I just went back and reread the current CNN article on the shoot down and they have 1 sentence that mentions "advanced sensor equipment" but never ties it to the explanation, or goes beyond that one line.
I think the whole discussion of missile tech and the tank idea are both kinda of silly. I think the story was one that the military used to justify shooting a missile, but not to test the missile or any other tech.
Mostly likely they were just worried about sensitive technology that might survive reentry potentially falling into Chinese or other hands. While not a new sat, it wasn't really that old either. I'm guessing decent optics and other gear on there, including comm equipment. Why risk any chance of parts of that surviving and landing in even a damaged state someplace that a foreign power might be able to get a hold of it.
Of course this idea was never even remotely touched on, which I'm guessing is exactly what the military wanted. They are probably more than happy to be getting accused of testing a missile, it means people aren't talking about the thing that really concerned them.
Thats something I've always been curious about (never thought to check ebay). Has anyone ever taken apart an e-meter to see what the heck they are actually selling you?
Reverse engineered it, see what sorta fraud it is? You figure that would be the most telling bit about them. That this fundamental core component of their religion that you need to shell out lots of hard earned cash for does or doesn't actually do what they say it does.
I don't think that anyone is debating whether the price of the PS3 will drop over time.
I think the general slant of the question was whether the price drops now as a result of this, or does Sony put the saving toward reducing their losses on each system sold.
Essentially the 2 options are 1) go for market share and keep taking a loss or 2) try to get each box profitable, and then worry about lowering the cost to the consumer as future improvements drop the cost further.
I have a feeling Sony will split the difference and sit on the increased profit margin for as long as their market share stays stable or until they have an exclusive to release. Then they'll pass a portion of the savings on to the customer in line with their eventual goals on margin for the boxes. (pass something like 85% of the savings on when they do drop it down the line a bit)
Since when is PS3 gaining market share? every months NPD numbers that I've seen show a fairly consistant ratio of PS3360wii, with the ratio within any given month fluctuating based on game releases. 360 had big Sept, November, wii and 360 had a big december, etc.
While the PS3 is selling more units year over year so are its competitors. I'm pretty sure its market share is within a few percentage points (at best) of where it was at 6 months ago. Maybe gained a little from the price drop, but since the price drop the ratios have been pretty steady, with spikes going to the other 2 systems (mostly for Halo, Mass Effect and Mario Galaxy).
The PS3 is doing decent, but its not like its on the glorious rise to market domination. I suspect the next important move will be whether Sony wants to go after market share or profit. If they prefer 1, they will pass on the savings to the customers and lower the price (which MS and Nintendo may or may not counter, as they both actually make a profit on each system sold), or keep the larger (or all) portion of the cost savings to increase their margin per unit.
My personal guess is that they will continue happily selling them at the current price, maintaining fixed share until such time as they have a big exclusive to push. Between then and now they pocket any savings to help their bottom line, then later they can drop the price to help push units around an exclusive. They try dropping the price now and MS will just counter, meaning no major share change. Might as well help recoup your investment while you can, if its not going to hurt you, since your gain at the moment is minimal.
HP actually has 2 Class A's and a class B (though they may have let the B go). When I was working there (till this past year), everything we did generally had a 15 or 16 IP. (15 = HP, 16 = DEC, the class B was the old Compaq)
Yeah I'd have to assume the Writers guild is the same as the directors guild or the actors guild.
If I recall correctly one of the reason Quinten Tarantino can't be nominated for a bunch of different awards is that he refused to join most of the guilds.
Solar has the drawback of being very dirty to produce the cells themselves. While it might not be a CO2 issue, it definately produces large amounts of industrial waste.
I'd say wind/wave/tidal is the best bet in terms of truely green, until the manufacturing process on solar gets better.
That said, I think Nuclear is a great middle ground and the fact that lobbyists have pushed so hard against it is a downright shame. Modern reactors are so much safer that most of the safety concerns are moot, leaving just the waste as an issue, which, while bad, isn't causing global warming.
