The RIAA only has power because we enable it. With the exception of the random but rare story about some grandma in Peoria who didnt have p2p, the vast majority find themselved bullied by the RIAA because they coveted some drivel being peddled by an RIAA member. Stop buying it, stop borrowing it, stop stealing it, stop listening to it and the RIAA has no power at all. Those that continue to support the RIAA's causes either legally or illegally are entitled to do nothing other than stop bitching about it.
I dont know, while thats been true in the past, it seems this generation of geriatric gamers are getting more into it. I know that my parents so far have more games than I do for their Wii. Of course they are all casual games like Wii Play, Mario and Tiger Woods but they still seem to be hungry for even more games. I guess its my fault, I gave my mother a DS Lite for Christmas and she buys every $19 closeout title she can find.
So Microsoft is upset with Nintendo because they were smarter? After spending huge amounts of money MS ended up with a new machine based on making everything faster while nintendo spent their money on researching new ways to play games and applied them to what they already had.
I have a 360, it has some great games, but its still just a prettier version of the xbox that is barely backwards compatable. I cant get my wife or relatives to play the 360, but all of them seem to gravitate to the wii. I came home from work yesterday and caught my wife bowling at 3 in the afternoon, I can guarantee I've never come home and caught her playing halo.
So perhaps MS feels like they wasted money and resources? Have we finally reached a point where the old argument about graphics vs gameplay is actually a legitimate one?
Does anyone actually care? I have seen dozens of interviews and previews about Spore but have yet to meet one person who is actually excited about the game. From everything I have gathered its just another twist on the digital sandbox idea. This reminds me of the Hype when Maxis was creating Sim Life and Sim Earth, they pushed the crap out of it but in the end they were scientifically brilliant but just werent fun to play.
Years ago the amature radio community petitioned for the rights to a small abandoned band of frequencies that had orininally been set aside for govt use. The hamsters were shot down then when the bandwidth was practically worthless you can bet they will be denied now that its actually valuable.
The major players have had plans and gentlemens agreements on the spectrum that will be freed up for years. The only "benefit" that the public will see out of this is at most faster 3g services. Of course the government is going to be paid billions for it, resulting in the second "benefit" to the public...higher fees for wireless services.
I propose a compulsory license be required to play music that can be heard by more than one person, no headphones...pay a fee, driving with the windows down...pay a fee, take your boom box to the beach...pay an even bigger fee.
Seriously though, those who really want to do something about it shouldnt care. I stopped buying and downloading commercial music years ago, I listen to talk radio when im in the car and the only cd's I have bought have been from local bands at their shows. It was hard at first but I dont miss it anymore. My wife is slowly weaning herself as well. It was funny last year when the Grammy's came on TV and I realized I had never heard of 3/4 of the people announced as "performing".
The faster that the music industry can manage to piss off the ignorant masses the better. I think this move is great, its one that will affect the netless and clueless. I can only hope it expands to more states.
My wife has a prexisting conditon that makes it impossible for her to get healthcare, yet requires regular hospitalization. She has applied for diability but is turned down over and over again. She has no real work history (mainly due to her illness) so she cant qualify for ssid. We looked into a state program which is basically a group policy for the uninsurable, the premium is on a sliding scale and because of my salary level its over $1000 a month just for her coverage. So im just hosed, I have insurance for myself and my kids but I basically pay out for nothing there since we never have enough doctor visits to even meet the deductable. The system is broken, there are plenty of people who arent looking for a handout, but would like to be able to safely provide for their family without constantly taking on debt to stay healthy.
Its kind of a chicken and egg scenario though, Nintendo has had to have strong first party development due to the inability to rely on third party support which has been weak since the n64. If only Nintendo fans are buying Nintendo consoles then of course the best selling software will be the Nintendo franchises. I think thats going to be different with the Wii, there are far to many people with no particular loyalty to Nintendo picking up the Wii. I think when the current generation is over we will see the Wii's game base to most resemble that of the SNES, great first party titles but tons of 3rd party AAA titles as well. Look at the top SNES games nearly all of them mention Killer Instinct, Final Fantasy, NBA Jam, Super Ghosts and Goblins, Chronotrigger, Contra III, TMNT, RTYPE III, Gradius 3, Rock and Roll Racing, the list just goes on with tons of great 3rd party titles.
