To most consumers and end users linux is at worst something they have no clue about other than hearing that "hackers" use it, and at best is something they were goaded into trying once but at the moment a problem occurred they found they had no help and had to either ditch the computer for a new one (you wouldn't believe how many customers I get insisting their computers are irreparably broken when its simply a boot problem) or pay what they feel are excessive amounts to get some tech to reinstall windows on it again.
Linux is scary to most, wonderful to few that know better. Thats not going to change so yes in terms of advertising to joe average mentioning "linux" will more often not shift a product from the must have category to the must avoid one. It sucks but its reality.
Sorry I used the term generically, actually it looks like a techshell kind of thing but it has a logo on the bottom that I think is logitech?? Anyway its clamshell that encloses it in plastic with little foam bumpers on the ends. Please forgive me for not thoroughly researching the name of the piece of plastic protecting my psp. Since you evidently seem to have the time on your hands to worry about the actual product names maybe you can find the name of it and share it, I wasn't intending to do a product endorsement simply stating that it sits in hardshell plastic case.
I can second that, I had left a DS lite in my pocket...forgot it was there and went four wheeling...cracked both screens. It was only a couple months old but was clearly my fault. I called Nintendo and told them what I had done, they thanked me for my honesty told me the price to repair and then said they would share the cost. The entire replacement cost $50 and was done in less than 10 days.
Compare that to my PSP which spontaneously just stopped reading umd disks. It had never left my house and was kept in a techshell case since day one. I had it less than 6 moths, the Sony rep told me that I must have dropped it since they didnt just fail on their own. I was then told it would be $95 to repair since it was in their opinion abuse and not covered under warranty. I love sony's products but I buy them with full knowledge that they are disposable items.
But this really only hurts the "no name" artists. People get pummeled with the "popular" stuff daily from other sources so they know what they are getting. The little guys have to rely of word of mouth, genius suggestions and snippets without the snippets the chances of turning a sale decrease dramatically. Sounds like more of a control issue than anything to do with real money.
Nope, their rating system goes from G, PG, M, MA15+ (which is a mishmash of what we have as T and M in the ESRB though nearly all end up on the MA15+ side) and then RC games classified as RC are automatically banned from sale and display.
Sony and Nintendo were both concerned enough about the ipod/iphone to mention it specifically in their Gamecon presentations last month. Sony went so far as to announce their download service for the PSPGo and when debuting the new games that would be available when it launched they trotted out Mini Gore, Hero of Sparta and Fieldrunners...which are all Ipod games that are being ported to the PSP.
Most that I have delt with would fall into the "serious business practice problems" category. A company I worked with years ago had a lead admin that was completely paranoid, he was the only one in the company with root access, he supposedly kept the password in a safe that only he, the ceo and the cfo had access to. The lesser admins (thats actually how they referred to us in the department procedures) were the ones who were stuck with being on call and had to call up the lead any time there was a problem...all would be fine if it weren't for the fact that he was very cranky in the middle of the night and would yell at us if we actually called the hesitantly give us temporary access and tell us to figure it out and not bother him. Sometimes outages would go on for hours because we couldnt reach him.
I could only take about 6 months...shortest job I have ever held. I can handle alot of crap, dont trust me with root fine...but at least give me pseudo or at minimum dont bitch when your underlings have to call because you set it up that way.
One has to wonder if the the money wasted on redesigns and protection schemes doesn't actually exceed the revenue that would have resulted if piracy wasn't possible. Every pirate I know fills one profile...cheap bastards that wouldn't buy anything to start with. Nearly all the friends I have that pirate speak about "homebrew" but do no development themselves and their idea of homebrew is emulation so they can pirate other stuff.
