A lot of comments of VR, so I'll add mine. To me, this is one of the biggest mis-steps of the arcade industry. I remember when VR had it's first outing. It was a minumum of $5 to play, the graphics were primitive at best, at playing was charged by the minute. Yet still, it was something I could not get at home and I spent a good chunk of cash there. It's *still* something I can't get at home. However, you can't use the same arcade game for 5 years, and you can't use the same VR setup that long either. It's time to up the ante.
I've looked at the pricing on some enterprise-level VR companies. Even for extremely good setups, they are not that bad for any reasonable business to afford.
Arcade Owner:Don't buy 5 more craptastic games, buy one VR setup. Graphics power these days could make some extremely visual and exciting VR games.
Arcade Developer:Spend some time, do some research, the potential is there, huge, and untapped.
So let's say this new add-on is external. What if MS decided to make an HD-DVD stand alone player, that *could* be controlled by the 360? So on it's own, it would be a perfectly functioning DVD player, but could also be connected to the 360 (via some high speed type of bus like usb2/firewire), thus allowing no 'remote hell'. If you price it reasonably, it could be the solution to a problem that no one has yet solved: proper interoperability.
If they really wanted to go out on a limb, MS would open up the standard for the control and video protocol, and allow PS3 owners to purchase an XBox 360 HD-DVD add-on. Wouldn't MS grin if every Blu-ray equipped PS3 had an MS HD-DVD addon?
I've liked all three shows in their time, Family Guy, Futurama and the Simpson. Even King of the Hill has some great moments. However, it's Family Guy I just don't get the fan following for. The formula is so tried that the jokes have to be extremely funny not to make me wince.
My biggest problem is the bad comedy writing. MacFarlane's idea of a seguay(sp?) is to say "this is better than the time..." and queue random nonsensical joke skit. Do the "almost like that time.." thing 500000 more times in one minute. God I hate that bit. It's just a way to have an in-show skit without doing proper writing to make it actually funny.
Writing this post makes me remember the time I asked to borrow Kate Moss' new Motorola RAZR phone. >
See people? The joke is funny, the rest of it isn't.
I'm close to Deptford, NJ. Just about 15 minutes away. There's a mall there, and the associated stores. Come on down. Buy 20 or so, then we can start saying they're out of stock again.
I've been to the malls and such every day this week, and a couple last week (but I'm definetly out before 9 a.m.) I've seen XBox360s everywhere. I went to Toy's R Us this morning for nephew gifts, and lo and behold, there were about 6 of each SKU on the shelf, just sitting there. I've seen them in Kay Bee, EB and god knows where else, I stopped noticing.
I don't want one right now, but I can't understand why I keep hearing about the shortage continuing. I could easily buy 20 right now if I had the cash.
Now we encourage them to raise prices. Lovely. Why not just add in machine-specific DRM so each game only plays on one particular consoe? According to the article, people are going to buy the damn thing right now anway.
I understand the economic logic behind his thinking. However, when you obviously ass-rape your most-dedicated customers (by pricing at $700 for the core bundle, as the article suggests) perhaps they won't like you much tommorrow? Just a thought.
All true, but it need not end there. If MS were to release an HD-DVD 360 they could still just use it as an added multimedia feature. No games would be HD-DVD (so as not to split camps as you say) but you could still play your shiny new DVDs. I think it's a no-brainer there will be an HD-DVD 360 in the future. It won't be something necessary or even desirable until we at least start seeing more market support for HD-DVD in late '06.
Like my sibling poster commented, your passenger reacts to your environment as you do. However, another important problem is the communication itself. Depending on who you talk to, most communication is 20-30% nonverbal. When you talk on the phone, you try to make up for this with more words and different inflections. Essentially, you try to make up for the lack of a face and hands by variations of voice.
Don't believe me? The next time you're talking with a friend, just tell them "bye" in the middle of a conversation, wave and walk away. They'll be a bit miffed/confused, but with the wave and you moving away they get the idea, especially if you have a stern look on your face implying anger. Contrast this to phone conversations. How many times have you said "bye" to each other on the same phone conversation, waiting for someone to hang up first?
For this Joe Consumer, it's just money. I just don't see the value of a 50-60 dollar game. Don't get me wrong, I've done it, and games are my number one past time. However, I'd rather buy five year-old games at $15 a pop then one game (that may or may or may not be good) at $49.99.
Give me a 15 hour game at twenty bucks and I'm good. If you gain a good rep with me, I'll buy your 40 hour 49.99 game (Looking at you, my delicious PSP GTA:LCS).
Actually, I didn't notice that link until days after I changed my sig, which was months ago. After I noticed it, I kind of liked it pointing to everyone's own fans better.:)
Don't forget a lot of that 'exclusive contract money' is an intentional offset to potential lost sales. GTA3 could easily have been offered on both the Cube and XBox. Since it was a PS2 exclusive, Rockstar *couldn't* sell the game on those other platforms, and as such, may have lost profits as a result.
