Personally, I think the reasonable cost of an actual, genuine electric guitar is a very good reason why Guitar Hero _shouldn't_ go down the route of being too realistic, but instead search for fun in a vaguely guitar-like experience.
Let me guess, you don't see why anyone would ever buy Ridge Racer when Gran Turismo exists, or choose to play Sensible World Of Soccer instead of Pro Evo?
Just because a videogame is based on a specific real-world activity, doesn't mean it needs to simulate it in every way.
Proof? There is no publically available sales data source for Europe as a whole. You can buy UK data from Chart-Track, but it'll cost you a fortune and doesn't get leaked the way NPD data does.
All we've got to go on are press releases and rumours. The majority of UK gamers are total Sony Fanboys anyway, in my experience, so you may be right.
I know people with albums recorded onto reel-to-reel tapes off friends from _well_ before 1976. Not me; I was a bit young to be recording music then. But it was certainly widespread.
Yes, I know that Vista took a lot longer to get here than it was supposed to. But really: if you bought your PC when XP came out in 2001, it would probably have had a Pentium 3 in it.
Are you planning on upgrading that machine to run Vista?
Meanwhile, the Dreamcast, with its motion-sensitive Samba Maraca controllers, speech-processing microphone, video camera and an online experience with web browser and user-generated ChuChuRocket levels, cries in the corner.
No, they're not realising this just now. Why do you think they made Half-Life, the first one, moddable enough that Counter-Strike was possible?
It's another misleading summary; the article itself is kind of making the point that what Sony are saying about User Generated Content is something that the PC market has been promoting for years.
From what I've heard of them (I don't have my own DVD-A deck, but then my friend's Tag McLaren amp is so much better than mine that it's probably a fairer test anyway), what makes SA-CD and DVD-A sound better is as much, if not more down to having a different studio mix that actually uses dynamic range.
CD has plenty of dynamic range in its spec as well, but record companies want the Joe Consumer release to sound "loud" so the mix is compressed and massaged to destroy it all.
If you were clever enough to get past the copy protection and extract the data from the stereo mix on these hi-def formats, convert it to 16-bit 44.1 kHz and then play that back through the same hardware, I doubt you'd notice a difference in a blind listen.
I absolutely agree that modern record production is crushing all the dynamic range out of music, and furthermore pushing the gain so high that there is a horrid mess of distortion as it bangs against the hard limit of the signal range.
However: (a) none of this would stop a well-produced song from sounding great on CD, if only labels weren't idiots, and (b) the smug vinyl fans seem to assume that this compression is only done to the CD master, when I've not seen any definite indication that the signal on their precious black plastic hasn't been similarly ruined.
I know I was a vinyl snob, wasting good money on two copies of albums so I'd have a digital one for on the move, and a gorgeous slab of vinyl for my deck at home. Then I bought a better CD player (only as expensive as my record deck, at that) and CDs took the lead again on sound quality on my system.
Since you don't have to get up and switch discs during the film, what does it matter how many are in the box? I don't get it.
Also, there are plenty of "2-disc Deluxe Special Edition" DVD releases that would fit on a single disc if they didn't want to exploit the public's "more discs == better extras" naivety, so don't believe they'll do that anyway. I'm sure Paramount could have got M:i:III on a single BD-ROM if they wanted, for example.
You're right, of course. I suspect he (and it's nearly always a 'he') got so obsessed with justifying poor 360 sales he forgot other consoles even exist.
Mind you, Microsoft's is the only one of the latest round of TV-connected machines I own, and I've got PSP as well as my DS, so why I'm so smug I'm not sure.
Thanks! I saw this option while browsing around the menus last night, but I didn't know what it was for. If it's just expanding the black level all the way down to 0 IRE, I'll make the change when I get home. Then recalibrate the TV to bring the crushed black detail back on HD-DVDs...
My UK 360 sounds like a jet engine too, you're not the only one. I don't really know what posessed me to buy the HD-DVD drive; the image quality improvements are great, but the price in noise is too high.
At least they usually try to deactivate them at retail. I've lost track of the number of times I've set shop alarms off with discs I've received from online vendors (often not even in the same continent) that are still in my bag after picking them up from work earlier in the day.
I'm the last one to defend the MPAA, but the only reason for sharing this number is so that cheapskates can get free movies. Right?