However, the current software model is a dead end. Many people are just not willing to spend $30-$40 on a portable game. IMHO thats why even with inferior controls the Iphone is starting to cut into sales on the DS and PSP. There are many games now that are 1/4th the price on the iphone and doing quite well. When you have a choice of Peggle for $30 on the DS or $1.99 on the iphone it doesnt exactly give the traditional gamer warm and fuzzies. If handheld games were an impulse purchase many of the piracy issues would drop drastically.
you want picture of them jackass? Why do fanboys get so bent out shape if anyone has anything go wrong. Its a fucking toy looser, I even stated that I keep buying them so evidently I do like having them. I dont know where the number 5 comes into play to set off your tinfoil hat. I have had 3 fats and 2 slims, all of the fats died from dre errors, my first thin just spontaneously stopped working (power supply I assume), the new one I have now is a silver slim and is working fine.
Sorry if it offends you that someone experienced problems with your beloved sony product but get the fuck over it. For what its worth I like my 360 and my PS3 well enough that if either did die I'd buy another one of those too...
Ever look at the number of demos on Live compared to PSN? Thats why its not free...Sony charges the developers while MS charges the customer, neither are "free" whats different is who is paying for it. Unfortunately Sony's model more often than not results in the developer not bothering to release a demo at all.
I just find it astounding that so many people take a very non scientific poll from a magazine without question. For what its worth, my launch 360 is still working (so is my 60gb ps3). I am however on my 5th PS2. Sony fanboys are quick to point out the 360's 3rod issue (and yes I know its real and exists) and claim that rebuy's is why the 360 is ahead, but are just as quick to brag about the 100 million PS2 sales without taking into account the rebuy's there. I know far more people with PS2's than 360's but I dont know a single one that is on their original PS2, they rebuy them when the laser dies or the power supply craps out because they have a big library of games.
Really MS's biggest flaw this time around was admitting fault they should have done like Sony last generation and said nothing, wait for the class action suits then make part of the settlement an agreement that they not have to admit fault of disclose the failure rate, it would have been alot cheaper than the 3 year warranty.
Umm the gap between the Japanese and the US/Pal versions of FFXIII is only 6 months which is actually the fastest localization of any FF game so far. Maybe you should be thanking MS for speeding things up??
Is this really a shock? Did people think that cable companies have any interest in user rights, hell if they could get away with just making you pay $50 to broadcast nothing but commercials they would do it in a heartbeat. People fell for the "oh look its shiny" HDMI push early on even though component was and is fully capable of 1080p. People fell for bluray even though it has much stricter content restrictions. Now we get to welcome our broadcast flag overlords. Hope everyone is happy...
On another note...Time Warner and Comcast announced plans to start trials of their TV Everywhere product which is basically an slingbox type service that will stream video on demand for a "nominal" fee. Of course some may see this as a way to get the sheep to accept bandwidth caps and show the govt they are "promoting" streaming video to cover their ass for the few brave enough to complain.
Ever notice that there are far less free demos and dlc on Sony's network. In the past I wasted several times the cost of live in an average year buying games that I would have skipped had demo been available, in the long run Live has saved me money. Besides that I have averaged enough freebie's each year to make it worth while anyway.
Sony's business model is why its inferior...the developers have to foot the costs of hosting and bandwidth which causes many of them to just not bother. Add in a more refined interface, full chat, netflix, etc and I will gladly pay my paltry $40 a year for Live.
Most "violent" games (with the exception of games like GTA which could be seen as training materials there) tend to have a storyline emphasizing fighting for justice, freedom and stopping oppression. With a government that is opposed to those principles the biggest surprise is that it took them this long. Chavez evidently learned nothing from his own rebellion in 92 but then dictators tend to think oppression is fine as long as they are the ones giving it.
The only problem with that is PC tv tuners shipped with "time shifting software" years before Tivo existed. Im actually a Tivo fan but if thats truly the depth of the patent they deserve to be slapped around a little.
Many people that favor decriminalization and even legalization do not use them, they just find that the current "war" on drugs is a waste of money and resources that does more to increase criminal activity than decrease it. I noticed you didn't mention the open bottle of alcohol that was found in her car. Why is it people are so much more tolerant of far more addictive and destructive substances simply because the government gave up on a similar "war" years ago?
It seems LucasArts was on to something...people do like the old stuff they just need them updated graphically (though im still waiting for my Xwing vs Tie Fighter), its good to see EA come around. Now that Activision is trying to replace EA as the most evil game company EA seems content to try and make amends, bringing back the classics will only help.
