The thing, particularly with Shrek, even though he's computer-rendered, he's not realistic. He's as stylized as any hand-drawn animation. The same thing goes for most of Pixar's films: fish do not, generally speaking, look like the anthropomorphic cuteness in "Finding Nemo." And insects, to most people, aren't as cuddly as the characters from "A Bug's Life."
I don't think the issue here is computer animation: the question is sparked by the ability of computer animation to produce photorealistic human graphics, but that's not an inherent quality of the format (a camera can shoot portraits, but doesn't need to...). Furthermore, the problem isn't that we need "better graphics card." If anything, the problem is that our current graphics cards are almost too good.
Some of this may be ameliorated by improvements in technology, assuming we can get to the point where there really is no easily discernable discrepancy between rendered graphics and photography. But, to some extent, it may always be there. It's really more of a psychology issue than a technology one...
In his treatise on the comic book medium, "Understanding Comics," writer/artist Scott McCloud commented on what's basically the same phenomenon. For the purposes of the book, which was done in comic style, the host was a very stylized/simplified caricature of McCloud himself. In describing the reasons behind such stylization, he comments on how it forces the reader to move beyond surface characteristics, and focus on the message being portrayed. In other words, it's a artistic trick to keep the reader focus on the substance, not the style.
This article kind of reminded me of that. Particularly considering that, in most video games, too much detail can distract from the specific goals of the game. The point is not to achieve artistic realism: you're not producing a travelogue, you're playing a game. In particular, stylized characters allow us to identify more closely with the figure, as we read our own preconceptions into the "gaps" in the portrayal, which is arguably even more important in video games than it is in comics, given that you're more likely given the role of the video game character to play than the comic book figure.
Within reason, of course. Striking the balance between total simplicity (say, a stick figure, or a dot) and abject photorealism is probably the trickiest part of the whole bargain....
The Ogg Vorbis QT plugin has improved noticably with the most recent version. When I first tried it out, the delay in switching formats was such that it was basically unusable on a regular basis. The newest version, however, seems to work without any noticable lag at all on my Athlon XP 2200+. I can't speak for slower processors/other systems, but I was impressed enough that I actually imported my Ogg collection into my iTunes library for the first time. Truly a classy piece of work. Now if we could only get the iPod to support it, I might actually be able to justify buying one....
Except that, of course, we're not dealing with CD quality rips. AAC is not lossless, so the best you can get, burning a CD from iTunes purchase music, is quality roughly identical to the original, lossy file. Which, yes, is usually pretty good.
But ripping from that CD is functionally identical to taking the original AAC file and directly reencoding it to another format. Even my tin ears can detect quality loss a fair percentage of the time. For people who really care about archiving their music, and for true audiophiles, the trade-off is often unacceptable.
In what way was, say, "Wind Waker" a radically different game playing experience than, say, "Ocarina of Time"? The major changes were cosmetic.
We're talking about Nintendo, a company that made sales dynamite by repackaging Pokemon five or six times. They best they generally do is evolution: "Metroid Prime" was an effective transfer of traditional Metroid gameplay to the different gameplay styles of full 3D. "Ocarina of Time" performed similar tweaks to bring the Zelda formula to the 3D generation. The changes between each Mario Kart game tend to be minor, and generally follow the leads of others (someone else mentioned "Circus Maximus"). They stick with what works, and they do it well, but they hardly shake the world with innovation.
Here's the simple fact: one of the biggest name games announced for the upcoming DS is openly a remake. Touchscreen or no, it's unlikely "Mario 64x4" is going to be radically different than its N64 counterpart, and the 4-player team aspect itself is hardly revolutionary for Nintendo (it's been one of the favorite ideas since back when "Super Smash Bros." premiered for the N64). Will it be a good game? Probably. Will it be revolutionary? Of course not. I don't think even Nintendo is claiming that.
And, just to be clear, I've owned every game system Nintendo has ever put out, going back to the NES in 1985, and including even the fairly obscure, like the Virtual Boy. I'm an avid fan of both the Mario, Metroid, and Zelda series, and, despite the fact that I have more games for my PS2, I probably log more playing time for my GameCube. But let's be honest with ourselves and call a spade a spade: the most innovative game I've played for the GameCube in the past two years or so was "Viewtiful Joe," and that was a third-party title. Nintendo's reputation for innovation is both ill-deserved, and unfairly detracts from the things that Nintendo does do very well (namely, polish existing concepts).
A lot of the popularity of the Dragon Quest series in Japan has little directly to do with the quality of the games: DQ7 had... uneven reviews even in Japan, and when magazines like Famitsu run surveys asking gamers what upcoming games they're most interested in, or whatever, the Final Fantasy series often trumps the Dragon Quest series. The thing is that Dragon Quest was the first significant console-based RPG to hit it big, and it has brand recognition to die for. It's ubiquitous, and a part of the Japanese cultural landscape.
That success, of course, does not translate well to American shores, where, if anything, Final Fantasy is the better known brand (though it doesn't approach the status of DQ in Japan), and the established history of the DQ franchise is rather less impressive. Indeed, with the generally static nature of the DQ games, it seems unlikely that they will ever find much more than a niche audience outside of Japan.
Square, basically since they started publishing for the PSX, has localized almost every title they've produced. The only major exceptions that spring to mind are "Tobal 2" (which was Sony's decision, not Square's), "Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon" (though it's sequel did get translated) and games for systems which have failed to materialize in America, like the four FF remakes and the Romancing SaGa remake for the WonderSwan Color.
