Fusion Frenzy on the XBox was actually quite fun. I can't count the number of nights back in college that a bunch of us would sit around the TV playing Fusion Frenzy and knocking back beers. It's fairly cheap and has a wide variety of mini games. God, how I miss playing that game now that I'm talking about it.
It looks like with both of the previous consoles, Nintendo actually hamstrung itself by its piracy prevention methods. Personally, I never understood this as it adds cost and limits storage space, thereby limiting the breadth and depth of the content in the games released for that system.
Forget the pirates. The markets where piracy is highest are also probably the same markets that wouldn't normally buy your product anyway. Instead, use a standard format (DVD) and price your items cheap enough so that the opportunity cost is low enough for the majority of your consumers. The developers will thank the big N for the cost savings and Nintendo stands to gain market share with great acceptance of their product.
It looks to me, though, that this is exactly what Nintendo is doing this time around. I also think that the exclusion of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray or any other expensive technologies is a good move. Basically, it looks like Nintendo is positioning their self, both hardware wise and software wise, as the best bang-for-your-buck console out there this go around.
Plus, the ability to purchase and play my old NES favorites is a boon. I no longer have to worry about cleaning the contacts on my NES games every other week or playing the power button lottery each time I want to play Double Dragon 2.
Dell is also modifing the Default User's NTuser.dat to add this Google stuff into place. Even if you remove the software the registry settings remain for each account created. It removes one of Dell's advantages in the Corp. World: near-drop-in systems.
When was the last time you received an order of Optiplexes and had to uninstall junk software before deploying them to the masses? Or are you being cheap and ordering Dimension computers for your corporate environment.
The fact is, this software will only be installed on Dell's consumer line of computers (Dimension, XPS, etc.). This will not affect the average corporate consumer. I'd even be willing to put money on that fact.
How about for when that coyote is terrorizing your cattle? The coyote is a nuissance and causing a loss in your valuable product, so you shoot it. Same goes for the odd crow that doesn't seem to be scared by the, uh, scarecrow. Less lethal uses can also be imagined: such as a signalling device. Especially in less modern times, a rifle can be a very valuable and versitle tool on a farm. Every good farm boy learns how to shoot at an early age.
(Note: for those unfamiliar with David Duke, he is a former leader of the KKK, a long time New Orleans resident, and an all around scum-bag who actually tends to run for office on the Republican ticket these days, although he has run as a Democrat and as a third party candidates before. He's one of the guys that gives Louisiana politics a bad name... actually a lot Louisiana politicians do that.)
In all seriousness, I feel the same way as many others in this conversation seem to. That is, there are certainly more important things to worry about in Louisiana than violent video games. This weekend will decide who the next mayor of New Orleans will be (too bad I lived in the suburbs and so have no say in the matter). But, anti-party semantics aside, the previous posters have been right. Nobody is going to vote against this bill, because they don't want to be slandered as supporting violent video games in the elections. In short, they're sheep.
Even if their initial demographic is technofiles, I still don't understand that logic. Who bought the XBox 360 at launch? Gamers. The tecnofile most likely isn't going to care enough about a gaming machine enough to go stand in line at Best Buy at 9:00PM the day before launch. (Ignoring the fact that he may have bought one on eBay for twice the price.) I'm sure the technofile has one now, but for the most part, I think that only gamers really cared about getting the 360 at launch.
Then in the other corner, you have the Wii: the system that everybody seems to be after this time around. Personally, I plan to get one, mostly becuase I can play all of my favorite old NES, SNES, etc. games without having to dig the systems out, clean the contacts again, etc. The system hasn't even come out yet, and I'd say that about 75% of the casual gamers out there seem to have made plans to purchase it. It looks to me like Sony's two rivals already have a pretty strong hold on the market, and Sony doesn't have any plans to break that hold. I know that at $600 I won't be able to buy it. Once you throw in a couple of games, the requisite second controller, and taxes, you're fast approaching $800. That's not exactly chump change to most people. Heck, that's my car note for 3 months. That's more than one month's rent for me. I'll admit that I'm probably not a technofile, but I am still a casual gamer, and I can say with certainty that I would buy a PS3 if the price were $400 or less.
If you're a scrimping College kid, then yes, this system is a little pricey for you, but I think many will pony up.
