Apple this mess didn't need to happen! Your bungling of the IBM relationship was your own fault!
Wow! So Steve Jobs managed to convince Ken Kutaragi, Satoru Iwata and Steve Ballmer to use PPC chips in their new consoles, thereby removing IBM's incentive to make PPCs for desktop computers and to make any kinds of improvements to their PPCs during the next five years since consoles don't need faster chips? Interesting!
6 KB is enough for your name, a very simple picture (maybe similar to the Mario Kart DS emblem), your favourite color and maybe some key preferences. This will most certainly not be connected to the online system. It may be connected to a Wii, and if it is, going to a friend's would be out, but personally I think 6KB is enough to store the most important data.
Probably because the controller uses less power than the DS with its two screens.
They used AAs for the Wavebird, too. Works well for me, I got a bunch of rechargeable AAs already and can just switch them out if the Wavebird runs on empty.
There is no "wins." The market has supported 2-3 consoles for decades now, and will continue to in the future
Ah, but that is not true. Most third-party developers will support the console that makes the most money for a given investment. If you have a console that gets 90% of all third-party development, then that console has won by any definition of the word.
Play the ones you like, ignore the ones you don't. Being a fanboy for one heartless corporation over another is asinine.
Okay, how hard is this to understand? I want to play the games I like. I want more of these games. If Nintendo winds, there will be more of the games that I like. I don't care about Nintendo as a corporate entity. I care about the games I get to play.
I think you do not understand the point. People don't buy Macs because of the hardware. People buy Macs because of the OS. You can only get computers running Mac OS from Apple. Hence, said computers can by definition not be a commodity.
And what the hell is your problem with Wikipedia? Undounded source? Do you realize that I quoted a definition of a word? Are you seriously suggesting that the definition is wrong? Judging from your writing I'd say that english isn't your first languge, but still... This is just absurd.
I own Animal Crossing, and it works for me (obviously, the time keeps running, but the DS seems to sleep alright). Although clearly, the game does have an influence on sleeping: Some Mario games yell "Goodbye" if you close the DS (and something similar if you open it again).
I'm afraid I don't have the time to read through your inane ramblings (sorry, but I just like the word "inane":-), but I want to point out that your very first sentence is wrong:
since apple hardware has been 'commoditized'
It hasn't. Wikipedia says:
In the business world, commodification is process that transforms the market for a unique, branded product into a market based on undifferentiated price competition.
That clearly has not happened to Apple. A Mac is not a commodity since you can't get one from any other manufacturer except Apple.
So basically, you've run out of arguments. I'm still waiting for your list of all those fun, quirky PSP games, by the way. Yeah, yeah, I know, Katamari. As I said: that's exactly the reason why people care about the "console war." I don't want another console where a game like Katamari Part III is the single biggest example of a fun, innovative game. But that's exactly what will happen if Sony "wins."
I don't own a PS or PS2, but since picking up a PSP (mostly with the intention of watching videos on it), I've discovered a whole world of the exact sort of game you are lamenting the lack of, all within the Playstation family.
I own a PSP, too. I would really love to know where you buy your games. As far as I can tell, there are four interesting games out for the PSP:
Roco Loco (awesome game, exactly what I'm looking for except that it's basically single-player. The very reason I bought a PSP)
Me & My Katamari (unfortunately pretty crappy version of the great PS2 game, mainly due to lack of second analog stick)
Lumines (awesome game, still my most-played PSP game)
Ultimate Block Party (funny little puzzler for when I grow tired of Lumines)
That's it. Two quirky single-player games, two somewhat generic (but fun) puzzlers. If you know of any other quirky, fun PSP games, please let me know.
On the DS, on the other hand, I have literaly dozens of fun, quirky games. It's simply no contest. There simply does not seem to be a real market for these games on Sony consoles.
(and frankly, your parties suck if you need to turn a console on to liven them up)
Yeah, great argument. You truly sound like a Sony fanboy. "We got Katamari! Your friends are stupid because they don't want to learn car tuning before having fun! Any you don't need fun games, anyway, you loser, your life should be fun without them!" Okay, thanks, you really convinced me there.
What baffles me is why so many people seem to care which handheld "wins" the console "wars." We are talking about toys here, people. There are more important things in life than which faceless corporation makes more money selling toys.
