I think it's more or less obvious that DRM can't possibly work in the sense that it can't protect content perfectly. Since a standalone computer needs all the components to decrypt the DRM in order to play it, there will always be a way to decrypt the bought or rented media in a way which stores the resulting, unencrypted data.
On the other hand, the current iTunes DRM works pretty well, and most people don't seem to bother with breaking it. Why? Because fair use usually doesn't get in their way. I bought a bunch of iTunes songs, and I have never been bothered by the DRM. The energy needed to remove the DRM is much bigger than the energy needed to cope with the fair use DRM restrictions. Or, from a somewhat different perspective: the features you gain from removing the DRM do usually not justify the time put into figuring out how to break the DRM, finding the apps you need, and then downloading and running them.
Rented movies may be different. You gain a lot from being able to break DRM; namely, you gain the ability to store and watch the movie forever. I guess that breaking the DRM on rented media is a much bigger issue and will be a lot more popular than breaking the DRM on "bought" media.
There's a Ski Jump game for the board out already. The thing would certainly work with THPS, although you would not want people actually jumping around; you'd have to do ollies using sudden weight shifts, or maybe using the actual button on the remote.
The best part is that you do actually not believe that there could possibly be a better solution than unversioned DLLs. I find it incredible how little some Windows users know of other operating systems. Recent conversation with a coworker:
He: "I think XP is the best operating system." Me: "Yeah, SP2 is certainly the best version of Windows there is. It works really well." He: "Yeah, it's definitely te best OS there is." Me: "Have you looked at recent versions of Ubuntu? They've been pretty good, too." He: "What's Ubuntu?" Me: "It's a Linux distro." He: "Ah. I don't use Linux." Me: "Mac OS X is pretty good, too." He: "I don't use Macs, either. A friend of a friend tried to install an app, and his Mac crashed. It's like, what the fuck? Worst OS ever. So, you a Mac freak?" Me: "..."
He thinks XP is the best operating system of all times because the only other OSs he's ever used were other versions of Windows. And I think this applies to most computer users. They simply have no clue about any other system, and anything better is completely unfathomable to them. Linux users are dumb geeks, and Mac users are "freaks" and probably gay.
Sigh. And no, there could not possibly be library mismatch issues on OS X, because libraries are versioned, and OS X keeps old versions and uses the correct version with each app; the one the app was compiled against.
I should be pointed out that the whole list of articles is part of an elaborate joke. Apple did not contact Lyons at all. I think it's highly dumb of/. to post something like this without verifying it.
There were tons of awesome games this year, but even amongst them, Galaxy stands out. It's as close to flawless as any game could possibly hope to be. As far as Mario titles go, this is right up there with Super Mario World, Mario 64 and Super Mario Bros 3.
Other games I enjoyed a lot this year (and the platform I played it on): Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS), Phoenix Wright 3 (DS), Assassin's Creed (PS3), Portal (PC), Bioshock (360), FlatOut: UC (360), Stardust HD (PS3), Super Paper Mario (Wii - I think this came out last year in the US, but it came out this year in Europe, where I live), Warhawk (PS3), Skate (PS3 - bought it before I found out that the 360 version is way better, unfortunately), Super Mario Strikers (Wii).
Maybe this is a good time for them to get back into the console game. I don't know how much money they are making on games, but Sony has been showing us for a while that there is huge money in consoles. Plus the market for video games is bigger than ever and will probably continue to grow faster than other forms of entertainment.
I think there's room for a somewhat high-end console. Make it DVD based, put in a moderately good graphics card, HDMI, an ergonomic controller with a motion sensor, and make it not break once ever other week, and not sound louder than the PS3. Include a small-ish HD and price it 200-300 US$. It doesn't need Bluray, or a Cell. It doesn't even need to look quite as good as the Xbox. It doesn't need Ethernet, but put in wifi. Use an off-the-shelf dual-core PPC processor.
Then, get support from Activision, EA and Ubisoft. Get Sega to make a good 3D Sonic for it exclusively, preferrably a sequel to Sonic Adventure with only Sonic levels and no j-punk music so you have an iconic, console-defining game (this part should be quite easy if you are Sega).
