This proves it! Once and for all! Videogames DON'T cause violence...
It's the pavement!
Nothing happened untill they went OUTSIDE, to the PARKING LOT, which has PAVEMENT! Let's look at the facts. Nearly EVERY drive-by shooting ever has been within 5 feet of pavement. Most gang violence in urban areas is near pavement!
It's time to do something about this pavement industry that's causing EPIDEMICS of violence in this country. Back in revolutionary times (when there was no pavement) things like drive-by shootings and gang violence didn't happen! I defy someone to find a whole in my logic!
I understand how you feel, I had a Newton and it was very cool. That said, I'm glad it was removed from the list, as in my mind it's not a computer, but a PDA. Everything else on the list is a "true computer" in that it's a desktop or laptop, the Newton doesn't fit in the list, IMHO. That was MY complaint about the origional article, so I like the change (and the Amiga does deserve to be on there too).
Now if it was a list of influential computer devices, then I could see including computers, PDAs, TiVos, etc. But as it's a list of "PCs", I don't believe that a PDA fits in, even if it was revolutionary like the Newton.
I should also mention that while the Newton was innovative, you could easily argue that the PalmPilot was MUCH more important in that it, in a way, launched today's PDA market, as it was the first BIG success in the area.
I agree. The only way my suggestion will happen is either state by state (as Iowa did) where it's not being voted on by people who it effects negativly (the actual Congressmen) but by people who it effects positivly (the people) or doesn't really effect (the state legislature). To pass a NATIONAL amendment or some such won't happen unless we can skip the house and do a straight public vote, which would only be fair in this case since in something this big that could cost most everyone in the House their comfy protected seat, so why should they get to choose? It would be like letting murderers choose their own sentence (not saying congress is a much of murderers, just the absurdidy of such an idea).
Sometimes you have to wish you were a dictator for a day so you could do this stuff without all the crap the system would put you through (if you were to get near doing it AT ALL).
This can be fixed, but it's not going to be easy. First off I'd like to say that the Senate, with their 6 year terms, was designed to be longstanding; and the House was designed to be the body that would represent the popular opinion more due to shorter terms and more seats.
Of course, that's now backwards and the Senate represents the country better thanks to these stupid redistricting plans. In the last general election, less than 30 of the 530 seats changed (IIRC), but no matter what the number was it was pathetic compared to the way it used to be. Many seats were unopposed. Districts since the last census have been drawn largly like this: the Democrats negotiated so that their candidates got strong "safe" districts with little to no opposition. In exchange, the Republicans got everything else, so congress won't change much untill after the 2010 census.
OK, so how do we fix this? The answer is to take the political parties out of it. Somewhere (Iowa?) a amendment or some such was passed so that when redistricting, the commite can only look at city boundries, population, voter turn out, and other such things to try to make the districts fair, they were NOT allowed to take political party registration and such into account. The result? In the last election almost every seat in that state was well contested and so the citizens there had a good democratic election working for them, while those of us in most of the country basically get force fed some candidate (who may be great, but may be terrible). What we need is to pass laws like this all over the country, so that none of these shenanigans go on.
As we all know the current process works REALLY well. Let's take Texas for example. In Texas, the Democrats didn't like the Republican redistricting (which from what I've heard was unfair, and I'm a Republican, FYI) so they FLED THE STATE just to keep it from getting passed. TWICE. If we fix this process, there would be nothing for them to complain about, because things would be fair (or at least many MANY times closer to fair than they are now).
Well, combined that's really not saying much. While we're always hearing about how the PS2 has X times as many units as the 'Cube (or so forth) the fact is that all three together are soundly TROUNCED by the sales number of the GBA, so that's nothing new. This has been true for a very long time.
It goes to prove,a cheap console with good games will sell very well, even if they aren't 3D or FPSes. The fact that it's portable adds a lot, but I would own a GBA even if it wasn't, because the games are just that good.
If we're talking total units sold, then tinking about it, that MUST be combined. While Nintendo is ahead of Microsoft (I think), the PS2 has WAY more units than either of those two, so it would have to be a combination of the 'Cube and GBA, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense.