I guess your right about the gamecube support, hadnt really thought about it since I picked up a Wii the first week they were available. Still one console generation doesnt really make a trend, look at the lifespans of the NES and SNES. The N64 lifespan was a bit short and well as the Gamecube but that can be more attributed into lack of audience more than the desire of the company to "abandon" them for the next best thing. If people are buying it developers will develop, the more 3rd party stuff out there, the more likely that 3rd party titles develop a following, lather, rinse, repeat...
How is this any different than Joe Six-pack who gets pissed off after his team looses on Monday Night Football and decides to beat his wife to take out his frustrations, or the guy that has a bad hole on the golf course and wraps his driver around a tree? There have been losers like that since Ally Oop lost 20 clams on a Mastodon race, went back to his cave and clubbed his wife. Some people just can't handle things not going their way. If there was a way to screen them and take them out of gene pool I'd be all for it, but to try and point the root cause to some external influence is just shifting the blame. The problem isn't that Johnny plays counterstrike; it's that Johnny has a violent temper and lack of self control. You can plug any anything in place of video games, the stock market, sports even jobs, basically anything that can involve a positive or negative outcome can lead to violence in a person inclined to be violent.
"Moreover, we feel that the likely shorter product cycles of Nintendo's platforms puts the publishers in a permanent catch-up mode. We think the upcoming releases of Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption will highlight this phenomena [sic] this holiday season."
What planet is this guy from? If anything, Nintendo has been guilty of keeping their old tech going far past its expiration date. Look at the Gameboy Advance and the Gamecube, both are still getting games long after their replacements have been on the market. I know that the DS was advertised as a new platform and not the sucessor to the GBA but seriously with the amount its selling can you really see them going back to the single screen format again? You have to go back the N64 to find a console that was abandoned and even that had more support than the sales should have deserved. The biggest thing I can see being "bad" for the industry is that the Wii and DS prove that a reliable Volkwagon can beat a broken down Porsche. Multi-Million dollar high tech games are getting trumped by comparitively low tech but innovative game. For the immediate future its a loss for the big game companies who put their eggs in the wrong basket and are now having to back pedal but its definately a win for the smaller developers.
So has the threat from those Killer bees that were supposed to doom us all for the last 20 years been eliminated now? Gypsy Moths and Killer Bees are passe now so I guess it on to the threat of Fungi.
SCi's biggest hit was Conflict Desert Storm which was found in bargain bins weeks after release. While I understand the desire for something positive for the ps3 fanboy crowd, they may want to skip the bravado over this crapfest.
Here's a list of all of SCi's accomplishments to date, look at all the hits...
Alfreds Adventure Aqua Aqua Battlestations:Midway Carmageddon Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now Carmageddon TDR 2000 Conflict: Desert Storm Conflict: Desert Storm 2 (a.k.a. Back to Baghdad) Conflict: Global Terror Conflict: Vietnam Constantine Cool Bricks Cyberwar Futurama Galleon Gender Wars Gumball 3000 Kingdom O' Magic Live Wire Mille Migla Rally Championship Rally Championship Xtreme Richard Burns Rally Rolling Spellcross SWIV The Great Escape The Italian Job The Lawnmower man Thunderbirds Total Overdose
Seriously, this is like one of those headlines where researchers find that depressed people are more likely to commit suicide or that water is wet. As long as there are stupid users there will be exploited computers and as long as Microsoft has the lions share of the market there will be more zombied windows boxes.
I had a bit of a disagreement with a client today over spam on her computer. She freaks out if there is more than one in her inbox. Every time I am at her machine she has webshots or smily central or whatever the "cool" spyware infested freebie of the week happens to be. She claims that she should be able to download what she wants but that I should be able to keep her system clean in spite of it. Its a no win situation, as long as she chooses to be stupid im stuck getting the blame for her problems.
I'm all for entepreneuership and making a buck, but there are a couple things that bother me about this. First the likely clients will be the ones who were wealthy before Sadam was ousted, so more than often than not they will be supporting the same ones who helped keep down the people we are supposed to be trying to help. Second, on the likely chance that one of them is taken hostage or killed you can bet the news will be splattered with sob stories about them as if they were heroes helping the common man while dozens of real heroes die with no mention beyond a tally of bodies. There should be a list that separates the civilian humanitarians from the opportunists just so the media will know which ones to ignore.