I'm almost the same age at your, but CRT's don't bother me much these days. However I can hear the difference between a 192 and a 320k mp3 - an easy way to explain it is that the higher bitrate mp3's sound much 'fuller', pretty close to a CD. If you try one after the other I'm sure you would hear the difference too.
Yeah, if I listened to one after the other, I'd hear the difference. That doesn't mean there's actually a difference, it just means I'd hear one. Try again in a double-blind test and see how well you do.
This is true (at least for me - I already can't hear the difference between CD and 192kb AAC). However, the idea here is probably to let the user archive the music, and encode it in the format he or she wants. 320kb AAC sounds awesome, but if your player only plays MP3, you've already got one transcoding action which will take away from the quality of your music.
He presented his opinion that an XBox 360 with a single controller and XBox Live is a better deal than a Nintendo Wii, three controllers, and a pile of other stuff. Quite frankly, I think he's crazy.
You only need to play a few rounds of offline multiplayer Mario Kart 64, and then a few online rounds of Mario Kart DS to figure out that, indeed, he is crazy.
Online gaming can never be a replacement for offline multiplayer gaming.
It's been nearly 50 years since Castro took over; can you name a single invention or useful good that they've developed in half a century? Didn't think so. One thing that occurs to me is their research into eye surgery. I think even a lot of first-world countries actually send more complicated cases of some eye issues to Cuban hospitals because they're doing some hard-core research and invented specific machines and techniques.
I was in Cuba half a year ago. I met a guy whose mom was run over by a car. He was rather poor, but his mom was in a hospital, paid for by the government. The security of knowing that you won't be screwed over by the country you pay your taxes to when something happens to you is also an achievement that the USA does not yet have, but Cuba does.
"Santa is in trouble, it looks like supplying the Christmas need for a Nintendo Wii game console is in jeopardy as stocks wither under constant and heavy demand. Conspiracy believers suggest this is an orchestrated move on behalf of Nintendo."
Conspiracy indeed. Only morons would think that Nintendo will intentionally keep the Wii in short supply for a whole year. Not in a Business like the Console Business, where more sales only make your product more attractive; the more Wiis Nintendo sells, the more third-party games they get, the more people want to buy Wiis. Intentionally keeping supply short would be the dumbest thing anyone could possibly do in Nintendo's position.
Since this happens to be what I want for Christmas, I hope they work it out, or my loving wife has already found one.
Nintendo has already announced that even with increased production (1.8 million Wiis per month), they will not be able to satisfy demand during Christmas; which isn't surprising, considering they haven't been able to satisfy demand in the US all year.
I was sorely disappointed with the movie however. For me the laugh potential of a fat redneck say "he talks faggy" is one, sadly the line was repeated roughly every ten minutes. The social commentary is fine, we can all see the Costco with a thousand aisles, but from all the hype it got from people I know about being hilarious I just didn't see it.
I don't know, when playing Halo 3, people talk about how faggy each other is every ten seconds, too. I didn't find the movie hilarious, I found it depressing, because it depicts exactly the society we already live in.
I still think everyone should see it, even if it's not hilarious, but sad.
I always knew Dvorak was a rather dumb person, but this takes the cake. Can you really miss the truth by such a wide margin, yet still feel entitled to write pompous drivel about your ideas?
There's so much wrong with his inane drivel that I don't even really know where to start. Of course peole who are hungry now want rice and not a PC. But guess what, these people aren't the ones getting the PCs anyway, so it makes no sense to complain about them getting PCs instead of rice. They don't!
But maybe they should. Maybe Dvorak should spend a few minutes educating himself about why we need to give rice to those people, and what the effect of our giving rice to them is. Most countries with wide-spread famines could actually produce enough food for themselves. They don't because their corrupt governments sell the food (sometimes to feed cattle in other countries), pocket the money, or spend it on their armies instead of on helping their people. Educating the people in these countries is the first step towards helping them understand these issues, and helping them organizing so they can replace their governments with ones which won't enslave them and sell their food. The OLPC can be a step amongst many towards helping these people.
Giving people rice only makes them dependent on us. Giving people knowledge and networks gives them power, and may allow them to help themselves in the future.
