Most beta-tests are filled with hardcore fans of the genre (or the series) and are likely going to want features which the majority of users will not care about (or might see as negatives).
If your beta testing pool consists of people who have volunteered their time to your company for free because they loved your last game and think it's l33t that they get to play your new one before anybody else, that kind of scenario is unavoidable.
If you make an effort to have a beta testing group that will actually be a representative sampling of your entire target market, then a beta test can be beneficial. But running a test group in that way takes more time and money.
Most of the laws in this country are made by federal and state executive agencies.
Okay, but federal executive agencies can only make laws pertaining to those areas in which the legislative branch has delegated to them the authority to make laws.
The Federal Communications Commission, for example, could not establish a law increasing the penalty for possession of marijuana -- it is not in their jurisdiction.
The question, then, is whether the Department of the Treasury is authorized by Congress to prevent citizens from removing currency from the market by destroying or exporting it. The answer, as far as I can tell, is Yes.
It's also not illegal to cut up a US coin in some artistic fashion and sell it for a higher amount; this is done all the time. In terms of defacement, you can't stick a picture of Kennedy on a quarter and try to redeem it as a half-dollar
What if you sell it to someone as "art" for fifty cents?
I understand why policemen, mobsters, and whores would be upset about the simulated violence in Grand Theft Auto. They are members of the classes against whom the violent acts are perpetrated.
It's for the same reason that I'm upset about the simulated violence in Left Behind. As a non-Christian, I don't like it that someone would think of people like me as Evil, or that there is any scenario in which it is justified to kill a non-Christian for their beliefs.
Should the government step in and bar either game from being published? Hell no. Should the people speak with their wallets, and force retailers to choose between pleasing one group of customers and offending another? Sure.
With 3D, you have to create models, animations, and textures. With 2D, you have to hand draw each and every frame. It seems like a bit more work to me.
Developers always have the option of creating the characters as 3D models, and then prerendering them as sprite animations, as has often been done since Donkey Kong Country on the SNES.
One of the better interviews I've had was for a Unix coding job. They sat me at an X terminal logged into a "guest" account and told me to write a simple directory listing program and that they'd be back in two hours.
Let me get this straight... they expected you to spend TWO HOURS working for them without compensation, and this was one of the BETTER interviews you've had???
Agreed, attempts to map IP addresses to geographical locations are so imprecise as to be largely useless. I don't know if it's still the case, but the last time a company I worked for attempted to do geotargeting by IP discovered that $SOME_HUGE percent of our users were all apparently living in Virginia. Turns out those users were all coming through an AOL traffic relay located there. They could have been anywhere in the country in reality.
If you want to find out where your site's users live, ask them! Set up a sweepstakes where they have to fill out a form giving their zipcode to be eligible to win. Divide your content into distinct sections by geographical region and see which ones your users visit most often.
I wouldn't list "Virtual Boy" as a platform that you're able to play on your GC/PS2/modded Xbox combo, even if for some reason you WANTED to play exciting VB titles like Red Eyestrain.
Even apart from the inability to do true 3D, Virtual Boy emulation is not very advanced yet. Games run slowly with a lot of lag, and sound emulation is mostly unlistenable.
The problem is the Wii is more novel than inovative.
Says you.
Both Sony and Microsoft can easily produce a competing controller which could devalue the Wii's uniqueness.
Not if a sheaf of Nintendo patents on the Wii control systems have anything to do with it.
Let's face it everyone likes the cutting edge graphics
Says you. What were the most popular games at the party I went to over the weekend? Nintendo Ice Hockey and Super Mario Bros 3, played on an NES bought nearly 20 years ago.
Everyone likes fun. Only some people care about cutting edge graphics.
They should have had many more units available for sale given they are using essentially the same hardware that was found in the gamecube.
That's true, except for the way that practically every single part of the system from the optical drive to the input devices to the casing to the mainboard to the CPU to the output port is an entirely different part on the Wii than it was on the Gamecube.
Um, I assume that the Gamecube controller and memory card ports on the Wii are the same. So you've got that at least.
I don't really think Craigslist is going to kill the whole industry, but it's certainly had a big effect on how newspapers will move into the 21st century.