I'd argue that only Nintendo tends to do most of its exclusives out of in house shops. Most of the major Sony exclusives aren't Sony shops, they are simply partners that Sony set up publishing agreements with. Which is the same situation MS is in with Bungie and a few other independent companies.
Partnering and software alliance are VERY common in the Enterprise market, a market MS knows all too well.
I just see this as MS applying much more of a software/IT market philosophy to its gaming division.
As any HW vendor can tell you partnering is key to getting people to buy your system. Even if you are IBM and have a pile of applications in your own software division you still don't have them all. You still need to partner with other vendors, and your success will very much be tied directly to those partnerships. The in-house stuff offsets that some, but its not a replacement for it.
If MS feels like they can get away with a partner model instead of an ownership model its likely a matter of the risks inherent in ownership.
A good market analogy is to look at HP versus IBM in the global server market. IBM owns many important completer apps (DB2, WebSphere, Rational, etc) while HP partners for all of its key completers (Oracle, BEA, etc).
I see no reason a company producing gaming HW can't apply the same model. Its all in keeping the developers happy and doing what you have to to ensure they release on your system. Ownership isn't critical as a piece of that.
Yeah, but I made a specific point of talking outside the bounds of the charge. In corporate terms you write the charge off once and then operate based on profitability and margin past that quarter. While the overall cost of R&D + the charge won't be payed off until 2008, as long as the system remains profitable on each sale, that investment will eventually be paid for. Admittedly it means in a year instead of today, but they are still turning a profit on the systems (I'd call that gaining money, even if its first paying off debt, then pocketing it later).
I personally just think the alarmism over spinning of the game studios is over the top. Nobody seemed to read into MS's decisions to acquire and spin off PC studios, and that was all because MS is in a singular place in the PC gaming market. If not for the fanboy camps in the gaming market, none of these moves by MS would be read into any further than corporate governance.
I seem to recall everyone heralding MS when they dropped Sigil onto SOE. As with everything its a matter of executives trying to figure out what will and won't allow them to capitalize on their investment down the line. None of this spells doom or success for anyone in the console market.
This article came off very strange. It seems like trying to create a story out of nowhere.
Last I heard MS was already making a profit on the 360, due to the cost coming down quicker than expected. Yes they took that billion dollar charge, but as I understand it each one sold is still profit at this point.
Add onto that some pretty killer titles in the last year and MS has made some cash. Halo3 alone would offset any losses in the last year I would assume. (Short of the charge).
If you read the statement Bungie released on their website it sounds more like what MS did was pull lots of companies into the fold, in order to foster the growth of its image as a gaming company. Now that they've established their beachhead, they can let those companies go sink or swim on their own merits.
I think Rare is the perfect example of why MS is letting the studios go (though still in publishing agreements for many of them). With a good partner relationship MS doesn't take on the risk of a studio starting to turn out poor quality product. At the same time, its become a large enough, established enough player, that those publishers will pay attention to MS, even if they aren't subsidiaries.
Make that 2. My room mate have been playing on and off for a few months now (and we're in our 20's). Its a great game for sitting down for 20 minutes and blowing off a little steam.
The other primary reason for the credit system is that its meant to later be used as a portion of a micropayment system. Users will in theory be able to offer their own content in exchange for other people's credits. Users will be able to sell maps, icons, what have you in exchange for credits. There was also talk of credits as rewards for online competitions.
To date it hasn't been opened to the general public (specific vendors like Penny Arcade do however sell items for credits), but expect it within the year I'd figure.
Additionally the API's are there from Sony, but that doesn't mean they are in a form that makes them easy to use. Because of the underlying asymmetry in the cells, its likely that you can't just use a simple API call to get the same effect that you can with what is essentially a DX API call on the 360.
AKA: its not just take 360 API to do X and change it into PS3 API to do X.
