I know gaming is more "adult" nowadays but I can't think of any network other than MTV/MTV2 that would be a better fit to talk about video games. The problem with G4 is that it crams a bunch of crap to fill its 24 hours. Look at the most updated gaming blogs and you see that they stretch for fresh content. Honestly, 22-24 minutes of video is about all you need in a week to talk about games. Just do it each week.
I'm honestly surprised it has taken MTV this long to start covering games. And it's not like they can't occasionally deal with "softer" issues smartly. MTV in the 90s had a very good show on movies that ran on Fridays. It profiled whatever big release there was but did a great job of profiling independent/smaller/foreign releases that didn't hit minor markets (stuff like Reservoir Dogs or Johnny Suede come to mind). It usually did a better job than most critic segments on TV.
Where else would gaming reporting "fit"? I can't think of any currently existing network where it makes sense for them to report on games. Maybe one of the news networks could have a gaming piece on its weekend entertainment shows but that audience is very old. I would imagine the same can be said about New York Times readers but that didn't stop their E3 Blog. I'm sure The Rocky Mountain News skews older too but they have occasional great gaming coverage.
You'd think newspapers would be all over this. With one or two staff members you can deliver a lot of content and with a big news name behind you, it's easier to get a scoop. Newspaper circulation is falling and younger readers aren't arriving... in print. Overall circulation (counting the internet) is up, and including smart, original/exclusive game coverage can add to that. You're adding fuel to the fire, capturing readership outside of your market that usually doesn't read your paper, and capturing a younger audience.
The only media that regularly covers games and treats them equally to film and music are magazines. Aside from strictly gaming mags, men's magazines (Maxim, Playboy) and entertainment magazines also report on games. Occasionally you see something insightful in Time or Newsweek. If was Nintendo, I'd be buying some ad space in Redbook and Seventeen. Can you imagine this Ladies Home Journal cover in 2012?
5 Tips to Great Casserole.
18 Easy Holiday Shortcuts.
Scoop! We Find the Hidden Characters in DNF.
With it sitting next to a People cover with a very airbrushed Cliffy B smiling and talking about his love of cats.
OK. On the other hand maybe let's just stick to what we have now.
Well, full HD is 1920x1080. Not too many monitors have that resolution natively. But once you get a 1280x1024 resolution monitor, you can display 720p resolution material natively. You may be able to scale 1080P content down to your monitor's resolution. While 720P is not ideal, there is a remarkable difference. If you already have the monitor, this is the cheapest solution to watch HD movies on disc.
Or, it's a $200 solution to for a HTPC. With HD DVD players occasionally available in the US $360-$400 range, I'd opt for the player myself although an HTPC can have its advantages.
My understanding is that more manufacturers (besides Toshiba) will be making HD DVD players and I would expect such announcements to come out in January for CES. "Budget" Chinese players in the sub $300 range wouldn't be out of the question, in my mind.
"NASA geophysicist Paul Lowman believes the moon's core is still molten."
Excellent! I'll still take these nacho chips but I won't need the microwave to make dip. I tell you, space flight gets simpler each year.
What is the best area to dig? Is there a spot where the core is not too deep? Perhaps we can just make a small hole with a shovel and eat out of that, sort of like ice-fishing in the Sea of Tranquility. Only we're not fishing, just eating chips with bubbling hot, delicious all-natural cheese.
It's interesting you chose to use the word "core". Whenever any inflation benchmarks are talked about (for example, CPI), the word "core" is specifically used to indicate food and energy prices are excluded. Gasoline is not at all a core component in measuring inflation.
Actually, the amount of wealth relative to others is what determines your freedom.
What a bunch of crock. That's a really backwards way of looking at it. I don't gain freedom by being better off than others. Maybe in war, you "win" freedom by having more wealth (weapons) than the opponent, but I'm not a nation-state, I'm an individual. And the comparison still doesn't ring true.
The amount of wealth relative to you (and/or your family's needs) is what determines your freedom. If you have enough to cover you basic needs: food, health, shelter and you're not obsessed with collecting trinkets or sportscars, you can live a very free life. When your wealth begins to be siphoned off to expensive vacations and other unnecessary wants, your ability to cover your needs is jeopardised.
"Ad infinitum" is probably right, at least looking at it from the perspective of computer and video games. Last I checked, Ultima Online is on its way to being ten years old and still has over 100,000 subscribers. World of Warcraft has almost fifty times as many players. If they manage the game well, I can see it being around in twenty years. Part of that would be a yearly expansion. The only people who would want to get the expansion are probably more-than-casual players, and spending $60 a year on a game you might spend 60 hours a month playing (or more) isn't really that expensive. A year or two later, that can be free to any new incoming players.
The problem is the music. We can all stand elevator music for a few seconds, maybe a minute or two. But could you imagine dealing with it for hours? We'd all go stark raving mad!