I'll give you credit for nostalgia, but I'm really hoping you are being funny. Yes, I drew maps. *Tons* of maps, in my youth. I even had most of my text adventures mapped out. It all has to do with time. When you're young, there's too damn much of it. I could not imagine now coming up with a map scheme and legend for a game. Just give me the damn map, (only the explored sections) and I'll be happy.
If you really were serious, however, you can change the map to a status display with a touch of the select button. Then you and your pencil can get back to your good 'ol days.
I've been working on this idea myself. I'll have to try clicking blindly and see if the inputs are accepted. The real trick though, is getting myth to accept commands from another screen. I'm thinking I can send signals to lirc which will then send them to myth.
The problem is, say your touch screen has big huge play/rewind buttons. While your playing a video, how do you send those keystrokes to myth? When the menu's come up, do you display everything on one screen and mirror? I haven't found a solution yet.
The funnier part is that when photography was invented, that's when the best art done by painters started to reveal itself. Before the camera, painters kept trying to accurately portray life. Once it was shown that the camera could do this easier, quicker and more accurately than painting, then artists had new ideas that could not be done with a camera (cubism anyone?)
I keep hoping that the same thing happens with games. We keep pushing graphics to reach photorealism, on all game consoles. Once all the manufacturers reach that goal, there will be nothing to distinguish them as there is only one way to be photorealistic, and the time for innovation will finally begin.
I'd love to call you a grammer nazi but unfortunately you are 100% correct. However, the connotation of "begging the question" has come to mean something entirely different than it's denotation, and their really isn't anything that can be done about it.
Slashdot Mirror
It's been around a while, and I've found Google SMS to be both intuitive and useful at time. But hey, that's just me.
A lot of comments of VR, so I'll add mine. To me, this is one of the biggest mis-steps of the arcade industry. I remember when VR had it's first outing. It was a minumum of $5 to play, the graphics were primitive at best, at playing was charged by the minute. Yet still, it was something I could not get at home and I spent a good chunk of cash there. It's *still* something I can't get at home. However, you can't use the same arcade game for 5 years, and you can't use the same VR setup that long either. It's time to up the ante.
I've looked at the pricing on some enterprise-level VR companies. Even for extremely good setups, they are not that bad for any reasonable business to afford.
Arcade Owner:Don't buy 5 more craptastic games, buy one VR setup. Graphics power these days could make some extremely visual and exciting VR games.
Arcade Developer:Spend some time, do some research, the potential is there, huge, and untapped.
So let's say this new add-on is external. What if MS decided to make an HD-DVD stand alone player, that *could* be controlled by the 360? So on it's own, it would be a perfectly functioning DVD player, but could also be connected to the 360 (via some high speed type of bus like usb2/firewire), thus allowing no 'remote hell'. If you price it reasonably, it could be the solution to a problem that no one has yet solved: proper interoperability.
If they really wanted to go out on a limb, MS would open up the standard for the control and video protocol, and allow PS3 owners to purchase an XBox 360 HD-DVD add-on. Wouldn't MS grin if every Blu-ray equipped PS3 had an MS HD-DVD addon?
Just a thought.
I've liked all three shows in their time, Family Guy, Futurama and the Simpson. Even King of the Hill has some great moments. However, it's Family Guy I just don't get the fan following for. The formula is so tried that the jokes have to be extremely funny not to make me wince.
My biggest problem is the bad comedy writing. MacFarlane's idea of a seguay(sp?) is to say "this is better than the time..." and queue random nonsensical joke skit. Do the "almost like that time.." thing 500000 more times in one minute. God I hate that bit. It's just a way to have an in-show skit without doing proper writing to make it actually funny.
Writing this post makes me remember the time I asked to borrow Kate Moss' new Motorola RAZR phone. >
See people? The joke is funny, the rest of it isn't.
Now, if you read through to this point, flame on.
I'm close to Deptford, NJ. Just about 15 minutes away. There's a mall there, and the associated stores. Come on down. Buy 20 or so, then we can start saying they're out of stock again.
I've been to the malls and such every day this week, and a couple last week (but I'm definetly out before 9 a.m.) I've seen XBox360s everywhere. I went to Toy's R Us this morning for nephew gifts, and lo and behold, there were about 6 of each SKU on the shelf, just sitting there. I've seen them in Kay Bee, EB and god knows where else, I stopped noticing.
I don't want one right now, but I can't understand why I keep hearing about the shortage continuing. I could easily buy 20 right now if I had the cash.
Damn you and your logic. Of course people wouldn't do anything irrational like that. I guess it was a silly idea.
