The Wii was released on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Everyone sold out. The stores around here received one more shipment, putting it out either Friday after Thanksgiving or waited for the following Sunday. So, that's either two or three days for sales in November. Pretty good to hit 500k. All the stores have been told they will have shipments each week as well. And there are five Sundays in December. So there's plenty of room to hit a million or more by the end of the year.
How about this for what a Tivo can't do: Convert your existing box to record HDTV by just buying a HDTV capture card and put it in the box. When you have a regular PC, everything is upgradeable. There isn't any waiting for a series n+1 to come out, buy it, convert your settings to it (can you even transfer season passes and all?).
Problems I've had with my MythTV setup have had minimal effect on my overall enjoyment. A PVR500 dual-tuner card crapped out, so I sent it back for RMA. I also had a PVR150 in there, so I went from 3 capture sources to 1 for a week. Another time the SVideo port went out on the video card. I went down to a 17" CRT for a couple days until I dug another old NVidia card out of my closet.
MythTV from the front may be more, but having to change out your unit every few years in order to get upgrades adds up as well.
I suppose for typical single-PC homes, the activation on hardware changes isn't a big deal. But I have a few PCs, and often try a device on a few of them when something appears broken. I recently bought a Hauppage PVR-500 for my KnoppMyth system. All the channels were incredibly fuzzy. Before I send it off for RMA, I wanted to make sure it wasn't just something goofy with that box. It is annoying/ridiculous to have to ask permission before checking that a card works in my Windows box. Especially when it'll be ripped out inside five minutes. Is another activation check kicked off when you remove a piece of hardware? Anyway, I do this sort of stuff often, comparing its native Windows drivers with what Linux drivers can give me.
He received an honorary phd (Fine Arts maybe?) from Sandburg College in Galesburg, Illinois this summer for giving the speech at their graduation ceremony.
Dude, you don't need the fancier PS3 to play a flash game! It's only $499 plus whatever it costs to buy online. OMG, tell me where to send it, I can't wait to have a Flash game on my TV!
It's really quite simple to figure out what things have their root cause as global warming. Take any issue. Append to it, "is the result of global warming." There, now you have the absolute inconvenient, anti-big corporation, truth!
Hurricanes? No hurricanes? Snow? No Snow? Taxes? Rutabagas? The noisy neighbor dog?
Global warming is everywhere!! Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh.
In a press release just issued by Microsoft, it was found that virus creators, spam bots, trojan password stealers, and other malware use several "move" commands in x86 assembly. To protect the home users from such malicious software, Microsoft will retroactivly remove the ability to execute these instructions from all computers running their software. MS Vice President of user security was quoted, "It's the only way to protect those unwilling to give us the appropriate amount of money for the luxury of using our... I mean, THEIR, computers."
Can you buy points directly from within the Wii, put in your credit card number and all? Or do you have to hit a store for the points cards and then redeem them on the Wii?
Why did Sony set a launch when they clearly can't keep up with demand? Do people want it more that they can't have it, and Joey down the block has one? Did they just want to avoid being third in released systems? Nintendo's clearly hurting now that their system was released last. But then, Xbox 360 was the same way. It wasn't in stores for what, a good six months after "launch?" At least then they were the only next-gen console around.
Nintendo seems to be the only one with the supply to meet the demand. Stores are receiving shipments every week. They have a good lineup of games, Zelda being rated very highly by everyone. Some of the PS3 games I've read about seem to just be prettier/high-defier versions of existing fps/racers/madden. Nothing new with them but the price tag.
And how about them developers? All the extra work in textures and such for the prettiest hi-def graphics. One article said it was in the $10+ million range to make a game. Then they only sell for $10 more than Nintendo Wii games. Companies have to sell massive numbers just to keep themselves even, which explains sticking with set genres. No chance for experimenting on new styles or anything with that huge a risk.
By the time there are enough PS3s for stores to have some on their shelves, Nintendo will already be hitting 10 million systems. Each of those will have perhaps 3-5 store-bought games, as well as some Virtual Console games. That's a big hole they have to dig out of.
As well there are X mouse and key clicker programs. I made a toy script back in the Everquest days to respond to "heal me" type phrases. The process list API stuff in Wine probably can't see what's going on in the Linux side. Hmm...
Does the classic controller work with Gamecube games? Or do you need both a classic and a Gamecube controller for the various Virtual Console and Gamecube games?
and the concept of a strategic project with payoffs in the decade range are like, totally too hard, dude.
