PC gaming is it's own worst enemy. I doubt the percentage is very high of PC games who have not pirated at least one game in their life time. PC gamers I know pirate almost all of their games (except for MMORPGs), and rely on hacking sites to provide the necessary work-a-rounds. And, when developers try to protect their property with DRM, they get crucified in the internet world for being overly protective.
Games cost millions upon millions of dollars to create today - far too much of an investment to leave in the hands of a dishonest gaming community. Are all PC gamers pirates? No. But, there are too many game pirates out there to make the PC a lucrative gamer market - unless you (the developer) include draconian security techniques or your are producing an MMORPG.
On the otehr hand, you really don't have that issues like above with console gaming. You sell a 5 million copies, there are pretty much only 5 million users (there is still some piracy, but far less than PC). Form an economic stand point, what do you expect game studios to do?
And what would you have our government do instead? We are not fighting a traditional enemy like the Axis Powers, here. This is a fight against religious zealots who have a nack of hiding in plain sight. We need progams like this to find them.
If you going go back in time to 1999, implement FISA, and save the nearly 4000 people who died on 9/11, would you?
The problem with IT, especially Software Development, is that it is a specialized degree that often comes with geograpical limitations. Good luck in finding a development job in most small cities...
Software developers need to realize that if they are not willing to relocate to a software development tech bed (California, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Boston, etc), they will have a rough time finding a job.
I have had 100s of job offerings from companies in Chicago, Atlanta, and Tampa; and my job skills are in SQL Server and.Net only. Also, I know a lot of senior developers who are in their 50s who have jobs (with exp in newer technologies) who live in the Chicago area.
As someone who is in the IT field, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that the person hiring you will most likely have no idea how good of a "School of Technology" your college of choice has. Moreover, after your first job, the only thing employers will care about is that you *have* a degree.
The only way your college of choice is going to shoot you in the foot is if you go to some place like DeVry or ITT Tech.
I would also try to stick to Universities that people know (I went to Purdue, for instance), if possible.
I can't wait for these lunar satellites to be in position. I have a $50 bet with a "nut case" friend of mine that NASA's moon landing was real (he is a real conspiracy theorist - I blame drugs). Once these babies are in position, they'll be able to take nice pictures of the Apollo mission sites.
According to the tests I took while in college (Purdue), I use the left and right side of my brain equally; and I am a Conservative. I work in a company in which 40% of the employees are artists, and the Conservative/Liberal split is almost 50/50. This study is initially flawed in that it assumes liberals and conservatives always follow the same left or right brain dominance, and that dominance on one side is somehow better than the other.
Stereotypically speaking, liberals tend to be right side dominant, and conservatives tend to be left side dominant. The left side of the brain is thought be logic driven, while the right side is creative driven. This shows another of the test's bias - it was a pattern recognition test, which focuses on the right side of the brain.
Try re-running the test with rapid fire logic and math questions and see the results.
You assume special relativity is fact, when it is only a theory. I know, I know, jump down my thoat for bucking a genius. Still, several cases ( Arago's experiment and Hubble's red shift obeservations come to mind)demonstrate that the speed of light might actually be dependant of the obesrver, not independant. If this holds true, special relativity does not work - light speed is no longer a constant.
So, you are saying that the XBox will be dead within a year - even though there are over 100 titles currently being written for it.
Or, you say it will die when the PS3 ships - in 2005. 3 years is not a bad run for a console. We shall see how well the PS3 does against the Xbox2; considering their release dates are not that far apart.
Speaking of the PS3, I find it funny that no one complains about the FUD that Sony released; hinting that the PS3 is right around the corner when it is actually 3 years away, and, releasing far-fetched performance figures. Where are the people who tore into MS about the FUD of DOS 5 compaired to Dr. DOS? They must be playing MGS or GTA3...
There is a lot of talk on how Microsoft is losing a ton of cash on the XBox due to it's high production cost and pricing.
Of the 3 companies, Microsoft seems to be poised to be able to withstand the loss the best. I am not saying that Sony or Nintendo is currently losing money on hardware sales, I am just saying that if the three were losing mone equally, MS would eventually bleed the other two dry.
It will be interesting in a few years, when the PS3 ships, whether or not Sony can play the price war again. I would not be suprised to see Microsoft enter into a price war 6 mo. into the PS3-XBox2 battle.