Adding to 7Prime's answer:
For me, the last decade has been a "dark age" for gaming. Ever since the PlayStation became the biggest brand in console gaming, games have been more and more about awesome graphics and "adult-targeted" franchises. Me, I prefer fun little games I can play with my friends in our living room. There are these games, too. There's Super Monkey Ball, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Sega's soccer game, the Mario Soccer game, the Donkey Konga games (which are incredibly funny if you're drunk). Sometimes, I take the Dreamcast out of the closet to play a bit of Powerstone with a few pals.
But if I go to our local games store to get a new game in that vein, I see a wall filled with WWII first person shooters and realistic racing games. I have nothing against these games. I don't usually play FPS, but there are some awesome racers out. The problem is, there simply aren't a lot of fun little party games anymore. There doesn't seem to be a big market for these on Sony's and Microsoft's consoles, and Nintendo's Gamecube never got enough market share to gain significant third-party support.
The Wii could change that.
If the Wii becomes successfull, there will be a lot more games that I want to buy because a lot more companies will make "Nintendo-style" fun party games for the Wii than for any other console.
It's quite simple, really. I want the Wii to win because that means that I will get a lot more games that I actually like.
Mac OS X's flavour of HFS is case preserving, but not case sensitive by default. However, it can be changed to be both case preserving and case sensitive if you prefer it.
Non-Sony memorysticks are no more expensive than Secure Digital and Compact Flash around here
Well, I don't know where you live, but where I live (Switzerland, by the way), SanDisk Memory Sticks cost only a bit less than Sony's own Memory Sticks. Generally, the cheapest Memory Sticks cost a little less than twice as much as the cheapest SD cards for the same amount of storage space.
So, yeah, I got a GP2X with 2 gigs of space and the TV adapter, and it cost over 100 bucks less than my PSP with a 1 gig SanDisk memory stick.
The DS was still cheapest, and most fun to boot:-)
Oh, right, because Nintendo released every Fire Emblem in North America and Sony would NEVER allow games like Mad Maestro or Mr. Mosquito on the PS2, or Carnage Heart on PS1, or develop something as weird as LocoRoco. Get a clue. Nintendo plays it safer than anybody else in the industry.
Nintendo was bad during the NES/SNES/N64 days as far as violence and sex was concerned, but they've learned something. During the PS2/GC days, Sony censored some games, Nintendo didn't. But this is not the issue at hand. The issue is 2D. Sony won't allow most 2D games on their consoles, especially for US releases. Nintendo will.
That's why you have tons of 2D games on the Cube and the DS, but not a whole lot on the PS2 and the PSP. Sony thinks it's bad for business.
More typically multiplatform games will NOT appear on the Wii, because of its unique controller.
They probably will appear, but in unique versions. That the Wii won't get the specific versions of these games that the 360 and the PS3 will get is very obvious, and I never denied that. If you want access to most games, you need both a Wii and either a 360 or a PS3.
Would you have felt as offended if one of the women was Chinese, and the other Japanese? Or one of the women was Mexican and the other Salvadoran? Or one of the women was British and the other French? And yet all these would be offensive to people from other cultures.
Uhm... First of all, I was not offended. Second, you can't tell French and British people apart just from a picture. Third, we're talking about this ad, not about some hypothetical ad which may hypothetically offend some hypothetical person.
Racism isn't acknowledging that people have skin of differing colors, or speak different languages, or live in different countries.
I haven't said anything like that. In fact, I have pointed out explicitly that the ad is probably not racist. What is your point?
(This is an almost verbatim copy the coment I made over at breakingwindows.com)
Let's start at the beginning. What is that dreaded racism everyone seems to be hollerin' about nowadays? Wikipedia says:
Any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life
Does that definition apply the the ads? Maybe a bit. But barely. The images (yeah, all three) show the white person either in more positive light and/or in a more powerful position. Even so, it's not that clear-cut. The ad probably isn't racist, although it is very obvious that it could be interpreted that way.
Does it matter whether it's racist "by the definition"? Hell no. Whether the ad or the people who made it are racist doesn't matter one bit. Everyone agrees that it depends on the person looking at it (and no, labelling people "racist" who think the ad is racist is even more absurd and stupid than thinking it is racist in the first place). Lots of people perceive this to be racist - otherwise, we would not be having this discussion.