But if we are talking units sold during that time frame, it's entirely possible that the 'Cube outsold the other two systems (not including the GBA). It's cheaper, and many people already have PS2s (which would otherwise outsell).
I can't find it in the archive that's online (must be older than 14 days) but Fox Trot did a great sunday strip a few weeks ago where Jason was watching "Queer Eye for the Database Guy" on TV.
While in some ways good, Microsoft's terms can be very restrictive.
That's why Tony Hawk's Underground (THUG) is only online on the PS2. I'm not sure why they didn't do it for the 'Cube (not enough broadband adaptors there, no network stack/toolkit maybe?), but I saw a interview where a guy said that they COULDn'T put it on Live! and do things the way they wanted. For example EVERYTHING that goes on Live has to be approved by MS.
Now in THUG you can create and upload levels, pictures of your face for your skater to wear, clothes, etc. Now all this is great, but under MS's terms everything would have to get reviewed. They would have to review people's faces, their user created maps, etc. This would hugely bog things down, you would have to wait for your maps and stuff to be approved. This would seriously degrade the fun of this part of the game. And none of this includes that you wouldn't be able to play against the PS2 users, etc.
I understand their rules, but you should be able to apply for exceptions to some of it. I think that little bit of bending would probably go a long way to pleasing developers.
Well, with the PC there is alot of user created content. With something like MechAssault, that just isn't there. That's how CS started, but that kind of thing can't happen in MechAssault. There is a large Diablo 2 community too, isn't there? Valve and Blizzard are both doing great, but with the amount of crud that gets pushed on consoles and such, I'm just worried that we might start to see people charging for EVERY update to games, or the publishers will move onto other newer titles and just leave the old ones hanging there. By charging for some releases later (and decently sized ones, no $5 for a new shirt in a game), I think we have a better chance of continuing to see support for games.
Unfortunatly, not everyone is a Blizzard or Valve. They are great, but they are also rare.
Due to licensing (and putting in the moves needed, etc) this makes sense to me, but I think you should get more than 3 songs for $5. Maybe 5 songs, 10 would be ideal. And it would be nice if they had a large selection. Wouldn't that be cool? Download your favorite songs?
I also think that if I go out and buy this game today (or soon) I should get the content for free. I understand making someone pay for it if the game was released years ago, but when I buy the game if there is pay content like this out there, it should be free (or already on the disc). Again, this would seem like the publishers are just being greedy.
I think it makes sense to start charging at some point. It's a good thing that they didn't charge too much (I think $1 or $2 would be good, but I don't have a real problem with $5 for the amount of stuff they are doing). But I have a few things to say on this.
First of all, if companies don't start getting money for this kind of stuff, we'll start to see a situation where a game will get a few update (like MechAssault has) but eventually they'll stop adding anything. Downloaded content doesn't add to sales (this is a guess but I'm pretty sure it's accurate). I mean just because a new map was released doesn't mean I'm going to go and buy MechAssault if I don't already have it. So if the developers don't get compensated, at least some times, it's a losing proposition for htem to keep adding new content. It will keep users happy, but it costs them money.
Second, MS needs to keep a tight lid on things. While I have no problem with this happening, my fear is that if they're not careful we'll see everything like this. You want a new map? That will cost you $1. You want a new piece of clothing for your character in your MMORPG? That's another $1. I don't mind paying $5 every once in a while for a few new levels and new gameplay modes and such, but it needs to be a rare occasion, because otherwise the publisher just seems like a bunch of greedy jerks.
Letting California government officials breath has been deemed illegal by me, as I find their intelligence level offensive.
This is what happens when you cave in to political correctness. There is nothing wrong stopping people from using the "N" word to describe blacks, but when you start demanding to be called "Applachian Americans" (in fact, ANYTHING-Americas), your only inviting this kind of crud.
Why not wait? Unless you phone service is so terrible that it's barly usable, hang on for a month or two. By then, competition should be in swing and you should be able to get a much better deal, without having to switch twice (like if you switched to get a better deal after switching tomarrow).
We need the phones changed and I suspect that it will happen soon with number portability going into effect.
