I think its manyfold. One is the decline of e-mail, yes, its still used but I don't hardly e-mail anyone except for work. I do most of my non-work communication through Facebook or instant messenger. Plus, entire businesses have been sprung up on Facebook along with a general cultural attitude that its ok for everyone to have a Facebook, its no longer exclusive to geeks and students.
Well within the last year its become acceptable for everyone to have a Facebook, from Jr. High kids up to grandparents. Even last year Facebook was seen as only really used by high school and college kids. Now almost everyone, from my boss, coworkers and even my grandparents have a Facebook. Also, the popularity of code and host it yourself websites have been largely replaced with blogs so that would increase that popularity.
Seriously neither Google nor Yahoo! are anything close to a monopoly. Popular, yes. Abusive, no. Apple is way more open now than it was a few years ago, almost all Apple products have something open source powering it. About the only vaguely monopolistic thing that Apple has done is with the App store for the iPhone.
Doesn't it make much more sense to go after MS rather then companies which are definitely not monopolies and not abusive ones at that?
The desktop market. The computer illiterate market. The market most IT people have to deal with at work. The market that gets viruses, etc. Basically, if I interact with people with computers in a non-programming environment you will probably have to use/fix Windows.
It doesn't matter that someone uses Firefox whenever they corrupted a DLL you have to re-install.
Its a double-edged sword. While a lot of people might yawn and see yet another Mario spinoff the demographic that Nintendo is going for might see Mario as a desirable brand, namely younger children and older adults.
The Saturn, Dreamcast, TurboGrafix and Jaguar were all epic fails in the marketplace despite having advanced hardware. I don't get how this is an exception.
Please tell me how you would port Street Fighter 4 to the Wii. Requiring the classic controller would be gimmicky at best, and waving around the Wii remote wouldn't work. You could always hold the Wii remote sideways but that gives you less buttons. The Wii wasn't excluded because it was underpowered but rather because its hard to get a button masher game to work with a system with few buttons.
But every time you get a new Guitar Hero game you feel ripped off because they don't include enough songs then go around and release new ones on a new disk. Just look at GH 1, 2, and 3. They were just basically expansion packs of the first one. Sure, they innovated with the full band thing, but really that gets expensive and hard to store.
Conduit and Resident Evil should be good and Metroid should be as good as the previous ones but Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is exactly the game that is the plague of the Wii. Sure, its a fun game but its not as "solid" as say, Final Fantasy XII which will be released for the 360 and PS3. Theres a lot of games by Square Enix for the Wii, they are good games but they aren't the games Square Enix is known for, they aren't epic RPGs spanning many hours of gameplay but tiny, well crafted games that have addicting gameplay but hampered by short playtime. On Wiiware there has been a lot of Square Enix material but no epic RPGs, you have ports of games made from phones which, I agree, are great games, but they aren't the epic RPG that the Wii desperately needs.
As for Red Steel, the first game had some serious usability issues do to motion control, aiming was kinda funky and no matter what I would always end up stabbing my knife when I wanted to reload and vice versa.
... nintendo really needs 3rd party games badly. The fact they went with underpowered hardware really killed 3rd party companies ability to port their games to the system. Which means: No final fantasy 13, no Street fighter 4, No soul calibur 4, etc, etc....
Underpowered? Other then for cut scenes/graphics the games really don't *need* the extra power. With the Wii not doing HD it really doesn't need any extra power. What the Wii doesn't have is buttons, if you use the motion controls it ends up not working like all the other consoles, if you don't use the motion controls you get angry reviewers saying how it doesn't use "the full potential" of the Wii. Final Fantasy XIII is meant for hardcore gamers, the Wii just doesn't have that audience, now most hardcore gamers do own a Wii but play most games on the PS3 or 360. As for Street Fighter 4 and Soul Calibur, you kinda need buttons to do all the combos, waving around a Wii Remote doesn't exactly have the same appeal.