We could see Sony lose the console war to Microsoft by 2006, simply because MS is has a lot more financial reserves.
It is so nice to see so many unbiased postings on/. when it comes to video games, especially the XBox.
I guess MS has it coming, a bit, for years of shaddy business practices. I just find if funny that in a news article about Nintendo dropping their GC prices, almost 1/2 the postings are about the XBox and how despite it's competitive pricing and superior hardware, it is "doomed."
I wonder if it would receive this much criticism if it were Sega's console...
This is not a death knell for the XBox. Actually, it will turn out to be a blow to EA. If you have ever tried to use EA online, you'd know what I am talking about.
What are we really talking about here? We are talking about MS's and Sony's online strategy. Sony is basically going to leave everything up to the game developers (EA.com, SquareSoft.Com, etc); where as MS is going to have 1 central site. Who do you think the average consumer is going to want to go with?
Then after a few months of the PS2 online trainwreck, people will ask themselves "Why bother?" Some, will even go out and buy an XBox. The fact of the matter is, the XBox online strategy is a thousand times better than Sony's strategy. Time will prove this to be true.
I wonder if Sega will use this to their advantage - releasing NFL 2k3 for all three consoles and having online support for all three.
Personally, I don't think XBox owners will be too upset by this - last I heard, NFL Fever 2002 and NFL 2k2 sold a lot better than Madden NFL 2002 (in the XBox world), and both of those will have online support in ther next releases (2k3 and Fever 2003).
I don't know where you got your info from, GameCube is not out selling the XBox; sorry to disappoint you.
True, PS2 is currently out selling the XBox, but the number 1 cited (by consumers) reason for choosing a PS2 over the XBox is the number of titles available. Last I checked, 3rd party developers will have shipped 150 titles by years end.
The fact of the matter is, the XBox has superior hardware to both the PS2 and GameCube. With 150 titles available, the #1 reason for buying a PS2 goes bye-bye.
Microsoft did not anticipate Japan sales to be so low. Honestly, I think there is a barrier that MS has that Sony and Nintendo do not; meaning an inport console vs domestic.
MS is missing sales in Europe largly due to it's price, which it has corrected.
Lets take a look at your post, one line at a time, Shall we?
"Japan - DEAD. Europe - ALMOST DEAD. US - DYING"
Japan sales are weak, so are Europe's. This is true. However, the XBox has been on sale in Europe of a MONTH, and MS just dropped the price in both markets. Your conclusion is premature.
Sales in the US have beat estimates, as of April 18th. You are wrong here.
"As if your post wasn't pathetic enough already, "What makes the XBox more a PC"
Yeah, you work in the console biz..."
The addition of a hard drive does not make the XBox more a PC than a PS2. Yeah, you work in the technology sector.
Every video game console is essentially a PC - your ignorance astonishes me.
The American Automobile industry? I think you need to do some research. General Motors Grossed $294 Billion last year, if I am not mistaken. I believe that was over 2 times as much as the biggest Japanese car company.
I find it funny that so many people who have little or no industry knowledge consistently claim that the XBox is failing.
The fact of the matter is, MS and many other industry experts anticipated poor sales in Japan and Europe during the XBox's initial launch. True, the sales figures were lower than expected, but not THAT much lower.
In the US, the XBox is out selling both PS2 and GameCube - hardly an indication that it is a failure. Moreover, we are talking about Microsoft here.
As far as your post goes, fabiolrs, isn't EVERY video game system essentially a PC? What makes the XBox more a PC than PS2? A hard drive?
The point here is that the article leads the reader to believe that the PS2 is more popular than the CameCube and XBox, which is untrue. If you break down the numbers to daily sales:
The problem witht the article is that it leads the reader to conclude that the PS2 is selling better than the XBox and GameCube, which is not true for the XBox.
The sales figures are based on quarterly sales figures. The sales quarter ended Dec 8th; Xbox and GameCube hadn't even been on the shelves a month, let alone a quarter.
I understand you logic, but it has one major flaw - developers ar dealing with Microsoft and Microsoft (which now owns Bungie) makes games.
Do anyone not think, given MS past business tactics, that they will not *get* companies to write games for the XBox?