Despite having the new shader and everything else in the 360, it likely sticks to the same DX style API calls and the developer never needs to care what the shader is underneath it all. Just like you can buy a new graphics card for your PC and DX will handle any new changes to shader technology.
Have you not been watching baseball under the last 2 CBA's? There is more parity now than ever. Sure there are generally about 2-3 also-rans but by and large any team with good scouting and intelligent management can compete year in and year out. Oakland, Minnesota, Florida, Arizona, Atlanta (with new management), Washington(formerly Montreal), Milwaukee, have all done an exceptional job at being competitive even with less money.
Revenue sharing and the soft-cap have helped to wonders for the competitive balance. Even teams like Tampa Bay and Kansas City look to have some potential these days.
Its also possible that the eyes are seeing at wavelengths outside of the visible range. Bees for instance see in ultraviolet, and other animals see in infrared. Its possible that the eyes could pick up heat signatures or something that does exist at that depth.
Also they could migrate to higher depths. One belief is that these things hunt at similar depths to whales, so from very deep, to a more shallow depth as well.
The pigmentation could also be just a consequential byproduct of some other adaptation. For instance chemicals in the skin that serve some purpose might just happen to also give it a color. It could also be an effect of being exposed to air on the surface, or from being dead. You'll notice how things like shrimp and lobsters will appear different colors alive and dead, cooked and uncooked, etc.
Indeed. Oblivion as well was always described as a pure sandbox game. and to the original ggp post, Oblivion has a VERY clear and deliniated path through the game. Same as with GTA. Its just that it was your choice as to whether or not you followed it.
In both of those games you could do anything you wanted for the entire game, or you could progress the story. I personally love this. Sure I end up progressing the story the vast majority of the time, but if I'm bored I can hop into Oblivion, run around and find a random dungeon and just clear it and see what kind of stuff I find.
I think thats the true greatness of the sandbox game. The option to do the expected, but not have to if you don't want to. MMOs are a little different in that I don't think there is an expected path. They are slightly more sandbox than the classic sandbox games, in that you really just have a toon, and go do whatever you want.
There was a great little bit of commentary in the Economist a few weeks ago pertaining to how video games are just like any new form of media in history. There is a subset of the population that declares it evil because the young adopt it agressively (young being under 35-40). Eventually the populace ages and it becomes accepted and common place.
Examples they quoted were novels and the waltz during the 19th century. Motion pictures, jazz, rock and roll, the radio, TV, etc, each saw their own resistance due to their "evil demoralizing impact on society"
There is a link to the article on the Economist's web site, but its premium content, you'll need to pay to see it, but I'll throw the link up for anyone who subscribes or wants to track it down at a library or something.
The Article at the Economist
I'm giving SOE a bit of a benefit of the doubt on this. As I understand it a large portion of the blame is squarely on Sigil themselves. Apparently when SOE picked it up from MS there was an infusion of development funds from SOE(one of the reasons it was moved, MS was getting tired of spending on it).
This game definately got stuck in a bit of the death spiral that you can see from games. The one advantage it has is that as an MMO is has a means of generating revenue while still doing development. It is not however the optimal situation. The game needs to be in a good enough state that it survives long enough to get to "completed" status.
I personally plan to sit on the sidelines for a while. If things seem to get better an the user base is healthy and they get their graphics support cleared up, my friends and I might join down the road. Of course that all depends what else is out there. Conan, LotR, and Warhammer online are all looking like better options right now as new games. In the mean time there are still WoW and EQ2.
Well they fully admitted they only released now because they ran out of development funds and it was either release it and start getting income, or fold the project.
I personally cancelled my pre-order. One of my closest gaming friends can't even run the game on her brand new system. When we inquired with their QA they told her she'd need to roll back her graphics drivers to a version older than her system. When that didn't work we learned that despite saying they support all 7xxx series nvidia cards, they've only had time to test 7300 and 7800 cards. If you have another card its hit or miss that it will work. Apparently if you have a 7500 (the one my friend has) you're SOL till they get around to making it work.