I agree about the third party games though, it seems that due to Nintendo's marketing of the console towards 8 year olds and 40 somethings, they have lost the demographic of good third party game publishers. Either they give you crappy mini game collections, bad licensed titles, crappy ports of old PS2 games or rip-offs of Wii Fit or the other Wii titles. It seems like few developers will actually make a good game on the Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl is proof that it is possible. But even for studios who do make an effort, their work is overshadowed by a better game released for a different console, just look at Namco, they released the decent-ish Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World for the Wii, then released the amazing Tales of Vesperia for the 360. They could have done Vesperia for the Wii but Nintendo's marketing kept them away.
The difference is that each Mario game seems to be more than just an expansion pack. Super Mario Bros. was a classic platformer, SMB 2 (US version) was totally different yet still addicting, SMB 2 (Japanese version, Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels for westerners) was somewhat of an expansion pack but really seemed polished (and difficult), SMB3 added so much to the series and video games in general, Super Mario World added TONS of replay value, Super Mario 64 defined 3D platforming, Super Mario Sunshine was an experiment that worked sorta well, but played differently then any other game at the time or since then, Super Mario Galaxy expanded the Mario world a lot. Each new release isn't just new tracks or new powerups its a totally new experience that seems to redefine video gaming as a whole. While the next Guitar Hero just will have new tracks, the new Mario games usually have something unique to offer.
Its nice to see Nintendo actually making an effort to appeal to gamers who want a game more involved than a tech demo, but can we please have something... fresh? Sure, Mario, Metroid, and Golden Sun are good, but it seems like Nintendo has really stagnated in good games that aren't gimmicks. Plus theres a bunch of old IP that isn't being capitalized on such as the old Japanese Fire Emblem games, Earthbound hasn't even seen a US release on the Virtual Console and Kid Icarus hasn't seen a new game in ages.
Nintendo needs to make more "hardcore" games so whenever they aren't in first place anymore they won't go belly up.
But Field-sequential color didn't allow the existing B&W TVs to view it like NTSC did. Plus NTSC was first standardized in 1941 with color added in 1953 allowing for any TV to receive it in color if they were color or black and white if they were black and white TVs. Considering that only about 100 TVs were shipped that could view the Field-sequential color, I would consider it really the only standard. Field-sequential was a failure of epic proportions.
But today in 2009 NTSC is effectively public domain especially when compared to DTV. Also NTSC was really the only standard* for TV at the time it was created, whereas stations now are being forced to convert to DTV when NTSC which costs less for everyone is available.
*NTSC was really about the only color TV standard at the time, both PAL and SECAM were still being developed
Well, basically what I would like to happen would be either the FCC would invalidate the patent or allow stations to feel free to broadcast in either digital or analog or both. And really only buy the patent if it was the only chance. Yes, I would rather it not happen and either the patent be invalidated or the freedom of choice of broadcast, but yes, it would still be government assisted extortion albeit at a more minor scale for each individual person.
Wow, I suppose I should have clicked preview, the first part of my post should read, That would be perfectly fine if the FCC didn't require switching. Apparently the bold tags went in but the crucial part of the post didn't. I suppose thats what I get for posting on only a few hours of sleep....
That would be perfectly fine if The FCC required switching it would be a non-issue if stations could still use the NTSC standard, but the problem is they can't. When there is an open alternative available that does the same thing it should be up to the stations, not the government to decide which method to broadcast in. What this ruling has done is made anyone dependent on traditional NTSC broadcasts to put $24 or more into the hands of these patentholders at either the expense of taxpayers (with the cards) or their paycheck without it.
If you want the government to keep a patented thing as a standard it is only fair to allow stations the economic freedom and basic right of choosing which standard to broadcast in or whether to dual-broadcast in both standards. A government should listen to the people and not mandate a standard that requires patent fees to be paid, sure, standardize it but don't mandate it whenever a viable alternative is available.