Privateer with modern internet multiplayer would be amazing, ditto for Syndicate and Dune. Now if we could only get Infogrames/Atari to update Star Control.
I picked up a Macbook 2ghz core2duo nearly 3 years ago now, my brother thought I was insane and bought a tricked out Dell for about 1/3rd less, he now has a Toshiba and is thinking about selling it and getting another...in the meantime im still using the Macbook without a bit of trouble in fact the only time I have had to do anything to it was when I upgraded the harddrive and added memory about 6 months ago. My total cost of ownership including the 320 drive and 4gigs of ram is around $1600, so far his is around $2000 and will go to nearly $3200 if he get the laptop he supposedly needs now.
"Content Providers" on the corporate side seem to have forgotten that there were years that the internet grew and prospered without their involvement. Rather than waste time and resources trying to get the internet to bend to them wouldn't resources be better spent trying to figure out how to bend to the internet and still have a business? I realize that for people like Diller and Murdoch its hard to accept being part of medium in which they have absolutely no control, even harder to deal with the idea that they can spend millions on "content" and still end up having to compete fairly evenly with some guy with a camcorder in his basement. That said, content is not free, however content can be pretty darn cheap and thats where the big guys cant compete, it has to be depressing to watch a fill production staff with millions of dollars in resources out scooped by some guy with a blog and too much time on his hands.
You can thank Activision for that one, a new $60 game every couple months that is really nothing more than the same game with new songs gets old quick. DLC was supposed to end that but instead they do things like add some extra "frets" that are rarely used or throw in some cymbals to require the gamer to buy the entire package again to play the game properly. Harmonix has at least been a bit more responsible about it, but there is enough from them looming on the horizon to make them just as guilty. Things should get a little better now that there is at least some intercompatabilty between the two but in the end greed has turned off most gamers I know.
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To most consumers and end users linux is at worst something they have no clue about other than hearing that "hackers" use it, and at best is something they were goaded into trying once but at the moment a problem occurred they found they had no help and had to either ditch the computer for a new one (you wouldn't believe how many customers I get insisting their computers are irreparably broken when its simply a boot problem) or pay what they feel are excessive amounts to get some tech to reinstall windows on it again.
Linux is scary to most, wonderful to few that know better. Thats not going to change so yes in terms of advertising to joe average mentioning "linux" will more often not shift a product from the must have category to the must avoid one. It sucks but its reality.
Sorry I used the term generically, actually it looks like a techshell kind of thing but it has a logo on the bottom that I think is logitech?? Anyway its clamshell that encloses it in plastic with little foam bumpers on the ends. Please forgive me for not thoroughly researching the name of the piece of plastic protecting my psp. Since you evidently seem to have the time on your hands to worry about the actual product names maybe you can find the name of it and share it, I wasn't intending to do a product endorsement simply stating that it sits in hardshell plastic case.
I can second that, I had left a DS lite in my pocket...forgot it was there and went four wheeling...cracked both screens. It was only a couple months old but was clearly my fault. I called Nintendo and told them what I had done, they thanked me for my honesty told me the price to repair and then said they would share the cost. The entire replacement cost $50 and was done in less than 10 days.
Compare that to my PSP which spontaneously just stopped reading umd disks. It had never left my house and was kept in a techshell case since day one. I had it less than 6 moths, the Sony rep told me that I must have dropped it since they didnt just fail on their own. I was then told it would be $95 to repair since it was in their opinion abuse and not covered under warranty. I love sony's products but I buy them with full knowledge that they are disposable items.
But this really only hurts the "no name" artists. People get pummeled with the "popular" stuff daily from other sources so they know what they are getting. The little guys have to rely of word of mouth, genius suggestions and snippets without the snippets the chances of turning a sale decrease dramatically. Sounds like more of a control issue than anything to do with real money.
Nope, their rating system goes from G, PG, M, MA15+ (which is a mishmash of what we have as T and M in the ESRB though nearly all end up on the MA15+ side) and then RC games classified as RC are automatically banned from sale and display.
