I'm guessing that Ubisoft were afraid that attention would be drawn to how horribly the game runs on the next-gen consoles. On PS4 the framerate int he first 10 minutes drops down to around 10 frames per second and on Xbone it drops to around 15 frames per second (this is from personal experience - got it on both consoles and have tried it on both). Also, given that it's minimum specs on PC are that of a quite high end gaming PC where it's also running like crap, they really deserve to be smashed in reviews for releasing such a horribly broken game.
I guess it boils down to what you think is a reasonable markup on something. $1 AUD buys $0.90 USD currently. So what do you think a reasonable markup on something would be? 20%? 50%?
How about 400%? Because that's what they expect us to pay, and then they call us pirates when we choose to seek alternate methods to access Netflix!!! FWIW - News Corpse owns The Australian newspaper, and owns half of Foxtel, the monopoly payTV provider in Australia.
It gets better. Foxtel (the major rights holder for TV content in Australia) wants people to have their internet connections cut off if they pirate TV shows, whilst charging $150 a month for cable TV in HD. There's no legal way to access shows like Game of Thrones in Australia via streaming, the cheapest possible way to watch it as it airs overseas is with a "Foxtel-Play" subscription for $35/month for the 3 months. And then Foxtel and Village Roadshow and Quickflix all cry about piracy, because people don't want to pay a 400% markup for TV content. Netflix and a VPN service is costing me $15/month for five times the content I can get from Foxtel for $150/month
Meanwhile I get 250/20 Mbits, with bundled tv and phone for ~$30, with no data caps, no asterisks with small print, no T&C bullshit.
*sigh* living in Australia sucks. 15/1 mbps ADSL2 for $80/month, $10 a month for a voip phone with that and if i want foxtel TV they want a minimum of $60 a month on top for just basic channels in SD, anything worth watching means $130 and an extra $10 for an HD box... and then they wonder why we pirate.
Be as diplomatic as possible, but completely factual and provide as much evidence as possible. You never know what relationship the 'expert' has to the client/boss.
Which is what, 2% of the total amount of games available on Steam? Whilst I'd love them to port over a lot of the games to Linux, the reality is that the major titles that Steam has are still going to require a Windows machine to stream them to the SteamOS console. It may encourage development of games under Linux, which would be great, but at this point, SteamOS is going to require a Windows PC to run the majority of Steam games.
So in answer to your question "Who needs Windows when you have SteamOS?", I stand by my statement - SteamOS needs Windows. At this point. Let's hope it changes in future.
SteamOS does - to stream the games across your network to the SteamOS box that won't run natively in it... unless I've missed some major announcement that SteamOS will actually run the latest AAA style titles natively?
You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!
Why should Origin charge me $79.99 Australian for Battlefield 4 because I purchased it in the Australian Origin shop? It's $41.45 through the Origin Mexico store, and downloads from the same Origin servers. Origin Australia doesn't actually bill from Australia, and there is no GST component applied and provided to the Australian government, it just lines EA's pockets.
Meanwhile, a lot of other Aussies (myself included) have used VPN services to activate and play the game yesterday and today... as well as using them to avoid paying the 50% Australia tax!;)
I actually did trial it on a colleagues phone. Looked good, I liked it - definitely didn't make me feel ill - hence why I downloaded and installed it. What I didn't expect, and couldn't have reasonably been expected to know, was that using the phone with iOS7 while on the train to and from work would make feel like I'm going to chuck. I don't normally get nausea or motion sickness, I play FPS games a lot and don't get that effect - but using iOS 7 on the way to and from work really did make me feel unwell. Even with the settings for reduce motion turned on.
A push notification comes up on your phone. "Parliamentary vote on carbon tax" with an option of "Yes, No, Abstain" with no answer supplied taken as an abstention. Much easier, much fewer politicians required.;)
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of voters will not take the 10-15mins it takes to vote below the line, let alone the hours of studying the policies AND the registered preferences of the 45 odd parties vying for election. I think perhaps the most egregious outcome is the probable election of a WA Senator who received less the 0.25% of the primary vote!