The FCC has a lot more than taxpayer dollars, perhaps they could waive a fee or two. But if they were to buy it, it would even out due to the taxpayer money that are already in place to help people get ready for DTV. Sure, it might be a bit too late now, but you could have cut down a lot of the cost of those boxes by paying just a bit of money. Then, yes there is the scale where there comes a time when you buy it now and then things are cheaper and it evens out in the long run because most businesses would rather take a quick large sum that is less then what they will get in the years having their patent + all the legal fees associated with suing for infringment, etc. So a quick sum could have saved US citizens a lot of money and after time even those who didn't buy tuners would have already made up the difference.
The difference is that its not mandated by the FCC. If I want to create Bluetooth internet rather than use Wi-Fi thats perfectly fine (so long as my signal limits are good), however if I want to broadcast TV I only have one thing that I can pick from. I used to be able to choose a public-domain one (NTSC) but now it requires a patent to do the same thing. If the FCC didn't mandate that all stations (save for low-powered ones) use it, it would be a non-issue, but they do require it.
If the FCC mandates that all television must be broadcast in digital they either A) Need to remove that requirement, B) Have someone invalidate the patent or C) Buy the patent and release it to the public. This is nothing more than government assisted extortion.
And because the summary doesn't tell you, that researcher was Alexey Pajitnov, who, despite creating Tetris made comparatively little money off of it even though it is one of the most iconic games of all time and helped revolutionize handheld gaming.
Sure, but theres two things that they would mostly think. Either A) Stupid computer, why won't you work or B) Well, I guess Twitter is down.
People, especially computer illiterate people are more apt to believe that their ISP sucks, the sites down or they need to upgrade their computer rather then their malevolent communist overlords are trying to block them.
Because if no one buys Chinese products the people magically become not oppressed? Just look at the Cuban embargo, didn't do a stupid thing to strike down communism in fact by isolating themselves they haven't been exposed to non-communist ideas.
All that would happen if we embargoed China is that the people who live in oppression now will live in oppression while starving.
That works just fine until a computer illiterate employee didn't back up their files, spent weeks making a file, the HD gives the click of death and your boss says how he read about recovering data from a broken HD and if you can't do it he can "find someone else".
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I think its manyfold. One is the decline of e-mail, yes, its still used but I don't hardly e-mail anyone except for work. I do most of my non-work communication through Facebook or instant messenger. Plus, entire businesses have been sprung up on Facebook along with a general cultural attitude that its ok for everyone to have a Facebook, its no longer exclusive to geeks and students.
Well within the last year its become acceptable for everyone to have a Facebook, from Jr. High kids up to grandparents. Even last year Facebook was seen as only really used by high school and college kids. Now almost everyone, from my boss, coworkers and even my grandparents have a Facebook. Also, the popularity of code and host it yourself websites have been largely replaced with blogs so that would increase that popularity.
Seriously neither Google nor Yahoo! are anything close to a monopoly. Popular, yes. Abusive, no. Apple is way more open now than it was a few years ago, almost all Apple products have something open source powering it. About the only vaguely monopolistic thing that Apple has done is with the App store for the iPhone.
Doesn't it make much more sense to go after MS rather then companies which are definitely not monopolies and not abusive ones at that?
The desktop market. The computer illiterate market. The market most IT people have to deal with at work. The market that gets viruses, etc. Basically, if I interact with people with computers in a non-programming environment you will probably have to use/fix Windows.
It doesn't matter that someone uses Firefox whenever they corrupted a DLL you have to re-install.
Its a double-edged sword. While a lot of people might yawn and see yet another Mario spinoff the demographic that Nintendo is going for might see Mario as a desirable brand, namely younger children and older adults.
The Saturn, Dreamcast, TurboGrafix and Jaguar were all epic fails in the marketplace despite having advanced hardware. I don't get how this is an exception.
Please tell me how you would port Street Fighter 4 to the Wii. Requiring the classic controller would be gimmicky at best, and waving around the Wii remote wouldn't work. You could always hold the Wii remote sideways but that gives you less buttons. The Wii wasn't excluded because it was underpowered but rather because its hard to get a button masher game to work with a system with few buttons.