MS is suffering for the market they created, consumers who are satified with mediocre, resistant to change and generally lazy.
MS for years has built a audience that was willing to accept good enough. With XP for many MS finally delivered "good enough", Its fairly stable, acceptably easy to use and has more features than the average user has any need for. Though there are some nice new features with Vista the important ones are not ones that are noticable to the novice. The only compelling selling point for Joe Average is the eye candy which was "good enough" in XP for most and is stripped out of the affordable versions of Vista anyway. The lack of bells and whistles on the low end versions of Vista coupled with mostly fud articles on backwards compatability plus the much publicized DRM issues scares off a large portion of their target audience. If home users arent upgrading you can bet that businesses are going to drag their heels as well. Sadly I dont see this as being something that will move people to Linux in the immediate future, it does buy Linux developers time to make more inroads towards usability, ease of install and buzz, all of which need improvement and can lead to increased market share.
Sure Wikipedia has its accuracy issues occasionally but for the same general information you will find in a typical encyclopedia it's spot-on. The questionable accuracy usually pertains to current people and events most of which have yet to show up in traditional encyclopedias and offline reference sources. One of the benefits of Wikipedia is its self-governing nature, if something is grossly inacurate, its often updated and corrected in a very timely fashion. Most "inaccuracies" you hear about tend to be eitehr subjects that no one beyond a niche segment would look up and seem to more often than not be the result of a "fans vs foes" grudge match rather than someone posting with actual referece in mind.
Because of my job I know many minor national and local celebrities here in the midwest, a few of them that have actually spent time either adding themselves to Wikipedia or looking themselves up and attempting to edit the results. I find it rather pathetic, every time I hear of it I cant help but think of Steve Martin opening his phone book for the first time in "The Jerk". Ego tends to contribute far more to inaccuracies than any other factor.
Evidently I suck at GH, three new songs would give me at least couple hours of entertainment, compare it to going to a movie, and it's a freakin bargain.
I think people over-simplify the mechanics of GH, its not like your just downloading three mp3's. I certainly wish I could get the first two packs, unfortunately im stuck with the ps2 version.
Re:There can be only one!!!
on
Palm to go Linux
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I would argue that excessive integration has ruined the PDA/phone market. For every person I know that actually uses the bells and whistles on their phones I know 10 that don't do anything beyond a contact list and phone calls. I am evidently in the minority but I would rather have several devices that do their job well than one that does them all half-assed. I have yet to see a "music" phone that was really a decent mp3 player, I haven't seen a "game" phone that was really a good gaming platform and I have yet to see a Smartphone that hasn't made extreme sacrifices in order to cram its functionality into a postage stamp screen.
I've gone from palm to windows mobile to a smartphone and finally to a blackberry. In going from platform to platform I have had to make concessions and sacrifices for the sake of convenience with my latest move I just ditched all the functionality for decent email and phone support. The integration push has killed the pda, Palm and MS just dont know it yet.
"Get your filthy hands off me you damn dirty ape!"
Do we really need to give them rights, were supposed to make servants out of them first, then they can rise up and take their rights by force. I for one welcome our simian overlords.
I buy a title or two every month but have no desire at all to play online, in fact my main gaming rig isnt usually connected to my network. I have tried Ultima Online, Battlefield, Star Wars galaxies, FF online and some really stupid car racing game that was completly online. In the end all of them fell short. I think the big thing im most opposed to is paying $50 for the media to install a game but then having to pay $10-$20 a month to actually play it. I tend to play a game for a few days, go to something else then come back to the other again a few weeks later. Im still playing Oblivion for instance, and I purchased it a year ago. The monthly fee just isnt condusive to my playing habits. So where does that leave me? Im sure there are others that feel the same way. So I guess the real question is do the saved sales from the clutches of piracy outnumber the lost sales from those with no desire to go online with their gaming? Oh well, at least the theoretical question of whether pirates would buy the games if they couldnt be pirated would finally be answered. My predition: A year or so after the shift to online, the new buzz phrases will be DRM free gaming and single player experiences.