And the newspapers have no one to blame for this but themselves. All Craig & co. did was identify a service that the newspaper classifieds industry was doing a poor job providing, and did it better.
Imagine if the newspaper companies had embraced the Internet and started offering free online classified ads ten years ago. There never would have been a Craigslist, and newspaper business would be booming.
my feeling and opinion is that Apple should have stuck with music overall instead of expanding into selling music videos, TV shows, and movies.
I could see how expanding the product line could cause a hit to Apple's profits on the iTunes Store -- the more varied the offerings, the more staff it takes to support them (maintaining media repositories, negotiating rights, etc.)
But why would that have a negative effect on gross revenue? Doesn't it seem self-evident that, all other things equal, offering more products would increase the potential number of purchases?
have you looked at the public domain roms made from scratch by people in their basements for earlier consoles like SNES, Genesis, and N64? THEY SUCK! Regular people aren't very good at console programming I guess.
Wait... you're surprised that a single hobbyist coder hacking in his spare time can't produce results comparable to a team of 6-20 game developers working full time on a project for several months? The hell you say.
I think that's rubbish, there's no way a kid under the age of 15 would spot the danger of talking on a cellphone while driving unless it was explained to him/her by their parents
We're not discussing TALKING on a cellphone while driving, we're discussing THUMB-TYPING TEXT MESSAGES while driving. You don't have to have passed Driver'd Ed class to know "keep your eyes on the road" is an important part of safe driving.
As for the parents sneaking away during dinner to use their blackberry's.. hmm, a little childish (pun intended) for sure and clearly shows where their priorities are placed.
You may call it childish. The word I use for when a person compulsively engages in an activity to so extensively that they feel a need to hide their behavior from their family is ADDICTION.
On another note, I think the champaign was to attract chavs, which tend to spend money like drunken sailors because they are, unfortunately, usually drunk. What do they drink? Champaign.
Which other platform allows independent game developers to develop and distribute games designed for use with a large (25" and up) screen and two to four controllers?
Well, Xbox Live Arcade and Nintendo Virtual Console, for two...
You answered "Internet, games, basic productivity, and multimedia" and I agree with you. However, most people already HAVE a PC with which they do those things, which doesn't give them much motivation to go out and buy a PS3 in order to keep doing them.
Yes, Linux on a new PS3 may even be a better computing experience than XP on a three-year-old Dell -- but it doesn't matter. Unless there's a compelling reason to switch, people will stick with what they're familiar with.
can't you see smart parents buying the kids a PS3 instead of an Xbox360 and a PC?
Just like the "smart" parents who bought their kids a Coleco ADAM (an earlier example of a game console that thought it was a home computer) instead of an Intellivision and an IBM XT? Sure, they saved money at the time, but how well did that work out in the long run?
Do you think it will still be $599 by next xmas?
I absolutely do. Look at the upper-tier Xbox 360 package; it was $400 at launch a year ago, it's still $400. They (both Microsoft and Sony) are going to keep those prices high until production costs come down and they're no longer selling them for a loss.
As long as it's still selling well (and for your scenario where Sony moves 10,000,000 PS3s by 2009, it HAS to sell well throughout 2007), there's no reason to drop the price.
Instantly a PS3 is a gaming rig, BlueRay player AND a fully functional PC, ready for web browsing, OO.o, etc.
Yes, a box with only 256MB of general-purpose RAM is IDEAL for web browsing, Open Office, etc.....
Given just a small push and penetration could easilly hit 50% of an installed base likely to number in the tens of millions within two to three years.
I don't know which claim is more unlikely... that PS3 Linux would be of interest to anywhere near 50% of PS3 owners, or that Sony will be able to sell tens of millions of PS3s in the next couple of years.
Slashdot Mirror
Most beta-tests are filled with hardcore fans of the genre (or the series) and are likely going to want features which the majority of users will not care about (or might see as negatives).
If your beta testing pool consists of people who have volunteered their time to your company for free because they loved your last game and think it's l33t that they get to play your new one before anybody else, that kind of scenario is unavoidable.
If you make an effort to have a beta testing group that will actually be a representative sampling of your entire target market, then a beta test can be beneficial. But running a test group in that way takes more time and money.
Most of the laws in this country are made by federal and state executive agencies.
