Consumers view price increases negatively so price increases can do damage to public perception of a brand which can reduce the long term profitability of a product.
Show me a game that completely fills a Bluray disc with anything other than prerendered video and I'll show you a game that will never earn back its development costs.
Our national budget is insane. And even though each expenditure is just a drop in the bucket, it all adds up to a huge amount. If we ever want to get the budget under control we have to look at every little thing and ask, is this really worth the money we're spending on it?
Million dollar parties just strike me as a bit excessive, even if they are just a tiny fraction of the budget.
Speaking of expensive kitchen gadgets, I had an idea for a device which seems obvious but I haven't seen anywhere. My idea is to attach a vacuum pump to a pot with a sealable lid to achieve the opposite effect of a pressure cooker (or maybe it could double as a pressure cooker too). It seems like a good way to regulate the temperature of a water bath (set the pressure so that the boiling point is the appropriate temperature), but I haven't been able to find anything like that.
I'll take games journalists seriously when someone demonstrates that one of them has mentally progressed past the age of 15.
I'll tell you why I like the Wii: it's the only system that has games worth playing that aren't available on PC. If I liked driving games or sports games I might be interested in the 360 or PS3.
Scouts can actually take down unattended sentries moderately well, especially if it's just around a corner. The trick is to stand just around the corner and move into view to shoot it with your scattergun and move back very quickly. You'll take some damage but if your quick enough you can take it out before you lose too much health. In some cases you can see the sentry around a corner before it can see you and you can shoot the parts sticking out safely. If it's in an open area you can also use your pistol on it from a distance but this takes a lot of ammo to work.
Still, for any well defended point, a good demo man or a heavy+medic or pyro+medic combo is needed (soldier+medic works in a pinch, but in general soldiers spend too much time reloading to be that useful in ubercharge).
The friend code system is copied from Toontown, Disney's E-rated MMOG. The purpose of friend codes is to allow online game play in E and E10+ games. While the ESRB doesn't explicitly forbid online text and voice chat in E and E10+ games (at least based on their website), it seems to be an implicit rule. After all, most fantasy MMOs would qualify for E10+ (fantasy violence with little or no blood), but they're all rated T. This is because if a game rated E or E10+ were released that allowed players to communicate with strangers, there would be a huge fuss about it being a tool for pedophiles. By only allowing players to communicate with people they've contacted through a different medium, Nintendo can avoid this kind of scandal.
Nintendo has also used the friend code system for Metroid Prime Hunters which is rated T, but in that game you can mark someone as a rival after a random match and play them again if they mark you as a rival as well. Still, rivals can't use the voice chat feature. It seems unlikely that M rated games will be required to use friend codes, but I guess it is possible that Nintendo may foist it upon them anyway. Nintendo is probably providing some middleware for the friend code system and third parties may end up just using it rather than putting together their own matchmaking and friends list features.
Literally has literally come to mean figuratively in modern English, in a manner of speaking.
I wouldn't quite say that. People typically insert "literally" into a sentence when they want to express sincerity as opposed to an empty use of a phrase. For example, someone might say that a movie had them "literally glued to their seat." Of course they are in fact figuratively glued to their seat not literally, but the sentiment they are intending to express is that they were genuinely reluctant to leave their seat and that they aren't just using the stock phrase "glued to one's seat" as unnecessary hyperbole.
I haven't played Call of Duty for about a month so I just put it back in to double check that I'm not exaggerating my talents. I have crosshairs off and it took me a minute to find my bearings, but it's pretty much like I said, "point, shoot, kill". Your view only starts to turn once you approach the edge of the screen and you can aim freely within the center 80% of the screen. I prefer to use the non-repeating weapons because a shot to the head or torso is sufficient for a kill. I'm averaging about 5 bullets per 4 kills and as I said I haven't played in a while.
As for the Wii Play shooting range. I scored 500 points on my first time playing it so I think I could manage OK without the cursor. The cursor doesn't really help you hit the faster moving targets anyway. If you're watching the cursor you'll take too long to set up your shot.
You don't need the on screen cursor. I played Call of Duty without it and I did fine. Even if you do use the cursor, you shouldn't be watching it. Keep your eyes on what you want to shoot and your hand will learn to follow. It's just like a real gun. With a real gun you never use the sight unless you're shooting a stationary target. It's just a matter of observing the trajectory of your target and learning where to point the gun to intercept that target.
The wobble is a software issue. In Metroid Prime 3 it's completely fixed. The cursor doesn't shake and always moves smoothly. Hopefully other developers will catch on soon.
And since there aren't really any decent FPSs on the Wii I'd have to agree that all of the good FPSs are on the 360. But I think we'll have some interesting times ahead when third party devs start to get their act together on the Wii. The 360 will still have it's advantages in graphics and being able to get screamed at by foul-mouthed 8 year olds, but I think we'll see some really interesting FPSs on the Wii.