Do you have a Playstation 3 under your HDTV and a PC elsewhere on your home network but no XBox 360? Do you want to watch a movie available on HD-DVD but not Blu-Ray?
This number means you can just buy the 360's add-on drive and use the PC to convert the high-def video file to something that the PS3 understands, without the need to spend $400 on a 360.
Now, I suppose you could call that being a cheapskate too, but the movie wasn't free, and I'd be envying your ability to watch HD-DVD without the sound of the 360's jet engine fan in the background.
I quite like my PSP as well, but it's a Gran Turismo player. Which first required doing all sorts of scary stuff to it.
I made the upgrade from a 4Gb iPod Mini to a 30Gb full-size one, because we're not all alike when it comes to music. You say you've got five albums by one band on your machine, and that's enough? Do you really know you're not going to have the urge to listen to someone else later today? If so, then you'll be fine. I, however, like being surprised by what the random feature chooses, I like being able to choose to put on that A. R. Kane record I've not listened to in years, because someone happened to mention something that triggered the memory.
PSPs are not selling as well as DSes because fewer people want to play the games on the move, and the portable video market is tiny in comparison to the portable game one.
Because (1) boringly, the iPod already has this feature, it's just that no-one uses it.
More importantly, (2) John Reid is a total maroon who thinks that "biometric" means something is like, totally amazingly secure and stuff? And so it's a perfect solution? And once we've got biometrics there won't be any more criminals, so could the technology companies all please persuade those weird techy people who don't understand that whizzy biometrics are perfect, and we should all go fund an ID Card database right now?
Really, I wouldn't put this guy in charge of his home office, let alone the Home Office.
The 360 is supposed to be making a profit. If the estimates for the frequency they would need replacing had been correct. It's that, and the lower-than-expected sales numbers that caused the problem for the machine.
But yes, a dead-in-the-water Zune and associated marketplace are a big factor, too.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I think the reasonable cost of an actual, genuine electric guitar is a very good reason why Guitar Hero _shouldn't_ go down the route of being too realistic, but instead search for fun in a vaguely guitar-like experience.
Let me guess, you don't see why anyone would ever buy Ridge Racer when Gran Turismo exists, or choose to play Sensible World Of Soccer instead of Pro Evo?
Just because a videogame is based on a specific real-world activity, doesn't mean it needs to simulate it in every way.
Proof? There is no publically available sales data source for Europe as a whole. You can buy UK data from Chart-Track, but it'll cost you a fortune and doesn't get leaked the way NPD data does.
All we've got to go on are press releases and rumours. The majority of UK gamers are total Sony Fanboys anyway, in my experience, so you may be right.
Grandparent is correct; what these Floridans send doesn't qualify as English.
I know people with albums recorded onto reel-to-reel tapes off friends from _well_ before 1976. Not me; I was a bit young to be recording music then. But it was certainly widespread.
2017 might be comedy exaggeration. But
1) Who bought a 32-bit processor for Christmas?
2) Who bought something capable of running Vista in 2001 when XP launched?
Yes, I know that Vista took a lot longer to get here than it was supposed to. But really: if you bought your PC when XP came out in 2001, it would probably have had a Pentium 3 in it.
Are you planning on upgrading that machine to run Vista?
I thought not.
It's a good job no phone has a timed alarm that operates in vibrate mode.
What? Oh? Oh dear.
Meanwhile, the Dreamcast, with its motion-sensitive Samba Maraca controllers, speech-processing microphone, video camera and an online experience with web browser and user-generated ChuChuRocket levels, cries in the corner.
Life is cruel, sometimes.
No, they're not realising this just now. Why do you think they made Half-Life, the first one, moddable enough that Counter-Strike was possible?
It's another misleading summary; the article itself is kind of making the point that what Sony are saying about User Generated Content is something that the PC market has been promoting for years.
It's a bloody good job the BBC are big enough to withstand a slashdotting, otherwise that would be looking a bit foolish...
From what I've heard of them (I don't have my own DVD-A deck, but then my friend's Tag McLaren amp is so much better than mine that it's probably a fairer test anyway), what makes SA-CD and DVD-A sound better is as much, if not more down to having a different studio mix that actually uses dynamic range.
CD has plenty of dynamic range in its spec as well, but record companies want the Joe Consumer release to sound "loud" so the mix is compressed and massaged to destroy it all.