And, being fair to Enix, they've been equally diligent, after a somewhat slower start: they didn't get a real US publishing arm until relatively late in the PSX lifecycle, and relied on SCEA to publish their games, but even then, most of their major titles ("Star Ocean 2," "Dragon Quest VII," as well as several GBA and N64 games) did get localized. In the case of a game like the DQ5 remake, which is hotly anticipated by many enthusiasts, and, in light of the earlier DQ4 fiasco, I think it's a reasonable bet that it will get a US release. It's just not going to be a major, hyped release, which isn't really surprising.
The problem is that most programmers aren't willing to work for free, and that, without solid documentation to work from, we'd be looking at a pretty hefty amount of time just deconstructing and reverse engineering the core of the game, let alone the time actually necessary to localize the thing. The amount of money Enix would have had to have poured into the game to get it ready for US release simply could not have been recouped.
I also wouldn't wait for a PSP port, for that matter: the problems with the original developers are going to apply just as much to any attempt to port the game, and, even with the similar system specs between the PSX and PSP, it'd probably be more effort than would be worth it. Plus, there might yet be certain copyright issues involved. If we do eventually see a remake of DQ4 in America, I'd wager it won't be based on the PSX release. But I suppose there's no reason Square Enix couldn't go back and start over with a new remake, should they be so inclined.
Eh. The name sells. If that sort of sell out is neccessary to allow these folks the freedom to make the games they wanna make, then I'm fine with it. And, save for the copyrighted bits (chocobos), the description you just gave can be reasonably extrapolated to apply to 90% of all role-playing games out there, and a good chunk of adventure games, too.
I wouldn't mind, however, them dropping the numbering in favor of new titles (a la "Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles" or whatever). When you get right down to it, a more than fair number of series are into the double digits these days: Castlevania, Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc. The only real difference between these series and Square's flagship seems to be that most of these series gave up linear numbering systems years ago: the newest Castlevania game isn't Castlevania 12, nor is latest Mario game Super Mario Brothers 27 (or whatever). Final Fantasy, despite having arguably less connection between installments than many of those series I've just listed, seems to get made fun of simply because they have stuck by their initial numbering scheme through thick and thin. Which, to my mind, seems perfectly reasonable: if nothing else, it makes it easier to follow the progression. But I question how much of this derision Square Enix would gain if, say, "Final Fantasy X" had been entitled, say, "Final Fantasy: Advent of Sin" (or whatever... I freely admit I'm not a marketing guru):-)
I think Enix is generally committed to localizing their games for American audiences, the DQ4 remake being a bit of a unfortunate fluke. It's not a foregone conclusion, but I think there's probably a >50% chance we'll get the DQ5 remake, especially given that Enix seems truly penitent over the DQ4 fiasco.
(For those who don't know, the reason the DQ4 PSX remake was never localized had to do with the way Enix traditionally does business: independent developers develop/code the games, and Enix acts pretty much exclusively as a distributor, even if the game being produced is an Enix property, like Dragon Quest. In the case of DQ4, the company that produced the Japanese game up and left Enix shortly after the game was released in Japan, and Enix didn't have the technical documentation/know-how to pick up their work and make the modifications neccessary to translate the game in a economical and/or timely manner. Such is business, I suppose...)
Given that Sony hasn't announced a US price for the PSP yet, it's kind of premature to announce that the DS "is over $100 cheaper." Just a lot of scaremongering at this point. Yeah, the Japanese price (which has been announced) is on the high end of things, but that's hardly unusual for the Japanese market, where these things always sell for more. I personally doubt Sony will go much over $200, if they even go that high, given that they know exactly what kind of competition they're likely to be facing from Nintendo.
Speaking as a owner of a GameCube, I'm not sure I'd make the potentiality of a DS Player along the lines of the GBA Player a major reason for buying one. Other than the technical issue of how Nintendo would make the dual screens (one of which is a touchscreen, something noticably deficient from most television sets) work, even if Nintendo did eventually release one, it would probably be, at minimum, a year or so after the release of the DS itself, since an earlier release would probably lead to Nintendo dividing its own market. Besides, the supposed draw of the DS is that its supposed to be able to do things that existing game systems cannot. If we do see a DS Player, it seems more likely that it would be for whatever Nintendo has lined up as the GameCube's console successor.
But, yeah, the new Zelda game looks damn nice...:-)
Actually, I think both Apple and Nintendo succeed with blithering, rabid fanboys who'll drool eagerly over anything emanating from the general vicinity of their respective corporate offices....
Which is cool and all. And Nintendo puts out quality products (if they didn't, they likely wouldn't have aforementioned rabid fanbase). But, having played and owning both the PS2 and GameCube, I think it's a bit disingenious to suggest that Sony can't do innovation (or, for that matter, that Nintendo can't do volume: case-in-point, the GBA).
Plus, just as a completely personal observation, I've tended to see more of what I would call truly innovative games for the PS2 than the GameCube, but I can't tell if that's simply because I tend to see more games, period, for the PS2. For my record, it's not innovation, per se, that's Nintendo's strongest point, so much as, like Apple, an ability to produce a good solid product, even if it's not the most overwhelmingly original thing on the market. Which is just as important, I should think.
The thing is, Square generally does inject originality into each installment of the Final Fantasy series. Pretty much every game uses noticably different game mechanics, different characters, storyline, etc. The innovations aren't earth-shattering, but they are there.
What Nintendo has, basically, promised at this point are rehashes. A remake of Mario 64, another Mario Kart game (a series which hasn't really changed since the SNES games), and a few things that seem to be functionally to expansion packs to existing titles. Even the Zelda game, which, don't get me wrong, has me drooling, probably isn't going to differ dramatically from earlier entrants in that series, as few Zelda games ever do.
Then again, I don't blame Nintendo, really. Super Mario Sunshine tried some new things with the Mario series, and that game was greeted with overwhelming antipathy from a public that seemed, basically, to want a clone of Mario 64. But, with the exception of Animal Crossing, I'd like to see some more truly unique games getting the sort of press that, say, greets the latest Mario game repackaging....
