The ToGo service requires an updated software to be installed on your DVR box (7.1-x). They expect that the rollout of this software to take several weeks and months, though you can fill out a priority request form with your DVR's service number to get yourself higher in the queue. Until you get this software, you'll have nothing on the ToGo side from the PC.
But is Sony going to come out with legitamite memory cards that store much more than 8meg? If one argues that the PStwo is to compete with the Xbox or XBox2, with games that have larger world saves (such as GTA or some RPGs), as well as dynamically patching games like SOCOM2 via a patch stored on the memstick, 8meg is woefully undersized.
I doubt it's the technology, more so how the save/recall API for memcard stuff is written. I suspect most of the current more-than-8Meg cards out there that are !Sony have hardware hacks that avoid issues many older games have with writing to 8megs, though there's still a few.
Of course, I'd have no problem paying $50-$70 for a 128M storage card for the PS2/two. But to continue to act like 8megs is enough, particularly when most current games have no idea about the 2nd memcard slot, is silly.
While HHGTTG may have been the worst, all of Infocom's games suffered from dying easily from making the wrong move; HHGTTG made it worse that you had to make right moves, wholely unrelated to your actions at the current time, in order to survive the game later (e.g. dog/sandwich).
all you young'uns with your LucasArts never-can-die-at-all-no-matter-how-hard-you-try adventure games!
For about 2 months now, I've had a box getting hit with some address (not the same) from what appears to be an home ISP with someone trying to log in via ssh using "guest", "test", and "root", exactly 5 times each in nearly every case. The IP varies each time, and it's not a massive attack, so it sounds to me like a result of a comprimised machine running some automated script that tried to ssh their way into accounts via default passwords, which, to the best of my knowldge, is generally not a default linux install from any distro.
I've not had luck confirming this with anyone else (I have a friend that says they've seen the same and thought they had some security reference about this), but this only is recent, so may be part of it.
I think it's not because they want to get more money (well, not as the ultimate motive) but that with the success of TNG, DS9, and currently Voyager box sets, as well as practically every other TV series out there, that their first release of the TOS series as several 2-episde DVD titles was basically a failure. The very very casual fan may want one episode, so that makes sense, but realistically, any trekkie is going to want to buy at worst their favorite season, much less the entire package.
Additionally, I'd think that having boxed season sets is more appealing to the electronics store (less shelf space) than the individual DVD versions
This is also what happened with Farscape - came out in originally 2-episode DVDs, but ADV films is getting wise and working towards season box sets.
And if that's not enough, the X-Files (probably the other big series to be on DVD when DVD first started) is going to be reprinted in DVD in a new special edition series sets, as most of the original sets are long sold out.
Just like for new release DVDs and CDs, Best Buy (and Walmart to an extent) know how to get the media buyer's money fast. Most new titles for DVDs, at $20, will sell the week of release for $15-17 (depending), and then will never see that same sale price again for several months. Of course, this price is probably comparible to online stores that offer hugh discounts, but the convinence of picking up the movie right then (right after release) as opposed to waiting for the mail is a big win.
And if you're in for a new release film, you'll also probably browse/shop some more, so they'll get you there too.
I'd also include the 2 Klonoa games for PSX and PS2; while beautifully rendered in 3d, the game plays much like a 2d scroller. And the challenges of that game (mostly figuring out how to use the props (monsters, etc) on the level to jump from one place to another) are very similar to other scrollers.
I don't have a problem if Sony wants to keep pushing the dev of PS2 *games* till 2010; there's still new PS1 games coming out, and they're still actually publishing new copies of these games in Greatest Hits format for easy access, and you have the PS1 unit. However, Sony shouldn't be dwaddling on the PS3 at this point, as in terms of system abilities, the PS2 is losing to the XBox and GC in terms of graphcis. Compariable games (e.g. titles released for all 3 platforms) just look so much better on the xbox and GC, typically thanks to more FPS and no slowdowns when the number of polys increases onscreen, and other aspects like that. (Sure, gameplay's important generally over graphics, but even as I play some PS1 titles I missed, I ache over how chunky everything looks).