Things will be interesting for a while starting tomarrow as people take advantage of this new policy, but I think soon enough we'll see the phones change to everyone's benefit.
OK, I've said that 3 times now, so what do I mean? I mean that right now my Sprint phone wouldn't work if I go to AT&Ts network or Cingular's network or someone else. They all use different systems. It's mentioned at the end of the article that that just isn't the case in Hong Kong (and I believe in Japan and Europe and other places where they have number protability). The having to get a new phone part is still going to be a little bit of a wrench in this plan, but soon enough one or two carriers will try to make it so competitors phones will work on their network and maybe we'll end up with a standard (or just 3 standards that work everywhere). When this happens, our mobile phone market will be better.
It's about time this is fixed. Imagine if the government allowed TV to develop this way. You'd either be able to watch NBC, CBS, or ABC, but not all 3 unless you had 3 TVs. And if you tried to switch, you'd have to buy a new TV. Yeesh.
Horray for number portability, it's time to let the free market decide what sucks so things can improve more.
Isn't this what XML is for, among other things? Write it in some format then convert it to XML (or use OpenOffice.org, which already IS XML). Then you just use a XSLT or some program you (or someone else) writes to convert the XML into as many different formats as you chooose.
Might not be easy to set up at first, but it should work fantastically.
I, for one, am sick of all of this. I must say that I would LOVE to see the EU place an import ban on Microsoft Software (at least Windows), even if for only for a week, or even a day. See what a few billion in lost revenues does to 'em.
Or put some kind of huge levy on them, like $20 per copy of Windows brought into the country untill the WMP is removed, and ban Microsoft from raising the price (both to consumers and to OEMs) so that they can't pass on the cost. Again, when they start to lose a lot of money, maybe they're realize that something bad WILL happen to them, it's not just a bluff.
Either way, I'd like to see the EU (or ANYONE) just stick it to MS for once to show them they can't keep pushing everyone around. And, if the EU forces someone to offer a "inferior version", shouldn't they be forced to sell that inferior version or NOTHING? Microsoft has called your bluff, so step up to the plate!
At this point, I think that a breakup (into OS, Office, Games, Hardware, and Other) would have made things so much better for us all.
That's true, but with Gentoo it doesn't matter that much if you install with a G3 CD. Since everything get rebuilt for your computer from the ground up (or downloaded that's prebuilt for your PC) you'll get those optimisations.
But if you're using the LiveCD as a DEMO CD for Linux, then you're right. But for installing, it's not too big a deal.
Nope. G5 CDs won't work on G4s or G3, but G4 CDs will work on G4s and G5 but not G3s and last but not least G3 CDs will work on G3s, G4s and G5s.
OK, if you didn't survive that, let's put it this way. The CDs work "UP" the processor list, but not "DOWN" (unless there is some specific bug that would prevent the G3 CD from working with the G5s, for example).
So will there be specific G5 distros? Not any more than there are specific Pentium IV distros or Athlon distros.
Not only is skipping the PCI bus important for speed, but even for slower things (like 10/100 ethernet) not being on the bus is good. It means that the chip can talk to memory or the CPU without waiting for the PCI bus to be free for it to use. Basically, it gets to skip the bus contention.
A good analogy would be there are 5 people all trying to call one guy, and Mr. Ethernet is one of the people. By being in the chipset and not on the bus, he doesn't have to keep trying to call and getting a busy signal, he can just say his message. This is because Mr. CPU could talk to 3 or 4 people at a time (he's that fast), but the phone (PCI bus) only has one line. He just skipps the problem.
OK, that's a bit simplified, but the fact is that not waiting on bus contention is good. The ethernet doesn't have to wait for/fight against the sound card, the tv tuner, and the add in raid controller.
On a side note, while NE2000 is a standard, it's for ISA, and as far as I know the NE2000 PCI standard never got big. I could be wrong. And even then, that's like using VESA to controll your GeForce FX video card. You can do it, but you could lose alot of the performance and features that you paid for because VESA doesn't know about 'em.
I don't know about the rest of you, but the FIRST thing that popped into my head when I saw that thing was the Atari Lynx.