Sounds just like the project to give Iraqi citizens more freedoms. If it can't be accomplished in a month or two, might as well give up. They'll never take to freedom/laptops. They've been warring/poor for thousands of years, you can't convince them there's anything else. It's costing us too much, we need to take care of our poor instead.
Eventually, it will pay off. But can we wait that long?
And I don't get why people keep complaining that this is a waste of money and they would rather use their money to help those people get food and other types of support.
Because it's always more fun to spend other people's money yourself. Why, I was just reading this web site that talks about these same sort of issues. Anything relating to space, wars, desktop environments, operating systems, video games and systems, etc all comes down to the same things, "Why do X when we should be feeding the poor in our own country? Damn that Bush!" In reality though (RL for your MMO folks) merely throwing endless amounts of money at any problem does not solve it, it just makes the problem "fixers" find new ways to request yet more money.
That's just how the market works. It's a gamble for the investor buying the tickets/video games. If he can unload them for a profit, yay. If he can't, he's screwed. With say, 100k?, PS3s out in the market right now, the few people desperate enough to pay $1000+ will buy theirs and the other 90k people have a big credit card bill next month. At least they could probably take the system back within 30 days and get a refund...
I doubt it, really. I have just a cheap NVidia 6200 in the Myth box. It only puts out X in 800x600 to the television (8 year old TV, not HDTV or anything fancy either).
I'd consider both lower-end setups compared to most people's gaming machines. But it's good enough to play for me. I need to finish getting the wireless lan in this laptop working so I can do a proper comparison on the same PC.
Yes, low RAM does suck in WoW. I upgraded this laptop to be 1.5GB, just to get it to be playable at all. The Windows performance is acceptable, I've played it like this for quite a while. I only recently found out how to turn on the FPS indicator and realized I was getting such low numbers... The laptop has an ATI 200M embedded video, while the other computer has a cheapo Nvidia 6200. I certainly don't have anything that can be classified "high end".
I read how great WoW plays with Wine (standard with a small patch for nvidia cards and a registry change for OpenGL, but it is not the commercial cedega). So I gave it a try on my KnoppMyth box (Athlon64 approx 1.8GHz), and it was pulling 50-60 fps spinning and running around Ironforge with all its billion people standing outside the Auctionhouse. Similarly, my Windows laptop (Athlon64 about 2.2GHz) gets 10 fps in the same situation, up to 20 running around the world with no people or anything complicated nearby. It's good enough to play, but it gets annoying in the big cities as the graphics lock up for a few seconds here and there.
After I was amazed at the performance difference, I was intending on getting my laptop up and running with Linux and just play it from there. WoW on the Myth box does slow down significantly when it is recording other shows, so it's not practical in the long-term.
If they're banning ya for getting better performance, that's sucky.
Also, there is something do be said of the depictions of sex and violence. Movies and games have the target of violent acts screaming, bleeding, etc. Even young kids know what pain is and can relate that it's not pleasurable to be shot/stabbed/etc. Most humans also have the ability to sympathize, so they don't go around killing everyone.
On the other hand, sex is most always depicted as quite pleasurable. Everything needed to get in on them happy feelings is already available to Jonny/Jane Teenager. Getting condoms/pills/etc takes an extra step, which they won't do if they are horny in the moment.
I don't know, but maybe, if you had every game console and huge numbers of all the biggest games shipped to your door for free, you'd be more inclined to go with the PS3 too. Them poor Wii SOBs need to get a job at a game magazine so they can afford a real machine.
it's more like a sleek, futuristic TV remote than the dual-analog-stick controllers we've become accustomed to.
and
Once the initial zeitgeist of waving your controller at goofy party games wears off, you'll probably start craving something more substantial.
Obviously, they don't want to have anything that is not the standard video game experience since the 2600. These authors blow off all of Nintendo's main points in producing this system, price, fun factor, new controller, going after the 99% of the population that isn't into "OMG! Boom Headshot!" FPS fragfest games.
Elsewhere on 1up, I read a story about the depth of the Zelda game. After ten hours the reviewer had a lot to more to go, and he didn't have carpal tunnel from using the remote. Every game isn't going to require you to be standing up, waving your arm all over the place, but smaller movements made sitting down comfortably.
Slashdot Mirror
No, the proper Slashdot Response is, "That word doesn't mean what you think it means."
