If you get a hefty sentence for being a member of Anonymous, then those that don't want to risk one are going to have to spend several seconds thinking up a different name to operate under. It's not much of a deterrent.
It's no different to the film industry, though. Warner Bros. for example are incapable of bringing in a film on the kind of microbudget that small bunches of indie guys regularly do. But they don't charge 60 times as much for a ticket.
Big studios spend millions making games instead of thousands, because they expect to sell many more copies. That's how it works for films, it's how it works for music (nobody is forcing you to get Brian Eno on production), I see no reason why it can't work that way for games too.
They said it's got a 3G chip in it. We don't know yet if, like the iPad, it will still be unable to do voice, but that only makes sense in Apple's case because you'd look an idiot holding against your head. And the descriptions so far suggest they expect everyone to take out a data contract, if not a voice one.
The difference is that the mandatory update kicks you off Live if they catch you modding (and therefore violating the terms of your Live agreement). It doesn't brick your console, damaging your property.
By that thinking, if I embarrass you in front of your friends by showing how poor your logic is, everyone should remember that I made the first action when you brutally murder me in response.
That's not how it works in the closed system that is XBox Live. There, you'll find the vast majority (as far as I know ALL of) the people marked as cheaters have been found to have performed the literally impossible, rather than just statistically very difficult, and had invalid checksums on their game saves or on-DVD executable files, or somehow unlocked an achievement (for example) of winning 10 online ranked matches despite the game's ranking servers knowing full well the user was (a) offline at the time, and (b) hasn't actually done that.
It's worse than that, I've seen gamesavers award themselves achievements for doing well in online ranked modes, when fairly obviously the game's own ranking servers know they haven't. Not only that, but the Live system flags them as achieved while the machine was offline. Oops.
Another occasional mistake is awarding yourself achievements that aren't technically possible to get - completing DLC before it is made available, for instance, or ones that are known to be glitched.
For the most part (and it certainly sounds like this is one of those cases, from the wording of @Stepto's post), people are either hex-editing, or using someone else's little app, to fiddle with game saves. They're apparently reasonably trivial to attack; particularly since the move to let you put them on any old USB stick, rather than just overpriced custom-connection memory cards.
Usually, this is fairly easy to spot, however, as eejits have a habit of doing things like awarding themselves multi-player-only achievements despite gamesave-fiddling automatically flagging them as being achieved offline, or getting achievements in DLC that hasn't been released yet.
Sorry, I'm not following you. Is your allegation that Twitter can't be trusted to have a message from Stephen Toulouse behind this link when he regularly says on the official XBox Live podcast that @Stepto is his username, or that the head of XBox Live Policy Enforcement can't be trusted to tell the truth about the evidence pointing to gamesave-hacking, rather than something that could be theoretically achieved through being really, really good?
That's definitely Stepto; he mentions his Twitter identity reasonably regularly on his website and on the official podcast. And the text certainly implies they can tell the achievement was cracked by gamesaving or some similar not in-game method - this isn't a case of 'playing too well'.
I certainly can't see any particular reason to take the mum's "my little boy would never cheat" claim over it.
'Technically challenging' no. 'Practically challenging', where the challenge is buying the virtual currency without being old enough to own a credit card, is another matter. It's a lot simpler and safer for the average parent to hand over pocket money, which may or may not be spent on an iTunes voucher, a XBox/PSN/Wii Points card, or whatever.
Good job it's not an acronym, then. BT haven't been called British Communications PLC ever, and stopped being British Telecommunications Group in 1991.
From the article: '"Contrary to recent reports in the media, BitTorrent's Content Connect service will not create a two-tier internet, but will simply offer service providers the option of differentiating their broadband offering through enhanced content delivery," a BitTorrent spokeswoman said.'"
If an Akamai-alike is really all this is, I don't think it substantially breaks net neutrality. But I also don't get why they think they can charge extra for a measure that reduces load on their own network.
I'm not about to bother reading Kotaku, but even the url shows it's a rumour rather than fact. If it's dead, it's probably because neither of the games that supported it sold more than about 5 copies.
Better means 'more fun', or at least 'more interesting'. As long as a console game is designed with the console controller in mind, and a PC game designed with its controls in mind, either is fine.