I am so sick of the fanboy "my psp collects dust and I play my DS everyday" line. Its tired everyone has heard it. My primary consoles consist of a Wii, Ps2, 3 ds's (1 phat and 2 lites for a family of 5) and 1 PSP. Im definately not a Sony fanboy and play lots of DS games but to dismiss the PSP as being no good means either the person is not looking at the games available or they were so caught up in that argument a year ago when it was true that they are blind to whats available now.
No matter what genre there are good games these are just off the top of my head:
Advenure Games: Lego Star Wars, Metal Gear Solid Portable Op's RTS Games: Pirates!, Field Commander RPG Games: Dungeon Seige, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, FPS Games: Socom 2, Medal of Honor Heroes Rythym Games: Guitaroo Man Lives! Racing Games: Burnout Legends, Wipeout Pure Action Games: Daxter, Rachet and Clank Puzzle Games: Locoroco, Me & My Katamari, Lumines 1&2, Puzzle Quest, Mercury Meltdown Fighting Games: Tekken: Dark Resurrection Old School Classics: Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins, Metal Slug Anthology Sports Games: Madden 07, MLB 07, Winning Eleven
As far as actual numbers of games the PSP actually has a hundred or so more than the DS. It had a slow start but the PSP has delivered more than I ever expected and to say it has no good games is delusional.
It will be easier to find non-commercial content, but on the other hand its the copyrighted stuff that most people are there for anyway so who is going to see the other crap? So how long till youtube dissappears into relative obscurity? Mark Cuban was right.
I have purchased alot of both commecial and shareware over the years but one thing I have noticed with shareware if the price is proportional to the value of the software most will buy it. If its a trivial utility that might be used on occasion but not enough to justify the asking price of the full version they tend to pirate or find something else. If the author was seeing more pirates than purchasers perhaps he might concider thinking over his pricing scheme and percieved value of what he has created rather than try to go vigilante over people who would likely not pay for it in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
The RIAA only has power because we enable it. With the exception of the random but rare story about some grandma in Peoria who didnt have p2p, the vast majority find themselved bullied by the RIAA because they coveted some drivel being peddled by an RIAA member. Stop buying it, stop borrowing it, stop stealing it, stop listening to it and the RIAA has no power at all. Those that continue to support the RIAA's causes either legally or illegally are entitled to do nothing other than stop bitching about it.
I dont know, while thats been true in the past, it seems this generation of geriatric gamers are getting more into it. I know that my parents so far have more games than I do for their Wii. Of course they are all casual games like Wii Play, Mario and Tiger Woods but they still seem to be hungry for even more games. I guess its my fault, I gave my mother a DS Lite for Christmas and she buys every $19 closeout title she can find.
So Microsoft is upset with Nintendo because they were smarter? After spending huge amounts of money MS ended up with a new machine based on making everything faster while nintendo spent their money on researching new ways to play games and applied them to what they already had.
I have a 360, it has some great games, but its still just a prettier version of the xbox that is barely backwards compatable. I cant get my wife or relatives to play the 360, but all of them seem to gravitate to the wii. I came home from work yesterday and caught my wife bowling at 3 in the afternoon, I can guarantee I've never come home and caught her playing halo.
So perhaps MS feels like they wasted money and resources? Have we finally reached a point where the old argument about graphics vs gameplay is actually a legitimate one?
Could it help bring prices down? Umm no if anything manufacturers would inflate the cost and pass it on to consumers.
Does anyone actually care? I have seen dozens of interviews and previews about Spore but have yet to meet one person who is actually excited about the game. From everything I have gathered its just another twist on the digital sandbox idea. This reminds me of the Hype when Maxis was creating Sim Life and Sim Earth, they pushed the crap out of it but in the end they were scientifically brilliant but just werent fun to play.
Years ago the amature radio community petitioned for the rights to a small abandoned band of frequencies that had orininally been set aside for govt use. The hamsters were shot down then when the bandwidth was practically worthless you can bet they will be denied now that its actually valuable.
The major players have had plans and gentlemens agreements on the spectrum that will be freed up for years. The only "benefit" that the public will see out of this is at most faster 3g services. Of course the government is going to be paid billions for it, resulting in the second "benefit" to the public...higher fees for wireless services.