Somewhere in Gilroy a Garlic farmer is dialing Sprint to beg for a tower so he can make monster garlic.
Sony and Nintendo were both concerned enough about the ipod/iphone to mention it specifically in their Gamecon presentations last month. Sony went so far as to announce their download service for the PSPGo and when debuting the new games that would be available when it launched they trotted out Mini Gore, Hero of Sparta and Fieldrunners...which are all Ipod games that are being ported to the PSP.
But it sounds much more professional than "Router Jockey"
Most that I have delt with would fall into the "serious business practice problems" category. A company I worked with years ago had a lead admin that was completely paranoid, he was the only one in the company with root access, he supposedly kept the password in a safe that only he, the ceo and the cfo had access to. The lesser admins (thats actually how they referred to us in the department procedures) were the ones who were stuck with being on call and had to call up the lead any time there was a problem...all would be fine if it weren't for the fact that he was very cranky in the middle of the night and would yell at us if we actually called the hesitantly give us temporary access and tell us to figure it out and not bother him. Sometimes outages would go on for hours because we couldnt reach him.
I could only take about 6 months...shortest job I have ever held. I can handle alot of crap, dont trust me with root fine...but at least give me pseudo or at minimum dont bitch when your underlings have to call because you set it up that way.
One has to wonder if the the money wasted on redesigns and protection schemes doesn't actually exceed the revenue that would have resulted if piracy wasn't possible. Every pirate I know fills one profile...cheap bastards that wouldn't buy anything to start with. Nearly all the friends I have that pirate speak about "homebrew" but do no development themselves and their idea of homebrew is emulation so they can pirate other stuff.
However, the current software model is a dead end. Many people are just not willing to spend $30-$40 on a portable game. IMHO thats why even with inferior controls the Iphone is starting to cut into sales on the DS and PSP. There are many games now that are 1/4th the price on the iphone and doing quite well. When you have a choice of Peggle for $30 on the DS or $1.99 on the iphone it doesnt exactly give the traditional gamer warm and fuzzies. If handheld games were an impulse purchase many of the piracy issues would drop drastically.
you want picture of them jackass? Why do fanboys get so bent out shape if anyone has anything go wrong. Its a fucking toy looser, I even stated that I keep buying them so evidently I do like having them. I dont know where the number 5 comes into play to set off your tinfoil hat. I have had 3 fats and 2 slims, all of the fats died from dre errors, my first thin just spontaneously stopped working (power supply I assume), the new one I have now is a silver slim and is working fine.
Sorry if it offends you that someone experienced problems with your beloved sony product but get the fuck over it. For what its worth I like my 360 and my PS3 well enough that if either did die I'd buy another one of those too...
Ever look at the number of demos on Live compared to PSN? Thats why its not free...Sony charges the developers while MS charges the customer, neither are "free" whats different is who is paying for it. Unfortunately Sony's model more often than not results in the developer not bothering to release a demo at all.
I just find it astounding that so many people take a very non scientific poll from a magazine without question. For what its worth, my launch 360 is still working (so is my 60gb ps3). I am however on my 5th PS2. Sony fanboys are quick to point out the 360's 3rod issue (and yes I know its real and exists) and claim that rebuy's is why the 360 is ahead, but are just as quick to brag about the 100 million PS2 sales without taking into account the rebuy's there. I know far more people with PS2's than 360's but I dont know a single one that is on their original PS2, they rebuy them when the laser dies or the power supply craps out because they have a big library of games.
Really MS's biggest flaw this time around was admitting fault they should have done like Sony last generation and said nothing, wait for the class action suits then make part of the settlement an agreement that they not have to admit fault of disclose the failure rate, it would have been alot cheaper than the 3 year warranty.
Umm the gap between the Japanese and the US/Pal versions of FFXIII is only 6 months which is actually the fastest localization of any FF game so far. Maybe you should be thanking MS for speeding things up??
One can only hope that family and friends of the girl uses that same loophole hat got Drew off the hook to make the rest of her life a living hell.