Sony knew or should have known that people would interpret it like that. They knew or should have known that people would be offended. They ran it anyway, most likely knowing full well that it would cause a huge stir. Even if it isn't racist, it's obvious that it reminds people of a conflict between races, and that it offends a lot of people. Sony knowingly made people angry to promote its crappy little console (and I say that as an owner of a (white!) PSP). They knowingly offended their own customers again just to get them talking about the PSP. Yes, the ad is working very well. That doesn't make Sony's behaviour even one bit better.
So fuck Sony, regardless of whether it's racist or not.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow! So Steve Jobs managed to convince Ken Kutaragi, Satoru Iwata and Steve Ballmer to use PPC chips in their new consoles, thereby removing IBM's incentive to make PPCs for desktop computers and to make any kinds of improvements to their PPCs during the next five years since consoles don't need faster chips? Interesting!
But... Why in the world did he do that?
To what? A PS3?
6 KB is enough for your name, a very simple picture (maybe similar to the Mario Kart DS emblem), your favourite color and maybe some key preferences. This will most certainly not be connected to the online system. It may be connected to a Wii, and if it is, going to a friend's would be out, but personally I think 6KB is enough to store the most important data.
That is exactly what Nintendo has announced, and it's exactly what it is for.
They expect every user to have his own controller, with some personal data stored on it.
Probably because the controller uses less power than the DS with its two screens.
They used AAs for the Wavebird, too. Works well for me, I got a bunch of rechargeable AAs already and can just switch them out if the Wavebird runs on empty.
EA? Just guessing :-)
Ah, but that is not true. Most third-party developers will support the console that makes the most money for a given investment. If you have a console that gets 90% of all third-party development, then that console has won by any definition of the word.
Okay, how hard is this to understand? I want to play the games I like. I want more of these games. If Nintendo winds, there will be more of the games that I like. I don't care about Nintendo as a corporate entity. I care about the games I get to play.
I think you do not understand the point. People don't buy Macs because of the hardware. People buy Macs because of the OS. You can only get computers running Mac OS from Apple. Hence, said computers can by definition not be a commodity.
And what the hell is your problem with Wikipedia? Undounded source? Do you realize that I quoted a definition of a word? Are you seriously suggesting that the definition is wrong? Judging from your writing I'd say that english isn't your first languge, but still... This is just absurd.
I own Animal Crossing, and it works for me (obviously, the time keeps running, but the DS seems to sleep alright). Although clearly, the game does have an influence on sleeping: Some Mario games yell "Goodbye" if you close the DS (and something similar if you open it again).
I'm afraid I don't have the time to read through your inane ramblings (sorry, but I just like the word "inane" :-), but I want to point out that your very first sentence is wrong:
It hasn't. Wikipedia says:
That clearly has not happened to Apple. A Mac is not a commodity since you can't get one from any other manufacturer except Apple.
So basically, you've run out of arguments. I'm still waiting for your list of all those fun, quirky PSP games, by the way. Yeah, yeah, I know, Katamari. As I said: that's exactly the reason why people care about the "console war." I don't want another console where a game like Katamari Part III is the single biggest example of a fun, innovative game. But that's exactly what will happen if Sony "wins."
I own a PSP, too. I would really love to know where you buy your games. As far as I can tell, there are four interesting games out for the PSP:
That's it. Two quirky single-player games, two somewhat generic (but fun) puzzlers. If you know of any other quirky, fun PSP games, please let me know.
On the DS, on the other hand, I have literaly dozens of fun, quirky games. It's simply no contest. There simply does not seem to be a real market for these games on Sony consoles.
Yeah, great argument. You truly sound like a Sony fanboy. "We got Katamari! Your friends are stupid because they don't want to learn car tuning before having fun! Any you don't need fun games, anyway, you loser, your life should be fun without them!" Okay, thanks, you really convinced me there.
Have you ever seen a Gamecube in action? If so, are you insane?
Compare Resident Evil 4 on the Cube and the PS2. Nuff said.
Although it doesn't work with all games on my PSP... Seems the game needs to cooperate if you want to use this feature.
Adding to 7Prime's answer:
For me, the last decade has been a "dark age" for gaming. Ever since the PlayStation became the biggest brand in console gaming, games have been more and more about awesome graphics and "adult-targeted" franchises. Me, I prefer fun little games I can play with my friends in our living room. There are these games, too. There's Super Monkey Ball, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Sega's soccer game, the Mario Soccer game, the Donkey Konga games (which are incredibly funny if you're drunk). Sometimes, I take the Dreamcast out of the closet to play a bit of Powerstone with a few pals.