I refuse to pay for a game most of my friends can't even play.
Another thing to note is that there are increasing numbers of dual format players arriving on the market. This leaves the content vendors with the option to pick whatever format they want. In many cases its not Blu-ray. Even if there is an even split it means Sony doesn't get the full market for their technology that they are hoping for. It also means that is a greater chance of people buying movies that won't work in the "one technology" player that is the PS3. That would probably breed some additional ill will with consumers.
You do need windows, but you can use any of a number of means for connecting, you don't need media center. You can use media player 11 or just get the media connect package.
Even if the file share is on a linux box, as long as you have windows someplace, you could mount the files in a network share, and load those into your media library on the windows box, then pull them. You'd be pulling "through" the windows box, but on a 100Mb network or better you likely wouldn't notice it too badly.
This guy would never get the death penalty. Kidnapping in and of itself isn't a capital crime. Its not even a life sentence.
Now assuming nothing else happened (abuse, etc) I'd say the guy maybe serves the better part of a decade on the kidnapping and then a bunch of time on parol/probation.
Agreed. What the GP fails to realize is that its not a matter of what if anything you do with any information, or if you're even taking information.
Its that 99.99% of the people with your software on their system never ever asked for it. You got it installed through any of a number of dirty underhanded means in my mind. My personal experience is with the fact that it came bundled with AIM clients, and never mentioned once, or gave you the option during the install to remove it. Then following repeated uninstalls it would show up again. Either through another app it was hidden in or by some other means I don't yet know.
If your games are so great that people want them, why the heck are you sneaking them onto people's systems. If it takes up HD space, memory, CPU cycles, network bandwidth, or any other resource and I didn't once agree or consent to it being installed, then its Malware pure and simple. If a hacker can be tried and convicted for stealing my resources I don't see any reason WT shouldn't be either. I know that won't happen because they are in that legal grey area, so anything MS does to help this problem is a huge plus in my mind.
Slashdot Mirror
I just went back and reread the current CNN article on the shoot down and they have 1 sentence that mentions "advanced sensor equipment" but never ties it to the explanation, or goes beyond that one line.
I think the whole discussion of missile tech and the tank idea are both kinda of silly. I think the story was one that the military used to justify shooting a missile, but not to test the missile or any other tech.
Mostly likely they were just worried about sensitive technology that might survive reentry potentially falling into Chinese or other hands. While not a new sat, it wasn't really that old either. I'm guessing decent optics and other gear on there, including comm equipment. Why risk any chance of parts of that surviving and landing in even a damaged state someplace that a foreign power might be able to get a hold of it.
Of course this idea was never even remotely touched on, which I'm guessing is exactly what the military wanted. They are probably more than happy to be getting accused of testing a missile, it means people aren't talking about the thing that really concerned them.
Thats something I've always been curious about (never thought to check ebay). Has anyone ever taken apart an e-meter to see what the heck they are actually selling you?
Reverse engineered it, see what sorta fraud it is? You figure that would be the most telling bit about them. That this fundamental core component of their religion that you need to shell out lots of hard earned cash for does or doesn't actually do what they say it does.
Can I have your stuff?
I don't think that anyone is debating whether the price of the PS3 will drop over time.
I think the general slant of the question was whether the price drops now as a result of this, or does Sony put the saving toward reducing their losses on each system sold.
Essentially the 2 options are 1) go for market share and keep taking a loss or 2) try to get each box profitable, and then worry about lowering the cost to the consumer as future improvements drop the cost further.
I have a feeling Sony will split the difference and sit on the increased profit margin for as long as their market share stays stable or until they have an exclusive to release. Then they'll pass a portion of the savings on to the customer in line with their eventual goals on margin for the boxes. (pass something like 85% of the savings on when they do drop it down the line a bit)
Since when is PS3 gaining market share? every months NPD numbers that I've seen show a fairly consistant ratio of PS3360wii, with the ratio within any given month fluctuating based on game releases. 360 had big Sept, November, wii and 360 had a big december, etc.