Okay, but federal executive agencies can only make laws pertaining to those areas in which the legislative branch has delegated to them the authority to make laws.
The Federal Communications Commission, for example, could not establish a law increasing the penalty for possession of marijuana -- it is not in their jurisdiction.
The question, then, is whether the Department of the Treasury is authorized by Congress to prevent citizens from removing currency from the market by destroying or exporting it. The answer, as far as I can tell, is Yes.
It's also not illegal to cut up a US coin in some artistic fashion and sell it for a higher amount; this is done all the time. In terms of defacement, you can't stick a picture of Kennedy on a quarter and try to redeem it as a half-dollar
What if you sell it to someone as "art" for fifty cents?
I understand why policemen, mobsters, and whores would be upset about the simulated violence in Grand Theft Auto. They are members of the classes against whom the violent acts are perpetrated.
It's for the same reason that I'm upset about the simulated violence in Left Behind. As a non-Christian, I don't like it that someone would think of people like me as Evil, or that there is any scenario in which it is justified to kill a non-Christian for their beliefs.
Should the government step in and bar either game from being published? Hell no. Should the people speak with their wallets, and force retailers to choose between pleasing one group of customers and offending another? Sure.
With 3D, you have to create models, animations, and textures. With 2D, you have to hand draw each and every frame. It seems like a bit more work to me.
Developers always have the option of creating the characters as 3D models, and then prerendering them as sprite animations, as has often been done since Donkey Kong Country on the SNES.
One of the better interviews I've had was for a Unix coding job. They sat me at an X terminal logged into a "guest" account and told me to write a simple directory listing program and that they'd be back in two hours.
Let me get this straight... they expected you to spend TWO HOURS working for them without compensation, and this was one of the BETTER interviews you've had???
Agreed, attempts to map IP addresses to geographical locations are so imprecise as to be largely useless. I don't know if it's still the case, but the last time a company I worked for attempted to do geotargeting by IP discovered that $SOME_HUGE percent of our users were all apparently living in Virginia. Turns out those users were all coming through an AOL traffic relay located there. They could have been anywhere in the country in reality.
If you want to find out where your site's users live, ask them! Set up a sweepstakes where they have to fill out a form giving their zipcode to be eligible to win. Divide your content into distinct sections by geographical region and see which ones your users visit most often.
They did the only excellent jaguar game
Jeff "Tempest 2000" Minter would like to have a word with you.
I wouldn't list "Virtual Boy" as a platform that you're able to play on your GC/PS2/modded Xbox combo, even if for some reason you WANTED to play exciting VB titles like Red Eyestrain.
Even apart from the inability to do true 3D, Virtual Boy emulation is not very advanced yet. Games run slowly with a lot of lag, and sound emulation is mostly unlistenable.
"Unskilled musician" yes. "Unskilled video editor" I think not.
"Unskilled musician" no.
"Unskilled performer" yes. "Unskilled composer" I think not.
The problem is the Wii is more novel than inovative.
Says you.
Both Sony and Microsoft can easily produce a competing controller which could devalue the Wii's uniqueness.
Not if a sheaf of Nintendo patents on the Wii control systems have anything to do with it.
Let's face it everyone likes the cutting edge graphics
Says you. What were the most popular games at the party I went to over the weekend? Nintendo Ice Hockey and Super Mario Bros 3, played on an NES bought nearly 20 years ago.
Everyone likes fun. Only some people care about cutting edge graphics.
They should have had many more units available for sale given they are using essentially the same hardware that was found in the gamecube.
That's true, except for the way that practically every single part of the system from the optical drive to the input devices to the casing to the mainboard to the CPU to the output port is an entirely different part on the Wii than it was on the Gamecube.
Um, I assume that the Gamecube controller and memory card ports on the Wii are the same. So you've got that at least.
I don't really think Craigslist is going to kill the whole industry, but it's certainly had a big effect on how newspapers will move into the 21st century.
And the newspapers have no one to blame for this but themselves. All Craig & co. did was identify a service that the newspaper classifieds industry was doing a poor job providing, and did it better.
Imagine if the newspaper companies had embraced the Internet and started offering free online classified ads ten years ago. There never would have been a Craigslist, and newspaper business would be booming.
my feeling and opinion is that Apple should have stuck with music overall instead of expanding into selling music videos, TV shows, and movies.