Sprint also has a nasty habit of buying up spectrum in rural areas and then doing nothing with it primarily to keep competition out.
I propose a compulsory license be required to play music that can be heard by more than one person, no headphones...pay a fee, driving with the windows down...pay a fee, take your boom box to the beach...pay an even bigger fee.
Seriously though, those who really want to do something about it shouldnt care. I stopped buying and downloading commercial music years ago, I listen to talk radio when im in the car and the only cd's I have bought have been from local bands at their shows. It was hard at first but I dont miss it anymore. My wife is slowly weaning herself as well. It was funny last year when the Grammy's came on TV and I realized I had never heard of 3/4 of the people announced as "performing".
The faster that the music industry can manage to piss off the ignorant masses the better. I think this move is great, its one that will affect the netless and clueless. I can only hope it expands to more states.
My wife has a prexisting conditon that makes it impossible for her to get healthcare, yet requires regular hospitalization. She has applied for diability but is turned down over and over again. She has no real work history (mainly due to her illness) so she cant qualify for ssid. We looked into a state program which is basically a group policy for the uninsurable, the premium is on a sliding scale and because of my salary level its over $1000 a month just for her coverage. So im just hosed, I have insurance for myself and my kids but I basically pay out for nothing there since we never have enough doctor visits to even meet the deductable. The system is broken, there are plenty of people who arent looking for a handout, but would like to be able to safely provide for their family without constantly taking on debt to stay healthy.
Its kind of a chicken and egg scenario though, Nintendo has had to have strong first party development due to the inability to rely on third party support which has been weak since the n64. If only Nintendo fans are buying Nintendo consoles then of course the best selling software will be the Nintendo franchises. I think thats going to be different with the Wii, there are far to many people with no particular loyalty to Nintendo picking up the Wii. I think when the current generation is over we will see the Wii's game base to most resemble that of the SNES, great first party titles but tons of 3rd party AAA titles as well. Look at the top SNES games nearly all of them mention Killer Instinct, Final Fantasy, NBA Jam, Super Ghosts and Goblins, Chronotrigger, Contra III, TMNT, RTYPE III, Gradius 3, Rock and Roll Racing, the list just goes on with tons of great 3rd party titles.
I guess your right about the gamecube support, hadnt really thought about it since I picked up a Wii the first week they were available. Still one console generation doesnt really make a trend, look at the lifespans of the NES and SNES. The N64 lifespan was a bit short and well as the Gamecube but that can be more attributed into lack of audience more than the desire of the company to "abandon" them for the next best thing. If people are buying it developers will develop, the more 3rd party stuff out there, the more likely that 3rd party titles develop a following, lather, rinse, repeat...
How is this any different than Joe Six-pack who gets pissed off after his team looses on Monday Night Football and decides to beat his wife to take out his frustrations, or the guy that has a bad hole on the golf course and wraps his driver around a tree? There have been losers like that since Ally Oop lost 20 clams on a Mastodon race, went back to his cave and clubbed his wife. Some people just can't handle things not going their way. If there was a way to screen them and take them out of gene pool I'd be all for it, but to try and point the root cause to some external influence is just shifting the blame. The problem isn't that Johnny plays counterstrike; it's that Johnny has a violent temper and lack of self control. You can plug any anything in place of video games, the stock market, sports even jobs, basically anything that can involve a positive or negative outcome can lead to violence in a person inclined to be violent.
"Moreover, we feel that the likely shorter product cycles of Nintendo's platforms puts the publishers in a permanent catch-up mode. We think the upcoming releases of Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption will highlight this phenomena [sic] this holiday season."
What planet is this guy from? If anything, Nintendo has been guilty of keeping their old tech going far past its expiration date. Look at the Gameboy Advance and the Gamecube, both are still getting games long after their replacements have been on the market. I know that the DS was advertised as a new platform and not the sucessor to the GBA but seriously with the amount its selling can you really see them going back to the single screen format again? You have to go back the N64 to find a console that was abandoned and even that had more support than the sales should have deserved. The biggest thing I can see being "bad" for the industry is that the Wii and DS prove that a reliable Volkwagon can beat a broken down Porsche. Multi-Million dollar high tech games are getting trumped by comparitively low tech but innovative game. For the immediate future its a loss for the big game companies who put their eggs in the wrong basket and are now having to back pedal but its definately a win for the smaller developers.