To be fair, most branch libraries have seperate terminals for "normal" internet usage (chat, email, web browsing, etc.), and catalog browsing (basically, a firewalled machine that allows access only to the online catalog). There are almost always catalog terminals available, and, if one isn't, the turnover is fairly quick.
The reason we've abandoned traditional card catalog systems is purely practical: if we were stuck using physical records, it would make it prohibitively difficult to, say, update records, or allow returns to any branch library, and we'd lose the benefits of the online database (such as being able to tell if a book is currently checked in, or being able to place holds for checked out materials). There are problems, but, by and large, its a preferable system, IMO....
Kind of a specious argument, though. The basic failure of early CD-based consoles was hardly a limitation of the medium: the failure of early CD-ROM based games (and CD-based systems) was, even at the time, attributed to the kind of games being produced: poorly-compressed video adventures, with little real player interaction, etc.
But the fact remains that some of Nintendo's most loyal developers (including Square, Capcom, and Konami) were actively gunning for, and expecting, a CD-based system, and it was at least partially the fault of Nintendo's decision to back go with their proprietary cartridge format that many of these developers left Nintendo entirely, or started reaching out to other console manufacturers who were more receptive to their wishes.
Every significant account of Nintendo's internal politics at the time lends credence to the idea that the public line, that Nintendo felt the cartridge was the superior format, was nonsense. Nintendo's decision was borne, more than anything else, out of the fallout from their tangle with, and the bad aftermath of, both Philips and Sony over the abortive SNES CD add-on, and of a purely monetary decision to have a locked-down format.
The Nintendo 64, thusly, wound up being not only a disaster for Nintendo, that ultimately ceded Nintendo's number one position in the console wars, but one that was fairly easy to predict, and could have been easily prevented had Nintendo not dropped the ball so badly. They soured their relationship with Sony, which lead to the creation of the Playstation as a competitor to, rather than an extension of, Nintendo's own hardware, and further soured their relationships with their own software developers. It's a policy that Nintendo, to some extent, continues to this day, and has been evident in all things from their (since abandoned, IIRC) policy of not allowing third parties to develop for the GBA without also developing for the GameCube, and in the choice of media for the GameCube itself.
Which, again, is fine. As negative as I sound, there are benefits to Nintendo's positions, since it can allow for tighter quality control and more reliable products. But it's not the kind of policy that makes an industry leader. As long as they continue down that path, they will likely be outmanuevered, in sheer numbers, by their competitors. But, then again, if they can maintain a small but solid core of people who are attracted to Nintendo for these very reasons, then they can most likely find a big enough niche to survive happily in. Again, this is roughly similar to way Apple operates nowadays, and there's not really anything wrong with this approach.
The other similarity is, of course, that both Apple and Nintendo have a tendency to dig their own graves. Both stick to their own proprietary, tightly controlled hardware, which tends to both alienate developers and drive up costs. Nintendo stuck with the cartridge format after everyone else had abandoned it not because they felt it was inherently superior, but because they had better control over production. Similarly, they went with their weird little mini-DVD format for the GameCube for similar reasons.
Both also have a history of some bad management decisions: Apple's long slide into near-irrelevance in the early 1990s (finally turned around by the iMac), and Nintendo's flurry of poor decisions towards the end of the SNES's lifespan, delaying the release of the N64, sticking with an unpopular format, alienating their developers, etc. Both also get a lot of credit for "innovation" that is probably not wholly deserved: they do things well, but they borrow/appropriate/steal just as many ideas as their competition does.
Of course, both maintain a solid core of hardcore, even rabid, fanboys, and both, to their credit, have a solid core of capable first-party programmers and developers, which allows them to survive, to some extent, even with third-party groups shun them. Perhaps most interesting, while both Apple and Nintendo have have lost their once-dominance in their initial markets (personal computers and video game consoles, respectively), both managed to find a degree of salvation in the handheld field, probably (and I'm just speculating here) because their own preferences for tightly-controlled hardware and development is nowadays more suited for handheld electronics like the GBA and the iPod than for larger devices, where there tends to be a traditional push for open standards (within reason).
None of which is an attack on either company: I quite like both my iPod and my GBA SP, and have a long and generally happy history with products from both. But over the years I've become increasingly convinced that neither seems poised to slip out of their current role as solid and reliable niche player in the market, without a massive change in corporate philosophy. They're likely not going to go away, but they won't be the dominant players they once were.
My major problem with the GBASP method of having an internal rechargable battery is that it tends to pose some annoying problems. If there's a power outage, or if I'm on a long car/plane/train ride, or for some other reason my ability to stick the thing into a wall socket is impaired, I have no way to power the device should its internal battery be drained. Granted, the internal battery does have certain advantages (cheaper in the long run), but I still wish the system could accept regular AA batteries as a fallback option, even if it would neccessitate a larger case. Then again, I'm one of those folks who never really found anything particularly endearing about making electronic equipment so tiny that it runs the risk of falling out of one's pocket....:-)
That said, with the sort of gizmos and processing power Nintendo seems to want to pack into this DS, I think it's very possible that conventional AA batteries wouldn't be able to keep the thing running for any significant length of time....
I work part-time in the Montgomery County, MD public library system, and we've had internet access for some years now. In order to ensure that everyone gets equal access to the terminals, we do have a sign up process (which is currently in the process of being automated using library card information and session management software, but until that process is complete is done with old-fashioned pen and paper), but no records are kept: we hold onto the sign-up sheets only until the end of the day they are initially filled out, and then they are trashed, for privacy concerns. Similarly, all records of what any individual may have done while using the machines (browser history, cookies, etc.) are deleted upon logout.