The Wii was released on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Everyone sold out. The stores around here received one more shipment, putting it out either Friday after Thanksgiving or waited for the following Sunday. So, that's either two or three days for sales in November. Pretty good to hit 500k. All the stores have been told they will have shipments each week as well. And there are five Sundays in December. So there's plenty of room to hit a million or more by the end of the year.
How about this for what a Tivo can't do: Convert your existing box to record HDTV by just buying a HDTV capture card and put it in the box. When you have a regular PC, everything is upgradeable. There isn't any waiting for a series n+1 to come out, buy it, convert your settings to it (can you even transfer season passes and all?).
Problems I've had with my MythTV setup have had minimal effect on my overall enjoyment. A PVR500 dual-tuner card crapped out, so I sent it back for RMA. I also had a PVR150 in there, so I went from 3 capture sources to 1 for a week. Another time the SVideo port went out on the video card. I went down to a 17" CRT for a couple days until I dug another old NVidia card out of my closet.
MythTV from the front may be more, but having to change out your unit every few years in order to get upgrades adds up as well.
I suppose for typical single-PC homes, the activation on hardware changes isn't a big deal. But I have a few PCs, and often try a device on a few of them when something appears broken. I recently bought a Hauppage PVR-500 for my KnoppMyth system. All the channels were incredibly fuzzy. Before I send it off for RMA, I wanted to make sure it wasn't just something goofy with that box. It is annoying/ridiculous to have to ask permission before checking that a card works in my Windows box. Especially when it'll be ripped out inside five minutes. Is another activation check kicked off when you remove a piece of hardware? Anyway, I do this sort of stuff often, comparing its native Windows drivers with what Linux drivers can give me.
Snickers could outsell the PS3.
He received an honorary phd (Fine Arts maybe?) from Sandburg College in Galesburg, Illinois this summer for giving the speech at their graduation ceremony.
Dude, you don't need the fancier PS3 to play a flash game! It's only $499 plus whatever it costs to buy online. OMG, tell me where to send it, I can't wait to have a Flash game on my TV!
It's really quite simple to figure out what things have their root cause as global warming. Take any issue. Append to it, "is the result of global warming." There, now you have the absolute inconvenient, anti-big corporation, truth!
Hurricanes? No hurricanes? Snow? No Snow? Taxes? Rutabagas? The noisy neighbor dog?
Global warming is everywhere!! Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh.
We really gotta stop it or something. I'm serial!
In a press release just issued by Microsoft, it was found that virus creators, spam bots, trojan password stealers, and other malware use several "move" commands in x86 assembly. To protect the home users from such malicious software, Microsoft will retroactivly remove the ability to execute these instructions from all computers running their software. MS Vice President of user security was quoted, "It's the only way to protect those unwilling to give us the appropriate amount of money for the luxury of using our... I mean, THEIR, computers."
Can you buy points directly from within the Wii, put in your credit card number and all? Or do you have to hit a store for the points cards and then redeem them on the Wii?
Why did Sony set a launch when they clearly can't keep up with demand? Do people want it more that they can't have it, and Joey down the block has one? Did they just want to avoid being third in released systems? Nintendo's clearly hurting now that their system was released last. But then, Xbox 360 was the same way. It wasn't in stores for what, a good six months after "launch?" At least then they were the only next-gen console around.
Nintendo seems to be the only one with the supply to meet the demand. Stores are receiving shipments every week. They have a good lineup of games, Zelda being rated very highly by everyone. Some of the PS3 games I've read about seem to just be prettier/high-defier versions of existing fps/racers/madden. Nothing new with them but the price tag.
And how about them developers? All the extra work in textures and such for the prettiest hi-def graphics. One article said it was in the $10+ million range to make a game. Then they only sell for $10 more than Nintendo Wii games. Companies have to sell massive numbers just to keep themselves even, which explains sticking with set genres. No chance for experimenting on new styles or anything with that huge a risk.
By the time there are enough PS3s for stores to have some on their shelves, Nintendo will already be hitting 10 million systems. Each of those will have perhaps 3-5 store-bought games, as well as some Virtual Console games. That's a big hole they have to dig out of.
So, why did they launch prematurely?
As well there are X mouse and key clicker programs. I made a toy script back in the Everquest days to respond to "heal me" type phrases. The process list API stuff in Wine probably can't see what's going on in the Linux side. Hmm...
