Yeah, I'd definitely factor in job security and stability of the company. Also, which job has more chance for long-term advancement. If you work for a big company like IBM, you don't need to change employers to get promotions and raises, or even change job areas completely, and assuming you don't screw up it's unlikely you'll lose your job. Whereas a 20-person start-up is a much riskier proposition.
Fully discloser: I worked for a start-up that was bought by IBM.
I think it's pretty obvious that Linden Labs is brilliant at generating publicity. They manage to get their press releases reprinted as articles on big sites like Slashdot pretty regularly. It's not that surprising that they'd see the PR possibilities where other companies would just see an attack on their brand.
Too bad the product isn't actually worth the publicity they generate.
The reason uTorrent is so good is that it's Windows-only. As soon as you try to make something cross-platform, it can't be as optimized. I mean, parts of it were written in assembler!
That's what I've been hoping for since the Genesis game came out. Doesn't look like it's going to happen though. Instead, we get CounterStrike with elves and Everquest with deckers. Oh well, time to move on. Resident Evil 4 was great last year, I'm sure more great games will come out next year.
Yeah, what the hell happened to standards? A CD is a CD, a CD-R is a CD-R. Barring some DRM shitfuckery, a CD will play in any CD player. The DVD was the last true standard. With the move to writable DVDs, there was a standards battle and nobody won. So now you have DVD burners that will burn DVD+R and DVD-R, but neither of them is a true standard and some disks you burn are not compatible with some players. There is no HDTV standard, nor is there an HD DVD standard. Instead there are a bunch of different "standards" and a bunch of devices that support some or all of them to varying degrees. Everybody wants the whole pie and nobody's willing to admit defeat, and it screws things up for consumers. You can't just walk into a store and buy an HDTV, you have to know what types of "HD" it supports.
Most TV displays in stores are running an SD signal over coax through splitters to a few dozen TVs--the picture is shit because the signal is shit. If you want to see how an HDTV looks, make the salesweasel hook a DVD player (or better yet, something that's actually HD) directly to that TV and only that TV via component cables. You wouldn't judge a new console on how well it displays 8-bit NES games, so why would you judge an HDTV on how well it displays SD?
I think it would be better to buy a $250 unit from a profitable company than a $500 unit from a failing one.
Unless you're buying stock in the company, their profit/loss statements don't matter. From a strictly financial standpoint it would make more sense to buy the PS3, which Sony is subsidizing, rather than the Wii, which Nintendo makes a profit on. But finance has no relevance to gaming; people will buy the system that has the games they want to play.
Do you know what Microsoft have done? They've invented a new kind of spam. Companies will hack the standard and create a box which will automatically find every Zune in the vicinity and send their (audio/video) adverts to them.
Hack the standard? You say this like MS didn't design the feature specifically so Starbucks can squirt ads all over their customers.
If BluRay fails to become the standard, then the damage to the PS3 will be the fact that it's priced $200 higher than the competition because of a feature people don't want.
I don't buy it. A lot of games were on the Gamecube as well as PS2, and didn't require multiple discs. That tells me they weren't using all the space on a DVD. The amount of time and money it will take to generate enough content to fill a bluray disc will be ridiculous. Unless they just don't bother compressing anything.
JVC has a couple of decks out with a USB port on the front. I have a friend with one, and he loves it. If you don't already own an iPod, why drop that kind of money just to listen to music in the car, when you can pick up a 1GB thumbdrive for $20?
Backwards compatibility is one of those things that's mostly a marketing feature. People think they want it, but when it comes down to it most of them don't ever actually use it. But because they think they want it, the feature is worth putting in even if nobody uses it, because by that point they've already bought the product.
The Xbox has had more than 6-7 AAA titles. You have to include games that are not exclusives.
There are some games that are system-sellers. They are games that people want to play bad enough to buy a whole new system. Games like Final Fantasy, Halo, Guitar Hero and (for the first six months) GTA 3 and Resident Evil 4. By definition, cross-platform games cannot be system-sellers because you can play them on any system. Sure, most cross-platform games are better on the XBox, but that doesn't sell systems because people just look at the library and see they can get the game for PS2. Conversely, the PS2 has a whole whack of really good exclusives, and those are the games that sell systems.
That's one reason, and a good one. Another is that whether they price it at $250 or $200 or $100, the Wii will still be the cheapest console available this generation. Why would they take a loss when there is no benefit? Maybe they'd get some psychological benefit to being $199, but it's be negligible next to the benefit they get from being over a hundred dollars less than their competition.