Yeah, but think of what the video game industry's target audience is. Sony should be going after those College kids. College was the period where myself and a bunch of friends actually saw a renewed interest in video games. We had the time and the ambition to play them, and dorm life just generally seems to lend itself to a lot of video game playing. When I bought my PS2 in college, I hadn't bought a new games system in about 9 years. In our apartment, at one point, we had a PS2, XBox, Game Cube, Dreamcast, PS1(PSX?), NES, SNES, Genesis, TG16, NG4, and Saturn all hooked up to the TV. (We also had an extra computer for the occasional LAN game.) On occasion, when we didn't feel like going out or didn't have the money to go out, we'd just buy a case of beer and sit around and play games all night. (Our occasional virtual fishing trips via the DC were always fun.)
Getting back on track, now that I've graduated college, the NES and Atari 2600 haven't come out of their boxes. I've moved twice and both times the only system I've (eventually) hooked up has been the PS2. I finally just bought an XBox along with some friends, with us planning to play Halo online - we're lucky if we can work our schedules out once a month to get together. I've got a stack of games that I've played, maybe once, and another couple of games that have never been taken out of their shrinkwrapped packages. The truth of the matter is, once you factor in travel time, I spend anywhere from 11 to 12 hours each day away for work. Combine that with a somewhat active and healthy social life, that means that myself and the majority of my friends don't spend nearly as much time playing games and don't spend nearly as much money on games as we used to.
Anyway, my point is, if Sony isn't trying to market their PS3 to the 18 - 24 year old male -- a demographic that isn't very likely to have an HDTV with HDMI, but from what I understand still the primary gamer demographic -- then exactly who are they marketing to? Out of all of my friends that are right around my age, I know exactly one person with an HDTV with HDMI input. And even he thinks the PS3 is overpriced.
Bingo. I had sincere intentions of "upgrading" to the PS3 when it came out, but at this price point, that is now out of the question. In fact, the Wii is looking to be the most attractive of the next generation consoles to me. I just hope that somebody comes out with a good driving simulator for the system, a la Gran Turismo. Then I will be a happy camper.
...Sony has priced its product into a range previously occupied over the past 20 years by the Neo Geo, CDi, and 3DO -- none of which were terribly successful commercially, at least when compared to less-expensive platforms like the NES, SNES, and Playstion.
You would have thought that Sony would have learned something from the VHS/Beta wars. History really does repeat itself.
It's funny that you mentioned this. I never even thought about how the cell towers were powered until after Hurricane Katrina. While leaving New Orleans back in October, I was driving out through the east side of the city. It was a pretty ominous experience to begin with seeing as there were absolutely no street lights on anywhere. But what really made the experience kind of creepy was when I dropped the cell call I was engaged on and I realized that the cell towers in the area didn't have power either. Thankfully I didn't break down out there.
You're absolutely correct. I'm officially blaming the lack of caffiene I'd had at the time I typed that comment. Actually, I need some more right about now...
All I know is that I'm not running any extensions, and I get the same problem with Firefox. All of its memory errors may not be related to the caching "feature", but the program definitely leaks memory like a sieve.
Perhaps the owner was careful to use gloves while cleaning or otherwise handling the gun. You then may ask, "If he was so careful with the gun normally, why was he not wearing the gloves when he shot at the officers?" Because he was afraid it would look suspicious.
Anyway, a scenario, even a tenuous one, can be established to support the lack of fingerprints on the gun.
Old Toyotas (80's era) are known for having similar issues. I had one key for my old '86 Corolla which I mistakenly thought wasn't cut at all when I bought the car as it didn't have any sharp peaks or valleys. Imagine my surprise one day when I compare it to my cut keys and realize that it was more or less analgous to a lower resolution version of the "real" keys. I was even more surprised when I found that I could unlock and start the car with the key.
You laugh, but I had a friend with a late 70's Ford pickup that he attempted to do work on himself one day. Anyway, he got a little too curious one day and took the lock cylinder out... and lost all of the pins. No, he no longer needed any key to start his truck. This was made even more fun by the fact that myself and some of our mutual friends would conveniently forget to lock the passenger door and he never remembered to check it. Eventually, when we'd get bored, we'd drive out to his work, get in to his truck through the unlocked passenger door, and move his truck to the other end of the parking lot.