If you were clever enough to get past the copy protection and extract the data from the stereo mix on these hi-def formats, convert it to 16-bit 44.1 kHz and then play that back through the same hardware, I doubt you'd notice a difference in a blind listen.
I absolutely agree that modern record production is crushing all the dynamic range out of music, and furthermore pushing the gain so high that there is a horrid mess of distortion as it bangs against the hard limit of the signal range.
However: (a) none of this would stop a well-produced song from sounding great on CD, if only labels weren't idiots, and (b) the smug vinyl fans seem to assume that this compression is only done to the CD master, when I've not seen any definite indication that the signal on their precious black plastic hasn't been similarly ruined.
I know I was a vinyl snob, wasting good money on two copies of albums so I'd have a digital one for on the move, and a gorgeous slab of vinyl for my deck at home. Then I bought a better CD player (only as expensive as my record deck, at that) and CDs took the lead again on sound quality on my system.
Since you don't have to get up and switch discs during the film, what does it matter how many are in the box? I don't get it.
Also, there are plenty of "2-disc Deluxe Special Edition" DVD releases that would fit on a single disc if they didn't want to exploit the public's "more discs == better extras" naivety, so don't believe they'll do that anyway. I'm sure Paramount could have got M:i:III on a single BD-ROM if they wanted, for example.
You're right, of course. I suspect he (and it's nearly always a 'he') got so obsessed with justifying poor 360 sales he forgot other consoles even exist.
Mind you, Microsoft's is the only one of the latest round of TV-connected machines I own, and I've got PSP as well as my DS, so why I'm so smug I'm not sure.
Yes, your argument rather effectively explains why Nintendo are outselling Sony so much.
Oh, wait, no it doesn't.
Thanks! I saw this option while browsing around the menus last night, but I didn't know what it was for. If it's just expanding the black level all the way down to 0 IRE, I'll make the change when I get home. Then recalibrate the TV to bring the crushed black detail back on HD-DVDs...
My UK 360 sounds like a jet engine too, you're not the only one. I don't really know what posessed me to buy the HD-DVD drive; the image quality improvements are great, but the price in noise is too high.
At least they usually try to deactivate them at retail. I've lost track of the number of times I've set shop alarms off with discs I've received from online vendors (often not even in the same continent) that are still in my bag after picking them up from work earlier in the day.
Do you have a Playstation 3 under your HDTV and a PC elsewhere on your home network but no XBox 360? Do you want to watch a movie available on HD-DVD but not Blu-Ray?
This number means you can just buy the 360's add-on drive and use the PC to convert the high-def video file to something that the PS3 understands, without the need to spend $400 on a 360.
Now, I suppose you could call that being a cheapskate too, but the movie wasn't free, and I'd be envying your ability to watch HD-DVD without the sound of the 360's jet engine fan in the background.
I quite like my PSP as well, but it's a Gran Turismo player. Which first required doing all sorts of scary stuff to it.
I made the upgrade from a 4Gb iPod Mini to a 30Gb full-size one, because we're not all alike when it comes to music. You say you've got five albums by one band on your machine, and that's enough? Do you really know you're not going to have the urge to listen to someone else later today? If so, then you'll be fine. I, however, like being surprised by what the random feature chooses, I like being able to choose to put on that A. R. Kane record I've not listened to in years, because someone happened to mention something that triggered the memory.
PSPs are not selling as well as DSes because fewer people want to play the games on the move, and the portable video market is tiny in comparison to the portable game one.
Because (1) boringly, the iPod already has this feature, it's just that no-one uses it.
More importantly, (2) John Reid is a total maroon who thinks that "biometric" means something is like, totally amazingly secure and stuff? And so it's a perfect solution? And once we've got biometrics there won't be any more criminals, so could the technology companies all please persuade those weird techy people who don't understand that whizzy biometrics are perfect, and we should all go fund an ID Card database right now?
Really, I wouldn't put this guy in charge of his home office, let alone the Home Office.
WHOM
The 360 is supposed to be making a profit. If the estimates for the frequency they would need replacing had been correct. It's that, and the lower-than-expected sales numbers that caused the problem for the machine.
But yes, a dead-in-the-water Zune and associated marketplace are a big factor, too.
Doesn't the Entertainment and Devices division also include such wonderful money-sinks as the Zune, though? That can't be helping the overall figures.