I *almost* considered voting above the line, but none of the parties put their preferences quite the way I liked them. It must be frustrating for the candidates who did well in the primary votes to be pipped at the post by preference deals.
As much as I like exhaustive preferential voting on principle, the time has come to give voters the right to vote optionally preferentially above the line (if not also below it), so that votes are not cast against the voters actual preferences.
I actually think the time has come for the idea of true democracy - where everyone gets to vote in parliament on every thing - a large percentage of the population carries a smart phone and would be able to install an app to vote in federal issues. I think that's what the Senator Online party were aiming for. If the time hasn't come already for this style of democracy, it will soon...
I spent about 15hrs going through all the various policies from all the senate candidates. It truly was a difficult decision who to put last... and really quite depressing to have parties like the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party, who only got a very small number of primary votes make it through to the senate on preferences.
The way Lufthansa handled my wife's lost luggage during her recent trip to Europe was absolutely pitiful. The staff were utterly horrible, and despite promises that she would be reimbursed for everything she had to replace during the 11 days the luggage was missing (on a 15 day trip), we are still waiting for reimbursement 2 months later, having even taken everything to the nearest Lufthansa office in another state for verification. Their call centre staff are ridiculously rude - I will grant that their English is better than my German, but to then have to chase them repeatedly and take all the items plus receipts on an interstate trip at our own expense and even then not be reimbursed is just terrible.
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I'm guessing that Ubisoft were afraid that attention would be drawn to how horribly the game runs on the next-gen consoles. On PS4 the framerate int he first 10 minutes drops down to around 10 frames per second and on Xbone it drops to around 15 frames per second (this is from personal experience - got it on both consoles and have tried it on both). Also, given that it's minimum specs on PC are that of a quite high end gaming PC where it's also running like crap, they really deserve to be smashed in reviews for releasing such a horribly broken game.
As of the 1st of September this year, Australian's in the state of Victoria have lost the right to protest.
... it went into my Other folder! No-one checks that!
I guess it boils down to what you think is a reasonable markup on something. $1 AUD buys $0.90 USD currently. So what do you think a reasonable markup on something would be? 20%? 50%? How about 400%? Because that's what they expect us to pay, and then they call us pirates when we choose to seek alternate methods to access Netflix!!! FWIW - News Corpse owns The Australian newspaper, and owns half of Foxtel, the monopoly payTV provider in Australia.
It gets better. Foxtel (the major rights holder for TV content in Australia) wants people to have their internet connections cut off if they pirate TV shows, whilst charging $150 a month for cable TV in HD. There's no legal way to access shows like Game of Thrones in Australia via streaming, the cheapest possible way to watch it as it airs overseas is with a "Foxtel-Play" subscription for $35/month for the 3 months. And then Foxtel and Village Roadshow and Quickflix all cry about piracy, because people don't want to pay a 400% markup for TV content. Netflix and a VPN service is costing me $15/month for five times the content I can get from Foxtel for $150/month
You clearly aren't aware that in Australia, News Corpse has about 70% market share.
Meanwhile I get 250/20 Mbits, with bundled tv and phone for ~$30, with no data caps, no asterisks with small print, no T&C bullshit.
*sigh* living in Australia sucks. 15/1 mbps ADSL2 for $80/month, $10 a month for a voip phone with that and if i want foxtel TV they want a minimum of $60 a month on top for just basic channels in SD, anything worth watching means $130 and an extra $10 for an HD box... and then they wonder why we pirate.
Be as diplomatic as possible, but completely factual and provide as much evidence as possible. You never know what relationship the 'expert' has to the client/boss.