No, "suggest" means "I have evidence, but no proof," which makes sense since it's pretty much impossible to find proof for something like this. What are you going to do, run a study with a control group which is never exposed to violent media, but otherwise lives normal lives? It's impossible.
So their real motivation is helping the customer. No, their motivation is making it easier for customers to use their products, which means more sales. Apple currently can't legally offer a way for you to move a DVD to an iPod or an AppleTV or an iPhone. So sales of the AppleTV are in the crapper, and people mainly use their iPods to listen to music. There's an obvious market there that Apple can't satisfy.
The extra 4 dollars that Apple and the movie studios get is just a side-effect. Where did you get the idea that Apple would get money from DVD sales?
The iPod was successfull because it's legal for Apple to offer a way to move CDs on an iPod. The same is not the case with movies, but now that iPods, iPhones and the AppleTV support movies, Apple needs to find a way to make it legal.
This is probably the only way they can get the content providers to agree: Show them the money carrot. Make it legal for your customers to move movies to different media, and you'll get money. I think it's not so bad; everyone wins:
People who buy DVDs get an easy, legal way to move their movies to their iPhones, iPods and whatnot (and no, handbrake does not fit that bill)
Media owners get more money
Apple gets a market for the AppleTV, which was a failure so far, and a way for users to fill their movie-capable players
Fact is, nintendo cannot make much money from huge file downloads, such as games and movies. This is the core of Sony and Microsoft's long term profit model.
Absolutely. I think this is the main reason why Microsoft even released the Xbox, and put a HD into each unit of the original version. However, I don't think it'll work. I think Microsoft and Sony kind of got the whole thing wrong: Their thinking was along the lines of "okay, console units are sitting in living room hooked up to TVs. People want to watch stuff sitting in the living room on a TV. So let's sell content on consoles, because they are where people are when they want to watch content!"
Unfortunately, they totally missed the iPod and the PC. I think people want to watch content they buy on several devices, so they prefer to buy it on their computers, via iTunes or amazon.com or another online store, and then put it on the devices on which they want to consume the content.
I doubt Sony and Microsoft are going to sell a lot of media for their respective boxes. I think Microsoft figured that out, too, hence the Zune.
Not to mention that the 360 is simply too noisy to watch movies on it.
the wii is a great system, and nintendo makes a bit of cash on each one, but compare that profit to a downloaded game.
Which Nintendo sells, too.
I'm not pretending Sony hasn't really really screwed up these past years, but they and MS could make profits that simply exceed what nintendo makes.
It's possible, but unlikely, especially considering all the money the two companies have already invested in their consoles. I doubt the 360 will ever make up for the investment Microsoft has had, and I think the PS3 will barely break even during the next 6 years.
Granted, part of my reasoning is that the wii doesn't have enough appealing games.
Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Mario Galaxy, two Resident Evil games, Zack & Wiki, Mario Kart, Monster Hunter 3, Super Smash Bros, a few FF and DQ spinoffs...
I don't think games are going to be an issue for Nintendo this generation.
I just think that PS3 will age well.
That mostly depends on how well it'll do. Historically, it's been one of the losing manufacturers which killed off their console first, and started the next generation. It was Sega when they lost to NES, SNES and PS1; it was Microsoft when they lost to the PS2. At some point, you have to cut your losses and clear the table. If Sony can't get sales up quickly enough, they either won't be able to cut the price on the PS3, or they'll have to take more losses on the hardware. Nintendo has the economies of scale on its side this generation; they'll be able to get component costs down due to the high sales numbers. Microsoft, too. For Sony, it's going to be tougher.
Frankly, the way it looks now, I would not be surprised if Sony would be the first to kill of the PS3 and jump-start the next gen: Nintendo has no need to do that as long as sales remain high. Sales - and especially game sales - are great for Microsoft, too; why kill the console as long as game sales remain high? Sony, on the other hand, neither has game sales nor hardware sales. That's a tough spot to be in, regardless of how pretty your hardware is.
And while I do like my PS3, I freely admit I hardly play it.
