I think you missed the point. He's essentially saying that if you had bought this service in order to get the first Half-Life and its sequels, you would pay up to $720 ($120 a year for six years) in order to get two full games with expansion packs. It's both insightful AND funny.
The timeline goes something like this: Valve said before E3 that an Xbox version of Half-Life 2 was in the works. Not long after E3, a guy at Microsoft (David Hufford, a product manager in the Xbox group) was quoted in the Puget Sound Business Journal as saying that the Xbox version of Half-Life 2 wasn't coming. About 24 hours later, Valve had reconfirmed that Xbox would get a version of Half-Life 2 and, in fact, the online version of article in the PSBJ had been CHANGED (as opposed to corrected/retracted - a practice I despise) to remove the reference to Half-Life 2 not coming to Xbox.
Now, obviously, this is something that could change down the line (the earliest possible date for Xbox Half-Life 2 would probably be summer 2004) if Valve decides that the Xbox hasn't got the juice to do the game justice, but right now at this moment an Xbox version is in the pipeline.
It wasn't a "loophole," it was a "rumor." I don't know anyone who has actually read the contract between Sony and Take Two for the GTA exclusivity, but I would expect that there are outs, probably in the form of being able to release the games for other consoles once a certain sales threshold has been reached. Besides, Sony can (and this should be obvious) simply give Take Two permission to end the exclusivity on particular games if they feel that they've gotten their money's worth.
I wouldn't be surprised if GTA4 was given a release date soon after the release of this double pack, along with the information that it is another Sony exclusive.
Good calls. I would add, though, that GTA:VC debuted at $40 and not $50. Rockstar knew even then that more units at a lower price can end up earning more money than [at least slightly] fewer units at the "standard" price.
Then we have the Phantom...which "unveiled"itself to show...nothing. No actual console, no nothing. What should we be giving a shot, exactly? The wholesale shunning of product in exchange for an all-hype, no-substance world? Gimme a break GameSpy. You guys are right up there with InsertCredit now.
Good point. I would only add that the main drawback to my mind is the fact that it's just supposed to be a mildly inexpensive PC which will apparently play PC games, which also requires a monthly subscription fee. Unless companies like Blizzard, Id, Atari, etc. quit developing games for the general-purpose PC to only release games on the Phantom, I have zero interest in the device. And I'm not even entirely against paying subscription fees for online games/services - I've played Everquest, I have Xbox Live and I plan on jumping into Star Wars Galaxies once I upgrade my current computer. I can only imagine what the people who balk at fees for Xbox Live (a pretty cheap $4+ a month) will think of Infinium's "console."
I'd be surprised if the Phantom ever got distributed on anything like the scale of the other consoles...even if it does, I think it will have a spectacularly short lifespan - it will probably make the 3DO look like a rousing success.
I recall marketing (not much but some) after the game came out, but it played up the gearhead aspect as opposed to having fun racing. While this might have appealed to people who were already into cars, especially in terms of customization, it didn't play to the more general audience just looking for some entertaining gameplay. I know that I shied away from it because I have little to no interest in power/weight ratios, torque and the like.
The other reason it probably suffered is because it wasn't attached to an already popular franchise. Like it or not, people gravitate to the names and games they already know. If the Gran Turismo people could manage to put together something similar, I think it could take off big-time.
Everything you say is true to a point, though I think the biggest obstacle is that a game has to reach a "critical mass" in terms of its player population so that there are enough players of every skill level to make the game fun for everyone. While Counterstrike definitely has a lot of skilled players who can wipe out the inexperienced easily, it's a small matter to drop out of a game where you're outclassed and hunt down a game where people are closer to your level. This is because there are enough people playing the game to ensure said variety of skills, and because the game is popular enough that there are still new (or at least less experienced) people coming on.
Motor City Online, OTOH, never picked up enough people to develop a synergy where new people are always coming in, and the total population was never large enough to always have that special rainbow of ability.
Of course, another aspect is that most "twitch" games (Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, etc.) are going to be static in terms of the skills and equipment of the avatars being used - even in Counterstrike, a couple of lucky kills could earn you enough money to acquire the good equipment. In games where you earn your avatar's skills and equipment over time (MCO fits this because you could improve your cars and get new ones), the new people are at a serious disadvantage if there aren't enough other new people around to play with.