As of now, we don't keep track of who was on what machine at any given time, to some extent because we can't: we have a very limited-access guest account (which allows for browser usage, access to a word processor, and not much else) that is used for all patrons. I'm not sure how the upcoming session management software will change this, but there have been ongoing discussions about potential privacy concerns (which, in my experience, libraries take very, very seriously).
As for the card catalogs, they work much the same way as the internet terminals do now: limited guest account for all patrons (which in this case allows only for access to the catalog, and not the broader internet). However, there are none of the usage restrictions that the internet machines have, where we limit patrons to one hour a day, and require a sign-up system.
Hotline, as nice as it is, is hardly a P2P application. Unless things have changed mightily since I last used it, a Hotline server is still hosted from a single machine, which handles the entirety of the load, a la FTP, HTML, or any number of other protocols.
Of course, using the media-sanctioned, RIAA-approved definition of "P2P" ("something that allows you to steal from us"), then, yeah, I guess Hotline qualifies. But from a practical perspective, wherein the phrase "P2P" means something, it's not.
Buying based strictly on gigs/$ seems suspiciously close to those who reason "hey! this thing I don't need is marked down from $500 to $250! That means I have an EXTRA $250 to spend on something else I don't need!"
Personally, I'm just not convinced the "other features" of the iPod warrant a $250 price tag. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a great player, and it's stylish, and it's lightweight, and all those other things that are said about the Minis, but $250 is not what most people would describe as cheap. I tend to think that, at that level, the extra $50 for a regular iPod isn't going to exactly break the bank.
I personally wonder how much of the apparent success of the iPod Mini is based solely on marketing power, and the "ooh, cool" vibe Apple's surrounded it with. Part of me kind of suspects that sales will drop off fairly sharply when that fades, and people realize that it's a fairly poor investment, offering only a slightly size and weight benefit over the regular iPod for a just-barely-significant price differential.
But, then again, I wouldn't put money on that prediction. I personally don't see much compelling argument for the iPod Mini (certainly, I, personally, find it an almost complete waste), but I guess, if I was dead certain I would never, ever, in a hundred years need any of the things offered by a full-fledged iPod, things might be different. But, even among the non-geek crowd, I think that's a somewhat fickle market to base continued success around.
To the earth, as a geological entity, in the broadest sense? Probably not. To us? Ah, well that's harder to say. But human beings exist in a very limited temperature/climate range, and what might be considered a "rounding error" on a geologic scale could massively alter the way in which we operate as a species. Witness the worries about the currents in the North Atlantic, which could change the climate of Europe enough to seriously impact human life in the region.
And you're ignoring the message in favor of dismissing the messenger. The fact of the matter is that there is scientific basis for the global warming argument. Does that mean that global warming is happening? As you suggest, no, it does not. We've only been measuring this in a serious way for two decades, which is far less than a flash in the pan in terms of Earth's geological history. And, certainly, there've been massive climate changes on the planet well before humanity started pumping flurocarbons into the atmospher.
So, yeah, the "anti-environmentalists" have quite effectively presented the case that global warming might not be happening. Which, don't get mw wrong, is fine and dandy and a voice which should be heard. But, just as we don't have the information to conclusively prove the existence of global warming, we similarly don't have the evidence to disprove it, either. Given this, the message being presented by the (possibly mistaken) environmentalists is still a valid one: taking steps to reduce the factors that might be causing global warming are, at best, going to prevent us from broiling ourselves off of this planet, and, at worst, have little effect at all.
To put it in other terms, if I decided to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, I might only get scraped up a bit, or I might die. But, if I don't have to do it in the first place, why put myself at risk? Even if I could promise myself a 99% chance of survival, what's the point at risking that 1% chance of death if I can avoid it?
Re:If you want actual Dos for perfect compatabilit
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Is DOS Gaming Dead?
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· Score: 2, Informative
You can always do what I do: gut a Win98 install for the DOS system files. Use a Win98 boot disk or CD to get a command prompt, and format a partition with the neccessary system files (format x:/s). Tends to cooperate a little better with more recent systems, you don't need to track down DOS install floppies, and it doesn't come with all the system program cruft that a full DOS install would. Search Google for the most essential drivers (CTMOUSE, SHSUCDX, for light-weight mouse and CD-ROM drivers that support a wide variety of hardware), and grab HIMEM and EMM386 from the Windows CD, and, a few tweaks of CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT later, you're ready to go. It worked for me, at least.
Re:You can find it googling, but here it is anyway
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Is DOS Gaming Dead?
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· Score: 3, Informative
DOSBox is great, and improving all the time, but it's a bit of a nightmare to configure. Which, I mean, shouldn't be too much of a problem: chances are, if you've enough computer experience to know how to get an old DOS game running, you're probably proficient enough to muck around for a moment in a few config files to, say, get ioctl CD-ROM extensions working to run World of Xeen (or whatever).
VDMSound, on the other hand, has never worked particularly well for me. I get the feeling I'm in the minority here, though. And dual-booting DOS still tends to work the best: even some of the more modern PCI soundcards still have DOS drivers available. Yeah, they're often a bit kludgy and lack a lot of the features of a true old-school ISA SB16, but they get the job done. I know that Audigy cards up through the Audigy 2 have the drivers in question (and maybe later versions, too: I've never bothered to look).
DOSBox is my preferred solution. If you know what you're doing, it can handle most of what you can throw at it, and it offers a better set of features than any of the other solutions. Sure, it's never going to be as perfect as a true old school rig, but it's often a lot more convenient.
This gets brought up a lot... and yet, I have yet to see more than one or two extremely isolated incidents of anyone "bashing India" in any outsourcing-related discussion. By and large, most of the anger seems to be directed at the corporations responsible for moving jobs to India, who are, of course, American.