With the screen exposed like that, and not even recessed, I would be worried that it would get scratched easily. I'm worried about the power button's placement, and I hope that it has to be held for a half second to turn the thing off so you won't hit it accidently.
My guess is that the directional buttons/pad is/are analog, because I would think that putting an analog stick on a handheld would tend to break off or get damaged. There also don't seem to be any shoulder buttons, so if they plan to port PS1 games, some might not be easy (although some games never even used 'em).
Putting the discs in cartridges is a good idea, and they have expirence (MiniDiscs) and it being Sony I bet it will have good battery life (unlike, IIRC, the Lynx), but I wonder if it will be built in rechargable or AA(A)s (my guess is LithIon).
I guess my last comment is the screen. It's widescreen, very cool. I think that will play well with many types of games and if their "watch movies on it" idea ever takes off, that holds good.
OK, this is the REAL last comment. Wouldn't it be cool if they released a rewriteable disc for the thing and some kind of little DVD->PSP conversion unit or software or something so that you could "copy" your DVDs to it to watch on the go, so you wouldn't have to buy movies twice? It will never happen, but maybe some 3rd party will do it!
Well, a good chunk of sales in the last few years have been to individuals, but there is a problem here. Computers are FAST. When you're just surfing, doing e-mail, and writing in Word you don't NEED a faster computer. There is no new killer thing that many people will upgrade for (like Windows 95). The fact is, for many people, their computers are just fine and they don't need to replace it. And as computers get faster, businesses will no longer need to upgrade as often due to not needing more horsepower for using word and other such things.
Basically, comptuers are getting too fast. Untill someone comes up with the next absolutly killer app that requires tons of horsepower, I think that we'll see computer sales and replacements stay low (except for CAD, video editing, and other horsepower intensive stuff).
I bought a PS2 the day it came out, and I play it to this day (I was playing SSX3 not 5 minutes ago, great game). Once I bought it, not only did it serve as my PS1 and PS2 (I sold my PS1 shortly after buying it), but it served as my DVD player. I still use it as a DVD player to this day. I'm GLAD it had the functionality.
If I was on the fence of buying a console would having a DVD player built in push me over? Maybe if I didn't have one. If I didn't really want an X-Box and didn't have a DVD player, would having it be able to play DVDs make me more interested in buying it? No, I don't think so.
So basically, I think it's good to have the DVD paying aspect, but it doesn't effect my purchasing (other than owning a PS2 has stopped me from buying a "real" DVD player becasue I don't need one). I like the way the PS2 did it better than the X-Box. With the PS2 it was free, no $30 extra (I later bought the PS2 remote when it was onsale for $10 just for convience sake).
As for the extra costs, what extra costs? Both the PS2 and X-Box have built in hardware MPEG2 decoders that games can use, and store data on DVDs so they both have DVD drives. All they had to do was add a little piece of software and get it licensed. I personally doubt that the licensing fee added anything significant to the cost of my PS2 or X-Box, maybe $1 at most.
Now as for TiVo functionality, that would be interesting too, but I don't think it would push me over the fence. Neither would playing MP3s (although that would be very nice) or anything else. Before I bought a TiVo, I might have used the feature (like I used to use my VCR to record programs that I couldn't watch) but it wouldn't make a big difference (I had that VCR after all). Now that I HAVE a TiVo it means even less to me.
I guess, in summary, these "extra" features won't get me to buy the device, but it might make me like it more or use it more (I'm very fond of my PS2, because I use it so often for DVDs).
And while this all may seem new, is it? We've seen the various CD consoles (Saturn, SegaCD, PS, etc) play audio CDs, and some (like the white Asian PS) could play VCDs too. There are examples of previous consoles that have added things in, and I doubt it makes any difference in sales.
To prove my point: How many of you who didn't own a Dreamcast bought ne to use as a web-browser and game machine? No one? That's what I thought. You bought your DC for the games (or, as/.ers, to run Linux/BSD:)
Where are the slashdotters complaining that Fox News was thin-skinned, censoring or plain evil now? Hopefully you would think they'd be man enough to apologize and admit they were wrong.
You MUST be new here if you think this "apology" concept of yours might happen. In fact, since so few/.ers probably know that term, here is the dictionary definition of that word.