I'm a relatively young man (31) but I have poor vision and browse the web with a keyboard on my lap and a 17" monitor (1024x768) about 2-1/2 feet away. My biggest pet peeve is size-locked fonts. I don't think style is a good excuse to put up small fonts on text-heavy sites - rather, I think it's a mark of HTML laziness.
Fortunately, I dropped IE which does the absolute worst job of any of the browsers at scaling fixed fonts (most of the time it won't allow any scaling at all). I use Firebird now for various reasons, but I've found Opera is actually the best at scaling.
My main recommendation, if you're concerned about elderly eyes' ability to read your site, is (as has been stated above) to use scalable fonts and relatively large icons/graphics for most things. My secondary recommendation is to provide a link to get Opera, perhaps even with a description of why that would be a good idea - Opera is good for those with poor eyes because not only does it provide all the modern browser bells and whistles (gestures, tabbed browsing, etc.) but their "zoom" function is universal and allows people having a tough time looking at web sites to scale not only the text but the graphics too. It's sad to think that there are probably a lot of people browsing the web who have little to no idea that there are advantages to using a browser besides IE.
Actually, AFAIK, EA is the only console publisher that is promising people that they won't be able to play EA games online after certain dates (in order to "encourage" upgrades). I'm sure that the others have some sort of disclaimer regarding the potential loss of online servers but I haven't heard anything about, for example, any of the Xbox Live titles (including sports games) losing their online capability.
You're going to get burned as a heretic if you're not careful.
Seriously, though, it's a common misconception that Microsoft wants to buy every company. The truth is that they mainly buy companies that they think they can get for a song and parlay into multi-thousand percent gains on their investment. ATI isn't such a company, particularly since they've not only just about owned the OEM video card market for years but in fact are in the lead (slim though it may be) in the technology race over Nvidia at the moment.
Even more on-topic, I would question in a PR sense a Sony decision to partner with Nvidia at this stage. To the casual observer, it could be interpreted as scooping up Microsoft's scraps..."How good could Nvidia be if Microsoft threw them overboard?"
Perhaps not, but banning people who are going to give me angina by making unreasonable requests will at least leave me in better shape to tackle my next occupation.
Besides, I don't buy the idea that a big-spending gamer is going to come in and hold me up for a refund on a game because someone else (the developer/publisher) closed down online servers months and years after the game was released. The kind of gamer who would do that is the kind that goes into EB expecting $35 in trade for a game because EB is selling used copies of that game for $40.
When the Everquest servers eventually shut down, are all the people who bought the game for $50 (plus expansions through the years) on day one entitled to refunds? Methinks not.
How many good PS2 games can I name? Quite a few, actually.
SSX/Tricky Dragon Warrior VII Hot Shots Golf 3 Monster Rancher 3 Silent Hill 2/3 Mark of Kri Sly Cooper Jak and Daxter GTA 3/Vice City Virtua Fighter 4/Evolution Dot.Hack Xenosaga Baldur's Gate:DA Gran Turismo 3 Dynasty Warriors 2/3/4 Devil May Cry
Are you still here? I can go on if you need me to.
I'll note too that a few of the above games I didn't care for myself but that doesn't change the fact that they are fundamentally quality games, and usually popular to boot. The fact that YOU are not interested in any of them doesn't make the people who play these games morons.
There's no doubt that the Gamecube, at least in terms of ratios, has better games. But if we're talking pure numbers, the PS2 wins every time. And I say this desipte the fact that uot of the three consoles I own, I actually play my Xbox the most.
You really should switch to a pony. I think that high horse is causing you some oxygen deprivation.
PS - Yes, I'm aware that most of the games cited are sequels - thus not particularly original - but I was responding only to the dolt's blanket indictment of the PS2 as lacking quality games.
Good Lord. Are there still people beating this drum outside of the Nintendo offices?
Believe it or not, people have different tastes in video games. Not one of those tastes is in any superior to another. Should I get angry because Madden tops the video game charts every year despite the fact that I think the 2k series (now ESPN) from Sega is superior? Should I "go postal" because someone else says that Deathrow is a lousy game?
I've played Pikmin, Animal Crossing, the GTA series, Civilization and Knights of the Old Republic - I enjoyed all of them. Each of them addresses different needs I feel as a gamer. There are some popular games that I just can't get into at all, such as Resident Evil. Now, that being said I don't consider any of these games inherently superior to the others in either design or execuation. Why? Because, again, they've all got different things to offer.