In practice I haven't found the inconsistency to be a problem. I've played Call of Duty with the cross hairs disabled and I could easily make headshots, something I could never do well with a mouse. With a little practice you can get to the point where you can just look at what you want to shoot and hit it.
Those are issues but I don't think they are really that big of a deal. It doesn't seem that much different from adapting to the peculiarities of a gun. After shooting a bit you learn to transparently compensate for things like the speed of the shot and how much the shot drops over distance. I had a BB gun with a bent barrel and I adapted to that too.
So long as the game provides a consistent mapping between spatial coordinates and display coordinates, a player can learn to internalize the mapping with a little practice. Of course, early Wii games (and the Wii system menu) have suffered from some nuisances like cursor jitter, but Retro has smoothed this out perfectly and hopefully third party devs will catch on too.
The people who practice a lot are going to be able to hit any point on the screen with pinpoint accuracy in a fraction of a second. I assure you that when we see some good online FPSs for the Wii that there will be people capable of headshotting a room full of people very quickly.
Actually the human brain is capable of exceptional accuracy with a pointing device like the wiimote. Your brain is pretty much hardwired for this sort of thing and it only takes a little practice to get really good at it. I've seen a shooting instructor teach people how to hit an aspirin in midair with a BB gun in less than 10 minutes. This is something that pretty much everyone who isn't braindamaged is capable of doing.
With the wiimote you can easily do some things that are much more difficult with a mouse: track a fast moving target and quickly move between targets. Of course, the PC still has the advantage that you can map keys to all sorts of useful macros, but I think the mouse's reign as best input device is at an end.
His assertion wasn't true. The 360 has always had a strong attach rate and it also has the advantage of having a larger library of games. That said, the Wii still has very respectable software sales. Wii software has been outselling 360 software in North America (last week was an exception as Madden '08 sales on the 360 were huge).
Slashdot Mirror
The Wii sold more at launch than the PS3 or 360 though (not as much as the PS2's launch, but it did more than make up the difference after the fact).
Why didn't Walmart, of all companies, get a contract that insured that HP couldn't bail on them?
Consumers view price increases negatively so price increases can do damage to public perception of a brand which can reduce the long term profitability of a product.
Show me a game that completely fills a Bluray disc with anything other than prerendered video and I'll show you a game that will never earn back its development costs.
Our national budget is insane. And even though each expenditure is just a drop in the bucket, it all adds up to a huge amount. If we ever want to get the budget under control we have to look at every little thing and ask, is this really worth the money we're spending on it?
Million dollar parties just strike me as a bit excessive, even if they are just a tiny fraction of the budget.
Speaking of expensive kitchen gadgets, I had an idea for a device which seems obvious but I haven't seen anywhere. My idea is to attach a vacuum pump to a pot with a sealable lid to achieve the opposite effect of a pressure cooker (or maybe it could double as a pressure cooker too). It seems like a good way to regulate the temperature of a water bath (set the pressure so that the boiling point is the appropriate temperature), but I haven't been able to find anything like that.
I'll take games journalists seriously when someone demonstrates that one of them has mentally progressed past the age of 15.
I'll tell you why I like the Wii: it's the only system that has games worth playing that aren't available on PC. If I liked driving games or sports games I might be interested in the 360 or PS3.
Road Rage was the Crazy Taxi knock off. Hit and Run was definitely a GTA knock off.
Scouts can actually take down unattended sentries moderately well, especially if it's just around a corner. The trick is to stand just around the corner and move into view to shoot it with your scattergun and move back very quickly. You'll take some damage but if your quick enough you can take it out before you lose too much health. In some cases you can see the sentry around a corner before it can see you and you can shoot the parts sticking out safely. If it's in an open area you can also use your pistol on it from a distance but this takes a lot of ammo to work.
Still, for any well defended point, a good demo man or a heavy+medic or pyro+medic combo is needed (soldier+medic works in a pinch, but in general soldiers spend too much time reloading to be that useful in ubercharge).
The start button on his gamecube controller must be broken.
It is included. Brawl is going to allow 4 different control schemes: wiimote, wiimote + nunchuk, classic controller, and Gamecube controller.
Just because someone says something you don't like doesn't make them a troll. All he said was that a game is nice but not worth the cost of the PS3.
It's pretty much a given since some other characters get transformations as their final smashes.
The friend code system is copied from Toontown, Disney's E-rated MMOG. The purpose of friend codes is to allow online game play in E and E10+ games. While the ESRB doesn't explicitly forbid online text and voice chat in E and E10+ games (at least based on their website), it seems to be an implicit rule. After all, most fantasy MMOs would qualify for E10+ (fantasy violence with little or no blood), but they're all rated T. This is because if a game rated E or E10+ were released that allowed players to communicate with strangers, there would be a huge fuss about it being a tool for pedophiles. By only allowing players to communicate with people they've contacted through a different medium, Nintendo can avoid this kind of scandal.