Sorry, but good try. The fact is that the FBI needs a WARRANT to do that. And if they have a warrant, then they must have at least some evidence. Good try though.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the pavement!
Nothing happened untill they went OUTSIDE, to the PARKING LOT, which has PAVEMENT! Let's look at the facts. Nearly EVERY drive-by shooting ever has been within 5 feet of pavement. Most gang violence in urban areas is near pavement!
It's time to do something about this pavement industry that's causing EPIDEMICS of violence in this country. Back in revolutionary times (when there was no pavement) things like drive-by shootings and gang violence didn't happen! I defy someone to find a whole in my logic!
Won't someone PLEASE think of the children!
Now if it was a list of influential computer devices, then I could see including computers, PDAs, TiVos, etc. But as it's a list of "PCs", I don't believe that a PDA fits in, even if it was revolutionary like the Newton.
I should also mention that while the Newton was innovative, you could easily argue that the PalmPilot was MUCH more important in that it, in a way, launched today's PDA market, as it was the first BIG success in the area.
Sometimes you have to wish you were a dictator for a day so you could do this stuff without all the crap the system would put you through (if you were to get near doing it AT ALL).
Of course, that's now backwards and the Senate represents the country better thanks to these stupid redistricting plans. In the last general election, less than 30 of the 530 seats changed (IIRC), but no matter what the number was it was pathetic compared to the way it used to be. Many seats were unopposed. Districts since the last census have been drawn largly like this: the Democrats negotiated so that their candidates got strong "safe" districts with little to no opposition. In exchange, the Republicans got everything else, so congress won't change much untill after the 2010 census.
OK, so how do we fix this? The answer is to take the political parties out of it. Somewhere (Iowa?) a amendment or some such was passed so that when redistricting, the commite can only look at city boundries, population, voter turn out, and other such things to try to make the districts fair, they were NOT allowed to take political party registration and such into account. The result? In the last election almost every seat in that state was well contested and so the citizens there had a good democratic election working for them, while those of us in most of the country basically get force fed some candidate (who may be great, but may be terrible). What we need is to pass laws like this all over the country, so that none of these shenanigans go on.
As we all know the current process works REALLY well. Let's take Texas for example. In Texas, the Democrats didn't like the Republican redistricting (which from what I've heard was unfair, and I'm a Republican, FYI) so they FLED THE STATE just to keep it from getting passed. TWICE. If we fix this process, there would be nothing for them to complain about, because things would be fair (or at least many MANY times closer to fair than they are now).
Please, let's pass some reform!
It goes to prove,a cheap console with good games will sell very well, even if they aren't 3D or FPSes. The fact that it's portable adds a lot, but I would own a GBA even if it wasn't, because the games are just that good.
If we're talking total units sold, then tinking about it, that MUST be combined. While Nintendo is ahead of Microsoft (I think), the PS2 has WAY more units than either of those two, so it would have to be a combination of the 'Cube and GBA, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense.
But if we are talking units sold during that time frame, it's entirely possible that the 'Cube outsold the other two systems (not including the GBA). It's cheaper, and many people already have PS2s (which would otherwise outsell).
So in conclusion, go Nintendo! (I suppose).
Great strip :)
That's why Tony Hawk's Underground (THUG) is only online on the PS2. I'm not sure why they didn't do it for the 'Cube (not enough broadband adaptors there, no network stack/toolkit maybe?), but I saw a interview where a guy said that they COULDn'T put it on Live! and do things the way they wanted. For example EVERYTHING that goes on Live has to be approved by MS.
Now in THUG you can create and upload levels, pictures of your face for your skater to wear, clothes, etc. Now all this is great, but under MS's terms everything would have to get reviewed. They would have to review people's faces, their user created maps, etc. This would hugely bog things down, you would have to wait for your maps and stuff to be approved. This would seriously degrade the fun of this part of the game. And none of this includes that you wouldn't be able to play against the PS2 users, etc.
I understand their rules, but you should be able to apply for exceptions to some of it. I think that little bit of bending would probably go a long way to pleasing developers.