He finally figured out what was going on when he saw us hanging out in the parking lot one day.:)
You remind me of a friend who's cousin had his Dodge something-or-other (nothing spectacular and normally not worth stealing) stolen and recovered 3 times. After the third time he wired in a hidden switch that activates a relay controlling the fuel pump. Since then, his car's been broken in to twice but not stolen.
And also at some larger Unis there is still vestiges of a 'UNIX culture' tradition that predates Microsoft.
Actually, I found this very interesting when I went to college. Every incoming freshman received an account on the RS6000 (actually, a cluster of them). Of course, most people didn't know what to do with their accounts other than check email via PINE, but it was still interesting to me that the school provided such accounts. Furthering that experience, the CS department ran its own Sun boxen, with both a Sparc lab and a Windows lab. All of our programming assignments were done on the Sun boxes and we even had to take a class on Spac assembly.
Anyway, you're right in that many Uni's still have a Unix culture.
Actually, what I find hanging on the walls in a lot of offices I go to these days is merely a cheap waste of money: those stupid inspirational posters. I'm sorry, but if you feel that employee moral is so low that it can be boosted by a $10 poster with a pretty picture and an inspirational quote, then you really don't give a shit about your employees, no matter which way you cut it.
Actually, my Latitude C800 has the capability of dual drives. It's got the built in DVD drive, plus the ability to add another drive into the Dell multibay on the front of the machine. In fact, that's the whole reason I bought that particular laptop - on that particular laptop the multibay isn't already occupied by the optical drive, thereby allowing you greater flexibility. Currently, I use it for a second battery, but I also have a floppy drive and a caddie for a second hard drive, both of which have come in handy on a couple of occasions.
Funny used to raise your karma, though, right? Or am I sorely mistaken? Of course, back in my days we actually had numbers for karma! None of this subjective ratings junk.
Still, the question remains. Has it always been like this?
Slashdot Mirror
Fusion Frenzy on the XBox was actually quite fun. I can't count the number of nights back in college that a bunch of us would sit around the TV playing Fusion Frenzy and knocking back beers. It's fairly cheap and has a wide variety of mini games. God, how I miss playing that game now that I'm talking about it.
It looks like with both of the previous consoles, Nintendo actually hamstrung itself by its piracy prevention methods. Personally, I never understood this as it adds cost and limits storage space, thereby limiting the breadth and depth of the content in the games released for that system.
Forget the pirates. The markets where piracy is highest are also probably the same markets that wouldn't normally buy your product anyway. Instead, use a standard format (DVD) and price your items cheap enough so that the opportunity cost is low enough for the majority of your consumers. The developers will thank the big N for the cost savings and Nintendo stands to gain market share with great acceptance of their product.
It looks to me, though, that this is exactly what Nintendo is doing this time around. I also think that the exclusion of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray or any other expensive technologies is a good move. Basically, it looks like Nintendo is positioning their self, both hardware wise and software wise, as the best bang-for-your-buck console out there this go around.
Plus, the ability to purchase and play my old NES favorites is a boon. I no longer have to worry about cleaning the contacts on my NES games every other week or playing the power button lottery each time I want to play Double Dragon 2.
Dell is also modifing the Default User's NTuser.dat to add this Google stuff into place. Even if you remove the software the registry settings remain for each account created. It removes one of Dell's advantages in the Corp. World: near-drop-in systems.
When was the last time you received an order of Optiplexes and had to uninstall junk software before deploying them to the masses? Or are you being cheap and ordering Dimension computers for your corporate environment.
The fact is, this software will only be installed on Dell's consumer line of computers (Dimension, XPS, etc.). This will not affect the average corporate consumer. I'd even be willing to put money on that fact.
How about for when that coyote is terrorizing your cattle? The coyote is a nuissance and causing a loss in your valuable product, so you shoot it. Same goes for the odd crow that doesn't seem to be scared by the, uh, scarecrow. Less lethal uses can also be imagined: such as a signalling device. Especially in less modern times, a rifle can be a very valuable and versitle tool on a farm. Every good farm boy learns how to shoot at an early age.
So... you voted for David Duke?
