certainly be good of Valve to give us Team Fortress 2 (or its equivalent) as a free bonus with Half-Life, given their development of Steam as a revenue-generating content delivery service I think it's unlikely. It's it far more likely that it will be an add-on pack that will cost extra for all those people who choose not to buy Half-Life on the Steam subscription plan.
You've stumbled onto the state of gaming "journalism." The hard questions don't get asked and every upcoming game is exciting and interesting.
In this case, though, they did ask your first "why" question and Mr. Newell answered by citing play-testing. Still, like virtually all game industry "interviews," it's a [very] thinly veiled advertisement for Half-Life 2.
It's too bad that real journalism school graduates cost more money to hire than people with BAs in English Lit who've always dreamed of a job in the video game industry...
To be honest, I think that this might have been true, but the sour economy in the USA has probably had as big an effect on the console lifecycle than anything.
I think another big factor is the increased complexity of game development between generations. It now takes a longer period of time and a larger stack of cash to develop a compelling game than it has in the past (naturally), and so to some extent the console manufacturers have to let the developers dictate the pace of the change unless they can provide easy upgrades of code to the next generation (Microsoft would seem to have the advantage here with their use of DirectX). Just take a look at how long it took some N64 games to be developed, which then had to be retooled for release on the Gamecube.
Additionally, this factor could favor an early Nintendo console release (with some speculating that the new console could be in stores by Christmas 2005). Third-party developers have already been jumping off the Nintendo bandwagon [again], but if they were presented with SDKs for a new system next spring (or even late winter), they might have increased interest in developing games for first console of the next generation. This is an even more appealing strategy if the good folks of Nintendo believe that the PS2's dominance was due in large part to their year's headstart. Personally, I disagree a bit and instead attribute it to the fact - an aberration, by the way - that PS2 included DVD playback at a time when people were still in process of converting from VHS to DVD, but I'm no expert.
As far as judging the sales effect of the Gamecube price cut, I think the effect will be positive but limited. Arguably, the "hardcore" (I'm so tired of that word, but there ya go) gamers have already bought their system(s) of choice, so the people interested in buying a new console are going to be looking at the situation from a "casual" point of view. PS2 software still rules the roost for the casual-type gamer with their extremely wide variety of titles, so I expect most folks are going to continue buying that system.
As for me, I've already got the three (four counting GBA) big boys and being something of an addict I'd think about picking up Nintendo's next console day one, as long as they have at least one stunning game...and hopefully a hard drive.:)
Actually, they aren't forced to have a Dolby Digital track in the DVD [movie] standard as companies can choose instead to go with a PCM track - 99% choose to go with Dolby Digital but there are discs out there with PCM only.
I like that a lot. It definitely evades the issue of designing a skill ranking system and implementing it (like some developers, I have a tendency to overlook simpler solutions). "Make it so.":)
Make it an 80% vote, then - if the teams are so unbalanced that 80% are one side then it's probably a bad game in any case. If someone's starting votes without "just cause" then vote to kick them. Too many servers run 24/7 with little to no supervision, so expecting server admins will solve every problem - or even a majority of problems - can be too much to ask. Restricting the vote initiation to specific people can theoretically work, but only in situations where you usually have those specific people around - of course, these kinds of servers (clan servers, for example) are already more free of the kind of problems that would cause a person to reasonably request someone's dismissal.
Besides, there are already criteria we all have which, if met, will cause us to leave a server and seek another one. Unjust kicking would simply be an addition to those.
From my perspective, I really enjoyed Team Fortress Classic for a while. After a time, though, the problem people became so tedious and widespread, and the "good" servers so crowded, that I gave up. Since then, I've only played FPS games sporadically because there are just too many jerks (even apart from cheaters) and little to no mechanism for me to help correct the situation since I have neither the bandwidth, nor the inclination, to run a full-time server myself.
1. As mentioned, skill-level matching services. They'll never be perfect, especially with griefers who would have nothing better to do than screw up their rating just to annihilate newbies, but they're better than nothing. The biggest drawback here is that someone would have to maintain the ranking service and the matchmaking servers. Most companies that aren't Blizzard or Microsoft don't really want to do it.
2. Every game needs to have anti-cheating devices that are updated regularly. This not only helps stop cheating, but shuts people up who think they're really good, get their butts kicked and then accuse others of cheating.