Even if Sony doesn't push the PS3 faster, they should consider a PS2.5 box, no change to the CPU or GPU hardware, but have a build in HDD, network adapter, multitap, and/or better memory card system. Maybe update the firmware to fix some of the DVD viewing problems that also exist (esp. with multilayer DVDs). Heck, if they use a good size HDD (60g+), they could build a PVR unit easily off the PS2 base, sell this PS2.5 for $200-250, drop the PS2 to $150, and stay competive on hardware for the Xbox(2) and GC. Just give the consumer something that shows maybe a taste of what the PS3 will have and work from there.
I was driving home a distance of 10 miles that took me 1 hr and 10 mins to cover due to traffic; the traffic on that road is never that bad (average time is nearly 15-20 min), and there was no apparent cause on it by the time I got off. Yet, I was listening to a radio station with traffic reports, and there was absolutely no mention of that one stretch being busy (in fact, they only mentioned about traffic blockage due to an accident on a completely different road that would not affect the one I was on).
Radio's ok, but stations can be very selective about what they consider to be a traffic problem, particularly if it doesn't affect the broadcasting city proper. I'd love a real-time traffic map in my car or phone to figure out the best route to go home in a case like that.
I don't play on getting FFXI (not very interesting in the MMORPG aspect), but I'm getting very annoyed at the fact that the PS2's memory card feature has not been improved at all. While an 8meg card is good for probably the average PS2 user, I'm trying to juggle cards around to find space for all my saved games; add to the fact that 50% of the PS2 games have no clue about any other memory card slot besides the first one (at least most RPG games recognize this). Even if the HDD was seen as a memory space for games outside of FFXI, you'd still run into problems with games not recognizing that it's there. I'd also love to see a PS2 card that can have a PS1 memory block partitioned off so that I don't have to switch back and forth when going from PS1/PS2 games.
The GC has a really good-sized mem card option (the 512 block one, yet to fill that for about 20-30 GC games), and the XBox has the hard drive which seems impossible to fill with all the Xbox games out there (and while that's gone in XBox2, the mem solution is much better than the PS2's 8meg card). It's hard to believe that the 8meg card can't be improved to reach 16, 32, or even more memory space without a bit of tweaking. I knwo there's 3rd party solutions, one that I'm using that requires a 8meg card to initialize to the PS2, but this really is something Sony needs to look into, particularly with the PS3 so far off on the horizon, and with games like SOCOM and GTA taking huge chunks of space.
I read that as "9th actor to play the Doctor" , not necessarily the 9th Doctor (aka 8th regeneration), only because, again, the question of the movie-as-canon is still in question, plus it certainly is possible to say the movie was canon, they could pull an actor change at this point without upsetting too much.
The reason that many people like Tom Baker is that during that time, the complete DW production staff was one of the best assembled, from writing to direction, and thus has some of the more memoriable stories, and just so happened that Tom Baker was the Doctor at that time. But I know more DW fans that appreciate Patrick Trougton, Jon Pewtree, and Peter Davidson as the Doctor, given some of the intensity of acting which they supplied to the roles, while Tom Baker's was more a jovial approach - there's also the change in approach from more cerebrial stories to more action-oriented ones as the sfx budget increased.
The question here, is, is this going to be the 9th Doctor (as the BBC canon (which includes the made-for-tv movie) has McGann as the 8th, or are they planning on retcon?
Not only is it important that MS is recognized to have a monopoly, but that there is nothing legally wrong with having a monopoly as long as you are playing fair in the market and maintain the monopoly without interferring in the market. However, once you try to use your monopoly position to prevent entry to the market or to squeeze others out of it, or otherwise use the monopoly position to maintain that position, then it's considered to be a illegal practice, which is what the cruft of the MS trial was about.
Which is why I tend to find online team-based games (Counterstrike, UT, Battlefield 1942) to be better than individual death match. You may find cheaters, you may find superb players, but it becomes easier to distinguish cheaters from the people that want to play as they don't do anything related to the goals of the map, etc. And then team games become fun since the averaging of the skills work out to make the game fun, so you don't have to be a 'professional' player to feel like a contributor.