Does the classic controller work with Gamecube games? Or do you need both a classic and a Gamecube controller for the various Virtual Console and Gamecube games?
As we learned several weeks ago in Clinton's rant on Fox News Sunday, "at least I tried." That's what's important in the big picture.
and the concept of a strategic project with payoffs in the decade range are like, totally too hard, dude.
Sounds just like the project to give Iraqi citizens more freedoms. If it can't be accomplished in a month or two, might as well give up. They'll never take to freedom/laptops. They've been warring/poor for thousands of years, you can't convince them there's anything else. It's costing us too much, we need to take care of our poor instead.
Eventually, it will pay off. But can we wait that long?
And I don't get why people keep complaining that this is a waste of money and they would rather use their money to help those people get food and other types of support.
Because it's always more fun to spend other people's money yourself. Why, I was just reading this web site that talks about these same sort of issues. Anything relating to space, wars, desktop environments, operating systems, video games and systems, etc all comes down to the same things, "Why do X when we should be feeding the poor in our own country? Damn that Bush!" In reality though (RL for your MMO folks) merely throwing endless amounts of money at any problem does not solve it, it just makes the problem "fixers" find new ways to request yet more money.
The only way to protect yourself from the future is to stop wear pants!!! NOW!!! ... theoretically at least. I read it somewhere I think.
That's just how the market works. It's a gamble for the investor buying the tickets/video games. If he can unload them for a profit, yay. If he can't, he's screwed. With say, 100k?, PS3s out in the market right now, the few people desperate enough to pay $1000+ will buy theirs and the other 90k people have a big credit card bill next month. At least they could probably take the system back within 30 days and get a refund...
WTF!!? I read that whole link and don't see anywhere in there about how to get my Free Wii. Don't post such lies anymore.
I doubt it, really. I have just a cheap NVidia 6200 in the Myth box. It only puts out X in 800x600 to the television (8 year old TV, not HDTV or anything fancy either).
I'd consider both lower-end setups compared to most people's gaming machines. But it's good enough to play for me. I need to finish getting the wireless lan in this laptop working so I can do a proper comparison on the same PC.
Yes, low RAM does suck in WoW. I upgraded this laptop to be 1.5GB, just to get it to be playable at all. The Windows performance is acceptable, I've played it like this for quite a while. I only recently found out how to turn on the FPS indicator and realized I was getting such low numbers... The laptop has an ATI 200M embedded video, while the other computer has a cheapo Nvidia 6200. I certainly don't have anything that can be classified "high end".
I read how great WoW plays with Wine (standard with a small patch for nvidia cards and a registry change for OpenGL, but it is not the commercial cedega). So I gave it a try on my KnoppMyth box (Athlon64 approx 1.8GHz), and it was pulling 50-60 fps spinning and running around Ironforge with all its billion people standing outside the Auctionhouse. Similarly, my Windows laptop (Athlon64 about 2.2GHz) gets 10 fps in the same situation, up to 20 running around the world with no people or anything complicated nearby. It's good enough to play, but it gets annoying in the big cities as the graphics lock up for a few seconds here and there.
After I was amazed at the performance difference, I was intending on getting my laptop up and running with Linux and just play it from there. WoW on the Myth box does slow down significantly when it is recording other shows, so it's not practical in the long-term.
If they're banning ya for getting better performance, that's sucky.
Also, there is something do be said of the depictions of sex and violence. Movies and games have the target of violent acts screaming, bleeding, etc. Even young kids know what pain is and can relate that it's not pleasurable to be shot/stabbed/etc. Most humans also have the ability to sympathize, so they don't go around killing everyone.
On the other hand, sex is most always depicted as quite pleasurable. Everything needed to get in on them happy feelings is already available to Jonny/Jane Teenager. Getting condoms/pills/etc takes an extra step, which they won't do if they are horny in the moment.
and
Obviously, they don't want to have anything that is not the standard video game experience since the 2600. These authors blow off all of Nintendo's main points in producing this system, price, fun factor, new controller, going after the 99% of the population that isn't into "OMG! Boom Headshot!" FPS fragfest games.
Elsewhere on 1up, I read a story about the depth of the Zelda game. After ten hours the reviewer had a lot to more to go, and he didn't have carpal tunnel from using the remote. Every game isn't going to require you to be standing up, waving your arm all over the place, but smaller movements made sitting down comfortably.