So has the threat from those Killer bees that were supposed to doom us all for the last 20 years been eliminated now? Gypsy Moths and Killer Bees are passe now so I guess it on to the threat of Fungi.
SCi's biggest hit was Conflict Desert Storm which was found in bargain bins weeks after release. While I understand the desire for something positive for the ps3 fanboy crowd, they may want to skip the bravado over this crapfest.
Here's a list of all of SCi's accomplishments to date, look at all the hits...
Alfreds Adventure
Aqua Aqua
Battlestations:Midway
Carmageddon
Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now
Carmageddon TDR 2000
Conflict: Desert Storm
Conflict: Desert Storm 2 (a.k.a. Back to Baghdad)
Conflict: Global Terror
Conflict: Vietnam
Constantine
Cool Bricks
Cyberwar
Futurama
Galleon
Gender Wars
Gumball 3000
Kingdom O' Magic
Live Wire
Mille Migla
Rally Championship
Rally Championship Xtreme
Richard Burns Rally
Rolling
Spellcross
SWIV
The Great Escape
The Italian Job
The Lawnmower man
Thunderbirds
Total Overdose
Seriously, this is like one of those headlines where researchers find that depressed people are more likely to commit suicide or that water is wet. As long as there are stupid users there will be exploited computers and as long as Microsoft has the lions share of the market there will be more zombied windows boxes.
I had a bit of a disagreement with a client today over spam on her computer. She freaks out if there is more than one in her inbox. Every time I am at her machine she has webshots or smily central or whatever the "cool" spyware infested freebie of the week happens to be. She claims that she should be able to download what she wants but that I should be able to keep her system clean in spite of it. Its a no win situation, as long as she chooses to be stupid im stuck getting the blame for her problems.
I'm all for entepreneuership and making a buck, but there are a couple things that bother me about this. First the likely clients will be the ones who were wealthy before Sadam was ousted, so more than often than not they will be supporting the same ones who helped keep down the people we are supposed to be trying to help. Second, on the likely chance that one of them is taken hostage or killed you can bet the news will be splattered with sob stories about them as if they were heroes helping the common man while dozens of real heroes die with no mention beyond a tally of bodies. There should be a list that separates the civilian humanitarians from the opportunists just so the media will know which ones to ignore.
MS is suffering for the market they created, consumers who are satified with mediocre, resistant to change and generally lazy.
MS for years has built a audience that was willing to accept good enough. With XP for many MS finally delivered "good enough", Its fairly stable, acceptably easy to use and has more features than the average user has any need for. Though there are some nice new features with Vista the important ones are not ones that are noticable to the novice. The only compelling selling point for Joe Average is the eye candy which was "good enough" in XP for most and is stripped out of the affordable versions of Vista anyway. The lack of bells and whistles on the low end versions of Vista coupled with mostly fud articles on backwards compatability plus the much publicized DRM issues scares off a large portion of their target audience. If home users arent upgrading you can bet that businesses are going to drag their heels as well. Sadly I dont see this as being something that will move people to Linux in the immediate future, it does buy Linux developers time to make more inroads towards usability, ease of install and buzz, all of which need improvement and can lead to increased market share.
Sure Wikipedia has its accuracy issues occasionally but for the same general information you will find in a typical encyclopedia it's spot-on. The questionable accuracy usually pertains to current people and events most of which have yet to show up in traditional encyclopedias and offline reference sources. One of the benefits of Wikipedia is its self-governing nature, if something is grossly inacurate, its often updated and corrected in a very timely fashion. Most "inaccuracies" you hear about tend to be eitehr subjects that no one beyond a niche segment would look up and seem to more often than not be the result of a "fans vs foes" grudge match rather than someone posting with actual referece in mind.
Because of my job I know many minor national and local celebrities here in the midwest, a few of them that have actually spent time either adding themselves to Wikipedia or looking themselves up and attempting to edit the results. I find it rather pathetic, every time I hear of it I cant help but think of Steve Martin opening his phone book for the first time in "The Jerk". Ego tends to contribute far more to inaccuracies than any other factor.