So does anyone think it's really a major stretch to see a KBM setup on a console?
You're missing the point there, I think. No, you will never see keyboard & mouse become prevalent on consoles. However, the big question is what does a KBM interface allow you to do? The mouse gives you precise, intuitive control. The keyboard gives you a lot of button options and the ability to chat via text. If it works as advertised, the Wii controller will offer the intuitive control of a mouse. The functions of a keyboard can be replaced with better context-sensitive control schemes (ie the same button does different things in different situations) and voice chat. There's no technological reason that WoW couldn't work on the 360 (other than Microsoft's idiotic requirement that all games must support the HDD-less retard pack). PC MMOGs use text chat because all PCs come with a keyboard. Well, 360s come with a headset. Different hardware, but the same basic function.
Re:Only mean spirited if you are reading between l
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New "Get a Mac" TV ads
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Think of the experience these women probably have, PC's at home that they have to get viruses and spyware cleaned off of, mysterious things that the computer tells them they do not really understand when they just want to hook up a printer.
Think how surprised these women will be if enough of them buy Macs for virus and spyware writers to start targetting the platform.
I think the point is RTS games and turn-based games are fundamentally different. It's a pretty egregious mistake to call Civ an RTS and to say it has too many clicks on that basis, IMO, which makes the whole story here (or at least the headline and summary) basically moot.
It's pretty stupid to write an article about how a game which is not part of a specific genre doesn't adhere to the conventions of that genre. Civ IV sucks as a third-person platformer, too. You can't play with a gamepad? OMG WTF?!
Not only that, but a lot of the interface problems he's whinging about were fixed in Civ IV. As someone upthread noted, you might as well write an article decrying the problems with Windows 95. I can remember having my units so automated in Civ IV that I had nothing to do except click End Turn. If you're clicking as much as he claims, you're either at war with everybody or you're playing the game wrong.
I used to be an exclusively PC gamer. I've slowly switched to being primarily a console gamer. Not so much because of the PC upgrade cycle (which does suck) as the simple fact that PC gaming is in a rut, and I got tired of playing the same games over and over. Occasionally there's something really cool like Space Rangers 2, but for the most part it's just incremental improvements in graphics and features (if you're lucky) but fundamentally the same games. All the really innovative stuff is happening on the consoles. There's no technological reason why Animal Crossing or Resident Evil 4 couldn't have been developed on the PC, but they weren't.
PC gamers see a division between the PC and consoles, as if all consoles can be lumped together. Console gamers see the PC as just another platform, with its own strengths, weaknesses and exclusive titles.
Depends what you consider a "benefit for Apple." Maybe people like the ads, but the bottom line is that the Mac's market share has been dropping since the early 90's. So whether or not the ad campaign makes people think about buying a Mac, it doesn't make them actually buy one.
They seem absolutely certain that even when they say it's going to be considerably more expensive than existing consoles... nevertheless us eager customers will rush out in droves to buy it because it's, hey, a new PlayStation.
That is exactly what they're saying. The thing is, they may be right. I really don't see the 360 picking up a lot of ground in Japan, especially if Final Fantasy remains PS exclusive. It remains to be seen how much marketshare Nintendo can pick up in any region, since it's really not competing directly. People who want what the PS3 offers will have to choose between the PS3 and the 360. They may choose to also buy a Wii, because hey, it costs half as much, but that doesn't result in lost sales for Sony. In North America, the 360 will probably take most of Sony's market because it does the same things for less money and with better online support.
The real question I see is, can Sony make money even if they sell 20 million units? Sure, a lot of people choke on the $600 price tag but most analysts figure it still doesn't cover the manufacturing costs. They seem to be willing to take a loss on the PS3 to try to win the HD format war. But if that bet doesn't pay off they could be stuck with a loss leader that doesn't lead anywhere.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I'd definitely factor in job security and stability of the company. Also, which job has more chance for long-term advancement. If you work for a big company like IBM, you don't need to change employers to get promotions and raises, or even change job areas completely, and assuming you don't screw up it's unlikely you'll lose your job. Whereas a 20-person start-up is a much riskier proposition. Fully discloser: I worked for a start-up that was bought by IBM.
I think it's pretty obvious that Linden Labs is brilliant at generating publicity. They manage to get their press releases reprinted as articles on big sites like Slashdot pretty regularly. It's not that surprising that they'd see the PR possibilities where other companies would just see an attack on their brand. Too bad the product isn't actually worth the publicity they generate.