I can understand the original complain, way back when before it was understood that video games with fast blinking lights could trigger seizures (but wasn't it found to be more from Pokemon than from video games?), but I'm sure (and just checked a couple of random GC games as well as PS2 and XBox ones) where the front cover of the instruction booklet has warnings on Seizures, RMI (repetitie motion injuries), shock, motion sickness, and laser devices. Heck, even this one GC game I'm using as an example has a warning about seizures on the back cover. And this game is definitely around 2003. A 2001 game (Luigi's Mansion) also has the same.
It's one thing to be negligant, but I think Nintendo has done what they can reasonably expect to do here to protect those that might be sensitive to light before they buy the game, much less play it. Just like warning labels on the sides of over-the-counter mediciations and vitamins, and I've yet to hear of a suit that a person claims that one of these did something that was clearly on the outside of the package that he wasn't expecting.
The thing is, how was that EB Games to know the good swere stolen? A young adult, the type that would own a PS2 and games, came in to trade the stuff for cash (assuming the same policy works for GameStop, kids can only trade in for store credit, adults for either), and without able to check on the unit or the person selling it, the EB Games would think that the whole deal was legit.
Not that there is still the problems of 1) selling the items back within 15 days from being bought, and 2) the way they're still trying to treat this as a normal bill-of-sale. Both of these are something that EB does have full control of, and particularly of the last one, is really bad service (presumably, we're talking at most $500 of goods that need to be accounted for, a PS2, mem cards, and several games, based on the numbers tossed in the article) and the amount is a trivial thing to be arguing over.
I will state that, at least for the number of GameStops I've been in, they will try to go head first in to help the customer, as far as reason can go. This could be a limited case of franschising stupidity.
I've gotten spam from the BlueStream Media group, that appears more legit than other spam (that is, they don't hide the fact they're advertizing something and yet the ad is readible, not mangled text, and so forth; eg it's nearly good enough to get past a number of spam filters because it looks like a legitamite written email), and representing other clients outside of BobVila. I personally think that's the way the fight has to go, is to make sure that the company that is being advertized in the spam, and not just the spam provider, is targetted in the suits, as once these companies realize that even if they don't send spam directly, usign spam to advertize is a bad idea.
Unfortunately, more than half of the spam I'm getting lately is now from the fake viagra ones, that, while using viagra, have nothing to do with pfiser, and the actual company isn't mentioned at all, so all you can do is go after the spammer, and not their source of funding.
For a lot of home residental (DSL) users, it's very hard to get the upstream ISP to implement reverse mapping on the DNS, since the ISP is the one in control of the IP number, not the end user. The end user can point domain names all they want to the IP, but reverse mapping will always come up with the ISP's naming scheme. This is a nice idea, but in practice, it's not going to work.
Mine you, you're talking about your block of residental DSL users that run their own mail server (commercial DSL users generally do get the reversing mapping through their ISP); they will most likely not be clients and may be a larger source of spam than other sources.
The sequel was a result of the fact that it got a lot of good word-of-mouth, due to the excellent, yet simple (enough for kids, but challenging still) gameplay. I saw practically no reviews for the game, mainstream or otherwise, with less than stellar marks, the only complaint being the shortness of the game. It was on an NPR segment at one point for pre-holiday game sales or something, too.
I think it was really the word of mouth that got the game to Greatest Hits status as well as the well-deserved sequel. The first Jak and Ratcher were the same way, save for a bigger push on television advertisement (there were tv ads for Sly, they're unlockable on the game, but didn't get airtime).
...is probably better know to the Slashdot crowd as the "extra/red-shirt/6th crew member" in "Galaxy Quest". He also played the main villian in the first "Charlie's Angels" movie, and is actually slowly moving up the Hollywood chain of success. I think this is a good choice, though certainly others could work as well. (for example, I think Robin Williams could do that part well).
...do nothing to the GC in general, but do add support for digital audio, component video and ethernet (and therefore open the gaming market to networked games). You can get the above as standards or add-ons for the xbox and the PS2, and while I will admin the GC is geared towards the family than the power-gamer, adding support for these things, even if after-market items, would make the GC just that much better.