Which is what, 2% of the total amount of games available on Steam? Whilst I'd love them to port over a lot of the games to Linux, the reality is that the major titles that Steam has are still going to require a Windows machine to stream them to the SteamOS console. It may encourage development of games under Linux, which would be great, but at this point, SteamOS is going to require a Windows PC to run the majority of Steam games.
So in answer to your question "Who needs Windows when you have SteamOS?", I stand by my statement - SteamOS needs Windows. At this point. Let's hope it changes in future.
The Valve SteamOS page still says:
You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!
This guy gets it.
Why should Origin charge me $79.99 Australian for Battlefield 4 because I purchased it in the Australian Origin shop? It's $41.45 through the Origin Mexico store, and downloads from the same Origin servers. Origin Australia doesn't actually bill from Australia, and there is no GST component applied and provided to the Australian government, it just lines EA's pockets.
Meanwhile, a lot of other Aussies (myself included) have used VPN services to activate and play the game yesterday and today... as well as using them to avoid paying the 50% Australia tax! ;)
... that people used their real names and addresses on Silk Rd as sellers, and expected to never get busted in the process.
... that updating the BIOS on my 7870 might unlock these features?
i really shouldn't moderate until i've had 2 coffees. posting to undo stupid undeserved mod.
As a non-american, I find this behaviour by the Republican party to be not only morally reprehensible but truly abhorrent.
I actually did trial it on a colleagues phone. Looked good, I liked it - definitely didn't make me feel ill - hence why I downloaded and installed it. What I didn't expect, and couldn't have reasonably been expected to know, was that using the phone with iOS7 while on the train to and from work would make feel like I'm going to chuck. I don't normally get nausea or motion sickness, I play FPS games a lot and don't get that effect - but using iOS 7 on the way to and from work really did make me feel unwell. Even with the settings for reduce motion turned on.
It makes a big difference if you actually go to the store - which may or may not be an option for you.
They replaced the 32gb 4S running iOS 7 with a 32gb 4S running iOS6.1.3 and that makes a large difference.
It's now been replaced, with a brand new phone of the same configuration at no cost to myself. That is brilliant customer service, Apple. Cheers.
Engage!
A push notification comes up on your phone. "Parliamentary vote on carbon tax" with an option of "Yes, No, Abstain" with no answer supplied taken as an abstention. Much easier, much fewer politicians required. ;)
Did you use senate.io? Really great tool.
Nope, I used belowtheline.org.au.
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of voters will not take the 10-15mins it takes to vote below the line, let alone the hours of studying the policies AND the registered preferences of the 45 odd parties vying for election. I think perhaps the most egregious outcome is the probable election of a WA Senator who received less the 0.25% of the primary vote!
I *almost* considered voting above the line, but none of the parties put their preferences quite the way I liked them. It must be frustrating for the candidates who did well in the primary votes to be pipped at the post by preference deals.
As much as I like exhaustive preferential voting on principle, the time has come to give voters the right to vote optionally preferentially above the line (if not also below it), so that votes are not cast against the voters actual preferences.
I actually think the time has come for the idea of true democracy - where everyone gets to vote in parliament on every thing - a large percentage of the population carries a smart phone and would be able to install an app to vote in federal issues. I think that's what the Senator Online party were aiming for. If the time hasn't come already for this style of democracy, it will soon...
I spent about 15hrs going through all the various policies from all the senate candidates. It truly was a difficult decision who to put last... and really quite depressing to have parties like the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party, who only got a very small number of primary votes make it through to the senate on preferences.
The way Lufthansa handled my wife's lost luggage during her recent trip to Europe was absolutely pitiful. The staff were utterly horrible, and despite promises that she would be reimbursed for everything she had to replace during the 11 days the luggage was missing (on a 15 day trip), we are still waiting for reimbursement 2 months later, having even taken everything to the nearest Lufthansa office in another state for verification. Their call centre staff are ridiculously rude - I will grant that their English is better than my German, but to then have to chase them repeatedly and take all the items plus receipts on an interstate trip at our own expense and even then not be reimbursed is just terrible.