Moreover, despite my loathing of MS, I must admit, they make some pretty cool games. Add Bungie on top of that, and I think it would be safe to say the XBox will have great games.
On a side note, the same argument has been made about Apple for 11 years - last I checked, they were weathering the PC downturn better than all the other manufacturers.
Personally, I never have really gotten into the whole video game console thing. But, I will say that here in Chicago, there seem to be a whole lot of GameCubes, and not an XBox to be seen. Judging by the comments posted thus far, that doesn't seem to be the case everywhere.
I will say that upon seeing all three (PS2, CameCube, and XBox) that the XBox does seem to have the best graphics, thought that superiority is marginal at best. XBox suffers from not having PS's existing user base and not having a marketable icon like Mario. However, I am confident that MS will dominate the market sooner or later.
Reason being, Microsoft is living proof that you do not have to be the best to be #1. Windows consistently comes up short, yet constantly reigns supreme. I cannot imagine that a company that seems to always come out on top with a crappy product like Windows will fall on their faces with a game console that actually has better hardware than it's competition.
.
Despite the fact that you are comparing Apples to Oranges (no pun intended), your case is weak and flaccid.
Windows 2000 is a business OS; built on NT. Mac OS 9.x and before were more consumer operating systems. You should compare Windows 9x with Mac OS 9.x, and Win 2000/XP to Mac OS X.
On those levels, both have advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I favor the Mac OS, but I can't condemn someone for using Windows.
As far as your comment about Macs crashing all the time - that is due to Mac OS 9.x not having protective memory, something corrected in OS X. I have had OS X since its initial release. Since that time, it has not crashed. My Win 2K box has crashed three times - in a year. Does that mean that the Mac is more stable? Probably not, but it does further diminish your argument.
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PC gaming is it's own worst enemy. I doubt the percentage is very high of PC games who have not pirated at least one game in their life time. PC gamers I know pirate almost all of their games (except for MMORPGs), and rely on hacking sites to provide the necessary work-a-rounds. And, when developers try to protect their property with DRM, they get crucified in the internet world for being overly protective.
Games cost millions upon millions of dollars to create today - far too much of an investment to leave in the hands of a dishonest gaming community. Are all PC gamers pirates? No. But, there are too many game pirates out there to make the PC a lucrative gamer market - unless you (the developer) include draconian security techniques or your are producing an MMORPG.
On the otehr hand, you really don't have that issues like above with console gaming. You sell a 5 million copies, there are pretty much only 5 million users (there is still some piracy, but far less than PC). Form an economic stand point, what do you expect game studios to do?
And what would you have our government do instead? We are not fighting a traditional enemy like the Axis Powers, here. This is a fight against religious zealots who have a nack of hiding in plain sight. We need progams like this to find them.
If you going go back in time to 1999, implement FISA, and save the nearly 4000 people who died on 9/11, would you?
The problem with IT, especially Software Development, is that it is a specialized degree that often comes with geograpical limitations. Good luck in finding a development job in most small cities...
.Net only. Also, I know a lot of senior developers who are in their 50s who have jobs (with exp in newer technologies) who live in the Chicago area.
Software developers need to realize that if they are not willing to relocate to a software development tech bed (California, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Boston, etc), they will have a rough time finding a job.
I have had 100s of job offerings from companies in Chicago, Atlanta, and Tampa; and my job skills are in SQL Server and
Look,
As someone who is in the IT field, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that the person hiring you will most likely have no idea how good of a "School of Technology" your college of choice has. Moreover, after your first job, the only thing employers will care about is that you *have* a degree.
The only way your college of choice is going to shoot you in the foot is if you go to some place like DeVry or ITT Tech.
I would also try to stick to Universities that people know (I went to Purdue, for instance), if possible.
I can't wait for these lunar satellites to be in position. I have a $50 bet with a "nut case" friend of mine that NASA's moon landing was real (he is a real conspiracy theorist - I blame drugs). Once these babies are in position, they'll be able to take nice pictures of the Apollo mission sites.
According to the tests I took while in college (Purdue), I use the left and right side of my brain equally; and I am a Conservative. I work in a company in which 40% of the employees are artists, and the Conservative/Liberal split is almost 50/50. This study is initially flawed in that it assumes liberals and conservatives always follow the same left or right brain dominance, and that dominance on one side is somehow better than the other.