My #1 FF issue is memory use. It could be an extension, but I don't think I have any besides IEview. I have three tabs open and Firefox is using 90MB of RAM. It's not uncommon to see it use 200MB or more. That's a bit ridiculous.
Also, in the next two or three years, it's expected that they will finally be CPUs and graphic cards powerful enough to render the game at more than seven frames per second.
A friend of mine was a developer on that title. He said they just ran out of time and money and no one wanted to finish it. No one works for free I guess, and it's not the kind of title you'd be so proud of you'd be willing to make some sacrifices.
Was I the only one who was thoroughly impressed with Mr. Blomkamp's short film Alive in Joburg? I thought it was a nice mix of sci-fi and realism and would love to see more movies blending that style.
Now, a budget of $200 million is a lot for any movie. Jackson's King Kong barely broke even, so he doesn't exactly have a perfect track record.
But, let's use some crazy gorilla math. Alive in Joburg is about 6 minutes long. Make it 90 or 120 minutes long, and you've got twenty times the budget. (Mind you, I'm using crazy gorilla math). I don't think that short film cost $10 million. Hell, I doubt it even cost $200,000. I think if they worked on a budget first (say, $75 million), and then worked backwards from there, they can still have a great product.
Just don't make the movie three hours long. Please.
Masky Kid (love that name) gets a record deal via Peter Gabriel. Let's say the record deal is via Real World Studios. Some of the music is released via MSN Music UK (which uses OD2, Gabriel's online music technology). Some of it is licensed to games via Ubisoft (which Gabriel has done before). And let's say it's all mixed on Solid State Logic mixers and a dozen are given away to the best mixers on a specialized site (or on MySpace, etc). Oh, Gabriel owns Solid State Logic.
Add to that the fact that just because the music is online for free doesn't mean he can't have the CDs in retail locations. After all, not everyone has a computer + internet connection + CD burner or MP3 player.
Smart artists who have good business advisors have been handling all this correctly.
Your post is unfortunate. You're judging technology based on store demos and people who have no idea how to take advantage of the technology. Being in PAL land doesn't make it any easier.
In the US, you can get a decent TV for $1000 or less and if you know what you're doing, set it up so the picture is absolutely phenomenal.
I do agree that waiting isn't a bad idea. If it seems to expensive or not good enough yet, wait a year or two. And no, there is no need to have a PC to have a 360. It can operate without one.
I think you mean the Zune. Zuma is a puzzle game where you play the part of a frog-shaped Aztec idol who shoots colored balls out of its mouth. Zuma, ironically, is not only available on the iPod but is one of the few games that benefits from the iPod's scrollwheel controls.
Or maybe you meant Zima, which is a very terrible malt beverage. Or maybe you meant Zymomi, which I just make up (but would make an excellent drug name. Merck, call me).
And the day walking up to some girl and playing some song from your mp3 player works as a pickup line, I'll be on the phone, buying Apple stock.
That's a good point. There's a few sad truths about video games, and one is that people think they can "brek into" them by playing them a lot (and being good) or that they can "break into" the industry by working at a Gamestop. That's kind of like saying you want to be a NASCAR driver so you take a job with a long commute or you want to start designing Ferraris for Pininfarina so you work at a car wash.
If you want to write about video games, write about them. There's hundreds of sites around and I'm sure one will take some of your work if you can write. If you want to work in video games, work in video games. Get on a team working on a mod, or make some maps for the newest FPS. But only playing Halo and Strcraft is probably not going to get you there.
50% and 1%? So you're saying there's a 51% speedup! Excellent! I'll forward your request right down to purchasing and you'll have two monitors on your desk on Monday. I hope to see 102% improvement!
No, data centers aren't doomed. They are only doomed if they fail to see this change and don't adapt to it. Sure, the types of data centers we saw 10 or 20 years ago may be rare relics in 2020; that doesn't mean data center businesses will be gone. Current centers need to focus on security, ease of storage, or whatever else is important to their customers. These values will go beyond the spec sheet of what type of servers you have. In two years or in ten years, the servers and technology will be different. The value you provide, hopefully, will not.
A few weeks ago, I was talking about Trauma Center for the Nintendo DS with a friend of mine. In the game, you play a doctor who operates on patients, removing tumors with your stylus, sewing them back up, etc. My friend's girlfriend is in med school currently and says that all the basic procedures are accurate enough, with the exception of one: a gel you apply to stop bleeding. I guess that's not true anymore.
Need? No. I don't need HDTV. I don't need games. But once you've played games in HD or seen TV/movies in HD, it's difficult to go back. Certainly, I still play a lot of games not in HD but beyond the increased resolution there's also a wider canvas, which makes any good game better.
They bashed the PS3 because they wanted to sell the existing system. In four months, when the PS3 is in stock commonly, they will not bash it. They'll bash the Xbox, the PS2, etc. Because it's time to upgrade.