It just seems that outsourcing proponents are dead keen on bringing up the specter of racism/xenophobia, regardless of whether or not it actually applies or anything like that....
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The thing, particularly with Shrek, even though he's computer-rendered, he's not realistic. He's as stylized as any hand-drawn animation. The same thing goes for most of Pixar's films: fish do not, generally speaking, look like the anthropomorphic cuteness in "Finding Nemo." And insects, to most people, aren't as cuddly as the characters from "A Bug's Life."
I don't think the issue here is computer animation: the question is sparked by the ability of computer animation to produce photorealistic human graphics, but that's not an inherent quality of the format (a camera can shoot portraits, but doesn't need to...). Furthermore, the problem isn't that we need "better graphics card." If anything, the problem is that our current graphics cards are almost too good.
Some of this may be ameliorated by improvements in technology, assuming we can get to the point where there really is no easily discernable discrepancy between rendered graphics and photography. But, to some extent, it may always be there. It's really more of a psychology issue than a technology one...
In his treatise on the comic book medium, "Understanding Comics," writer/artist Scott McCloud commented on what's basically the same phenomenon. For the purposes of the book, which was done in comic style, the host was a very stylized/simplified caricature of McCloud himself. In describing the reasons behind such stylization, he comments on how it forces the reader to move beyond surface characteristics, and focus on the message being portrayed. In other words, it's a artistic trick to keep the reader focus on the substance, not the style.
This article kind of reminded me of that. Particularly considering that, in most video games, too much detail can distract from the specific goals of the game. The point is not to achieve artistic realism: you're not producing a travelogue, you're playing a game. In particular, stylized characters allow us to identify more closely with the figure, as we read our own preconceptions into the "gaps" in the portrayal, which is arguably even more important in video games than it is in comics, given that you're more likely given the role of the video game character to play than the comic book figure.
Within reason, of course. Striking the balance between total simplicity (say, a stick figure, or a dot) and abject photorealism is probably the trickiest part of the whole bargain....
The Ogg Vorbis QT plugin has improved noticably with the most recent version. When I first tried it out, the delay in switching formats was such that it was basically unusable on a regular basis. The newest version, however, seems to work without any noticable lag at all on my Athlon XP 2200+. I can't speak for slower processors/other systems, but I was impressed enough that I actually imported my Ogg collection into my iTunes library for the first time. Truly a classy piece of work. Now if we could only get the iPod to support it, I might actually be able to justify buying one....
Except that, of course, we're not dealing with CD quality rips. AAC is not lossless, so the best you can get, burning a CD from iTunes purchase music, is quality roughly identical to the original, lossy file. Which, yes, is usually pretty good.
But ripping from that CD is functionally identical to taking the original AAC file and directly reencoding it to another format. Even my tin ears can detect quality loss a fair percentage of the time. For people who really care about archiving their music, and for true audiophiles, the trade-off is often unacceptable.
In what way was, say, "Wind Waker" a radically different game playing experience than, say, "Ocarina of Time"? The major changes were cosmetic.
We're talking about Nintendo, a company that made sales dynamite by repackaging Pokemon five or six times. They best they generally do is evolution: "Metroid Prime" was an effective transfer of traditional Metroid gameplay to the different gameplay styles of full 3D. "Ocarina of Time" performed similar tweaks to bring the Zelda formula to the 3D generation. The changes between each Mario Kart game tend to be minor, and generally follow the leads of others (someone else mentioned "Circus Maximus"). They stick with what works, and they do it well, but they hardly shake the world with innovation.
Here's the simple fact: one of the biggest name games announced for the upcoming DS is openly a remake. Touchscreen or no, it's unlikely "Mario 64x4" is going to be radically different than its N64 counterpart, and the 4-player team aspect itself is hardly revolutionary for Nintendo (it's been one of the favorite ideas since back when "Super Smash Bros." premiered for the N64). Will it be a good game? Probably. Will it be revolutionary? Of course not. I don't think even Nintendo is claiming that.
And, just to be clear, I've owned every game system Nintendo has ever put out, going back to the NES in 1985, and including even the fairly obscure, like the Virtual Boy. I'm an avid fan of both the Mario, Metroid, and Zelda series, and, despite the fact that I have more games for my PS2, I probably log more playing time for my GameCube. But let's be honest with ourselves and call a spade a spade: the most innovative game I've played for the GameCube in the past two years or so was "Viewtiful Joe," and that was a third-party title. Nintendo's reputation for innovation is both ill-deserved, and unfairly detracts from the things that Nintendo does do very well (namely, polish existing concepts).
A lot of the popularity of the Dragon Quest series in Japan has little directly to do with the quality of the games: DQ7 had... uneven reviews even in Japan, and when magazines like Famitsu run surveys asking gamers what upcoming games they're most interested in, or whatever, the Final Fantasy series often trumps the Dragon Quest series. The thing is that Dragon Quest was the first significant console-based RPG to hit it big, and it has brand recognition to die for. It's ubiquitous, and a part of the Japanese cultural landscape.
That success, of course, does not translate well to American shores, where, if anything, Final Fantasy is the better known brand (though it doesn't approach the status of DQ in Japan), and the established history of the DQ franchise is rather less impressive. Indeed, with the generally static nature of the DQ games, it seems unlikely that they will ever find much more than a niche audience outside of Japan.
Square, basically since they started publishing for the PSX, has localized almost every title they've produced. The only major exceptions that spring to mind are "Tobal 2" (which was Sony's decision, not Square's), "Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon" (though it's sequel did get translated) and games for systems which have failed to materialize in America, like the four FF remakes and the Romancing SaGa remake for the WonderSwan Color.