But if I go to our local games store to get a new game in that vein, I see a wall filled with WWII first person shooters and realistic racing games. I have nothing against these games. I don't usually play FPS, but there are some awesome racers out. The problem is, there simply aren't a lot of fun little party games anymore. There doesn't seem to be a big market for these on Sony's and Microsoft's consoles, and Nintendo's Gamecube never got enough market share to gain significant third-party support.
The Wii could change that.
If the Wii becomes successfull, there will be a lot more games that I want to buy because a lot more companies will make "Nintendo-style" fun party games for the Wii than for any other console.
It's quite simple, really. I want the Wii to win because that means that I will get a lot more games that I actually like.
You ever got raped by Apple? Poor bastard. Nobody forces you to buy Apple's products, so "rape" is hardly the correct term.
Second, while Apple's computers and MP3 players aren't cheap, they simply do not cost more than comparable products.
Yeah, I'm gonna strap that to my shoulder and take it with me when jogging.
Something the size of a PSP will never ever be competition to something the size of an iPod nano.
Mac OS X's flavour of HFS is case preserving, but not case sensitive by default. However, it can be changed to be both case preserving and case sensitive if you prefer it.
Well, I don't know where you live, but where I live (Switzerland, by the way), SanDisk Memory Sticks cost only a bit less than Sony's own Memory Sticks. Generally, the cheapest Memory Sticks cost a little less than twice as much as the cheapest SD cards for the same amount of storage space.
So, yeah, I got a GP2X with 2 gigs of space and the TV adapter, and it cost over 100 bucks less than my PSP with a 1 gig SanDisk memory stick.
The DS was still cheapest, and most fun to boot :-)
Nintendo was bad during the NES/SNES/N64 days as far as violence and sex was concerned, but they've learned something. During the PS2/GC days, Sony censored some games, Nintendo didn't. But this is not the issue at hand. The issue is 2D. Sony won't allow most 2D games on their consoles, especially for US releases. Nintendo will.
That's why you have tons of 2D games on the Cube and the DS, but not a whole lot on the PS2 and the PSP. Sony thinks it's bad for business.
They probably will appear, but in unique versions. That the Wii won't get the specific versions of these games that the 360 and the PS3 will get is very obvious, and I never denied that. If you want access to most games, you need both a Wii and either a 360 or a PS3.
I bet the remaining Rockstar employees hunted them down, drove over them, beat them up with baseball bats and stole their money.
"One" is even smaller than "not many". Besides, it'll come out for PC and Mac a year after the 360 version. By the way, it's "Bungie".
Yes, we are. Not on the PS3 and Xbox 360, but definitely on the Wii.
Uhm... First of all, I was not offended. Second, you can't tell French and British people apart just from a picture. Third, we're talking about this ad, not about some hypothetical ad which may hypothetically offend some hypothetical person.
I haven't said anything like that. In fact, I have pointed out explicitly that the ad is probably not racist. What is your point?
(This is an almost verbatim copy the coment I made over at breakingwindows.com)
Let's start at the beginning. What is that dreaded racism everyone seems to be hollerin' about nowadays? Wikipedia says:
Does that definition apply the the ads? Maybe a bit. But barely. The images (yeah, all three) show the white person either in more positive light and/or in a more powerful position. Even so, it's not that clear-cut. The ad probably isn't racist, although it is very obvious that it could be interpreted that way.
Does it matter whether it's racist "by the definition"? Hell no. Whether the ad or the people who made it are racist doesn't matter one bit. Everyone agrees that it depends on the person looking at it (and no, labelling people "racist" who think the ad is racist is even more absurd and stupid than thinking it is racist in the first place). Lots of people perceive this to be racist - otherwise, we would not be having this discussion.
Sony knew or should have known that people would interpret it like that. They knew or should have known that people would be offended. They ran it anyway, most likely knowing full well that it would cause a huge stir. Even if it isn't racist, it's obvious that it reminds people of a conflict between races, and that it offends a lot of people. Sony knowingly made people angry to promote its crappy little console (and I say that as an owner of a (white!) PSP). They knowingly offended their own customers again just to get them talking about the PSP. Yes, the ad is working very well. That doesn't make Sony's behaviour even one bit better.
So fuck Sony, regardless of whether it's racist or not.