And fixing the damn GBA game cartiridge reader as to make it tons easier to remove and insert new cartridges. The GBA reader - ingenious (to make the GC even more adaptable), but it's design leaves much to be desired.
Oh, and a new Mario game that starts off with a big apology for Super Mario Sunshine.:-)
It may be short, but I think it has reasonable replay value (in that you can pump up the difficulty and not have to worry about how to solve the jumping puzzles). Plus, I've read that you can unlock both the original 2D PoP and the PoP sequel within the game by getting to certain special areas.
I rather have a short, immersive extremely well done game (PoP:SoT, Elite Force (the first one) or Max Payne 2), then to have a game that can give lots of gameplay time but with poor mechanics/plot/whatever that make it a grueling experience (Super Mario Sunshine for example).
I have a friend that , while sick at home one day, caught a fake URL on Sesame Street (or some other children's program), and went and registered it, then put on the front page where the URL came from and that if the compare that owned the show wanted the domain, he'd gladly give it to them for free, and was only grabbing the domain as to prevent the case in this article from happening. I think he also fired an email to the company as well. I believe that the company did ask for the domain, but thanked him for his observation.
Of course, some others were prepared. The episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, called 'Inter-fection', featured a URL, but Cartoon Network was ready, as the site (still active last I checked) was a perfect addendum to the episode.
Hint: if you are going to post a fake domain as part of a show, make sure you actually own it before airing.
I've got all 3 systems, and a cable box, and using a nice console box mentioned elsewhere that takes multiple component, s-video, and composite video, as well as RCA and digital audio, to switch between systems. I've found cables for all 3 consoles that do the s-video conversion, but am interested in going to component wherever possible (I've found solutions for the PS2 and XBox, nothing yet for the Cube). If this was all going to one TV, I'd be ok, as I can use both the component and the s-video without a problem, but I've got a weird two TV setup (one is for an office-like area, one is the living room TV where I exercise). At this point, only one TV can take s-video and not component. As it is now, I have everything using s-video, and have a s-video relayer with multiple s-video (and composite and RCA audio) out to take the output from the switcher box to both TVs/reciever systems. The PS2 and Xbox component cables are such that if you use them, you can't do composite or s-video, so I would not be able to use those on the component-video-lacking TV, but I need to have them on both.
In other words, I'm looking for a way to convert component video inputs to s-video (or even composite if necessary), such that I can take the component video output from the PS2 and Xbox and make it s-video, while still having a passthrough on the component signal ideally (I figure that since the component cables are simple RCA-type jacks, you can Y-them to split the signal, so I could do this instead), or something that will upgrade the s-video signal to a component signal, again ideally with some passthrough. This way, I can use the devices with component video on the component-video tv, while still having s-video handling on the older TV.
And yes, this does produce a nice mess of cables, but they're mostly hidden from view.:-)
I've found that wireless controllers, in the extra time for signal delivery and conversion, can actually affect gameplay on some titles (example would be the PS2 title Amplitude -- I can perfectly play it with a wired controller, but the timing is screwed up with a wireless one). Plus they suck batteries badly. It could be due to the quality of the controller, but I've tried a couple and run into similar problems.
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The ToGo service requires an updated software to be installed on your DVR box (7.1-x). They expect that the rollout of this software to take several weeks and months, though you can fill out a priority request form with your DVR's service number to get yourself higher in the queue. Until you get this software, you'll have nothing on the ToGo side from the PC.
I doubt it's the technology, more so how the save/recall API for memcard stuff is written. I suspect most of the current more-than-8Meg cards out there that are !Sony have hardware hacks that avoid issues many older games have with writing to 8megs, though there's still a few.
Of course, I'd have no problem paying $50-$70 for a 128M storage card for the PS2/two. But to continue to act like 8megs is enough, particularly when most current games have no idea about the 2nd memcard slot, is silly.
While HHGTTG may have been the worst, all of Infocom's games suffered from dying easily from making the wrong move; HHGTTG made it worse that you had to make right moves, wholely unrelated to your actions at the current time, in order to survive the game later (e.g. dog/sandwich). all you young'uns with your LucasArts never-can-die-at-all-no-matter-how-hard-you-try adventure games!