And, being fair to Enix, they've been equally diligent, after a somewhat slower start: they didn't get a real US publishing arm until relatively late in the PSX lifecycle, and relied on SCEA to publish their games, but even then, most of their major titles ("Star Ocean 2," "Dragon Quest VII," as well as several GBA and N64 games) did get localized. In the case of a game like the DQ5 remake, which is hotly anticipated by many enthusiasts, and, in light of the earlier DQ4 fiasco, I think it's a reasonable bet that it will get a US release. It's just not going to be a major, hyped release, which isn't really surprising.
The problem is that most programmers aren't willing to work for free, and that, without solid documentation to work from, we'd be looking at a pretty hefty amount of time just deconstructing and reverse engineering the core of the game, let alone the time actually necessary to localize the thing. The amount of money Enix would have had to have poured into the game to get it ready for US release simply could not have been recouped.
I also wouldn't wait for a PSP port, for that matter: the problems with the original developers are going to apply just as much to any attempt to port the game, and, even with the similar system specs between the PSX and PSP, it'd probably be more effort than would be worth it. Plus, there might yet be certain copyright issues involved. If we do eventually see a remake of DQ4 in America, I'd wager it won't be based on the PSX release. But I suppose there's no reason Square Enix couldn't go back and start over with a new remake, should they be so inclined.
Eh. The name sells. If that sort of sell out is neccessary to allow these folks the freedom to make the games they wanna make, then I'm fine with it. And, save for the copyrighted bits (chocobos), the description you just gave can be reasonably extrapolated to apply to 90% of all role-playing games out there, and a good chunk of adventure games, too.
:-)
I wouldn't mind, however, them dropping the numbering in favor of new titles (a la "Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles" or whatever). When you get right down to it, a more than fair number of series are into the double digits these days: Castlevania, Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc. The only real difference between these series and Square's flagship seems to be that most of these series gave up linear numbering systems years ago: the newest Castlevania game isn't Castlevania 12, nor is latest Mario game Super Mario Brothers 27 (or whatever). Final Fantasy, despite having arguably less connection between installments than many of those series I've just listed, seems to get made fun of simply because they have stuck by their initial numbering scheme through thick and thin. Which, to my mind, seems perfectly reasonable: if nothing else, it makes it easier to follow the progression. But I question how much of this derision Square Enix would gain if, say, "Final Fantasy X" had been entitled, say, "Final Fantasy: Advent of Sin" (or whatever... I freely admit I'm not a marketing guru)
I think Enix is generally committed to localizing their games for American audiences, the DQ4 remake being a bit of a unfortunate fluke. It's not a foregone conclusion, but I think there's probably a >50% chance we'll get the DQ5 remake, especially given that Enix seems truly penitent over the DQ4 fiasco.
(For those who don't know, the reason the DQ4 PSX remake was never localized had to do with the way Enix traditionally does business: independent developers develop/code the games, and Enix acts pretty much exclusively as a distributor, even if the game being produced is an Enix property, like Dragon Quest. In the case of DQ4, the company that produced the Japanese game up and left Enix shortly after the game was released in Japan, and Enix didn't have the technical documentation/know-how to pick up their work and make the modifications neccessary to translate the game in a economical and/or timely manner. Such is business, I suppose...)
Given that Sony hasn't announced a US price for the PSP yet, it's kind of premature to announce that the DS "is over $100 cheaper." Just a lot of scaremongering at this point. Yeah, the Japanese price (which has been announced) is on the high end of things, but that's hardly unusual for the Japanese market, where these things always sell for more. I personally doubt Sony will go much over $200, if they even go that high, given that they know exactly what kind of competition they're likely to be facing from Nintendo.
Speaking as a owner of a GameCube, I'm not sure I'd make the potentiality of a DS Player along the lines of the GBA Player a major reason for buying one. Other than the technical issue of how Nintendo would make the dual screens (one of which is a touchscreen, something noticably deficient from most television sets) work, even if Nintendo did eventually release one, it would probably be, at minimum, a year or so after the release of the DS itself, since an earlier release would probably lead to Nintendo dividing its own market. Besides, the supposed draw of the DS is that its supposed to be able to do things that existing game systems cannot. If we do see a DS Player, it seems more likely that it would be for whatever Nintendo has lined up as the GameCube's console successor.
:-)
But, yeah, the new Zelda game looks damn nice...
Actually, I think both Apple and Nintendo succeed with blithering, rabid fanboys who'll drool eagerly over anything emanating from the general vicinity of their respective corporate offices....
Which is cool and all. And Nintendo puts out quality products (if they didn't, they likely wouldn't have aforementioned rabid fanbase). But, having played and owning both the PS2 and GameCube, I think it's a bit disingenious to suggest that Sony can't do innovation (or, for that matter, that Nintendo can't do volume: case-in-point, the GBA).
Plus, just as a completely personal observation, I've tended to see more of what I would call truly innovative games for the PS2 than the GameCube, but I can't tell if that's simply because I tend to see more games, period, for the PS2. For my record, it's not innovation, per se, that's Nintendo's strongest point, so much as, like Apple, an ability to produce a good solid product, even if it's not the most overwhelmingly original thing on the market. Which is just as important, I should think.
The thing is, Square generally does inject originality into each installment of the Final Fantasy series. Pretty much every game uses noticably different game mechanics, different characters, storyline, etc. The innovations aren't earth-shattering, but they are there.
What Nintendo has, basically, promised at this point are rehashes. A remake of Mario 64, another Mario Kart game (a series which hasn't really changed since the SNES games), and a few things that seem to be functionally to expansion packs to existing titles. Even the Zelda game, which, don't get me wrong, has me drooling, probably isn't going to differ dramatically from earlier entrants in that series, as few Zelda games ever do.