3. Easy muting. Many of us have little to no interest in seeing strings of expletives rendered in leetspeak OR plain English. It should take no more than two keystrokes to set someone to/ignore.
3.5. Easy kicking. It should be easy in any game to vote someone off the server, and said vote should result in at least a two-hour ban on that IP returning to the game.
4. Display of average ping rates at server select. In other words, if I'm pinging a game at 80 ms, I'd rather not go into a game where the average ping of the players is 300 or 10. There could even be a feature (server-optional) that only allows people to join whose pings are within a certain percentage of the current average. While I'm sure there are some people who enjoy being the LPB, others get bored if the game's design allows that person to more easily dominate.
The reason they don't put variable difficulty settings in certain games is simple: Money. They want to get the games out the door as fast as possible, and it takes extra time to balance out extra difficulty settings. I expect this is particularly important with "first sequels" as they want to ride the crest of the buzz wave of the original.
Me, I hated Devil May Cry. But I found out later from friends that the reason I quit (the lava spider - normal difficulty) was, oddly, one of the really difficult bosses. I'm all in favor of ramping up the difficulty as you progress, but making that thing the first boss just put me off the whole thing.
As for the original point (difficulty of Japanese games), I expect that a ridiculous proportion of their gaming community consists of RPG addicts. RPG people (turn-based RPG people, anyway) get used to having it easy because in most turn-based RPGs levelling solves all difficulty problems. An extra hour or two in "The Forest of Lost Hope" (or whatever), bullying wimps, will make the following two or three stages very easy, thus rewarding time over skill. However, if you spend four hours fighting "The Yellow Turban Rebellion" in Dynasty Warriors 3 (a Japanese action/RPG/strategy game based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms), Lu Bu will probably hand you your head when you meet up with him for the first time, high level or not, because you haven't fought anyone tough yet.
Heck, this could explain more than anything the Xbox's failure to thrive in Japan. Turn-based strategy isn't anywhere to be found on Xbox, and so the games require a modicum of skill instead of selecting an attack from a menu and then watching it play out. There's a really disgusting marketing campaign in there somewhere: "The Power of X: Too Much For The Japanese.":)
It's bothered me over the past several years that people focus so much on the length of video games. It's not like video games have suddenly gotten more expensive, making it more important to get the most bang for the buck. So the most important question to me is this: Why do we care how long it takes to complete a game? Further, is there a direct correlation between how long a game lasts and how much entertainment it provides?
Many people, including myself, say that Panzer Dragoon Orta is an excellent game even though it can be completed in 10-14 hours (less? a little more?) apart from replays and extras. On the other hand, I played Saga Frontier long enough to figure out that I wished it was over after the first five minutes.
I suppose that for people who have nothing to do all day but play games, such a measurement might be important, since they could run through several games per week. But for everyone else, what's the difference, really? In fact, I would argue that people with lives outside of video games should be pleased if they get one 40+-hour game per year. After all, it's not in the industry's best interest if someone can play Final Fantasy X for 4-6 months before needing another game.
I'm probably going to invite jeers for saying this, but it bears repeating because it's fundamental: If you're having fun, it shouldn't matter if the video game is 10 hours or 100 hours. Unless the flavor goes out of the game in less than 10 hours of play (which would cause me to call it a bad game with length of play probably being at the bottom of a list of shortcomings), you're probably getting your money's worth as compared to going to movies or buying DVDs.
"For the most part ive noticed that Japanese games are quite a bit harder than the American counterpart."
Tomonobu Itagaki, leader of Tecmo's Team Ninja, seems to disagree with you in the following quote from Gamespy's Tokyo Game Show coverage:
In addition to expected tweaking, Itagaki is considering making the game more difficult. "I feel that Japanese gamers are a bunch of wimps. American gamers are more hardcore and I want to make it challenging for you guys,"(emphasis mine) he said.
My feeling is that certain types of games simply tend to have a higher difficulty than others. Fighting games can be made difficult in a lot of ways (often by making AI opponents "cheap bastards") while turn-based RPGs tend to be easy as pie (just keep leveling and you can kill anything).
It may be true that games have drifted slightly downward in difficulty over the years, but I think that contributing factors are better controls and interfaces that are easier to get comfortable with. It doesn't hurt (help?) that people in my age group (I'm 31) have been playing video games for many, many years now and so are going to grasp the intricacies of a game much faster than someone who cut their teeth on the Playstation (or even the DC, PS2, GC or Xbox).