(Note: for those unfamiliar with David Duke, he is a former leader of the KKK, a long time New Orleans resident, and an all around scum-bag who actually tends to run for office on the Republican ticket these days, although he has run as a Democrat and as a third party candidates before. He's one of the guys that gives Louisiana politics a bad name... actually a lot Louisiana politicians do that.)
In all seriousness, I feel the same way as many others in this conversation seem to. That is, there are certainly more important things to worry about in Louisiana than violent video games. This weekend will decide who the next mayor of New Orleans will be (too bad I lived in the suburbs and so have no say in the matter). But, anti-party semantics aside, the previous posters have been right. Nobody is going to vote against this bill, because they don't want to be slandered as supporting violent video games in the elections. In short, they're sheep.
Tell that to Ken Lay
Unless there are credit checks people will use this borrow money when they're desperate.
Despereate! Hell! I'm going to borrow money now. Papa needs a new Porsche!
Even if their initial demographic is technofiles, I still don't understand that logic. Who bought the XBox 360 at launch? Gamers. The tecnofile most likely isn't going to care enough about a gaming machine enough to go stand in line at Best Buy at 9:00PM the day before launch. (Ignoring the fact that he may have bought one on eBay for twice the price.) I'm sure the technofile has one now, but for the most part, I think that only gamers really cared about getting the 360 at launch.
Then in the other corner, you have the Wii: the system that everybody seems to be after this time around. Personally, I plan to get one, mostly becuase I can play all of my favorite old NES, SNES, etc. games without having to dig the systems out, clean the contacts again, etc. The system hasn't even come out yet, and I'd say that about 75% of the casual gamers out there seem to have made plans to purchase it. It looks to me like Sony's two rivals already have a pretty strong hold on the market, and Sony doesn't have any plans to break that hold. I know that at $600 I won't be able to buy it. Once you throw in a couple of games, the requisite second controller, and taxes, you're fast approaching $800. That's not exactly chump change to most people. Heck, that's my car note for 3 months. That's more than one month's rent for me. I'll admit that I'm probably not a technofile, but I am still a casual gamer, and I can say with certainty that I would buy a PS3 if the price were $400 or less.
If you're a scrimping College kid, then yes, this system is a little pricey for you, but I think many will pony up.
Yeah, but think of what the video game industry's target audience is. Sony should be going after those College kids. College was the period where myself and a bunch of friends actually saw a renewed interest in video games. We had the time and the ambition to play them, and dorm life just generally seems to lend itself to a lot of video game playing. When I bought my PS2 in college, I hadn't bought a new games system in about 9 years. In our apartment, at one point, we had a PS2, XBox, Game Cube, Dreamcast, PS1(PSX?), NES, SNES, Genesis, TG16, NG4, and Saturn all hooked up to the TV. (We also had an extra computer for the occasional LAN game.) On occasion, when we didn't feel like going out or didn't have the money to go out, we'd just buy a case of beer and sit around and play games all night. (Our occasional virtual fishing trips via the DC were always fun.)
Getting back on track, now that I've graduated college, the NES and Atari 2600 haven't come out of their boxes. I've moved twice and both times the only system I've (eventually) hooked up has been the PS2. I finally just bought an XBox along with some friends, with us planning to play Halo online - we're lucky if we can work our schedules out once a month to get together. I've got a stack of games that I've played, maybe once, and another couple of games that have never been taken out of their shrinkwrapped packages. The truth of the matter is, once you factor in travel time, I spend anywhere from 11 to 12 hours each day away for work. Combine that with a somewhat active and healthy social life, that means that myself and the majority of my friends don't spend nearly as much time playing games and don't spend nearly as much money on games as we used to.
Anyway, my point is, if Sony isn't trying to market their PS3 to the 18 - 24 year old male -- a demographic that isn't very likely to have an HDTV with HDMI, but from what I understand still the primary gamer demographic -- then exactly who are they marketing to? Out of all of my friends that are right around my age, I know exactly one person with an HDTV with HDMI input. And even he thinks the PS3 is overpriced.
Bingo. I had sincere intentions of "upgrading" to the PS3 when it came out, but at this price point, that is now out of the question. In fact, the Wii is looking to be the most attractive of the next generation consoles to me. I just hope that somebody comes out with a good driving simulator for the system, a la Gran Turismo. Then I will be a happy camper.