Then again, I don't blame Nintendo, really. Super Mario Sunshine tried some new things with the Mario series, and that game was greeted with overwhelming antipathy from a public that seemed, basically, to want a clone of Mario 64. But, with the exception of Animal Crossing, I'd like to see some more truly unique games getting the sort of press that, say, greets the latest Mario game repackaging....
To be fair, most branch libraries have seperate terminals for "normal" internet usage (chat, email, web browsing, etc.), and catalog browsing (basically, a firewalled machine that allows access only to the online catalog). There are almost always catalog terminals available, and, if one isn't, the turnover is fairly quick.
The reason we've abandoned traditional card catalog systems is purely practical: if we were stuck using physical records, it would make it prohibitively difficult to, say, update records, or allow returns to any branch library, and we'd lose the benefits of the online database (such as being able to tell if a book is currently checked in, or being able to place holds for checked out materials). There are problems, but, by and large, its a preferable system, IMO....
Kind of a specious argument, though. The basic failure of early CD-based consoles was hardly a limitation of the medium: the failure of early CD-ROM based games (and CD-based systems) was, even at the time, attributed to the kind of games being produced: poorly-compressed video adventures, with little real player interaction, etc.
But the fact remains that some of Nintendo's most loyal developers (including Square, Capcom, and Konami) were actively gunning for, and expecting, a CD-based system, and it was at least partially the fault of Nintendo's decision to back go with their proprietary cartridge format that many of these developers left Nintendo entirely, or started reaching out to other console manufacturers who were more receptive to their wishes.
Every significant account of Nintendo's internal politics at the time lends credence to the idea that the public line, that Nintendo felt the cartridge was the superior format, was nonsense. Nintendo's decision was borne, more than anything else, out of the fallout from their tangle with, and the bad aftermath of, both Philips and Sony over the abortive SNES CD add-on, and of a purely monetary decision to have a locked-down format.
The Nintendo 64, thusly, wound up being not only a disaster for Nintendo, that ultimately ceded Nintendo's number one position in the console wars, but one that was fairly easy to predict, and could have been easily prevented had Nintendo not dropped the ball so badly. They soured their relationship with Sony, which lead to the creation of the Playstation as a competitor to, rather than an extension of, Nintendo's own hardware, and further soured their relationships with their own software developers. It's a policy that Nintendo, to some extent, continues to this day, and has been evident in all things from their (since abandoned, IIRC) policy of not allowing third parties to develop for the GBA without also developing for the GameCube, and in the choice of media for the GameCube itself.
Which, again, is fine. As negative as I sound, there are benefits to Nintendo's positions, since it can allow for tighter quality control and more reliable products. But it's not the kind of policy that makes an industry leader. As long as they continue down that path, they will likely be outmanuevered, in sheer numbers, by their competitors. But, then again, if they can maintain a small but solid core of people who are attracted to Nintendo for these very reasons, then they can most likely find a big enough niche to survive happily in. Again, this is roughly similar to way Apple operates nowadays, and there's not really anything wrong with this approach.
The other similarity is, of course, that both Apple and Nintendo have a tendency to dig their own graves. Both stick to their own proprietary, tightly controlled hardware, which tends to both alienate developers and drive up costs. Nintendo stuck with the cartridge format after everyone else had abandoned it not because they felt it was inherently superior, but because they had better control over production. Similarly, they went with their weird little mini-DVD format for the GameCube for similar reasons.
Both also have a history of some bad management decisions: Apple's long slide into near-irrelevance in the early 1990s (finally turned around by the iMac), and Nintendo's flurry of poor decisions towards the end of the SNES's lifespan, delaying the release of the N64, sticking with an unpopular format, alienating their developers, etc. Both also get a lot of credit for "innovation" that is probably not wholly deserved: they do things well, but they borrow/appropriate/steal just as many ideas as their competition does.
Of course, both maintain a solid core of hardcore, even rabid, fanboys, and both, to their credit, have a solid core of capable first-party programmers and developers, which allows them to survive, to some extent, even with third-party groups shun them. Perhaps most interesting, while both Apple and Nintendo have have lost their once-dominance in their initial markets (personal computers and video game consoles, respectively), both managed to find a degree of salvation in the handheld field, probably (and I'm just speculating here) because their own preferences for tightly-controlled hardware and development is nowadays more suited for handheld electronics like the GBA and the iPod than for larger devices, where there tends to be a traditional push for open standards (within reason).
None of which is an attack on either company: I quite like both my iPod and my GBA SP, and have a long and generally happy history with products from both. But over the years I've become increasingly convinced that neither seems poised to slip out of their current role as solid and reliable niche player in the market, without a massive change in corporate philosophy. They're likely not going to go away, but they won't be the dominant players they once were.
My major problem with the GBASP method of having an internal rechargable battery is that it tends to pose some annoying problems. If there's a power outage, or if I'm on a long car/plane/train ride, or for some other reason my ability to stick the thing into a wall socket is impaired, I have no way to power the device should its internal battery be drained. Granted, the internal battery does have certain advantages (cheaper in the long run), but I still wish the system could accept regular AA batteries as a fallback option, even if it would neccessitate a larger case. Then again, I'm one of those folks who never really found anything particularly endearing about making electronic equipment so tiny that it runs the risk of falling out of one's pocket.... :-)
That said, with the sort of gizmos and processing power Nintendo seems to want to pack into this DS, I think it's very possible that conventional AA batteries wouldn't be able to keep the thing running for any significant length of time....