While the PS3 is selling more units year over year so are its competitors. I'm pretty sure its market share is within a few percentage points (at best) of where it was at 6 months ago. Maybe gained a little from the price drop, but since the price drop the ratios have been pretty steady, with spikes going to the other 2 systems (mostly for Halo, Mass Effect and Mario Galaxy).
The PS3 is doing decent, but its not like its on the glorious rise to market domination. I suspect the next important move will be whether Sony wants to go after market share or profit. If they prefer 1, they will pass on the savings to the customers and lower the price (which MS and Nintendo may or may not counter, as they both actually make a profit on each system sold), or keep the larger (or all) portion of the cost savings to increase their margin per unit.
My personal guess is that they will continue happily selling them at the current price, maintaining fixed share until such time as they have a big exclusive to push. Between then and now they pocket any savings to help their bottom line, then later they can drop the price to help push units around an exclusive. They try dropping the price now and MS will just counter, meaning no major share change. Might as well help recoup your investment while you can, if its not going to hurt you, since your gain at the moment is minimal.
HP actually has 2 Class A's and a class B (though they may have let the B go). When I was working there (till this past year), everything we did generally had a 15 or 16 IP. (15 = HP, 16 = DEC, the class B was the old Compaq)
Yeah I'd have to assume the Writers guild is the same as the directors guild or the actors guild.
If I recall correctly one of the reason Quinten Tarantino can't be nominated for a bunch of different awards is that he refused to join most of the guilds.
Solar has the drawback of being very dirty to produce the cells themselves. While it might not be a CO2 issue, it definately produces large amounts of industrial waste.
I'd say wind/wave/tidal is the best bet in terms of truely green, until the manufacturing process on solar gets better.
That said, I think Nuclear is a great middle ground and the fact that lobbyists have pushed so hard against it is a downright shame. Modern reactors are so much safer that most of the safety concerns are moot, leaving just the waste as an issue, which, while bad, isn't causing global warming.
I'd argue that only Nintendo tends to do most of its exclusives out of in house shops. Most of the major Sony exclusives aren't Sony shops, they are simply partners that Sony set up publishing agreements with. Which is the same situation MS is in with Bungie and a few other independent companies.
Partnering and software alliance are VERY common in the Enterprise market, a market MS knows all too well.
I just see this as MS applying much more of a software/IT market philosophy to its gaming division.
As any HW vendor can tell you partnering is key to getting people to buy your system. Even if you are IBM and have a pile of applications in your own software division you still don't have them all. You still need to partner with other vendors, and your success will very much be tied directly to those partnerships. The in-house stuff offsets that some, but its not a replacement for it.
If MS feels like they can get away with a partner model instead of an ownership model its likely a matter of the risks inherent in ownership.
A good market analogy is to look at HP versus IBM in the global server market. IBM owns many important completer apps (DB2, WebSphere, Rational, etc) while HP partners for all of its key completers (Oracle, BEA, etc).
I see no reason a company producing gaming HW can't apply the same model. Its all in keeping the developers happy and doing what you have to to ensure they release on your system. Ownership isn't critical as a piece of that.
Yeah, but I made a specific point of talking outside the bounds of the charge. In corporate terms you write the charge off once and then operate based on profitability and margin past that quarter. While the overall cost of R&D + the charge won't be payed off until 2008, as long as the system remains profitable on each sale, that investment will eventually be paid for. Admittedly it means in a year instead of today, but they are still turning a profit on the systems (I'd call that gaining money, even if its first paying off debt, then pocketing it later).