I know we're a society of critics but there ARE games that shouldn't be compared to one another. Pikmin/Viewtiful Joe/Animal Crossing versus Manhunt/GTA would be a perfect example of a conflict that shouldn't exist.
Sure, and Nintendo should stick to Mario sequels, Sega should only put out Sonic games and Konami should never release a game without "Metal Gear" in the title.
It's always amazing to me that with all the calls for fewer sequels and more original games, there are people out there actually clamoring for developers to do the same thing over and over and over again.
I think a fun serial killer game would actually be fairly easy to design, though perhaps less so to program. The "art" of it would have less to do with the actual killing but the concealment of evidence and evasion of police. A truly advanced game could even include baiting of the police with cut-and-paste notes and phone calls.
I won't speak to the morality of such a game but there's no doubt that it could be interesting and entertaining, just like movies and books about serial killers can be interesting and entertaining.
Unfortunately, they most likely don't mean Dolby Digital when they're talking about a PS2 game. Unless something's changed in the last few months, the PS2 doesn't have a capability in software (there is definitely not one in hardware) to render real-time Dolby Digital (in any form, 2.0, 4.1, 5.1, etc.) sound. There is a package available to allow rendering DTS in real-time, which has been used in SSX Tricky, NHL 2002 and GTA:VC. They can also do Dolby Pro Logic II which is another matrixed system that allows separate L/R surround channels, which may indeed be the other option they're exploring (if the game is good with good use of DPL-II, it could force me to upgrade yet again to get that decoding).
This is a great idea for a game. While it's clear that the stealth elements are lifted from the many stealth-based games that have come out since Metal Gear Solid, the game sounds like it's shooting for more of a Resident Evil meets Escape From New York aesthetic - except that you're fighting the living instead of the undead and you probably don't have to rescue the president. Given the descriptions of how enemy detection is going to work (by hearing them), I'd imagine that there are going to be a lot of enemies standing still, sitting, etc. right around a blind corner. As long as the control isn't handled like Resident Evil (mush), this sounds like a game I could get into.
I will note that I certainly hope that they have enough system overhead left to provide real-time DTS sound (something the Playstation has to do in software, as opposed to the Dolby Digital 5.1 in hardware on the Xbox). They mention in the article that they haven't decided between Dolby (Pro Logic, I presume) and DTS, but it seems like a no-brainer if you've got the resources available - if you're going to have a game where sound has a lot of influence, being stuck with one matrixed back channel would be sad, especially since Rockstar did a pretty good job with the DTS in GTA:VC.
As far as controversy goes, that's just inevitable and I'm sure it will be welcomed by Rockstar/Take Two's marketing department since they can save money on advertising. While we've been killing humans in video games for years, the ever-increasing fidelity of said killing is going to continue drawing the ire of the "parents should be able to ignore their kids' hobbies" lobby, desipte the fact that every uproar ends up selling more games.
In short, I'm looking forward to finding out if Rockstar can redeem themselves in the controversial game arena (outside of the GTA series) after the debacle that was State of Emergency.
I hate to do it, but a comment with the words "Soviet Russia" seems not only inevitable but appropriate in response to your concepts.
One of the drawbacks of living in a free society is that crime tends to be more common. Because there aren't cameras on every street, people can (for example) steal cars without being seen. Because we don't send people to life terms, or subject them to death/dismemberment, for stealing said cars some people feel that it's worth the risk to do so. Because we don't implant everyone with LoJack systems, criminals can evade the police after they're believed to be stealing cars.
The same extends to the Internet. Because we don't clamp down on people's use of their computers, they're free to do stupid things with them, like downloading viruses (as an aside to those who are confused, this is indeed the correct plural of virus). Since anyone is free to learn how to program a computer and there isn't an automatic system restricting their use of said programming, people are free to write malicious programs.
To make this long post shorter, there's no way to clamp down on this kind of thing without taking away too much of the freedom we all enjoy on the Internet.
For those who are terribly worried about being infected with malicious software, I recommend either a) disconnecting from the Internet entirely or b) getting a separate computer whose only purpose is to connect to the Internet. This solution seems much more satisfactory than inflicting orwellian-type controls on every user.
The best thing about Gunship to my mind was that they went sim enough so that you had to contend with flight dynamics but arcade enough so that you weren't fighting to keep control of your chopper and could concentrate on blowing things up proper - Microprose was the master of that balance, with F19 being another legendary example. I remember playing "Huey" (from Access Software, as I recall) and it was far too frustrating, particularly given the limits imposed by digital joysticks.