Most people are generally intelligent. No way could they be easily duped.
That sounds like a plan. I like it. Anyone see any problems with this? Hard though I may try, that sounds ridiculously reasonable.
Now we encourage them to raise prices. Lovely. Why not just add in machine-specific DRM so each game only plays on one particular consoe? According to the article, people are going to buy the damn thing right now anway.
I understand the economic logic behind his thinking. However, when you obviously ass-rape your most-dedicated customers (by pricing at $700 for the core bundle, as the article suggests) perhaps they won't like you much tommorrow? Just a thought.
All true, but it need not end there. If MS were to release an HD-DVD 360 they could still just use it as an added multimedia feature. No games would be HD-DVD (so as not to split camps as you say) but you could still play your shiny new DVDs. I think it's a no-brainer there will be an HD-DVD 360 in the future. It won't be something necessary or even desirable until we at least start seeing more market support for HD-DVD in late '06.
Hooold on. Wasn't Sam and Max cancelled? Oh no wait, it's apparently resurrected. I don't know, maybe it's still cancelled . I'm so confused.
Um, hooray?
I gotcha, was just feeling funny that day. My humor got my modded troll though, so that's karma for ya. :)
Or maybe even a SPELL CHECKER to make sure that at least words TYPED IN ALL CAPS or BOLDED WITH HYPERLINKS are spelled right.
Man. I can't wait till we do product placement for Speak and Spells.
Aren't you getting alittle too upset about it?
Would this be a bad time to mention certain ebay auctions by incredibly reputable individuals which contain said game?
Alright so I'm hard up for cash and want my games to get a good home. Mod me down then (but take a look anyway!)
-5 Painfully Obvious
Like my sibling poster commented, your passenger reacts to your environment as you do. However, another important problem is the communication itself. Depending on who you talk to, most communication is 20-30% nonverbal. When you talk on the phone, you try to make up for this with more words and different inflections. Essentially, you try to make up for the lack of a face and hands by variations of voice.
Don't believe me? The next time you're talking with a friend, just tell them "bye" in the middle of a conversation, wave and walk away. They'll be a bit miffed/confused, but with the wave and you moving away they get the idea, especially if you have a stern look on your face implying anger. Contrast this to phone conversations. How many times have you said "bye" to each other on the same phone conversation, waiting for someone to hang up first?
For this Joe Consumer, it's just money. I just don't see the value of a 50-60 dollar game. Don't get me wrong, I've done it, and games are my number one past time. However, I'd rather buy five year-old games at $15 a pop then one game (that may or may or may not be good) at $49.99.
Give me a 15 hour game at twenty bucks and I'm good. If you gain a good rep with me, I'll buy your 40 hour 49.99 game (Looking at you, my delicious PSP GTA:LCS).
Actually, I didn't notice that link until days after I changed my sig, which was months ago. After I noticed it, I kind of liked it pointing to everyone's own fans better. :)
Don't forget a lot of that 'exclusive contract money' is an intentional offset to potential lost sales. GTA3 could easily have been offered on both the Cube and XBox. Since it was a PS2 exclusive, Rockstar *couldn't* sell the game on those other platforms, and as such, may have lost profits as a result.
Barrump-bump!
That one took me a second to get. Kudos.
I'll give you credit for nostalgia, but I'm really hoping you are being funny. Yes, I drew maps. *Tons* of maps, in my youth. I even had most of my text adventures mapped out. It all has to do with time. When you're young, there's too damn much of it. I could not imagine now coming up with a map scheme and legend for a game. Just give me the damn map, (only the explored sections) and I'll be happy.
If you really were serious, however, you can change the map to a status display with a touch of the select button. Then you and your pencil can get back to your good 'ol days.
I've been working on this idea myself. I'll have to try clicking blindly and see if the inputs are accepted. The real trick though, is getting myth to accept commands from another screen. I'm thinking I can send signals to lirc which will then send them to myth.
The problem is, say your touch screen has big huge play/rewind buttons. While your playing a video, how do you send those keystrokes to myth? When the menu's come up, do you display everything on one screen and mirror? I haven't found a solution yet.
The funnier part is that when photography was invented, that's when the best art done by painters started to reveal itself. Before the camera, painters kept trying to accurately portray life. Once it was shown that the camera could do this easier, quicker and more accurately than painting, then artists had new ideas that could not be done with a camera (cubism anyone?)
I keep hoping that the same thing happens with games. We keep pushing graphics to reach photorealism, on all game consoles. Once all the manufacturers reach that goal, there will be nothing to distinguish them as there is only one way to be photorealistic, and the time for innovation will finally begin.
I'd love to call you a grammer nazi but unfortunately you are 100% correct. However, the connotation of "begging the question" has come to mean something entirely different than it's denotation, and their really isn't anything that can be done about it.