Your argument is fundamentally that mouse aiming is easier than joypad aiming (which is, obviously, the case). But by that logic, playing with an aimbot is better, because they'll give even easier aiming, and driving sims should never be played with manual gears unless the auto box is deliberately balanced against.
Even if it were based on kills, PC owners can't fight 360 owners directly on the system. So they're shooting at fellow PC owners. Logically, it could have been that the keyboard is a bit rubbish for avoiding death, rather than the mouse good at causing it, had the kill rates been shown to be higher on the computer.
Since you can install Quicktime without iTunes, but not vice versa (on the admittedly sensible grounds that the latter uses the former to actually decode the files), I'd say you've got that backwards.
By 'Luminez' do you mean Mizuguchi's game Lumines? It's on the 360, PSP and PC (among others?) so there's no real reason to get the PS3 for it.
I don't have a PS3, although both my brothers do, so I've played several of its best titles. They're good games. But as someone who has a good(ish) PC, 360, Wii and iOS device, I've got enough boxes that have more than enough good games to keep me busy as it is, really, so I just bought a standalone Blu-ray player (which could be handset-hacked to multi-region for standard def, which is one advantage over the PS3, and unlike the grandparent it cost rather less than half the cost of one).
So there's a legitimate version of the seemingly trolling statement for you, if you like.
No-one knows for sure that Manning is the Private First Class who leaked these. But we _are_ fairly sure that he was among the several million Americans who did have access to them if he chose to, which is the relevant part here, no?
Sure, you've probably got perfectly good reasons to hide your real name from the Internet At Large, e.g. ID theft.
But, as I'm a computer-savvy 'retard', could you explain a bit more why I should be hiding my real name from those I send a friend request to? After all, they're my friends, and already know it.
Slashdot Mirror
What's with this assumption that _everyone_ uses Facebook, anyway?
"No, I'm not refusing to hand over my Facebook details; there are none". Won't that be enough?
If you get a hefty sentence for being a member of Anonymous, then those that don't want to risk one are going to have to spend several seconds thinking up a different name to operate under. It's not much of a deterrent.
It's no different to the film industry, though. Warner Bros. for example are incapable of bringing in a film on the kind of microbudget that small bunches of indie guys regularly do. But they don't charge 60 times as much for a ticket.
Big studios spend millions making games instead of thousands, because they expect to sell many more copies. That's how it works for films, it's how it works for music (nobody is forcing you to get Brian Eno on production), I see no reason why it can't work that way for games too.
But then, neither the iPod Touch nor iPhone can do Flash, and Skype works fine on both. They just didn't put a mic on the iPad, for whatever reason.
Ah, right. My mistake - I clearly missed the mention of a non-3G version. That's a relief.
They said it's got a 3G chip in it. We don't know yet if, like the iPad, it will still be unable to do voice, but that only makes sense in Apple's case because you'd look an idiot holding against your head. And the descriptions so far suggest they expect everyone to take out a data contract, if not a voice one.
The difference is that the mandatory update kicks you off Live if they catch you modding (and therefore violating the terms of your Live agreement). It doesn't brick your console, damaging your property.
By that thinking, if I embarrass you in front of your friends by showing how poor your logic is, everyone should remember that I made the first action when you brutally murder me in response.
That's not how it works in the closed system that is XBox Live. There, you'll find the vast majority (as far as I know ALL of) the people marked as cheaters have been found to have performed the literally impossible, rather than just statistically very difficult, and had invalid checksums on their game saves or on-DVD executable files, or somehow unlocked an achievement (for example) of winning 10 online ranked matches despite the game's ranking servers knowing full well the user was (a) offline at the time, and (b) hasn't actually done that.
It's worse than that, I've seen gamesavers award themselves achievements for doing well in online ranked modes, when fairly obviously the game's own ranking servers know they haven't. Not only that, but the Live system flags them as achieved while the machine was offline. Oops.
Another occasional mistake is awarding yourself achievements that aren't technically possible to get - completing DLC before it is made available, for instance, or ones that are known to be glitched.