Me neither. Waiting for the Warhawk expansion. I was disappointed with the gameplay of R&C and Uncharted; right now, I'm mainly playing Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii, Zelda on the DS and Flatout on the 360. Pain was fun, but only for about an hour or so.
The PS3 will be selling a lot of stuff in 2011, and the XBOX 360, I fear, will be obsolete.
As of now, cross-platform games still seem to look better ont he 360. Frankly, I doubt the 360 can ever be called obsolete as long as you don't apply the same qualifier to the PS3.
the times you could use [the "suits" in Galaxy] were completely regimented
I think there's no other way to do it in a game like Galaxy. If you had the Bee suit in, say, the toy robot level, you could just fly to the end of the level. Being able to move suits would make a game like Galaxy too exploitable, and taking each suit into account in each level would probably make a lot of puzzles impossible.
Slashdot Mirror
I fail to see how what you said contradicts what I said.
I think it's more or less obvious that DRM can't possibly work in the sense that it can't protect content perfectly. Since a standalone computer needs all the components to decrypt the DRM in order to play it, there will always be a way to decrypt the bought or rented media in a way which stores the resulting, unencrypted data.
On the other hand, the current iTunes DRM works pretty well, and most people don't seem to bother with breaking it. Why? Because fair use usually doesn't get in their way. I bought a bunch of iTunes songs, and I have never been bothered by the DRM. The energy needed to remove the DRM is much bigger than the energy needed to cope with the fair use DRM restrictions. Or, from a somewhat different perspective: the features you gain from removing the DRM do usually not justify the time put into figuring out how to break the DRM, finding the apps you need, and then downloading and running them.
Rented movies may be different. You gain a lot from being able to break DRM; namely, you gain the ability to store and watch the movie forever. I guess that breaking the DRM on rented media is a much bigger issue and will be a lot more popular than breaking the DRM on "bought" media.
There's a Ski Jump game for the board out already. The thing would certainly work with THPS, although you would not want people actually jumping around; you'd have to do ollies using sudden weight shifts, or maybe using the actual button on the remote.
The best part is that you do actually not believe that there could possibly be a better solution than unversioned DLLs. I find it incredible how little some Windows users know of other operating systems. Recent conversation with a coworker:
He: "I think XP is the best operating system."
Me: "Yeah, SP2 is certainly the best version of Windows there is. It works really well."
He: "Yeah, it's definitely te best OS there is."
Me: "Have you looked at recent versions of Ubuntu? They've been pretty good, too."
He: "What's Ubuntu?"
Me: "It's a Linux distro."
He: "Ah. I don't use Linux."
Me: "Mac OS X is pretty good, too."
He: "I don't use Macs, either. A friend of a friend tried to install an app, and his Mac crashed. It's like, what the fuck? Worst OS ever. So, you a Mac freak?"
Me: "..."
He thinks XP is the best operating system of all times because the only other OSs he's ever used were other versions of Windows. And I think this applies to most computer users. They simply have no clue about any other system, and anything better is completely unfathomable to them. Linux users are dumb geeks, and Mac users are "freaks" and probably gay.
Sigh. And no, there could not possibly be library mismatch issues on OS X, because libraries are versioned, and OS X keeps old versions and uses the correct version with each app; the one the app was compiled against.
I should be pointed out that the whole list of articles is part of an elaborate joke. Apple did not contact Lyons at all. I think it's highly dumb of /. to post something like this without verifying it.
There were tons of awesome games this year, but even amongst them, Galaxy stands out. It's as close to flawless as any game could possibly hope to be. As far as Mario titles go, this is right up there with Super Mario World, Mario 64 and Super Mario Bros 3.
Other games I enjoyed a lot this year (and the platform I played it on): Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS), Phoenix Wright 3 (DS), Assassin's Creed (PS3), Portal (PC), Bioshock (360), FlatOut: UC (360), Stardust HD (PS3), Super Paper Mario (Wii - I think this came out last year in the US, but it came out this year in Europe, where I live), Warhawk (PS3), Skate (PS3 - bought it before I found out that the 360 version is way better, unfortunately), Super Mario Strikers (Wii).