Oh yeah, and ZSU-23s made me laugh with my lovely armor.:)
Fortunately, there is a wide variety of different catheters on the market, including many that you can just slip on - usually referred to as a "condom catheter." No "insertion" necessary. Enjoy!
I too am amazed that Carmack thinks complex games are something even relatively new. Two of my favorite games on the Commodore 64 were Gunship and Red Storm Rising (both by Microprose - I'm sorry it's not around anymore). Both games required a paper overlay on the keyboard and some serious manual time to figure out exactly what you were doing. Jumping in willy-nilly resulted in "doom" (my apologies). Those games were both quite complex but immensely rewarding for someone willing to put in some time. And those games were released going on 20 years ago.
I don't think that games have gotten significantly more complex in specific but rather that gamers have learned to appreciate more complex games in general, thus they've come to represent a large portion of the market. There'll always be places for Deer Hunter and Serious Sam, but War/Starcraft, Sim games, etc. will continue to rule the roost (on the PC - consoles are a different topic altogether, though complexity is more and more profitable there too).
Come on now, how can any internet service be "private" and public at the same time? It's one or the other.
Quite easily, actually. If I open a PHP message board on my website, I can open it to the public. Anyone can come in, register a nickname and post. However, if I decide that I don't want someone using my message board, I can delete their account, ban their IP, etc. That person has no legal recourse because they have no inherent right to use my service, regardless of whether or not I open it up to everyone else on the planet. Thus, my message board is both public in the sense that it's free and usable by anyone with a compatible web browser, and it's private because I retain the right to keep out those I don't want to have access.
It's exactly the same for B&M business establishments which can be both public in that they don't automatically bar access to people but private because they can "86" individuals as they see fit.
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I think you missed the point. He's essentially saying that if you had bought this service in order to get the first Half-Life and its sequels, you would pay up to $720 ($120 a year for six years) in order to get two full games with expansion packs. It's both insightful AND funny.
Then you're behind the times. Here's one story, here's another, and, what the heck, one more.
The timeline goes something like this: Valve said before E3 that an Xbox version of Half-Life 2 was in the works. Not long after E3, a guy at Microsoft (David Hufford, a product manager in the Xbox group) was quoted in the Puget Sound Business Journal as saying that the Xbox version of Half-Life 2 wasn't coming. About 24 hours later, Valve had reconfirmed that Xbox would get a version of Half-Life 2 and, in fact, the online version of article in the PSBJ had been CHANGED (as opposed to corrected/retracted - a practice I despise) to remove the reference to Half-Life 2 not coming to Xbox.
Now, obviously, this is something that could change down the line (the earliest possible date for Xbox Half-Life 2 would probably be summer 2004) if Valve decides that the Xbox hasn't got the juice to do the game justice, but right now at this moment an Xbox version is in the pipeline.
I wouldn't be surprised if GTA4 was given a release date soon after the release of this double pack, along with the information that it is another Sony exclusive.
Good calls. I would add, though, that GTA:VC debuted at $40 and not $50. Rockstar knew even then that more units at a lower price can end up earning more money than [at least slightly] fewer units at the "standard" price.
Good point. I would only add that the main drawback to my mind is the fact that it's just supposed to be a mildly inexpensive PC which will apparently play PC games, which also requires a monthly subscription fee. Unless companies like Blizzard, Id, Atari, etc. quit developing games for the general-purpose PC to only release games on the Phantom, I have zero interest in the device. And I'm not even entirely against paying subscription fees for online games/services - I've played Everquest, I have Xbox Live and I plan on jumping into Star Wars Galaxies once I upgrade my current computer. I can only imagine what the people who balk at fees for Xbox Live (a pretty cheap $4+ a month) will think of Infinium's "console."
I'd be surprised if the Phantom ever got distributed on anything like the scale of the other consoles...even if it does, I think it will have a spectacularly short lifespan - it will probably make the 3DO look like a rousing success.
The other reason it probably suffered is because it wasn't attached to an already popular franchise. Like it or not, people gravitate to the names and games they already know. If the Gran Turismo people could manage to put together something similar, I think it could take off big-time.
Motor City Online, OTOH, never picked up enough people to develop a synergy where new people are always coming in, and the total population was never large enough to always have that special rainbow of ability.