For the most part (and it certainly sounds like this is one of those cases, from the wording of @Stepto's post), people are either hex-editing, or using someone else's little app, to fiddle with game saves. They're apparently reasonably trivial to attack; particularly since the move to let you put them on any old USB stick, rather than just overpriced custom-connection memory cards.
Usually, this is fairly easy to spot, however, as eejits have a habit of doing things like awarding themselves multi-player-only achievements despite gamesave-fiddling automatically flagging them as being achieved offline, or getting achievements in DLC that hasn't been released yet.
Sorry, I'm not following you. Is your allegation that Twitter can't be trusted to have a message from Stephen Toulouse behind this link when he regularly says on the official XBox Live podcast that @Stepto is his username, or that the head of XBox Live Policy Enforcement can't be trusted to tell the truth about the evidence pointing to gamesave-hacking, rather than something that could be theoretically achieved through being really, really good?
Follow the link directly to Stephen Toulouse's Twitter update: https://twitter.com/#!/Stepto/status/30451173655838720 if you don't want to trust the website.
That's definitely Stepto; he mentions his Twitter identity reasonably regularly on his website and on the official podcast. And the text certainly implies they can tell the achievement was cracked by gamesaving or some similar not in-game method - this isn't a case of 'playing too well'.
I certainly can't see any particular reason to take the mum's "my little boy would never cheat" claim over it.
Exactly. If he hadn't overcooked the burgers, Sony wouldn't have to punch him in the belly. Damn that Geohotz.
Ever think you're accepting a condition you shouldn't?
'Technically challenging' no. 'Practically challenging', where the challenge is buying the virtual currency without being old enough to own a credit card, is another matter. It's a lot simpler and safer for the average parent to hand over pocket money, which may or may not be spent on an iTunes voucher, a XBox/PSN/Wii Points card, or whatever.
Good job it's not an acronym, then. BT haven't been called British Communications PLC ever, and stopped being British Telecommunications Group in 1991.
Really?
That sound likely to you?
If an Akamai-alike is really all this is, I don't think it substantially breaks net neutrality. But I also don't get why they think they can charge extra for a measure that reduces load on their own network.
I'm not about to bother reading Kotaku, but even the url shows it's a rumour rather than fact. If it's dead, it's probably because neither of the games that supported it sold more than about 5 copies.
Better means 'more fun', or at least 'more interesting'. As long as a console game is designed with the console controller in mind, and a PC game designed with its controls in mind, either is fine.
Your argument is fundamentally that mouse aiming is easier than joypad aiming (which is, obviously, the case). But by that logic, playing with an aimbot is better, because they'll give even easier aiming, and driving sims should never be played with manual gears unless the auto box is deliberately balanced against.
Even if it were based on kills, PC owners can't fight 360 owners directly on the system. So they're shooting at fellow PC owners. Logically, it could have been that the keyboard is a bit rubbish for avoiding death, rather than the mouse good at causing it, had the kill rates been shown to be higher on the computer.
Since you can install Quicktime without iTunes, but not vice versa (on the admittedly sensible grounds that the latter uses the former to actually decode the files), I'd say you've got that backwards.
By 'Luminez' do you mean Mizuguchi's game Lumines? It's on the 360, PSP and PC (among others?) so there's no real reason to get the PS3 for it.
I don't have a PS3, although both my brothers do, so I've played several of its best titles. They're good games. But as someone who has a good(ish) PC, 360, Wii and iOS device, I've got enough boxes that have more than enough good games to keep me busy as it is, really, so I just bought a standalone Blu-ray player (which could be handset-hacked to multi-region for standard def, which is one advantage over the PS3, and unlike the grandparent it cost rather less than half the cost of one).
So there's a legitimate version of the seemingly trolling statement for you, if you like.
No-one knows for sure that Manning is the Private First Class who leaked these. But we _are_ fairly sure that he was among the several million Americans who did have access to them if he chose to, which is the relevant part here, no?
Sure, you've probably got perfectly good reasons to hide your real name from the Internet At Large, e.g. ID theft.
But, as I'm a computer-savvy 'retard', could you explain a bit more why I should be hiding my real name from those I send a friend request to? After all, they're my friends, and already know it.