No, not all Xbox systems ship with a HD, the arcade does not. In fact the Wii has more storage than the 360 arcade.
But every time you get a new Guitar Hero game you feel ripped off because they don't include enough songs then go around and release new ones on a new disk. Just look at GH 1, 2, and 3. They were just basically expansion packs of the first one. Sure, they innovated with the full band thing, but really that gets expensive and hard to store.
Conduit and Resident Evil should be good and Metroid should be as good as the previous ones but Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is exactly the game that is the plague of the Wii. Sure, its a fun game but its not as "solid" as say, Final Fantasy XII which will be released for the 360 and PS3. Theres a lot of games by Square Enix for the Wii, they are good games but they aren't the games Square Enix is known for, they aren't epic RPGs spanning many hours of gameplay but tiny, well crafted games that have addicting gameplay but hampered by short playtime. On Wiiware there has been a lot of Square Enix material but no epic RPGs, you have ports of games made from phones which, I agree, are great games, but they aren't the epic RPG that the Wii desperately needs.
As for Red Steel, the first game had some serious usability issues do to motion control, aiming was kinda funky and no matter what I would always end up stabbing my knife when I wanted to reload and vice versa.
Underpowered? Other then for cut scenes/graphics the games really don't *need* the extra power. With the Wii not doing HD it really doesn't need any extra power. What the Wii doesn't have is buttons, if you use the motion controls it ends up not working like all the other consoles, if you don't use the motion controls you get angry reviewers saying how it doesn't use "the full potential" of the Wii. Final Fantasy XIII is meant for hardcore gamers, the Wii just doesn't have that audience, now most hardcore gamers do own a Wii but play most games on the PS3 or 360. As for Street Fighter 4 and Soul Calibur, you kinda need buttons to do all the combos, waving around a Wii Remote doesn't exactly have the same appeal.
I agree about the third party games though, it seems that due to Nintendo's marketing of the console towards 8 year olds and 40 somethings, they have lost the demographic of good third party game publishers. Either they give you crappy mini game collections, bad licensed titles, crappy ports of old PS2 games or rip-offs of Wii Fit or the other Wii titles. It seems like few developers will actually make a good game on the Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl is proof that it is possible. But even for studios who do make an effort, their work is overshadowed by a better game released for a different console, just look at Namco, they released the decent-ish Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World for the Wii, then released the amazing Tales of Vesperia for the 360. They could have done Vesperia for the Wii but Nintendo's marketing kept them away.
The difference is that each Mario game seems to be more than just an expansion pack. Super Mario Bros. was a classic platformer, SMB 2 (US version) was totally different yet still addicting, SMB 2 (Japanese version, Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels for westerners) was somewhat of an expansion pack but really seemed polished (and difficult), SMB3 added so much to the series and video games in general, Super Mario World added TONS of replay value, Super Mario 64 defined 3D platforming, Super Mario Sunshine was an experiment that worked sorta well, but played differently then any other game at the time or since then, Super Mario Galaxy expanded the Mario world a lot. Each new release isn't just new tracks or new powerups its a totally new experience that seems to redefine video gaming as a whole. While the next Guitar Hero just will have new tracks, the new Mario games usually have something unique to offer.
Its nice to see Nintendo actually making an effort to appeal to gamers who want a game more involved than a tech demo, but can we please have something... fresh? Sure, Mario, Metroid, and Golden Sun are good, but it seems like Nintendo has really stagnated in good games that aren't gimmicks. Plus theres a bunch of old IP that isn't being capitalized on such as the old Japanese Fire Emblem games, Earthbound hasn't even seen a US release on the Virtual Console and Kid Icarus hasn't seen a new game in ages.
Nintendo needs to make more "hardcore" games so whenever they aren't in first place anymore they won't go belly up.