See one of my other responses to a response to my origional post. This one.
Unfortunatly, not everyone is a Blizzard or Valve. They are great, but they are also rare.
Due to licensing (and putting in the moves needed, etc) this makes sense to me, but I think you should get more than 3 songs for $5. Maybe 5 songs, 10 would be ideal. And it would be nice if they had a large selection. Wouldn't that be cool? Download your favorite songs?
I also think that if I go out and buy this game today (or soon) I should get the content for free. I understand making someone pay for it if the game was released years ago, but when I buy the game if there is pay content like this out there, it should be free (or already on the disc). Again, this would seem like the publishers are just being greedy.
First of all, if companies don't start getting money for this kind of stuff, we'll start to see a situation where a game will get a few update (like MechAssault has) but eventually they'll stop adding anything. Downloaded content doesn't add to sales (this is a guess but I'm pretty sure it's accurate). I mean just because a new map was released doesn't mean I'm going to go and buy MechAssault if I don't already have it. So if the developers don't get compensated, at least some times, it's a losing proposition for htem to keep adding new content. It will keep users happy, but it costs them money.
Second, MS needs to keep a tight lid on things. While I have no problem with this happening, my fear is that if they're not careful we'll see everything like this. You want a new map? That will cost you $1. You want a new piece of clothing for your character in your MMORPG? That's another $1. I don't mind paying $5 every once in a while for a few new levels and new gameplay modes and such, but it needs to be a rare occasion, because otherwise the publisher just seems like a bunch of greedy jerks.
Be careful MS, this could easily go both ways.
This is what happens when you cave in to political correctness. There is nothing wrong stopping people from using the "N" word to describe blacks, but when you start demanding to be called "Applachian Americans" (in fact, ANYTHING-Americas), your only inviting this kind of crud.
Just an idea.
Things will be interesting for a while starting tomarrow as people take advantage of this new policy, but I think soon enough we'll see the phones change to everyone's benefit.
OK, I've said that 3 times now, so what do I mean? I mean that right now my Sprint phone wouldn't work if I go to AT&Ts network or Cingular's network or someone else. They all use different systems. It's mentioned at the end of the article that that just isn't the case in Hong Kong (and I believe in Japan and Europe and other places where they have number protability). The having to get a new phone part is still going to be a little bit of a wrench in this plan, but soon enough one or two carriers will try to make it so competitors phones will work on their network and maybe we'll end up with a standard (or just 3 standards that work everywhere). When this happens, our mobile phone market will be better.
It's about time this is fixed. Imagine if the government allowed TV to develop this way. You'd either be able to watch NBC, CBS, or ABC, but not all 3 unless you had 3 TVs. And if you tried to switch, you'd have to buy a new TV. Yeesh.
Horray for number portability, it's time to let the free market decide what sucks so things can improve more.
Might not be easy to set up at first, but it should work fantastically.
Or put some kind of huge levy on them, like $20 per copy of Windows brought into the country untill the WMP is removed, and ban Microsoft from raising the price (both to consumers and to OEMs) so that they can't pass on the cost. Again, when they start to lose a lot of money, maybe they're realize that something bad WILL happen to them, it's not just a bluff.
Either way, I'd like to see the EU (or ANYONE) just stick it to MS for once to show them they can't keep pushing everyone around. And, if the EU forces someone to offer a "inferior version", shouldn't they be forced to sell that inferior version or NOTHING? Microsoft has called your bluff, so step up to the plate!
At this point, I think that a breakup (into OS, Office, Games, Hardware, and Other) would have made things so much better for us all.
But if you're using the LiveCD as a DEMO CD for Linux, then you're right. But for installing, it's not too big a deal.
PS: Go Gentoo!
OK, if you didn't survive that, let's put it this way. The CDs work "UP" the processor list, but not "DOWN" (unless there is some specific bug that would prevent the G3 CD from working with the G5s, for example).
So will there be specific G5 distros? Not any more than there are specific Pentium IV distros or Athlon distros.