I've not had luck confirming this with anyone else (I have a friend that says they've seen the same and thought they had some security reference about this), but this only is recent, so may be part of it.
I think it's not because they want to get more money (well, not as the ultimate motive) but that with the success of TNG, DS9, and currently Voyager box sets, as well as practically every other TV series out there, that their first release of the TOS series as several 2-episde DVD titles was basically a failure. The very very casual fan may want one episode, so that makes sense, but realistically, any trekkie is going to want to buy at worst their favorite season, much less the entire package. Additionally, I'd think that having boxed season sets is more appealing to the electronics store (less shelf space) than the individual DVD versions This is also what happened with Farscape - came out in originally 2-episode DVDs, but ADV films is getting wise and working towards season box sets. And if that's not enough, the X-Files (probably the other big series to be on DVD when DVD first started) is going to be reprinted in DVD in a new special edition series sets, as most of the original sets are long sold out.
And if you're in for a new release film, you'll also probably browse/shop some more, so they'll get you there too.
I'd also include the 2 Klonoa games for PSX and PS2; while beautifully rendered in 3d, the game plays much like a 2d scroller. And the challenges of that game (mostly figuring out how to use the props (monsters, etc) on the level to jump from one place to another) are very similar to other scrollers.
Even if Sony doesn't push the PS3 faster, they should consider a PS2.5 box, no change to the CPU or GPU hardware, but have a build in HDD, network adapter, multitap, and/or better memory card system. Maybe update the firmware to fix some of the DVD viewing problems that also exist (esp. with multilayer DVDs). Heck, if they use a good size HDD (60g+), they could build a PVR unit easily off the PS2 base, sell this PS2.5 for $200-250, drop the PS2 to $150, and stay competive on hardware for the Xbox(2) and GC. Just give the consumer something that shows maybe a taste of what the PS3 will have and work from there.
Radio's ok, but stations can be very selective about what they consider to be a traffic problem, particularly if it doesn't affect the broadcasting city proper. I'd love a real-time traffic map in my car or phone to figure out the best route to go home in a case like that.
The GC has a really good-sized mem card option (the 512 block one, yet to fill that for about 20-30 GC games), and the XBox has the hard drive which seems impossible to fill with all the Xbox games out there (and while that's gone in XBox2, the mem solution is much better than the PS2's 8meg card). It's hard to believe that the 8meg card can't be improved to reach 16, 32, or even more memory space without a bit of tweaking. I knwo there's 3rd party solutions, one that I'm using that requires a 8meg card to initialize to the PS2, but this really is something Sony needs to look into, particularly with the PS3 so far off on the horizon, and with games like SOCOM and GTA taking huge chunks of space.
I read that as "9th actor to play the Doctor" , not necessarily the 9th Doctor (aka 8th regeneration), only because, again, the question of the movie-as-canon is still in question, plus it certainly is possible to say the movie was canon, they could pull an actor change at this point without upsetting too much.
The question here, is, is this going to be the 9th Doctor (as the BBC canon (which includes the made-for-tv movie) has McGann as the 8th, or are they planning on retcon?
Not only is it important that MS is recognized to have a monopoly, but that there is nothing legally wrong with having a monopoly as long as you are playing fair in the market and maintain the monopoly without interferring in the market. However, once you try to use your monopoly position to prevent entry to the market or to squeeze others out of it, or otherwise use the monopoly position to maintain that position, then it's considered to be a illegal practice, which is what the cruft of the MS trial was about.
Which is why I tend to find online team-based games (Counterstrike, UT, Battlefield 1942) to be better than individual death match. You may find cheaters, you may find superb players, but it becomes easier to distinguish cheaters from the people that want to play as they don't do anything related to the goals of the map, etc. And then team games become fun since the averaging of the skills work out to make the game fun, so you don't have to be a 'professional' player to feel like a contributor.