Nintendo has also used the friend code system for Metroid Prime Hunters which is rated T, but in that game you can mark someone as a rival after a random match and play them again if they mark you as a rival as well. Still, rivals can't use the voice chat feature. It seems unlikely that M rated games will be required to use friend codes, but I guess it is possible that Nintendo may foist it upon them anyway. Nintendo is probably providing some middleware for the friend code system and third parties may end up just using it rather than putting together their own matchmaking and friends list features.
I wouldn't quite say that. People typically insert "literally" into a sentence when they want to express sincerity as opposed to an empty use of a phrase. For example, someone might say that a movie had them "literally glued to their seat." Of course they are in fact figuratively glued to their seat not literally, but the sentiment they are intending to express is that they were genuinely reluctant to leave their seat and that they aren't just using the stock phrase "glued to one's seat" as unnecessary hyperbole.
And I thought people riding on Segways looked ridiculous.
I haven't played Call of Duty for about a month so I just put it back in to double check that I'm not exaggerating my talents. I have crosshairs off and it took me a minute to find my bearings, but it's pretty much like I said, "point, shoot, kill". Your view only starts to turn once you approach the edge of the screen and you can aim freely within the center 80% of the screen. I prefer to use the non-repeating weapons because a shot to the head or torso is sufficient for a kill. I'm averaging about 5 bullets per 4 kills and as I said I haven't played in a while.
As for the Wii Play shooting range. I scored 500 points on my first time playing it so I think I could manage OK without the cursor. The cursor doesn't really help you hit the faster moving targets anyway. If you're watching the cursor you'll take too long to set up your shot.
You don't need the on screen cursor. I played Call of Duty without it and I did fine. Even if you do use the cursor, you shouldn't be watching it. Keep your eyes on what you want to shoot and your hand will learn to follow. It's just like a real gun. With a real gun you never use the sight unless you're shooting a stationary target. It's just a matter of observing the trajectory of your target and learning where to point the gun to intercept that target.
No he's referring to the fact that an evil wizard cursed Sony so that all of their exclusives would turn out mediocre.
The wobble is a software issue. In Metroid Prime 3 it's completely fixed. The cursor doesn't shake and always moves smoothly. Hopefully other developers will catch on soon.
And since there aren't really any decent FPSs on the Wii I'd have to agree that all of the good FPSs are on the 360. But I think we'll have some interesting times ahead when third party devs start to get their act together on the Wii. The 360 will still have it's advantages in graphics and being able to get screamed at by foul-mouthed 8 year olds, but I think we'll see some really interesting FPSs on the Wii.
In practice I haven't found the inconsistency to be a problem. I've played Call of Duty with the cross hairs disabled and I could easily make headshots, something I could never do well with a mouse. With a little practice you can get to the point where you can just look at what you want to shoot and hit it.
Those are issues but I don't think they are really that big of a deal. It doesn't seem that much different from adapting to the peculiarities of a gun. After shooting a bit you learn to transparently compensate for things like the speed of the shot and how much the shot drops over distance. I had a BB gun with a bent barrel and I adapted to that too.
So long as the game provides a consistent mapping between spatial coordinates and display coordinates, a player can learn to internalize the mapping with a little practice. Of course, early Wii games (and the Wii system menu) have suffered from some nuisances like cursor jitter, but Retro has smoothed this out perfectly and hopefully third party devs will catch on too.
The people who practice a lot are going to be able to hit any point on the screen with pinpoint accuracy in a fraction of a second. I assure you that when we see some good online FPSs for the Wii that there will be people capable of headshotting a room full of people very quickly.
Actually the human brain is capable of exceptional accuracy with a pointing device like the wiimote. Your brain is pretty much hardwired for this sort of thing and it only takes a little practice to get really good at it. I've seen a shooting instructor teach people how to hit an aspirin in midair with a BB gun in less than 10 minutes. This is something that pretty much everyone who isn't braindamaged is capable of doing.
With the wiimote you can easily do some things that are much more difficult with a mouse: track a fast moving target and quickly move between targets. Of course, the PC still has the advantage that you can map keys to all sorts of useful macros, but I think the mouse's reign as best input device is at an end.
And the same thing goes for a decent garden and a garden simulator.
His assertion wasn't true. The 360 has always had a strong attach rate and it also has the advantage of having a larger library of games. That said, the Wii still has very respectable software sales. Wii software has been outselling 360 software in North America (last week was an exception as Madden '08 sales on the 360 were huge).