You're wrong. Here's how 90% of all Wii owners I know got their Wii:
Played Wii Sports or Rayman or Carnival Games or EA Playground or Mario Soccer at a friend's place. Decided they wanted to have this game, too.
They don't care about other options. You can't play Wii Sports on any other console, and Rayman sucks on the PS2, so there is no other option.
Turn the scrollwheel to make Sonic roll! Perfect! :-)
True. Furthermore, all current-gen consoles suck.
I think there's room for a somewhat high-end console. Make it DVD based, put in a moderately good graphics card, HDMI, an ergonomic controller with a motion sensor, and make it not break once ever other week, and not sound louder than the PS3. Include a small-ish HD and price it 200-300 US$. It doesn't need Bluray, or a Cell. It doesn't even need to look quite as good as the Xbox. It doesn't need Ethernet, but put in wifi. Use an off-the-shelf dual-core PPC processor.
Then, get support from Activision, EA and Ubisoft. Get Sega to make a good 3D Sonic for it exclusively, preferrably a sequel to Sonic Adventure with only Sonic levels and no j-punk music so you have an iconic, console-defining game (this part should be quite easy if you are Sega).
I'd buy that, and I think a lot of people would.
When I was a kid, I certainly knew Stallone and Seagal. They were the A-List stars of the B-List action movies :-)
Lundgren, not so much. Norris, yeah, but a bit down. Russel is more of a "real" actor, though.
Translation: I'm used to it, and I hate everything I'm not used to, no matter how good it is.
As opposed to non-real people, such as us.
Link please.
Yeah, if I listened to one after the other, I'd hear the difference. That doesn't mean there's actually a difference, it just means I'd hear one. Try again in a double-blind test and see how well you do.
This is true (at least for me - I already can't hear the difference between CD and 192kb AAC). However, the idea here is probably to let the user archive the music, and encode it in the format he or she wants. 320kb AAC sounds awesome, but if your player only plays MP3, you've already got one transcoding action which will take away from the quality of your music.
You sound neither very sane, nor very honest.
You only need to play a few rounds of offline multiplayer Mario Kart 64, and then a few online rounds of Mario Kart DS to figure out that, indeed, he is crazy.
Online gaming can never be a replacement for offline multiplayer gaming.
I was in Cuba half a year ago. I met a guy whose mom was run over by a car. He was rather poor, but his mom was in a hospital, paid for by the government. The security of knowing that you won't be screwed over by the country you pay your taxes to when something happens to you is also an achievement that the USA does not yet have, but Cuba does.
Conspiracy indeed. Only morons would think that Nintendo will intentionally keep the Wii in short supply for a whole year. Not in a Business like the Console Business, where more sales only make your product more attractive; the more Wiis Nintendo sells, the more third-party games they get, the more people want to buy Wiis. Intentionally keeping supply short would be the dumbest thing anyone could possibly do in Nintendo's position.
Since this happens to be what I want for Christmas, I hope they work it out, or my loving wife has already found one.Nintendo has already announced that even with increased production (1.8 million Wiis per month), they will not be able to satisfy demand during Christmas; which isn't surprising, considering they haven't been able to satisfy demand in the US all year.
I don't know, when playing Halo 3, people talk about how faggy each other is every ten seconds, too. I didn't find the movie hilarious, I found it depressing, because it depicts exactly the society we already live in.
I still think everyone should see it, even if it's not hilarious, but sad.
I always knew Dvorak was a rather dumb person, but this takes the cake. Can you really miss the truth by such a wide margin, yet still feel entitled to write pompous drivel about your ideas?
There's so much wrong with his inane drivel that I don't even really know where to start. Of course peole who are hungry now want rice and not a PC. But guess what, these people aren't the ones getting the PCs anyway, so it makes no sense to complain about them getting PCs instead of rice. They don't!
But maybe they should. Maybe Dvorak should spend a few minutes educating himself about why we need to give rice to those people, and what the effect of our giving rice to them is. Most countries with wide-spread famines could actually produce enough food for themselves. They don't because their corrupt governments sell the food (sometimes to feed cattle in other countries), pocket the money, or spend it on their armies instead of on helping their people. Educating the people in these countries is the first step towards helping them understand these issues, and helping them organizing so they can replace their governments with ones which won't enslave them and sell their food. The OLPC can be a step amongst many towards helping these people.