But Field-sequential color didn't allow the existing B&W TVs to view it like NTSC did. Plus NTSC was first standardized in 1941 with color added in 1953 allowing for any TV to receive it in color if they were color or black and white if they were black and white TVs. Considering that only about 100 TVs were shipped that could view the Field-sequential color, I would consider it really the only standard. Field-sequential was a failure of epic proportions.
But today in 2009 NTSC is effectively public domain especially when compared to DTV. Also NTSC was really the only standard* for TV at the time it was created, whereas stations now are being forced to convert to DTV when NTSC which costs less for everyone is available.
*NTSC was really about the only color TV standard at the time, both PAL and SECAM were still being developed
Well, basically what I would like to happen would be either the FCC would invalidate the patent or allow stations to feel free to broadcast in either digital or analog or both. And really only buy the patent if it was the only chance. Yes, I would rather it not happen and either the patent be invalidated or the freedom of choice of broadcast, but yes, it would still be government assisted extortion albeit at a more minor scale for each individual person.
Wow, I suppose I should have clicked preview, the first part of my post should read, That would be perfectly fine if the FCC didn't require switching. Apparently the bold tags went in but the crucial part of the post didn't. I suppose thats what I get for posting on only a few hours of sleep....
That would be perfectly fine if The FCC required switching it would be a non-issue if stations could still use the NTSC standard, but the problem is they can't. When there is an open alternative available that does the same thing it should be up to the stations, not the government to decide which method to broadcast in. What this ruling has done is made anyone dependent on traditional NTSC broadcasts to put $24 or more into the hands of these patentholders at either the expense of taxpayers (with the cards) or their paycheck without it.
If you want the government to keep a patented thing as a standard it is only fair to allow stations the economic freedom and basic right of choosing which standard to broadcast in or whether to dual-broadcast in both standards. A government should listen to the people and not mandate a standard that requires patent fees to be paid, sure, standardize it but don't mandate it whenever a viable alternative is available.
The FCC has a lot more than taxpayer dollars, perhaps they could waive a fee or two. But if they were to buy it, it would even out due to the taxpayer money that are already in place to help people get ready for DTV. Sure, it might be a bit too late now, but you could have cut down a lot of the cost of those boxes by paying just a bit of money. Then, yes there is the scale where there comes a time when you buy it now and then things are cheaper and it evens out in the long run because most businesses would rather take a quick large sum that is less then what they will get in the years having their patent + all the legal fees associated with suing for infringment, etc. So a quick sum could have saved US citizens a lot of money and after time even those who didn't buy tuners would have already made up the difference.
The difference is that its not mandated by the FCC. If I want to create Bluetooth internet rather than use Wi-Fi thats perfectly fine (so long as my signal limits are good), however if I want to broadcast TV I only have one thing that I can pick from. I used to be able to choose a public-domain one (NTSC) but now it requires a patent to do the same thing. If the FCC didn't mandate that all stations (save for low-powered ones) use it, it would be a non-issue, but they do require it.
If the FCC mandates that all television must be broadcast in digital they either A) Need to remove that requirement, B) Have someone invalidate the patent or C) Buy the patent and release it to the public. This is nothing more than government assisted extortion.
And because the summary doesn't tell you, that researcher was Alexey Pajitnov, who, despite creating Tetris made comparatively little money off of it even though it is one of the most iconic games of all time and helped revolutionize handheld gaming.
Sure, but theres two things that they would mostly think. Either A) Stupid computer, why won't you work or B) Well, I guess Twitter is down.
People, especially computer illiterate people are more apt to believe that their ISP sucks, the sites down or they need to upgrade their computer rather then their malevolent communist overlords are trying to block them.
Because if no one buys Chinese products the people magically become not oppressed? Just look at the Cuban embargo, didn't do a stupid thing to strike down communism in fact by isolating themselves they haven't been exposed to non-communist ideas.
All that would happen if we embargoed China is that the people who live in oppression now will live in oppression while starving.
That works just fine until a computer illiterate employee didn't back up their files, spent weeks making a file, the HD gives the click of death and your boss says how he read about recovering data from a broken HD and if you can't do it he can "find someone else".