Of course, another aspect is that most "twitch" games (Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, etc.) are going to be static in terms of the skills and equipment of the avatars being used - even in Counterstrike, a couple of lucky kills could earn you enough money to acquire the good equipment. In games where you earn your avatar's skills and equipment over time (MCO fits this because you could improve your cars and get new ones), the new people are at a serious disadvantage if there aren't enough other new people around to play with.
Fortunately, I dropped IE which does the absolute worst job of any of the browsers at scaling fixed fonts (most of the time it won't allow any scaling at all). I use Firebird now for various reasons, but I've found Opera is actually the best at scaling.
My main recommendation, if you're concerned about elderly eyes' ability to read your site, is (as has been stated above) to use scalable fonts and relatively large icons/graphics for most things. My secondary recommendation is to provide a link to get Opera, perhaps even with a description of why that would be a good idea - Opera is good for those with poor eyes because not only does it provide all the modern browser bells and whistles (gestures, tabbed browsing, etc.) but their "zoom" function is universal and allows people having a tough time looking at web sites to scale not only the text but the graphics too. It's sad to think that there are probably a lot of people browsing the web who have little to no idea that there are advantages to using a browser besides IE.
Actually, AFAIK, EA is the only console publisher that is promising people that they won't be able to play EA games online after certain dates (in order to "encourage" upgrades). I'm sure that the others have some sort of disclaimer regarding the potential loss of online servers but I haven't heard anything about, for example, any of the Xbox Live titles (including sports games) losing their online capability.
Only if all games use the same filenames.
Seriously, though, it's a common misconception that Microsoft wants to buy every company. The truth is that they mainly buy companies that they think they can get for a song and parlay into multi-thousand percent gains on their investment. ATI isn't such a company, particularly since they've not only just about owned the OEM video card market for years but in fact are in the lead (slim though it may be) in the technology race over Nvidia at the moment.
Even more on-topic, I would question in a PR sense a Sony decision to partner with Nvidia at this stage. To the casual observer, it could be interpreted as scooping up Microsoft's scraps..."How good could Nvidia be if Microsoft threw them overboard?"
Besides, I don't buy the idea that a big-spending gamer is going to come in and hold me up for a refund on a game because someone else (the developer/publisher) closed down online servers months and years after the game was released. The kind of gamer who would do that is the kind that goes into EB expecting $35 in trade for a game because EB is selling used copies of that game for $40.
When the Everquest servers eventually shut down, are all the people who bought the game for $50 (plus expansions through the years) on day one entitled to refunds? Methinks not.
With customers like that, who needs IRS auditors?
SSX/Tricky
Dragon Warrior VII
Hot Shots Golf 3
Monster Rancher 3
Silent Hill 2/3
Mark of Kri
Sly Cooper
Jak and Daxter
GTA 3/Vice City
Virtua Fighter 4/Evolution
Dot.Hack
Xenosaga
Baldur's Gate:DA
Gran Turismo 3
Dynasty Warriors 2/3/4
Devil May Cry
Are you still here? I can go on if you need me to.
I'll note too that a few of the above games I didn't care for myself but that doesn't change the fact that they are fundamentally quality games, and usually popular to boot. The fact that YOU are not interested in any of them doesn't make the people who play these games morons.
There's no doubt that the Gamecube, at least in terms of ratios, has better games. But if we're talking pure numbers, the PS2 wins every time. And I say this desipte the fact that uot of the three consoles I own, I actually play my Xbox the most.
You really should switch to a pony. I think that high horse is causing you some oxygen deprivation.
PS - Yes, I'm aware that most of the games cited are sequels - thus not particularly original - but I was responding only to the dolt's blanket indictment of the PS2 as lacking quality games.
Believe it or not, people have different tastes in video games. Not one of those tastes is in any superior to another. Should I get angry because Madden tops the video game charts every year despite the fact that I think the 2k series (now ESPN) from Sega is superior? Should I "go postal" because someone else says that Deathrow is a lousy game?
I've played Pikmin, Animal Crossing, the GTA series, Civilization and Knights of the Old Republic - I enjoyed all of them. Each of them addresses different needs I feel as a gamer. There are some popular games that I just can't get into at all, such as Resident Evil. Now, that being said I don't consider any of these games inherently superior to the others in either design or execuation. Why? Because, again, they've all got different things to offer.