Giving people rice only makes them dependent on us. Giving people knowledge and networks gives them power, and may allow them to help themselves in the future.
No, "suggest" means "I have evidence, but no proof," which makes sense since it's pretty much impossible to find proof for something like this. What are you going to do, run a study with a control group which is never exposed to violent media, but otherwise lives normal lives? It's impossible.
This is probably the only way they can get the content providers to agree: Show them the money carrot. Make it legal for your customers to move movies to different media, and you'll get money. I think it's not so bad; everyone wins:
Fact is, nintendo cannot make much money from huge file downloads, such as games and movies. This is the core of Sony and Microsoft's long term profit model.
Absolutely. I think this is the main reason why Microsoft even released the Xbox, and put a HD into each unit of the original version. However, I don't think it'll work. I think Microsoft and Sony kind of got the whole thing wrong: Their thinking was along the lines of "okay, console units are sitting in living room hooked up to TVs. People want to watch stuff sitting in the living room on a TV. So let's sell content on consoles, because they are where people are when they want to watch content!"
Unfortunately, they totally missed the iPod and the PC. I think people want to watch content they buy on several devices, so they prefer to buy it on their computers, via iTunes or amazon.com or another online store, and then put it on the devices on which they want to consume the content.
I doubt Sony and Microsoft are going to sell a lot of media for their respective boxes. I think Microsoft figured that out, too, hence the Zune.
Not to mention that the 360 is simply too noisy to watch movies on it.
the wii is a great system, and nintendo makes a bit of cash on each one, but compare that profit to a downloaded game.
Which Nintendo sells, too.
I'm not pretending Sony hasn't really really screwed up these past years, but they and MS could make profits that simply exceed what nintendo makes.
It's possible, but unlikely, especially considering all the money the two companies have already invested in their consoles. I doubt the 360 will ever make up for the investment Microsoft has had, and I think the PS3 will barely break even during the next 6 years.
Granted, part of my reasoning is that the wii doesn't have enough appealing games.
Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Mario Galaxy, two Resident Evil games, Zack & Wiki, Mario Kart, Monster Hunter 3, Super Smash Bros, a few FF and DQ spinoffs...
I don't think games are going to be an issue for Nintendo this generation.
I just think that PS3 will age well.
That mostly depends on how well it'll do. Historically, it's been one of the losing manufacturers which killed off their console first, and started the next generation. It was Sega when they lost to NES, SNES and PS1; it was Microsoft when they lost to the PS2. At some point, you have to cut your losses and clear the table. If Sony can't get sales up quickly enough, they either won't be able to cut the price on the PS3, or they'll have to take more losses on the hardware. Nintendo has the economies of scale on its side this generation; they'll be able to get component costs down due to the high sales numbers. Microsoft, too. For Sony, it's going to be tougher.
Frankly, the way it looks now, I would not be surprised if Sony would be the first to kill of the PS3 and jump-start the next gen: Nintendo has no need to do that as long as sales remain high. Sales - and especially game sales - are great for Microsoft, too; why kill the console as long as game sales remain high? Sony, on the other hand, neither has game sales nor hardware sales. That's a tough spot to be in, regardless of how pretty your hardware is.
And while I do like my PS3, I freely admit I hardly play it.
Me neither. Waiting for the Warhawk expansion. I was disappointed with the gameplay of R&C and Uncharted; right now, I'm mainly playing Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii, Zelda on the DS and Flatout on the 360. Pain was fun, but only for about an hour or so.
The PS3 will be selling a lot of stuff in 2011, and the XBOX 360, I fear, will be obsolete.
As of now, cross-platform games still seem to look better ont he 360. Frankly, I doubt the 360 can ever be called obsolete as long as you don't apply the same qualifier to the PS3.
I think there's no other way to do it in a game like Galaxy. If you had the Bee suit in, say, the toy robot level, you could just fly to the end of the level. Being able to move suits would make a game like Galaxy too exploitable, and taking each suit into account in each level would probably make a lot of puzzles impossible.