It's one thing to be negligant, but I think Nintendo has done what they can reasonably expect to do here to protect those that might be sensitive to light before they buy the game, much less play it. Just like warning labels on the sides of over-the-counter mediciations and vitamins, and I've yet to hear of a suit that a person claims that one of these did something that was clearly on the outside of the package that he wasn't expecting.
Not that there is still the problems of 1) selling the items back within 15 days from being bought, and 2) the way they're still trying to treat this as a normal bill-of-sale. Both of these are something that EB does have full control of, and particularly of the last one, is really bad service (presumably, we're talking at most $500 of goods that need to be accounted for, a PS2, mem cards, and several games, based on the numbers tossed in the article) and the amount is a trivial thing to be arguing over.
I will state that, at least for the number of GameStops I've been in, they will try to go head first in to help the customer, as far as reason can go. This could be a limited case of franschising stupidity.
Unfortunately, more than half of the spam I'm getting lately is now from the fake viagra ones, that, while using viagra, have nothing to do with pfiser, and the actual company isn't mentioned at all, so all you can do is go after the spammer, and not their source of funding.
Mine you, you're talking about your block of residental DSL users that run their own mail server (commercial DSL users generally do get the reversing mapping through their ISP); they will most likely not be clients and may be a larger source of spam than other sources.
The sequel was a result of the fact that it got a lot of good word-of-mouth, due to the excellent, yet simple (enough for kids, but challenging still) gameplay. I saw practically no reviews for the game, mainstream or otherwise, with less than stellar marks, the only complaint being the shortness of the game. It was on an NPR segment at one point for pre-holiday game sales or something, too. I think it was really the word of mouth that got the game to Greatest Hits status as well as the well-deserved sequel. The first Jak and Ratcher were the same way, save for a bigger push on television advertisement (there were tv ads for Sly, they're unlockable on the game, but didn't get airtime).
...is probably better know to the Slashdot crowd as the "extra/red-shirt/6th crew member" in "Galaxy Quest". He also played the main villian in the first "Charlie's Angels" movie, and is actually slowly moving up the Hollywood chain of success. I think this is a good choice, though certainly others could work as well. (for example, I think Robin Williams could do that part well).
And fixing the damn GBA game cartiridge reader as to make it tons easier to remove and insert new cartridges. The GBA reader - ingenious (to make the GC even more adaptable), but it's design leaves much to be desired.
Oh, and a new Mario game that starts off with a big apology for Super Mario Sunshine. :-)
I rather have a short, immersive extremely well done game (PoP:SoT, Elite Force (the first one) or Max Payne 2), then to have a game that can give lots of gameplay time but with poor mechanics/plot/whatever that make it a grueling experience (Super Mario Sunshine for example).
I have a friend that , while sick at home one day, caught a fake URL on Sesame Street (or some other children's program), and went and registered it, then put on the front page where the URL came from and that if the compare that owned the show wanted the domain, he'd gladly give it to them for free, and was only grabbing the domain as to prevent the case in this article from happening. I think he also fired an email to the company as well. I believe that the company did ask for the domain, but thanked him for his observation. Of course, some others were prepared. The episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, called 'Inter-fection', featured a URL, but Cartoon Network was ready, as the site (still active last I checked) was a perfect addendum to the episode. Hint: if you are going to post a fake domain as part of a show, make sure you actually own it before airing.
In other words, I'm looking for a way to convert component video inputs to s-video (or even composite if necessary), such that I can take the component video output from the PS2 and Xbox and make it s-video, while still having a passthrough on the component signal ideally (I figure that since the component cables are simple RCA-type jacks, you can Y-them to split the signal, so I could do this instead), or something that will upgrade the s-video signal to a component signal, again ideally with some passthrough. This way, I can use the devices with component video on the component-video tv, while still having s-video handling on the older TV.
And yes, this does produce a nice mess of cables, but they're mostly hidden from view. :-)
I've found that wireless controllers, in the extra time for signal delivery and conversion, can actually affect gameplay on some titles (example would be the PS2 title Amplitude -- I can perfectly play it with a wired controller, but the timing is screwed up with a wireless one). Plus they suck batteries badly. It could be due to the quality of the controller, but I've tried a couple and run into similar problems.