What I'm looking for in a challenge is something that is difficult but not so difficult that it's going to take me weeks (or months) to master. If it takes that long, it's probably not going to be worth it. For challenges like that, I'd rather go learn another language or play guitar.
Motorola's chipset also features radio signal interference prevention and low power consumption ensuring users a long battery life for extended game play.
This combination means that a) the signal is going to be pretty low strength and therefore won't be able to interfere with longer range protocols/signals such as 802.11b/g and b) the device will probably be frequency agile at least along the lines of cordless phones which switch until they find a clean frequency or even potentially like Bluetooth devices which hop around constantly.
It's far more likely that a wireless PC network would interfere with wireless GBA gaming than the other way around.
Is there any problems with the current Xbox loading or playing speeds? (I don't have one, so I don't know). I mean: unless you're installing Linux on it and you need a real fast machine, what problem is this a solution for?
When comparing it to other consoles playing console games, the Xbox works just fine and loads faster than the other two most of the time - depending on the software, the Gamecube can keep up and, of course, the PS2 is dirt slow - so improving load times certainly isn't a huge incentive. For regular gaming, there's absolutely no need for a faster processor and I can't imagine a circumstance where it would be a significant advantage. After all, without upgrading the GPU (which, just as with PC gaming, is where you get most of your performance improvements) it's doubtful that you could improve the Xbox's intended performance in any meaningful way.
As you correctly point out, though, modded Xboxen running other operating systems (most notably Linux) could benefit from the speed bump. One area that I can see an advantage is in running emulation software, depending of course on what you're emulating.
This is a niche product for a very niche market. The stock processor in the Xbox is more than sufficient for most computing tasks one would want to use an Xbox for. If someone needs more, it seems like a better plan to hunt down a cheap PC.
Maybe this "friend" feels that companies should be able to use their Xbox SDKs to develop their websites?
Experience With a Restrictive Employment Contract
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Who Owns Your Weblog?
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· Score: 4, Informative
First off, I'm not a techie, so this won't apply to a great many people here. That being said, these kinds of agreements have popped up in a lot of places over the past decade or so even outside the tech professions.
My experience was at the American Red Cross. I was responsible for maintaining our local list of ineligible blood donors (positive infectious disease test results and the like). One day, everyone in the place was presented with a new "employment agreement" which we were supposed to sign. One of the provisions indicated just what is described in this story; specifically, anything I happened to create, invent, design, etc. - whether during work hours or not - belonged to the American Red Cross unless they decided to relinquish those rights. Now, I'm no kind of inventor but I was 23 years old with few responsibilities beyond myself and so I was the perfect person to protest this agreement on pure principle. I adamantly refused to sign the paper because I felt that it gave too much power over my life to my employer, not to mention the fact that a non-profit corporation specializing in disaster relief and blood collection/distribution shouldn't have an interest in anything that I create (assuming it has nothing to do with disaster relief, blood collection, etc.).
At first, I was told that if I didn't sign the paper I was risking the loss of my job. I maintained that this was a chance I was willing to take (and encouraged others to do the same). About a month later, the new employment agreement was revised into a more palatable format. Though I can't recall if it specified inventions/creations relating specifically to my employment or if the clause was taken out completely, the document was acceptable and I signed.
My advice is pretty simple: Check your state/local laws - as in a post above, an overly restrictive clause of this nature could be invalid on its face. If it IS valid, then you have to decide if a) you're willing (and financially able) to leave the job on principle to hopefully find one where you're not forced to sign such an odious document, b) you're going to create/design/invent something in which your company would want to claim an interest or c) you know you're not going to create something that you will want to sell (or release, a la open source) to which you could lose your rights. After all, while a company could theoretically lay claim to, for example, your David Hasselhoff fan site, they probably won't. On the other hand, if you create brand new database software in your free time while working for [any] software company, they could potentially strip it from you and from anyone else to whom you have given or sold it.
At the risk of going too long, remember too that Steve Wozniak worked for HP when he created the Apple computer. He offered it to them because as part of his contract he was required to do so. They had no interest at all, which I'm sure they regretted for a long time.