Stereotypically speaking, liberals tend to be right side dominant, and conservatives tend to be left side dominant. The left side of the brain is thought be logic driven, while the right side is creative driven. This shows another of the test's bias - it was a pattern recognition test, which focuses on the right side of the brain.
Try re-running the test with rapid fire logic and math questions and see the results.
What a silly study.
You assume special relativity is fact, when it is only a theory. I know, I know, jump down my thoat for bucking a genius. Still, several cases ( Arago's experiment and Hubble's red shift obeservations come to mind)demonstrate that the speed of light might actually be dependant of the obesrver, not independant. If this holds true, special relativity does not work - light speed is no longer a constant.
So, you are saying that the XBox will be dead within a year - even though there are over 100 titles currently being written for it.
Or, you say it will die when the PS3 ships - in 2005. 3 years is not a bad run for a console. We shall see how well the PS3 does against the Xbox2; considering their release dates are not that far apart.
Speaking of the PS3, I find it funny that no one complains about the FUD that Sony released; hinting that the PS3 is right around the corner when it is actually 3 years away, and, releasing far-fetched performance figures. Where are the people who tore into MS about the FUD of DOS 5 compaired to Dr. DOS? They must be playing MGS or GTA3...
There is a lot of talk on how Microsoft is losing a ton of cash on the XBox due to it's high production cost and pricing.
Of the 3 companies, Microsoft seems to be poised to be able to withstand the loss the best. I am not saying that Sony or Nintendo is currently losing money on hardware sales, I am just saying that if the three were losing mone equally, MS would eventually bleed the other two dry.
It will be interesting in a few years, when the PS3 ships, whether or not Sony can play the price war again. I would not be suprised to see Microsoft enter into a price war 6 mo. into the PS3-XBox2 battle.
We could see Sony lose the console war to Microsoft by 2006, simply because MS is has a lot more financial reserves.
It is so nice to see so many unbiased postings on /. when it comes to video games, especially the XBox.
I guess MS has it coming, a bit, for years of shaddy business practices. I just find if funny that in a news article about Nintendo dropping their GC prices, almost 1/2 the postings are about the XBox and how despite it's competitive pricing and superior hardware, it is "doomed."
I wonder if it would receive this much criticism if it were Sega's console...
I cannot help but chuckle at PS2 fanboys.
This is not a death knell for the XBox. Actually, it will turn out to be a blow to EA. If you have ever tried to use EA online, you'd know what I am talking about.
What are we really talking about here? We are talking about MS's and Sony's online strategy. Sony is basically going to leave everything up to the game developers (EA.com, SquareSoft.Com, etc); where as MS is going to have 1 central site. Who do you think the average consumer is going to want to go with?
Then after a few months of the PS2 online trainwreck, people will ask themselves "Why bother?" Some, will even go out and buy an XBox. The fact of the matter is, the XBox online strategy is a thousand times better than Sony's strategy. Time will prove this to be true.
I wonder if Sega will use this to their advantage - releasing NFL 2k3 for all three consoles and having online support for all three.
Personally, I don't think XBox owners will be too upset by this - last I heard, NFL Fever 2002 and NFL 2k2 sold a lot better than Madden NFL 2002 (in the XBox world), and both of those will have online support in ther next releases (2k3 and Fever 2003).
I don't know where you got your info from, GameCube is not out selling the XBox; sorry to disappoint you.
True, PS2 is currently out selling the XBox, but the number 1 cited (by consumers) reason for choosing a PS2 over the XBox is the number of titles available. Last I checked, 3rd party developers will have shipped 150 titles by years end.
The fact of the matter is, the XBox has superior hardware to both the PS2 and GameCube. With 150 titles available, the #1 reason for buying a PS2 goes bye-bye.
Microsoft did not anticipate Japan sales to be so low. Honestly, I think there is a barrier that MS has that Sony and Nintendo do not; meaning an inport console vs domestic.
MS is missing sales in Europe largly due to it's price, which it has corrected.
Lets take a look at your post, one line at a time, Shall we?
"Japan - DEAD.
Europe - ALMOST DEAD.