Slashdot Mirror
Point taken. Granted though, that the person looking to save $150 on an HD DVD player probably did not spend $800 or $2000 on a monitor.
I'm honestly surprised it has taken MTV this long to start covering games. And it's not like they can't occasionally deal with "softer" issues smartly. MTV in the 90s had a very good show on movies that ran on Fridays. It profiled whatever big release there was but did a great job of profiling independent/smaller/foreign releases that didn't hit minor markets (stuff like Reservoir Dogs or Johnny Suede come to mind). It usually did a better job than most critic segments on TV.
Where else would gaming reporting "fit"? I can't think of any currently existing network where it makes sense for them to report on games. Maybe one of the news networks could have a gaming piece on its weekend entertainment shows but that audience is very old. I would imagine the same can be said about New York Times readers but that didn't stop their E3 Blog. I'm sure The Rocky Mountain News skews older too but they have occasional great gaming coverage.
You'd think newspapers would be all over this. With one or two staff members you can deliver a lot of content and with a big news name behind you, it's easier to get a scoop. Newspaper circulation is falling and younger readers aren't arriving... in print. Overall circulation (counting the internet) is up, and including smart, original/exclusive game coverage can add to that. You're adding fuel to the fire, capturing readership outside of your market that usually doesn't read your paper, and capturing a younger audience.
The only media that regularly covers games and treats them equally to film and music are magazines. Aside from strictly gaming mags, men's magazines (Maxim, Playboy) and entertainment magazines also report on games. Occasionally you see something insightful in Time or Newsweek. If was Nintendo, I'd be buying some ad space in Redbook and Seventeen. Can you imagine this Ladies Home Journal cover in 2012?
With it sitting next to a People cover with a very airbrushed Cliffy B smiling and talking about his love of cats.
OK. On the other hand maybe let's just stick to what we have now.
Well, full HD is 1920x1080. Not too many monitors have that resolution natively. But once you get a 1280x1024 resolution monitor, you can display 720p resolution material natively. You may be able to scale 1080P content down to your monitor's resolution. While 720P is not ideal, there is a remarkable difference. If you already have the monitor, this is the cheapest solution to watch HD movies on disc.
Or, it's a $200 solution to for a HTPC. With HD DVD players occasionally available in the US $360-$400 range, I'd opt for the player myself although an HTPC can have its advantages.
My understanding is that more manufacturers (besides Toshiba) will be making HD DVD players and I would expect such announcements to come out in January for CES. "Budget" Chinese players in the sub $300 range wouldn't be out of the question, in my mind.
Excellent! I'll still take these nacho chips but I won't need the microwave to make dip. I tell you, space flight gets simpler each year.
What is the best area to dig? Is there a spot where the core is not too deep? Perhaps we can just make a small hole with a shovel and eat out of that, sort of like ice-fishing in the Sea of Tranquility. Only we're not fishing, just eating chips with bubbling hot, delicious all-natural cheese.
...in my new imaginary 50,000 square foot house.
It's interesting you chose to use the word "core". Whenever any inflation benchmarks are talked about (for example, CPI), the word "core" is specifically used to indicate food and energy prices are excluded. Gasoline is not at all a core component in measuring inflation.
What a bunch of crock. That's a really backwards way of looking at it. I don't gain freedom by being better off than others. Maybe in war, you "win" freedom by having more wealth (weapons) than the opponent, but I'm not a nation-state, I'm an individual. And the comparison still doesn't ring true.
The amount of wealth relative to you (and/or your family's needs) is what determines your freedom. If you have enough to cover you basic needs: food, health, shelter and you're not obsessed with collecting trinkets or sportscars, you can live a very free life. When your wealth begins to be siphoned off to expensive vacations and other unnecessary wants, your ability to cover your needs is jeopardised.
"Ad infinitum" is probably right, at least looking at it from the perspective of computer and video games. Last I checked, Ultima Online is on its way to being ten years old and still has over 100,000 subscribers. World of Warcraft has almost fifty times as many players. If they manage the game well, I can see it being around in twenty years. Part of that would be a yearly expansion. The only people who would want to get the expansion are probably more-than-casual players, and spending $60 a year on a game you might spend 60 hours a month playing (or more) isn't really that expensive. A year or two later, that can be free to any new incoming players.
The problem is the music. We can all stand elevator music for a few seconds, maybe a minute or two. But could you imagine dealing with it for hours? We'd all go stark raving mad!
My #1 FF issue is memory use. It could be an extension, but I don't think I have any besides IEview. I have three tabs open and Firefox is using 90MB of RAM. It's not uncommon to see it use 200MB or more. That's a bit ridiculous.
Also, in the next two or three years, it's expected that they will finally be CPUs and graphic cards powerful enough to render the game at more than seven frames per second.