Because it takes a lot more people with a wide variety of skills to create a computer game as opposed to a book? There's no comparison in terms of investment and cost except for the most elite (read "most popular") authors. It's also worth noting that books keep inching higher and higher in price (I bought the latest Clancy for my dad for $27.95 - 30% which is still close to $20) where video game prices have stayed pretty stable for a long time despite the increased production costs.
It's far more likely that the margins on most video games are simply too thin at the retail end of the chain to do any serious discounting. This is also the reason that most videogame specialty shops focus a lot more on used games (walk into a US Electronics Boutique, Gamestop, etc. and you'll see that the majority of their wall space is occupied by used product). It's also worth noting that most video games are released in Europe after being released in the States, importing then cuts some of the demand, hence putting deflationary pressure on the localized versions.
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That being said, when compared to other units with similar functionality apart from the console gaming component, it appears to be a very nice value. There are units out there that do both HD recording and DVD recording, but the units in a similar price range to the PSX sport smaller hard drives and, obviously, don't have PS2s in them. It should also be noted that I had initally read that Sony would have a Tivo-like guide service available for the PSX which, if true, would set the unit farther from the competition as previous HD/DVD-R units have only provided VCR-like timer functionality. My final thought in terms of price is that it compares quite favorably to the Tivo/DVD-R unit that should be coming out soon, which is supposed to retail at nearly $1000 with the guide service.
Gamespot's point that looking at this as an HD/DVD-R product first and a gaming device second is right on the money. When you do that, buying the 120-GB unit is like getting a PS2 for next to nothing (Panasonic's cheapest HD/DVD-R unit is about $700 MSRP, 80 GB, no guide service).
For a die-hard gamer satisfied with their current TV recording, this would be a dumb purchase. For someone looking to move up the digital recording ladder and get a PS2 - spare or not - to boot, the PSX is actually a good economical choice...unless one doesn't mind waiting a year since I'm fairly sure this kind of unit (sans PS2) will be available for $500 or less by next Christmas. :)
Think of it like this: You can hook a computer with a 10 Mpbs network card to a 10/100 hub. Now, that computer is never "clocking" at 100 Mbps but that bandwidth is still available on the hub. Just like the network at your cable company may have an OC48's worth of bandwidth available to service their customers (potentially even more if they're not going hardcore on over-selling their bandwidth) but even if they somehow bring OC48 bandwidth right into your house, it's not going to do you much good if your modem/router/whatever can only do 10 Mbps - you would need 250 separate computers all doing 10 Mpbs to finally clog the bandwidth.
The problems arise (in terms of USB sharing) when you stick a 1.1 device into a 2.0 chain, which does throttle down the whole bus. Even 1.1 devices have had the ability to share the [1.1] bus at the same time, since I've used a 1.1 keyboard, 1.1 mouse and 1.1 scanner at the same time without difficulty.
Realistically, this isn't an issue of USB 2.0 products needing labelling as low, full or high speed since the consumer is going to tell the difference pretty quickly on devices that could really use the extra speed (hard drives, CD-ROMs, MP3 jukeboxes, etc.) and return their hardware if it isn't satisfactory. The issue is that USB 1.1 stock has been retroactively called/labeled USB 2 on the flimsy theory that since the new spec is backward compatible, USB is USB (somewhat like 16-bit Windows 3.1 software being labeled "for Windows 95" since it can indeed run on that OS).
Unfortunately, this flimsy theory is probably supportable in court and I doubt anything is going to come of the problem except that retailers and manufacturers will be able to clear out their old stock and henceforth produce and sell "real" USB 2.0 devices.
Whatever you think about the Conker remix, you should keep in mind that a large (LARGE) number of people have never played it because the N64 never managed to get traction while competing with the Playstation. Also, he stated in the article (if you indeed RTF thing) that Conker was NOT just a port and in fact would be an essentially new game (the multiplayer, including online) combined with a remake of the single-player game:
"It's not like Rare's taking the N64 game and just porting it over either - this is a whole new engine, all new art, new control - and it's called Uncut for a reason..."
I don't disagree that it's possible that PD Zero could be pushed back to the Xbox 2, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Next year is loaded to the gills with highly anticipated releases, so anything Rare releases will be icing on what is shaping up to be a tasty 2004 cake.
We should try to be a little fair with Rare (apologies for the rhyme). They've been developing for the Xbox for a little over 12 months, and when you're trying to make good games that will hopefully at least approach ridiculously high expectations (some folks seem to think that every game Rare does should be another Goldeneye) it's going to take some time.