I personally just think the alarmism over spinning of the game studios is over the top. Nobody seemed to read into MS's decisions to acquire and spin off PC studios, and that was all because MS is in a singular place in the PC gaming market. If not for the fanboy camps in the gaming market, none of these moves by MS would be read into any further than corporate governance.
I seem to recall everyone heralding MS when they dropped Sigil onto SOE. As with everything its a matter of executives trying to figure out what will and won't allow them to capitalize on their investment down the line. None of this spells doom or success for anyone in the console market.
This article came off very strange. It seems like trying to create a story out of nowhere.
Last I heard MS was already making a profit on the 360, due to the cost coming down quicker than expected. Yes they took that billion dollar charge, but as I understand it each one sold is still profit at this point.
Add onto that some pretty killer titles in the last year and MS has made some cash. Halo3 alone would offset any losses in the last year I would assume. (Short of the charge).
If you read the statement Bungie released on their website it sounds more like what MS did was pull lots of companies into the fold, in order to foster the growth of its image as a gaming company. Now that they've established their beachhead, they can let those companies go sink or swim on their own merits.
I think Rare is the perfect example of why MS is letting the studios go (though still in publishing agreements for many of them). With a good partner relationship MS doesn't take on the risk of a studio starting to turn out poor quality product. At the same time, its become a large enough, established enough player, that those publishers will pay attention to MS, even if they aren't subsidiaries.
Make that 2. My room mate have been playing on and off for a few months now (and we're in our 20's). Its a great game for sitting down for 20 minutes and blowing off a little steam.
The other primary reason for the credit system is that its meant to later be used as a portion of a micropayment system. Users will in theory be able to offer their own content in exchange for other people's credits. Users will be able to sell maps, icons, what have you in exchange for credits. There was also talk of credits as rewards for online competitions.
To date it hasn't been opened to the general public (specific vendors like Penny Arcade do however sell items for credits), but expect it within the year I'd figure.
Additionally the API's are there from Sony, but that doesn't mean they are in a form that makes them easy to use. Because of the underlying asymmetry in the cells, its likely that you can't just use a simple API call to get the same effect that you can with what is essentially a DX API call on the 360.
AKA: its not just take 360 API to do X and change it into PS3 API to do X.
Despite having the new shader and everything else in the 360, it likely sticks to the same DX style API calls and the developer never needs to care what the shader is underneath it all. Just like you can buy a new graphics card for your PC and DX will handle any new changes to shader technology.
Have you not been watching baseball under the last 2 CBA's? There is more parity now than ever. Sure there are generally about 2-3 also-rans but by and large any team with good scouting and intelligent management can compete year in and year out. Oakland, Minnesota, Florida, Arizona, Atlanta (with new management), Washington(formerly Montreal), Milwaukee, have all done an exceptional job at being competitive even with less money.
Revenue sharing and the soft-cap have helped to wonders for the competitive balance. Even teams like Tampa Bay and Kansas City look to have some potential these days.
Its also possible that the eyes are seeing at wavelengths outside of the visible range. Bees for instance see in ultraviolet, and other animals see in infrared. Its possible that the eyes could pick up heat signatures or something that does exist at that depth.
Also they could migrate to higher depths. One belief is that these things hunt at similar depths to whales, so from very deep, to a more shallow depth as well.
The pigmentation could also be just a consequential byproduct of some other adaptation. For instance chemicals in the skin that serve some purpose might just happen to also give it a color. It could also be an effect of being exposed to air on the surface, or from being dead. You'll notice how things like shrimp and lobsters will appear different colors alive and dead, cooked and uncooked, etc.
Indeed. Oblivion as well was always described as a pure sandbox game. and to the original ggp post, Oblivion has a VERY clear and deliniated path through the game. Same as with GTA. Its just that it was your choice as to whether or not you followed it.
In both of those games you could do anything you wanted for the entire game, or you could progress the story. I personally love this. Sure I end up progressing the story the vast majority of the time, but if I'm bored I can hop into Oblivion, run around and find a random dungeon and just clear it and see what kind of stuff I find.