I know we're a society of critics but there ARE games that shouldn't be compared to one another. Pikmin/Viewtiful Joe/Animal Crossing versus Manhunt/GTA would be a perfect example of a conflict that shouldn't exist.
It's always amazing to me that with all the calls for fewer sequels and more original games, there are people out there actually clamoring for developers to do the same thing over and over and over again.
I won't speak to the morality of such a game but there's no doubt that it could be interesting and entertaining, just like movies and books about serial killers can be interesting and entertaining.
Unfortunately, they most likely don't mean Dolby Digital when they're talking about a PS2 game. Unless something's changed in the last few months, the PS2 doesn't have a capability in software (there is definitely not one in hardware) to render real-time Dolby Digital (in any form, 2.0, 4.1, 5.1, etc.) sound. There is a package available to allow rendering DTS in real-time, which has been used in SSX Tricky, NHL 2002 and GTA:VC. They can also do Dolby Pro Logic II which is another matrixed system that allows separate L/R surround channels, which may indeed be the other option they're exploring (if the game is good with good use of DPL-II, it could force me to upgrade yet again to get that decoding).
I would have said a strainer, but yours is probably less prone to induce vomiting.
I will note that I certainly hope that they have enough system overhead left to provide real-time DTS sound (something the Playstation has to do in software, as opposed to the Dolby Digital 5.1 in hardware on the Xbox). They mention in the article that they haven't decided between Dolby (Pro Logic, I presume) and DTS, but it seems like a no-brainer if you've got the resources available - if you're going to have a game where sound has a lot of influence, being stuck with one matrixed back channel would be sad, especially since Rockstar did a pretty good job with the DTS in GTA:VC.
As far as controversy goes, that's just inevitable and I'm sure it will be welcomed by Rockstar/Take Two's marketing department since they can save money on advertising. While we've been killing humans in video games for years, the ever-increasing fidelity of said killing is going to continue drawing the ire of the "parents should be able to ignore their kids' hobbies" lobby, desipte the fact that every uproar ends up selling more games.
In short, I'm looking forward to finding out if Rockstar can redeem themselves in the controversial game arena (outside of the GTA series) after the debacle that was State of Emergency.
One of the drawbacks of living in a free society is that crime tends to be more common. Because there aren't cameras on every street, people can (for example) steal cars without being seen. Because we don't send people to life terms, or subject them to death/dismemberment, for stealing said cars some people feel that it's worth the risk to do so. Because we don't implant everyone with LoJack systems, criminals can evade the police after they're believed to be stealing cars.
The same extends to the Internet. Because we don't clamp down on people's use of their computers, they're free to do stupid things with them, like downloading viruses (as an aside to those who are confused, this is indeed the correct plural of virus). Since anyone is free to learn how to program a computer and there isn't an automatic system restricting their use of said programming, people are free to write malicious programs.
To make this long post shorter, there's no way to clamp down on this kind of thing without taking away too much of the freedom we all enjoy on the Internet.
For those who are terribly worried about being infected with malicious software, I recommend either a) disconnecting from the Internet entirely or b) getting a separate computer whose only purpose is to connect to the Internet. This solution seems much more satisfactory than inflicting orwellian-type controls on every user.
Oh yeah, and ZSU-23s made me laugh with my lovely armor. :)
Fortunately, there is a wide variety of different catheters on the market, including many that you can just slip on - usually referred to as a "condom catheter." No "insertion" necessary. Enjoy!
I don't think that games have gotten significantly more complex in specific but rather that gamers have learned to appreciate more complex games in general, thus they've come to represent a large portion of the market. There'll always be places for Deer Hunter and Serious Sam, but War/Starcraft, Sim games, etc. will continue to rule the roost (on the PC - consoles are a different topic altogether, though complexity is more and more profitable there too).
Quite easily, actually. If I open a PHP message board on my website, I can open it to the public. Anyone can come in, register a nickname and post. However, if I decide that I don't want someone using my message board, I can delete their account, ban their IP, etc. That person has no legal recourse because they have no inherent right to use my service, regardless of whether or not I open it up to everyone else on the planet. Thus, my message board is both public in the sense that it's free and usable by anyone with a compatible web browser, and it's private because I retain the right to keep out those I don't want to have access.
It's exactly the same for B&M business establishments which can be both public in that they don't automatically bar access to people but private because they can "86" individuals as they see fit.