The truth is that if they manage to release a game this year and at least two (Conker remake and Kameo - MAYBE Perfect Dark Zero) next year, then they will be doing well as long as all three are at least good (3/4 stars, 80/100, whatever scale you like).
It should also be noted that Microsoft and, by extension, Rare are more than likely looking down the road a piece toward the Xbox 2 in addition to their already announced Xbox titles. It wouldn't surprise me at all if at E3 2005 Microsoft showed off a demo of a Rare launch title for their next console.
So do most bums in major cities. They're usually drunk as well.
I'm sure that in Diablo 2, the first person who duped Stones of Jordan (uber rings for the uninitiated) on the Realm servers was quite pleased that people started using them as basic currency ([x] item equals [y] number of incredibly rare rings which suddenly aren't as rare anymore).
In short, the cheating is a goal in and of itself. People who enjoy cheating in multiplayer environments (as opposed to people who enjoy finding and then reporting cheats without taking advantage of them) have little interest in the rest of the game, and thus don't care how it ruins the game for anyone else - except in the sense that they have a twisted notoriety in the community. Any attention is good attention.
This is less clear than you might think. While it would certainly be good of Valve to give us Team Fortress 2 (or its equivalent) as a free bonus with Half-Life, given their development of Steam as a revenue-generating content delivery service I think it's unlikely. It's it far more likely that it will be an add-on pack that will cost extra for all those people who choose not to buy Half-Life on the Steam subscription plan.
In this case, though, they did ask your first "why" question and Mr. Newell answered by citing play-testing. Still, like virtually all game industry "interviews," it's a [very] thinly veiled advertisement for Half-Life 2.
It's too bad that real journalism school graduates cost more money to hire than people with BAs in English Lit who've always dreamed of a job in the video game industry...
I think another big factor is the increased complexity of game development between generations. It now takes a longer period of time and a larger stack of cash to develop a compelling game than it has in the past (naturally), and so to some extent the console manufacturers have to let the developers dictate the pace of the change unless they can provide easy upgrades of code to the next generation (Microsoft would seem to have the advantage here with their use of DirectX). Just take a look at how long it took some N64 games to be developed, which then had to be retooled for release on the Gamecube.
Additionally, this factor could favor an early Nintendo console release (with some speculating that the new console could be in stores by Christmas 2005). Third-party developers have already been jumping off the Nintendo bandwagon [again], but if they were presented with SDKs for a new system next spring (or even late winter), they might have increased interest in developing games for first console of the next generation. This is an even more appealing strategy if the good folks of Nintendo believe that the PS2's dominance was due in large part to their year's headstart. Personally, I disagree a bit and instead attribute it to the fact - an aberration, by the way - that PS2 included DVD playback at a time when people were still in process of converting from VHS to DVD, but I'm no expert.
As far as judging the sales effect of the Gamecube price cut, I think the effect will be positive but limited. Arguably, the "hardcore" (I'm so tired of that word, but there ya go) gamers have already bought their system(s) of choice, so the people interested in buying a new console are going to be looking at the situation from a "casual" point of view. PS2 software still rules the roost for the casual-type gamer with their extremely wide variety of titles, so I expect most folks are going to continue buying that system.
As for me, I've already got the three (four counting GBA) big boys and being something of an addict I'd think about picking up Nintendo's next console day one, as long as they have at least one stunning game...and hopefully a hard drive. :)
Actually, they aren't forced to have a Dolby Digital track in the DVD [movie] standard as companies can choose instead to go with a PCM track - 99% choose to go with Dolby Digital but there are discs out there with PCM only.
I like that a lot. It definitely evades the issue of designing a skill ranking system and implementing it (like some developers, I have a tendency to overlook simpler solutions). "Make it so." :)
Besides, there are already criteria we all have which, if met, will cause us to leave a server and seek another one. Unjust kicking would simply be an addition to those.
From my perspective, I really enjoyed Team Fortress Classic for a while. After a time, though, the problem people became so tedious and widespread, and the "good" servers so crowded, that I gave up. Since then, I've only played FPS games sporadically because there are just too many jerks (even apart from cheaters) and little to no mechanism for me to help correct the situation since I have neither the bandwidth, nor the inclination, to run a full-time server myself.