The reason uTorrent is so good is that it's Windows-only. As soon as you try to make something cross-platform, it can't be as optimized. I mean, parts of it were written in assembler!
That's what I've been hoping for since the Genesis game came out. Doesn't look like it's going to happen though. Instead, we get CounterStrike with elves and Everquest with deckers. Oh well, time to move on. Resident Evil 4 was great last year, I'm sure more great games will come out next year.
Why? If you have an HTPC, you can just download your content. Optical media is so five years ago.
Yeah, what the hell happened to standards? A CD is a CD, a CD-R is a CD-R. Barring some DRM shitfuckery, a CD will play in any CD player. The DVD was the last true standard. With the move to writable DVDs, there was a standards battle and nobody won. So now you have DVD burners that will burn DVD+R and DVD-R, but neither of them is a true standard and some disks you burn are not compatible with some players. There is no HDTV standard, nor is there an HD DVD standard. Instead there are a bunch of different "standards" and a bunch of devices that support some or all of them to varying degrees. Everybody wants the whole pie and nobody's willing to admit defeat, and it screws things up for consumers. You can't just walk into a store and buy an HDTV, you have to know what types of "HD" it supports.
Most TV displays in stores are running an SD signal over coax through splitters to a few dozen TVs--the picture is shit because the signal is shit. If you want to see how an HDTV looks, make the salesweasel hook a DVD player (or better yet, something that's actually HD) directly to that TV and only that TV via component cables. You wouldn't judge a new console on how well it displays 8-bit NES games, so why would you judge an HDTV on how well it displays SD?
That's not obscurity, that's security through irrelevance.
We could use another wave of American left-winger immigrants. Stephen Harper got elected, ffs.
If BluRay fails to become the standard, then the damage to the PS3 will be the fact that it's priced $200 higher than the competition because of a feature people don't want.
I don't buy it. A lot of games were on the Gamecube as well as PS2, and didn't require multiple discs. That tells me they weren't using all the space on a DVD. The amount of time and money it will take to generate enough content to fill a bluray disc will be ridiculous. Unless they just don't bother compressing anything.
JVC has a couple of decks out with a USB port on the front. I have a friend with one, and he loves it. If you don't already own an iPod, why drop that kind of money just to listen to music in the car, when you can pick up a 1GB thumbdrive for $20?
Backwards compatibility is one of those things that's mostly a marketing feature. People think they want it, but when it comes down to it most of them don't ever actually use it. But because they think they want it, the feature is worth putting in even if nobody uses it, because by that point they've already bought the product.
That's one reason, and a good one. Another is that whether they price it at $250 or $200 or $100, the Wii will still be the cheapest console available this generation. Why would they take a loss when there is no benefit? Maybe they'd get some psychological benefit to being $199, but it's be negligible next to the benefit they get from being over a hundred dollars less than their competition.
Not only that, but a lot of the interface problems he's whinging about were fixed in Civ IV. As someone upthread noted, you might as well write an article decrying the problems with Windows 95. I can remember having my units so automated in Civ IV that I had nothing to do except click End Turn. If you're clicking as much as he claims, you're either at war with everybody or you're playing the game wrong.
I used to be an exclusively PC gamer. I've slowly switched to being primarily a console gamer. Not so much because of the PC upgrade cycle (which does suck) as the simple fact that PC gaming is in a rut, and I got tired of playing the same games over and over. Occasionally there's something really cool like Space Rangers 2, but for the most part it's just incremental improvements in graphics and features (if you're lucky) but fundamentally the same games. All the really innovative stuff is happening on the consoles. There's no technological reason why Animal Crossing or Resident Evil 4 couldn't have been developed on the PC, but they weren't.
PC gamers see a division between the PC and consoles, as if all consoles can be lumped together. Console gamers see the PC as just another platform, with its own strengths, weaknesses and exclusive titles.
You say "Honey, I need to borrow you credit card."
Depends what you consider a "benefit for Apple." Maybe people like the ads, but the bottom line is that the Mac's market share has been dropping since the early 90's. So whether or not the ad campaign makes people think about buying a Mac, it doesn't make them actually buy one.
The real question I see is, can Sony make money even if they sell 20 million units? Sure, a lot of people choke on the $600 price tag but most analysts figure it still doesn't cover the manufacturing costs. They seem to be willing to take a loss on the PS3 to try to win the HD format war. But if that bet doesn't pay off they could be stuck with a loss leader that doesn't lead anywhere.