A friend of mine was a developer on that title. He said they just ran out of time and money and no one wanted to finish it. No one works for free I guess, and it's not the kind of title you'd be so proud of you'd be willing to make some sacrifices.
Was I the only one who was thoroughly impressed with Mr. Blomkamp's short film Alive in Joburg ? I thought it was a nice mix of sci-fi and realism and would love to see more movies blending that style.
Now, a budget of $200 million is a lot for any movie. Jackson's King Kong barely broke even, so he doesn't exactly have a perfect track record.
But, let's use some crazy gorilla math. Alive in Joburg is about 6 minutes long. Make it 90 or 120 minutes long, and you've got twenty times the budget. (Mind you, I'm using crazy gorilla math). I don't think that short film cost $10 million. Hell, I doubt it even cost $200,000. I think if they worked on a budget first (say, $75 million), and then worked backwards from there, they can still have a great product.
Just don't make the movie three hours long. Please.
I thought the cans had a little speaker inside and when you crack it open it says "Run a mile, fatass!"
Another scenario:
Masky Kid (love that name) gets a record deal via Peter Gabriel. Let's say the record deal is via Real World Studios. Some of the music is released via MSN Music UK (which uses OD2, Gabriel's online music technology). Some of it is licensed to games via Ubisoft (which Gabriel has done before). And let's say it's all mixed on Solid State Logic mixers and a dozen are given away to the best mixers on a specialized site (or on MySpace, etc). Oh, Gabriel owns Solid State Logic.
Add to that the fact that just because the music is online for free doesn't mean he can't have the CDs in retail locations. After all, not everyone has a computer + internet connection + CD burner or MP3 player.
Smart artists who have good business advisors have been handling all this correctly.
Well, Nintendo just has a knack to hire extremely good actors I guess.
Your post is unfortunate. You're judging technology based on store demos and people who have no idea how to take advantage of the technology. Being in PAL land doesn't make it any easier.
In the US, you can get a decent TV for $1000 or less and if you know what you're doing, set it up so the picture is absolutely phenomenal.
I do agree that waiting isn't a bad idea. If it seems to expensive or not good enough yet, wait a year or two. And no, there is no need to have a PC to have a 360. It can operate without one.
I think you mean the Zune. Zuma is a puzzle game where you play the part of a frog-shaped Aztec idol who shoots colored balls out of its mouth. Zuma, ironically, is not only available on the iPod but is one of the few games that benefits from the iPod's scrollwheel controls.
Or maybe you meant Zima, which is a very terrible malt beverage. Or maybe you meant Zymomi, which I just make up (but would make an excellent drug name. Merck, call me).
And the day walking up to some girl and playing some song from your mp3 player works as a pickup line, I'll be on the phone, buying Apple stock.
Well, the prices are good, but when something weighs 15,000 lbs. it's the shipping that's a killer.
That's a good point. There's a few sad truths about video games, and one is that people think they can "brek into" them by playing them a lot (and being good) or that they can "break into" the industry by working at a Gamestop. That's kind of like saying you want to be a NASCAR driver so you take a job with a long commute or you want to start designing Ferraris for Pininfarina so you work at a car wash.
If you want to write about video games, write about them. There's hundreds of sites around and I'm sure one will take some of your work if you can write. If you want to work in video games, work in video games. Get on a team working on a mod, or make some maps for the newest FPS. But only playing Halo and Strcraft is probably not going to get you there.
50% and 1%? So you're saying there's a 51% speedup! Excellent! I'll forward your request right down to purchasing and you'll have two monitors on your desk on Monday. I hope to see 102% improvement!
Signed,
Rich
(your manager)
No, data centers aren't doomed. They are only doomed if they fail to see this change and don't adapt to it. Sure, the types of data centers we saw 10 or 20 years ago may be rare relics in 2020; that doesn't mean data center businesses will be gone. Current centers need to focus on security, ease of storage, or whatever else is important to their customers. These values will go beyond the spec sheet of what type of servers you have. In two years or in ten years, the servers and technology will be different. The value you provide, hopefully, will not.
A few weeks ago, I was talking about Trauma Center for the Nintendo DS with a friend of mine. In the game, you play a doctor who operates on patients, removing tumors with your stylus, sewing them back up, etc. My friend's girlfriend is in med school currently and says that all the basic procedures are accurate enough, with the exception of one: a gel you apply to stop bleeding. I guess that's not true anymore.
Need? No. I don't need HDTV. I don't need games. But once you've played games in HD or seen TV/movies in HD, it's difficult to go back. Certainly, I still play a lot of games not in HD but beyond the increased resolution there's also a wider canvas, which makes any good game better.
They bashed the PS3 because they wanted to sell the existing system. In four months, when the PS3 is in stock commonly, they will not bash it. They'll bash the Xbox, the PS2, etc. Because it's time to upgrade.