2. Every game needs to have anti-cheating devices that are updated regularly. This not only helps stop cheating, but shuts people up who think they're really good, get their butts kicked and then accuse others of cheating.
3. Easy muting. Many of us have little to no interest in seeing strings of expletives rendered in leetspeak OR plain English. It should take no more than two keystrokes to set someone to /ignore.
3.5. Easy kicking. It should be easy in any game to vote someone off the server, and said vote should result in at least a two-hour ban on that IP returning to the game.
4. Display of average ping rates at server select. In other words, if I'm pinging a game at 80 ms, I'd rather not go into a game where the average ping of the players is 300 or 10. There could even be a feature (server-optional) that only allows people to join whose pings are within a certain percentage of the current average. While I'm sure there are some people who enjoy being the LPB, others get bored if the game's design allows that person to more easily dominate.
Those are the top 4-1/2 off the top of my head.
Me, I hated Devil May Cry. But I found out later from friends that the reason I quit (the lava spider - normal difficulty) was, oddly, one of the really difficult bosses. I'm all in favor of ramping up the difficulty as you progress, but making that thing the first boss just put me off the whole thing.
As for the original point (difficulty of Japanese games), I expect that a ridiculous proportion of their gaming community consists of RPG addicts. RPG people (turn-based RPG people, anyway) get used to having it easy because in most turn-based RPGs levelling solves all difficulty problems. An extra hour or two in "The Forest of Lost Hope" (or whatever), bullying wimps, will make the following two or three stages very easy, thus rewarding time over skill. However, if you spend four hours fighting "The Yellow Turban Rebellion" in Dynasty Warriors 3 (a Japanese action/RPG/strategy game based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms), Lu Bu will probably hand you your head when you meet up with him for the first time, high level or not, because you haven't fought anyone tough yet.
Heck, this could explain more than anything the Xbox's failure to thrive in Japan. Turn-based strategy isn't anywhere to be found on Xbox, and so the games require a modicum of skill instead of selecting an attack from a menu and then watching it play out. There's a really disgusting marketing campaign in there somewhere: "The Power of X: Too Much For The Japanese." :)
Many people, including myself, say that Panzer Dragoon Orta is an excellent game even though it can be completed in 10-14 hours (less? a little more?) apart from replays and extras. On the other hand, I played Saga Frontier long enough to figure out that I wished it was over after the first five minutes.
I suppose that for people who have nothing to do all day but play games, such a measurement might be important, since they could run through several games per week. But for everyone else, what's the difference, really? In fact, I would argue that people with lives outside of video games should be pleased if they get one 40+-hour game per year. After all, it's not in the industry's best interest if someone can play Final Fantasy X for 4-6 months before needing another game.
I'm probably going to invite jeers for saying this, but it bears repeating because it's fundamental: If you're having fun, it shouldn't matter if the video game is 10 hours or 100 hours. Unless the flavor goes out of the game in less than 10 hours of play (which would cause me to call it a bad game with length of play probably being at the bottom of a list of shortcomings), you're probably getting your money's worth as compared to going to movies or buying DVDs.
Tomonobu Itagaki, leader of Tecmo's Team Ninja, seems to disagree with you in the following quote from Gamespy's Tokyo Game Show coverage:
In addition to expected tweaking, Itagaki is considering making the game more difficult. "I feel that Japanese gamers are a bunch of wimps. American gamers are more hardcore and I want to make it challenging for you guys," (emphasis mine) he said.
My feeling is that certain types of games simply tend to have a higher difficulty than others. Fighting games can be made difficult in a lot of ways (often by making AI opponents "cheap bastards") while turn-based RPGs tend to be easy as pie (just keep leveling and you can kill anything).
It may be true that games have drifted slightly downward in difficulty over the years, but I think that contributing factors are better controls and interfaces that are easier to get comfortable with. It doesn't hurt (help?) that people in my age group (I'm 31) have been playing video games for many, many years now and so are going to grasp the intricacies of a game much faster than someone who cut their teeth on the Playstation (or even the DC, PS2, GC or Xbox).
What I'm looking for in a challenge is something that is difficult but not so difficult that it's going to take me weeks (or months) to master. If it takes that long, it's probably not going to be worth it. For challenges like that, I'd rather go learn another language or play guitar.
So when will Microsoft follow this tack? It would be nice to have AT LEAST the marketing gloss in a Windows OS.