That would have a much greater effect at making the world a better place
Is this really a shock? Did people think that cable companies have any interest in user rights, hell if they could get away with just making you pay $50 to broadcast nothing but commercials they would do it in a heartbeat. People fell for the "oh look its shiny" HDMI push early on even though component was and is fully capable of 1080p. People fell for bluray even though it has much stricter content restrictions. Now we get to welcome our broadcast flag overlords. Hope everyone is happy...
On another note...Time Warner and Comcast announced plans to start trials of their TV Everywhere product which is basically an slingbox type service that will stream video on demand for a "nominal" fee. Of course some may see this as a way to get the sheep to accept bandwidth caps and show the govt they are "promoting" streaming video to cover their ass for the few brave enough to complain.
Ever notice that there are far less free demos and dlc on Sony's network. In the past I wasted several times the cost of live in an average year buying games that I would have skipped had demo been available, in the long run Live has saved me money. Besides that I have averaged enough freebie's each year to make it worth while anyway.
Sony's business model is why its inferior...the developers have to foot the costs of hosting and bandwidth which causes many of them to just not bother. Add in a more refined interface, full chat, netflix, etc and I will gladly pay my paltry $40 a year for Live.
Most "violent" games (with the exception of games like GTA which could be seen as training materials there) tend to have a storyline emphasizing fighting for justice, freedom and stopping oppression. With a government that is opposed to those principles the biggest surprise is that it took them this long. Chavez evidently learned nothing from his own rebellion in 92 but then dictators tend to think oppression is fine as long as they are the ones giving it.
The only problem with that is PC tv tuners shipped with "time shifting software" years before Tivo existed. Im actually a Tivo fan but if thats truly the depth of the patent they deserve to be slapped around a little.
Many people that favor decriminalization and even legalization do not use them, they just find that the current "war" on drugs is a waste of money and resources that does more to increase criminal activity than decrease it. I noticed you didn't mention the open bottle of alcohol that was found in her car. Why is it people are so much more tolerant of far more addictive and destructive substances simply because the government gave up on a similar "war" years ago?
It seems LucasArts was on to something...people do like the old stuff they just need them updated graphically (though im still waiting for my Xwing vs Tie Fighter), its good to see EA come around. Now that Activision is trying to replace EA as the most evil game company EA seems content to try and make amends, bringing back the classics will only help.
Privateer with modern internet multiplayer would be amazing, ditto for Syndicate and Dune. Now if we could only get Infogrames/Atari to update Star Control.
I picked up a Macbook 2ghz core2duo nearly 3 years ago now, my brother thought I was insane and bought a tricked out Dell for about 1/3rd less, he now has a Toshiba and is thinking about selling it and getting another...in the meantime im still using the Macbook without a bit of trouble in fact the only time I have had to do anything to it was when I upgraded the harddrive and added memory about 6 months ago. My total cost of ownership including the 320 drive and 4gigs of ram is around $1600, so far his is around $2000 and will go to nearly $3200 if he get the laptop he supposedly needs now.
"Content Providers" on the corporate side seem to have forgotten that there were years that the internet grew and prospered without their involvement. Rather than waste time and resources trying to get the internet to bend to them wouldn't resources be better spent trying to figure out how to bend to the internet and still have a business? I realize that for people like Diller and Murdoch its hard to accept being part of medium in which they have absolutely no control, even harder to deal with the idea that they can spend millions on "content" and still end up having to compete fairly evenly with some guy with a camcorder in his basement. That said, content is not free, however content can be pretty darn cheap and thats where the big guys cant compete, it has to be depressing to watch a fill production staff with millions of dollars in resources out scooped by some guy with a blog and too much time on his hands.
You can thank Activision for that one, a new $60 game every couple months that is really nothing more than the same game with new songs gets old quick. DLC was supposed to end that but instead they do things like add some extra "frets" that are rarely used or throw in some cymbals to require the gamer to buy the entire package again to play the game properly. Harmonix has at least been a bit more responsible about it, but there is enough from them looming on the horizon to make them just as guilty. Things should get a little better now that there is at least some intercompatabilty between the two but in the end greed has turned off most gamers I know.