I think thats the true greatness of the sandbox game. The option to do the expected, but not have to if you don't want to. MMOs are a little different in that I don't think there is an expected path. They are slightly more sandbox than the classic sandbox games, in that you really just have a toon, and go do whatever you want.
Examples they quoted were novels and the waltz during the 19th century. Motion pictures, jazz, rock and roll, the radio, TV, etc, each saw their own resistance due to their "evil demoralizing impact on society"
There is a link to the article on the Economist's web site, but its premium content, you'll need to pay to see it, but I'll throw the link up for anyone who subscribes or wants to track it down at a library or something.
The Article at the Economist
I'm giving SOE a bit of a benefit of the doubt on this. As I understand it a large portion of the blame is squarely on Sigil themselves. Apparently when SOE picked it up from MS there was an infusion of development funds from SOE(one of the reasons it was moved, MS was getting tired of spending on it).
This game definately got stuck in a bit of the death spiral that you can see from games. The one advantage it has is that as an MMO is has a means of generating revenue while still doing development. It is not however the optimal situation. The game needs to be in a good enough state that it survives long enough to get to "completed" status.
I personally plan to sit on the sidelines for a while. If things seem to get better an the user base is healthy and they get their graphics support cleared up, my friends and I might join down the road. Of course that all depends what else is out there. Conan, LotR, and Warhammer online are all looking like better options right now as new games. In the mean time there are still WoW and EQ2.
Well they fully admitted they only released now because they ran out of development funds and it was either release it and start getting income, or fold the project.
I personally cancelled my pre-order. One of my closest gaming friends can't even run the game on her brand new system. When we inquired with their QA they told her she'd need to roll back her graphics drivers to a version older than her system. When that didn't work we learned that despite saying they support all 7xxx series nvidia cards, they've only had time to test 7300 and 7800 cards. If you have another card its hit or miss that it will work. Apparently if you have a 7500 (the one my friend has) you're SOL till they get around to making it work.
I refuse to pay for a game most of my friends can't even play.
Another thing to note is that there are increasing numbers of dual format players arriving on the market. This leaves the content vendors with the option to pick whatever format they want. In many cases its not Blu-ray. Even if there is an even split it means Sony doesn't get the full market for their technology that they are hoping for. It also means that is a greater chance of people buying movies that won't work in the "one technology" player that is the PS3. That would probably breed some additional ill will with consumers.
You do need windows, but you can use any of a number of means for connecting, you don't need media center. You can use media player 11 or just get the media connect package.
Even if the file share is on a linux box, as long as you have windows someplace, you could mount the files in a network share, and load those into your media library on the windows box, then pull them. You'd be pulling "through" the windows box, but on a 100Mb network or better you likely wouldn't notice it too badly.
This guy would never get the death penalty. Kidnapping in and of itself isn't a capital crime. Its not even a life sentence.
Now assuming nothing else happened (abuse, etc) I'd say the guy maybe serves the better part of a decade on the kidnapping and then a bunch of time on parol/probation.
Agreed. What the GP fails to realize is that its not a matter of what if anything you do with any information, or if you're even taking information.
Its that 99.99% of the people with your software on their system never ever asked for it. You got it installed through any of a number of dirty underhanded means in my mind. My personal experience is with the fact that it came bundled with AIM clients, and never mentioned once, or gave you the option during the install to remove it. Then following repeated uninstalls it would show up again. Either through another app it was hidden in or by some other means I don't yet know.
If your games are so great that people want them, why the heck are you sneaking them onto people's systems. If it takes up HD space, memory, CPU cycles, network bandwidth, or any other resource and I didn't once agree or consent to it being installed, then its Malware pure and simple. If a hacker can be tried and convicted for stealing my resources I don't see any reason WT shouldn't be either. I know that won't happen because they are in that legal grey area, so anything MS does to help this problem is a huge plus in my mind.