US - DYING"
Japan sales are weak, so are Europe's. This is true. However, the XBox has been on sale in Europe of a MONTH, and MS just dropped the price in both markets. Your conclusion is premature.
Sales in the US have beat estimates, as of April 18th. You are wrong here.
"As if your post wasn't pathetic enough already, "What makes the XBox more a PC"
Yeah, you work in the console biz..."
The addition of a hard drive does not make the XBox more a PC than a PS2. Yeah, you work in the technology sector.
Every video game console is essentially a PC - your ignorance astonishes me.
The American Automobile industry? I think you need to do some research. General Motors Grossed $294 Billion last year, if I am not mistaken. I believe that was over 2 times as much as the biggest Japanese car company.
I find it funny that so many people who have little or no industry knowledge consistently claim that the XBox is failing.
The fact of the matter is, MS and many other industry experts anticipated poor sales in Japan and Europe during the XBox's initial launch. True, the sales figures were lower than expected, but not THAT much lower.
In the US, the XBox is out selling both PS2 and GameCube - hardly an indication that it is a failure. Moreover, we are talking about Microsoft here.
As far as your post goes, fabiolrs, isn't EVERY video game system essentially a PC? What makes the XBox more a PC than PS2? A hard drive?
Would it be bad of me to say that I wouldn't mind the temparature in Chicago to be in the 60s in December?
The point here is that the article leads the reader to believe that the PS2 is more popular than the CameCube and XBox, which is untrue. If you break down the numbers to daily sales:
/ 28 = 34,357
/ 24 = 38,916
/ 21 = 28,666
PS2: 962,000
Xbox: 934,000
Cube: 602,000
So, as you can see, the XBox sold more per day than the PS2 and GameCube.
Is the Xbox better than PS2? I don't know. What I do know, however, is that the article's statistics are slanted toward the PS2.
The problem witht the article is that it leads the reader to conclude that the PS2 is selling better than the XBox and GameCube, which is not true for the XBox. The sales figures are based on quarterly sales figures. The sales quarter ended Dec 8th; Xbox and GameCube hadn't even been on the shelves a month, let alone a quarter.
According to http://www.xboxweb.com/news/1201/006.html the XBox is the fastest selling console in history, not the GameCube. Interesting
I understand you logic, but it has one major flaw - developers ar dealing with Microsoft and Microsoft (which now owns Bungie) makes games.
Do anyone not think, given MS past business tactics, that they will not *get* companies to write games for the XBox?
Moreover, despite my loathing of MS, I must admit, they make some pretty cool games. Add Bungie on top of that, and I think it would be safe to say the XBox will have great games.
On a side note, the same argument has been made about Apple for 11 years - last I checked, they were weathering the PC downturn better than all the other manufacturers.
Personally, I never have really gotten into the whole video game console thing. But, I will say that here in Chicago, there seem to be a whole lot of GameCubes, and not an XBox to be seen. Judging by the comments posted thus far, that doesn't seem to be the case everywhere.
I will say that upon seeing all three (PS2, CameCube, and XBox) that the XBox does seem to have the best graphics, thought that superiority is marginal at best. XBox suffers from not having PS's existing user base and not having a marketable icon like Mario. However, I am confident that MS will dominate the market sooner or later.
Reason being, Microsoft is living proof that you do not have to be the best to be #1. Windows consistently comes up short, yet constantly reigns supreme. I cannot imagine that a company that seems to always come out on top with a crappy product like Windows will fall on their faces with a game console that actually has better hardware than it's competition.
.
I thought Al Gore invented the internet.
Flame will get you no where...
Despite the fact that you are comparing Apples to Oranges (no pun intended), your case is weak and flaccid.
Windows 2000 is a business OS; built on NT. Mac OS 9.x and before were more consumer operating systems. You should compare Windows 9x with Mac OS 9.x, and Win 2000/XP to Mac OS X.
On those levels, both have advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I favor the Mac OS, but I can't condemn someone for using Windows.
As far as your comment about Macs crashing all the time - that is due to Mac OS 9.x not having protective memory, something corrected in OS X. I have had OS X since its initial release. Since that time, it has not crashed. My Win 2K box has crashed three times - in a year. Does that mean that the Mac is more stable? Probably not, but it does further diminish your argument.