The preceding was brought to you by the "Insult Microsoft At Every Flimsy Opportunity" Foundation.
This combination means that a) the signal is going to be pretty low strength and therefore won't be able to interfere with longer range protocols/signals such as 802.11b/g and b) the device will probably be frequency agile at least along the lines of cordless phones which switch until they find a clean frequency or even potentially like Bluetooth devices which hop around constantly.
It's far more likely that a wireless PC network would interfere with wireless GBA gaming than the other way around.
When comparing it to other consoles playing console games, the Xbox works just fine and loads faster than the other two most of the time - depending on the software, the Gamecube can keep up and, of course, the PS2 is dirt slow - so improving load times certainly isn't a huge incentive. For regular gaming, there's absolutely no need for a faster processor and I can't imagine a circumstance where it would be a significant advantage. After all, without upgrading the GPU (which, just as with PC gaming, is where you get most of your performance improvements) it's doubtful that you could improve the Xbox's intended performance in any meaningful way.
As you correctly point out, though, modded Xboxen running other operating systems (most notably Linux) could benefit from the speed bump. One area that I can see an advantage is in running emulation software, depending of course on what you're emulating.
This is a niche product for a very niche market. The stock processor in the Xbox is more than sufficient for most computing tasks one would want to use an Xbox for. If someone needs more, it seems like a better plan to hunt down a cheap PC.
Maybe this "friend" feels that companies should be able to use their Xbox SDKs to develop their websites?
My experience was at the American Red Cross. I was responsible for maintaining our local list of ineligible blood donors (positive infectious disease test results and the like). One day, everyone in the place was presented with a new "employment agreement" which we were supposed to sign. One of the provisions indicated just what is described in this story; specifically, anything I happened to create, invent, design, etc. - whether during work hours or not - belonged to the American Red Cross unless they decided to relinquish those rights. Now, I'm no kind of inventor but I was 23 years old with few responsibilities beyond myself and so I was the perfect person to protest this agreement on pure principle. I adamantly refused to sign the paper because I felt that it gave too much power over my life to my employer, not to mention the fact that a non-profit corporation specializing in disaster relief and blood collection/distribution shouldn't have an interest in anything that I create (assuming it has nothing to do with disaster relief, blood collection, etc.).
At first, I was told that if I didn't sign the paper I was risking the loss of my job. I maintained that this was a chance I was willing to take (and encouraged others to do the same). About a month later, the new employment agreement was revised into a more palatable format. Though I can't recall if it specified inventions/creations relating specifically to my employment or if the clause was taken out completely, the document was acceptable and I signed.
My advice is pretty simple: Check your state/local laws - as in a post above, an overly restrictive clause of this nature could be invalid on its face. If it IS valid, then you have to decide if a) you're willing (and financially able) to leave the job on principle to hopefully find one where you're not forced to sign such an odious document, b) you're going to create/design/invent something in which your company would want to claim an interest or c) you know you're not going to create something that you will want to sell (or release, a la open source) to which you could lose your rights. After all, while a company could theoretically lay claim to, for example, your David Hasselhoff fan site, they probably won't. On the other hand, if you create brand new database software in your free time while working for [any] software company, they could potentially strip it from you and from anyone else to whom you have given or sold it.
At the risk of going too long, remember too that Steve Wozniak worked for HP when he created the Apple computer. He offered it to them because as part of his contract he was required to do so. They had no interest at all, which I'm sure they regretted for a long time.
At this point, if the system isn't mentioned I think the "for Playstation 2" is just assumed.
Because it takes a lot more people with a wide variety of skills to create a computer game as opposed to a book? There's no comparison in terms of investment and cost except for the most elite (read "most popular") authors. It's also worth noting that books keep inching higher and higher in price (I bought the latest Clancy for my dad for $27.95 - 30% which is still close to $20) where video game prices have stayed pretty stable for a long time despite the increased production costs.
It's far more likely that the margins on most video games are simply too thin at the retail end of the chain to do any serious discounting. This is also the reason that most videogame specialty shops focus a lot more on used games (walk into a US Electronics Boutique, Gamestop, etc. and you'll see that the majority of their wall space is occupied by used product). It's also worth noting that most video games are released in Europe after being released in the States, importing then cuts some of the demand, hence putting deflationary pressure on the localized versions.