I could see how expanding the product line could cause a hit to Apple's profits on the iTunes Store -- the more varied the offerings, the more staff it takes to support them (maintaining media repositories, negotiating rights, etc.)
But why would that have a negative effect on gross revenue? Doesn't it seem self-evident that, all other things equal, offering more products would increase the potential number of purchases?
have you looked at the public domain roms made from scratch by people in their basements for earlier consoles like SNES, Genesis, and N64? THEY SUCK! Regular people aren't very good at console programming I guess.
Wait... you're surprised that a single hobbyist coder hacking in his spare time can't produce results comparable to a team of 6-20 game developers working full time on a project for several months? The hell you say.
If you need to reboot, you're rebooting for a reason - likely because something in that "50 to 75 MB" has changed.
Either that, or it's 6PM and you're done with work for the day and preparing to head home.
A lot of people still think of a computer as an appliance that should be turned off whenever not in use.
I think that's rubbish, there's no way a kid under the age of 15 would spot the danger of talking on a cellphone while driving unless it was explained to him/her by their parents
We're not discussing TALKING on a cellphone while driving, we're discussing THUMB-TYPING TEXT MESSAGES while driving. You don't have to have passed Driver'd Ed class to know "keep your eyes on the road" is an important part of safe driving.
As for the parents sneaking away during dinner to use their blackberry's.. hmm, a little childish (pun intended) for sure and clearly shows where their priorities are placed.
You may call it childish. The word I use for when a person compulsively engages in an activity to so extensively that they feel a need to hide their behavior from their family is ADDICTION.
[And how else] Is one going to put the trigger under the remote?
Put a trigger on the top of the device, then turn it upside-down?
On another note, I think the champaign was to attract chavs, which tend to spend money like drunken sailors because they are, unfortunately, usually drunk. What do they drink? Champaign.
I hear sometimes they drink Urbana, too.
Which other platform allows independent game developers to develop and distribute games designed for use with a large (25" and up) screen and two to four controllers?
Well, Xbox Live Arcade and Nintendo Virtual Console, for two...
And why not? What do most people use a PC for?
You answered "Internet, games, basic productivity, and multimedia" and I agree with you. However, most people already HAVE a PC with which they do those things, which doesn't give them much motivation to go out and buy a PS3 in order to keep doing them.
Yes, Linux on a new PS3 may even be a better computing experience than XP on a three-year-old Dell -- but it doesn't matter. Unless there's a compelling reason to switch, people will stick with what they're familiar with.
can't you see smart parents buying the kids a PS3 instead of an Xbox360 and a PC?
Just like the "smart" parents who bought their kids a Coleco ADAM (an earlier example of a game console that thought it was a home computer) instead of an Intellivision and an IBM XT? Sure, they saved money at the time, but how well did that work out in the long run?
Do you think it will still be $599 by next xmas?
I absolutely do. Look at the upper-tier Xbox 360 package; it was $400 at launch a year ago, it's still $400. They (both Microsoft and Sony) are going to keep those prices high until production costs come down and they're no longer selling them for a loss.
As long as it's still selling well (and for your scenario where Sony moves 10,000,000 PS3s by 2009, it HAS to sell well throughout 2007), there's no reason to drop the price.
Too bad I own a PS3.
Yeah, that is pretty bad. Sorry man.
Does it have a PS/2 Keybord/mouse port or a printer port?
Did it become 1998 again when I wasn't looking?
Here in the futuristic year of 2006, we use USB to attach keyboards, mouses, and printers to our computers.
Instantly a PS3 is a gaming rig, BlueRay player AND a fully functional PC, ready for web browsing, OO.o, etc.
Yes, a box with only 256MB of general-purpose RAM is IDEAL for web browsing, Open Office, etc.....
Given just a small push and penetration could easilly hit 50% of an installed base likely to number in the tens of millions within two to three years.
I don't know which claim is more unlikely... that PS3 Linux would be of interest to anywhere near 50% of PS3 owners, or that Sony will be able to sell tens of millions of PS3s in the next couple of years.
You are correct sir, finger slipped, and thanks for the correction.
Nintendo has promised that a new, more reliable finger-holster is already on its way to your home.