I work part-time in the Montgomery County, MD public library system, and we've had internet access for some years now. In order to ensure that everyone gets equal access to the terminals, we do have a sign up process (which is currently in the process of being automated using library card information and session management software, but until that process is complete is done with old-fashioned pen and paper), but no records are kept: we hold onto the sign-up sheets only until the end of the day they are initially filled out, and then they are trashed, for privacy concerns. Similarly, all records of what any individual may have done while using the machines (browser history, cookies, etc.) are deleted upon logout.
As of now, we don't keep track of who was on what machine at any given time, to some extent because we can't: we have a very limited-access guest account (which allows for browser usage, access to a word processor, and not much else) that is used for all patrons. I'm not sure how the upcoming session management software will change this, but there have been ongoing discussions about potential privacy concerns (which, in my experience, libraries take very, very seriously).
As for the card catalogs, they work much the same way as the internet terminals do now: limited guest account for all patrons (which in this case allows only for access to the catalog, and not the broader internet). However, there are none of the usage restrictions that the internet machines have, where we limit patrons to one hour a day, and require a sign-up system.
Hotline, as nice as it is, is hardly a P2P application. Unless things have changed mightily since I last used it, a Hotline server is still hosted from a single machine, which handles the entirety of the load, a la FTP, HTML, or any number of other protocols.
Of course, using the media-sanctioned, RIAA-approved definition of "P2P" ("something that allows you to steal from us"), then, yeah, I guess Hotline qualifies. But from a practical perspective, wherein the phrase "P2P" means something, it's not.
Personally, I'm just not convinced the "other features" of the iPod warrant a $250 price tag. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a great player, and it's stylish, and it's lightweight, and all those other things that are said about the Minis, but $250 is not what most people would describe as cheap. I tend to think that, at that level, the extra $50 for a regular iPod isn't going to exactly break the bank.
I personally wonder how much of the apparent success of the iPod Mini is based solely on marketing power, and the "ooh, cool" vibe Apple's surrounded it with. Part of me kind of suspects that sales will drop off fairly sharply when that fades, and people realize that it's a fairly poor investment, offering only a slightly size and weight benefit over the regular iPod for a just-barely-significant price differential.
But, then again, I wouldn't put money on that prediction. I personally don't see much compelling argument for the iPod Mini (certainly, I, personally, find it an almost complete waste), but I guess, if I was dead certain I would never, ever, in a hundred years need any of the things offered by a full-fledged iPod, things might be different. But, even among the non-geek crowd, I think that's a somewhat fickle market to base continued success around.
To the earth, as a geological entity, in the broadest sense? Probably not. To us? Ah, well that's harder to say. But human beings exist in a very limited temperature/climate range, and what might be considered a "rounding error" on a geologic scale could massively alter the way in which we operate as a species. Witness the worries about the currents in the North Atlantic, which could change the climate of Europe enough to seriously impact human life in the region.
And you're ignoring the message in favor of dismissing the messenger. The fact of the matter is that there is scientific basis for the global warming argument. Does that mean that global warming is happening? As you suggest, no, it does not. We've only been measuring this in a serious way for two decades, which is far less than a flash in the pan in terms of Earth's geological history. And, certainly, there've been massive climate changes on the planet well before humanity started pumping flurocarbons into the atmospher.
So, yeah, the "anti-environmentalists" have quite effectively presented the case that global warming might not be happening. Which, don't get mw wrong, is fine and dandy and a voice which should be heard. But, just as we don't have the information to conclusively prove the existence of global warming, we similarly don't have the evidence to disprove it, either. Given this, the message being presented by the (possibly mistaken) environmentalists is still a valid one: taking steps to reduce the factors that might be causing global warming are, at best, going to prevent us from broiling ourselves off of this planet, and, at worst, have little effect at all.
To put it in other terms, if I decided to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, I might only get scraped up a bit, or I might die. But, if I don't have to do it in the first place, why put myself at risk? Even if I could promise myself a 99% chance of survival, what's the point at risking that 1% chance of death if I can avoid it?
You can always do what I do: gut a Win98 install for the DOS system files. Use a Win98 boot disk or CD to get a command prompt, and format a partition with the neccessary system files (format x: /s). Tends to cooperate a little better with more recent systems, you don't need to track down DOS install floppies, and it doesn't come with all the system program cruft that a full DOS install would. Search Google for the most essential drivers (CTMOUSE, SHSUCDX, for light-weight mouse and CD-ROM drivers that support a wide variety of hardware), and grab HIMEM and EMM386 from the Windows CD, and, a few tweaks of CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT later, you're ready to go. It worked for me, at least.
DOSBox is great, and improving all the time, but it's a bit of a nightmare to configure. Which, I mean, shouldn't be too much of a problem: chances are, if you've enough computer experience to know how to get an old DOS game running, you're probably proficient enough to muck around for a moment in a few config files to, say, get ioctl CD-ROM extensions working to run World of Xeen (or whatever).
VDMSound, on the other hand, has never worked particularly well for me. I get the feeling I'm in the minority here, though. And dual-booting DOS still tends to work the best: even some of the more modern PCI soundcards still have DOS drivers available. Yeah, they're often a bit kludgy and lack a lot of the features of a true old-school ISA SB16, but they get the job done. I know that Audigy cards up through the Audigy 2 have the drivers in question (and maybe later versions, too: I've never bothered to look).
DOSBox is my preferred solution. If you know what you're doing, it can handle most of what you can throw at it, and it offers a better set of features than any of the other solutions. Sure, it's never going to be as perfect as a true old school rig, but it's often a lot more convenient.
This gets brought up a lot... and yet, I have yet to see more than one or two extremely isolated incidents of anyone "bashing India" in any outsourcing-related discussion. By and large, most of the anger seems to be directed at the corporations responsible for moving jobs to India, who are, of course, American.
It just seems that outsourcing proponents are dead keen on bringing up the specter of racism/xenophobia, regardless of whether or not it actually applies or anything like that....