Evidently I suck at GH, three new songs would give me at least couple hours of entertainment, compare it to going to a movie, and it's a freakin bargain.
I think people over-simplify the mechanics of GH, its not like your just downloading three mp3's. I certainly wish I could get the first two packs, unfortunately im stuck with the ps2 version.
I would argue that excessive integration has ruined the PDA/phone market. For every person I know that actually uses the bells and whistles on their phones I know 10 that don't do anything beyond a contact list and phone calls. I am evidently in the minority but I would rather have several devices that do their job well than one that does them all half-assed. I have yet to see a "music" phone that was really a decent mp3 player, I haven't seen a "game" phone that was really a good gaming platform and I have yet to see a Smartphone that hasn't made extreme sacrifices in order to cram its functionality into a postage stamp screen.
I've gone from palm to windows mobile to a smartphone and finally to a blackberry. In going from platform to platform I have had to make concessions and sacrifices for the sake of convenience with my latest move I just ditched all the functionality for decent email and phone support. The integration push has killed the pda, Palm and MS just dont know it yet.
"Get your filthy hands off me you damn dirty ape!"
Do we really need to give them rights, were supposed to make servants out of them first, then they can rise up and take their rights by force. I for one welcome our simian overlords.
I buy a title or two every month but have no desire at all to play online, in fact my main gaming rig isnt usually connected to my network. I have tried Ultima Online, Battlefield, Star Wars galaxies, FF online and some really stupid car racing game that was completly online. In the end all of them fell short. I think the big thing im most opposed to is paying $50 for the media to install a game but then having to pay $10-$20 a month to actually play it. I tend to play a game for a few days, go to something else then come back to the other again a few weeks later. Im still playing Oblivion for instance, and I purchased it a year ago. The monthly fee just isnt condusive to my playing habits. So where does that leave me? Im sure there are others that feel the same way. So I guess the real question is do the saved sales from the clutches of piracy outnumber the lost sales from those with no desire to go online with their gaming? Oh well, at least the theoretical question of whether pirates would buy the games if they couldnt be pirated would finally be answered. My predition: A year or so after the shift to online, the new buzz phrases will be DRM free gaming and single player experiences.
I am so sick of the fanboy "my psp collects dust and I play my DS everyday" line. Its tired everyone has heard it. My primary consoles consist of a Wii, Ps2, 3 ds's (1 phat and 2 lites for a family of 5) and 1 PSP. Im definately not a Sony fanboy and play lots of DS games but to dismiss the PSP as being no good means either the person is not looking at the games available or they were so caught up in that argument a year ago when it was true that they are blind to whats available now.
No matter what genre there are good games these are just off the top of my head:
Advenure Games: Lego Star Wars, Metal Gear Solid Portable Op's
RTS Games: Pirates!, Field Commander
RPG Games: Dungeon Seige, Marvel Ultimate Alliance,
FPS Games: Socom 2, Medal of Honor Heroes
Rythym Games: Guitaroo Man Lives!
Racing Games: Burnout Legends, Wipeout Pure
Action Games: Daxter, Rachet and Clank
Puzzle Games: Locoroco, Me & My Katamari, Lumines 1&2, Puzzle Quest, Mercury Meltdown
Fighting Games: Tekken: Dark Resurrection
Old School Classics: Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins, Metal Slug Anthology
Sports Games: Madden 07, MLB 07, Winning Eleven
As far as actual numbers of games the PSP actually has a hundred or so more than the DS. It had a slow start but the PSP has delivered more than I ever expected and to say it has no good games is delusional.
It will be easier to find non-commercial content, but on the other hand its the copyrighted stuff that most people are there for anyway so who is going to see the other crap? So how long till youtube dissappears into relative obscurity? Mark Cuban was right.
I have purchased alot of both commecial and shareware over the years but one thing I have noticed with shareware if the price is proportional to the value of the software most will buy it. If its a trivial utility that might be used on occasion but not enough to justify the asking price of the full version they tend to pirate or find something else. If the author was seeing more pirates than purchasers perhaps he might concider thinking over his pricing scheme and percieved value of what he has created rather than try to go vigilante over people who would likely not pay for it in the first place.