...Sony has priced its product into a range previously occupied over the past 20 years by the Neo Geo, CDi, and 3DO -- none of which were terribly successful commercially, at least when compared to less-expensive platforms like the NES, SNES, and Playstion.
You would have thought that Sony would have learned something from the VHS/Beta wars. History really does repeat itself.
It's funny that you mentioned this. I never even thought about how the cell towers were powered until after Hurricane Katrina. While leaving New Orleans back in October, I was driving out through the east side of the city. It was a pretty ominous experience to begin with seeing as there were absolutely no street lights on anywhere. But what really made the experience kind of creepy was when I dropped the cell call I was engaged on and I realized that the cell towers in the area didn't have power either. Thankfully I didn't break down out there.
You're absolutely correct. I'm officially blaming the lack of caffiene I'd had at the time I typed that comment. Actually, I need some more right about now...
Your right! It's hard to bare all the miss steaks people right on this sight, the new firefox will help a lot!
You missed one! Should be Its
There's another one. It should be alot.
Geez. When will these people learn?
All I know is that I'm not running any extensions, and I get the same problem with Firefox. All of its memory errors may not be related to the caching "feature", but the program definitely leaks memory like a sieve.
Perhaps the owner was careful to use gloves while cleaning or otherwise handling the gun. You then may ask, "If he was so careful with the gun normally, why was he not wearing the gloves when he shot at the officers?" Because he was afraid it would look suspicious.
Anyway, a scenario, even a tenuous one, can be established to support the lack of fingerprints on the gun.
Old Toyotas (80's era) are known for having similar issues. I had one key for my old '86 Corolla which I mistakenly thought wasn't cut at all when I bought the car as it didn't have any sharp peaks or valleys. Imagine my surprise one day when I compare it to my cut keys and realize that it was more or less analgous to a lower resolution version of the "real" keys. I was even more surprised when I found that I could unlock and start the car with the key.
You laugh, but I had a friend with a late 70's Ford pickup that he attempted to do work on himself one day. Anyway, he got a little too curious one day and took the lock cylinder out... and lost all of the pins. No, he no longer needed any key to start his truck. This was made even more fun by the fact that myself and some of our mutual friends would conveniently forget to lock the passenger door and he never remembered to check it. Eventually, when we'd get bored, we'd drive out to his work, get in to his truck through the unlocked passenger door, and move his truck to the other end of the parking lot.
:)
He finally figured out what was going on when he saw us hanging out in the parking lot one day.
You remind me of a friend who's cousin had his Dodge something-or-other (nothing spectacular and normally not worth stealing) stolen and recovered 3 times. After the third time he wired in a hidden switch that activates a relay controlling the fuel pump. Since then, his car's been broken in to twice but not stolen.
And also at some larger Unis there is still vestiges of a 'UNIX culture' tradition that predates Microsoft.
Actually, I found this very interesting when I went to college. Every incoming freshman received an account on the RS6000 (actually, a cluster of them). Of course, most people didn't know what to do with their accounts other than check email via PINE, but it was still interesting to me that the school provided such accounts. Furthering that experience, the CS department ran its own Sun boxen, with both a Sparc lab and a Windows lab. All of our programming assignments were done on the Sun boxes and we even had to take a class on Spac assembly.
Anyway, you're right in that many Uni's still have a Unix culture.
Shades of 1984...
Actually, what I find hanging on the walls in a lot of offices I go to these days is merely a cheap waste of money: those stupid inspirational posters. I'm sorry, but if you feel that employee moral is so low that it can be boosted by a $10 poster with a pretty picture and an inspirational quote, then you really don't give a shit about your employees, no matter which way you cut it.
Actually, my Latitude C800 has the capability of dual drives. It's got the built in DVD drive, plus the ability to add another drive into the Dell multibay on the front of the machine. In fact, that's the whole reason I bought that particular laptop - on that particular laptop the multibay isn't already occupied by the optical drive, thereby allowing you greater flexibility. Currently, I use it for a second battery, but I also have a floppy drive and a caddie for a second hard drive, both of which have come in handy on a couple of occasions.
Hoy ta cushta da te chuka. ...Or something. My Bulgarian is really, really bad.
Funny used to raise your karma, though, right? Or am I sorely mistaken? Of course, back in my days we actually had numbers for karma! None of this subjective ratings junk.
Still, the question remains. Has it always been like this?