A good analogy would be there are 5 people all trying to call one guy, and Mr. Ethernet is one of the people. By being in the chipset and not on the bus, he doesn't have to keep trying to call and getting a busy signal, he can just say his message. This is because Mr. CPU could talk to 3 or 4 people at a time (he's that fast), but the phone (PCI bus) only has one line. He just skipps the problem.
OK, that's a bit simplified, but the fact is that not waiting on bus contention is good. The ethernet doesn't have to wait for/fight against the sound card, the tv tuner, and the add in raid controller.
On a side note, while NE2000 is a standard, it's for ISA, and as far as I know the NE2000 PCI standard never got big. I could be wrong. And even then, that's like using VESA to controll your GeForce FX video card. You can do it, but you could lose alot of the performance and features that you paid for because VESA doesn't know about 'em.
With the screen exposed like that, and not even recessed, I would be worried that it would get scratched easily. I'm worried about the power button's placement, and I hope that it has to be held for a half second to turn the thing off so you won't hit it accidently.
My guess is that the directional buttons/pad is/are analog, because I would think that putting an analog stick on a handheld would tend to break off or get damaged. There also don't seem to be any shoulder buttons, so if they plan to port PS1 games, some might not be easy (although some games never even used 'em).
Putting the discs in cartridges is a good idea, and they have expirence (MiniDiscs) and it being Sony I bet it will have good battery life (unlike, IIRC, the Lynx), but I wonder if it will be built in rechargable or AA(A)s (my guess is LithIon).
I guess my last comment is the screen. It's widescreen, very cool. I think that will play well with many types of games and if their "watch movies on it" idea ever takes off, that holds good.
OK, this is the REAL last comment. Wouldn't it be cool if they released a rewriteable disc for the thing and some kind of little DVD->PSP conversion unit or software or something so that you could "copy" your DVDs to it to watch on the go, so you wouldn't have to buy movies twice? It will never happen, but maybe some 3rd party will do it!
Basically, comptuers are getting too fast. Untill someone comes up with the next absolutly killer app that requires tons of horsepower, I think that we'll see computer sales and replacements stay low (except for CAD, video editing, and other horsepower intensive stuff).
If I was on the fence of buying a console would having a DVD player built in push me over? Maybe if I didn't have one. If I didn't really want an X-Box and didn't have a DVD player, would having it be able to play DVDs make me more interested in buying it? No, I don't think so.
So basically, I think it's good to have the DVD paying aspect, but it doesn't effect my purchasing (other than owning a PS2 has stopped me from buying a "real" DVD player becasue I don't need one). I like the way the PS2 did it better than the X-Box. With the PS2 it was free, no $30 extra (I later bought the PS2 remote when it was onsale for $10 just for convience sake).
As for the extra costs, what extra costs? Both the PS2 and X-Box have built in hardware MPEG2 decoders that games can use, and store data on DVDs so they both have DVD drives. All they had to do was add a little piece of software and get it licensed. I personally doubt that the licensing fee added anything significant to the cost of my PS2 or X-Box, maybe $1 at most.
Now as for TiVo functionality, that would be interesting too, but I don't think it would push me over the fence. Neither would playing MP3s (although that would be very nice) or anything else. Before I bought a TiVo, I might have used the feature (like I used to use my VCR to record programs that I couldn't watch) but it wouldn't make a big difference (I had that VCR after all). Now that I HAVE a TiVo it means even less to me.
I guess, in summary, these "extra" features won't get me to buy the device, but it might make me like it more or use it more (I'm very fond of my PS2, because I use it so often for DVDs).
And while this all may seem new, is it? We've seen the various CD consoles (Saturn, SegaCD, PS, etc) play audio CDs, and some (like the white Asian PS) could play VCDs too. There are examples of previous consoles that have added things in, and I doubt it makes any difference in sales.
To prove my point: How many of you who didn't own a Dreamcast bought ne to use as a web-browser and game machine? No one? That's what I thought. You bought your DC for the games (or, as /.ers, to run Linux/BSD :)
You MUST be new here if you think this "apology" concept of yours might happen. In fact, since so few /.ers probably know that term, here is the dictionary definition of that word.
Sorry, but good try. The fact is that the FBI needs a WARRANT to do that. And if they have a warrant, then they must have at least some evidence. Good try though.