I definitely see the lack of arcades being the downfall. Someone like me would be happy to pay for the full F-Zero experience. I'm already guaranteed to buy GX, but there are no arcades anywhere near me. The only places arcades exist these days are
Major cities
Tourist attractions
Dave+Buster's/Jillians
chuck e cheeze
Things like DDR, Time Crisis 3, and F-Zero are giving kids a reason to head to the arcade. The problem is that there aren't any. And where there are arcades, prices are high. 1 dollar per credit is a little nuts if you ask me. And most arcades don't update with the newest games.
Someone should open up a chain of very small arcades in areas with lots of gamers and no arcades, like suburbs. The arcades don't need a lot of games, just the new big ones. They can make money of skee-ball, crane machines, mini golf, a skate park, birthday parties, etc. However, they should also be run with the gamer in mind. When new games come out that will be popular the arcade should get them asap. High Score and such should be taken seriously. Tournaments could be hosted. A LAN area would work well too. Set up a chain/franchise of these and money is coming your way.
Also, back in the day arcade games used to be superior to home games. Obviously today they aren't. Expensive peripherals like light guns and ddr pads add something. But what we really need are arcade games that use vastly superior technology than console and pc games. Think about it. A 300$ console setup + television has a game of equal quality to a 3000$ arcade machine? For the very high prices arcade machines could have extremely powerful computers inside and have pixar quality graphics and surround sound, etc. that gamers can't get in their homes.
Not with the current school system. Schools are buying more computers, and kids are using them more, but they aren't learning about computers. Public schools use computers to try to get kids to learn in other subjects. They often have math programs, encyclopedias, and typing teachers. The most common uses of computers in public schools are typing reports in word, printing, and of course web browsing and instant messenger.
Every school, starting in elementary or middle school, should have required computer classes. Everyone who graduates public high school in the united states should have knowledge in the following topics.
Binary Arithmetic
Simple programming language
The parts/assembly of a modern pc
Simple circuitry, transistor, gates, etc.
How to type (lots of people still don't know
Basic UNIX skills
Schools have computers, and they use them to teach everything, except about computers. You buy paint and brushes to teach about art, and novels to teach about literature, why buy computers to teach something besides computers? I think in the world today this is really a necessity to teach these skills to everybody.
I think I talked about this before, but now I get to post early so more people will see it!
Pretty much piracy is a double edged sword. If your system is pirateable like MS or Sony you get increased market share. But at the same time if your system is unpirateable you get more profit per sale.
Check this. Playstation games are pirateable, probably the most pirated games ever. The PS1 is a cheap and easily obtainable and moddable piece of hardware. Low income people (most of the world) can afford to get the Playstation because they can get the hardware cheap and can pirate games. I know a lot of people who have PSOnes. Sometimes I think I'm the only person without one. But all of them that I know have both legitimate and pirated/imported games. Because games are pirateable more people buy the system, and those who own the system are highly likely to buy a few legitimate games. However, because of piracy you will have a few people who would have and could have bought the game, but pirate instead. And of course if your system is pirateable there is the extra revenue you get by winning lawsuits against pirates.
Then you look at an unpirateable system like the cube. Everyone who owns a cube paid for it. They paid for every game they own and every accesory for the system. So on every sale Nintendo makes profit. The only people who own a cube are people who want it and can afford it. Nobody else has one, so Nintendo's market share is low. But when a game comes out for the cube that is awesome, like wind waker, it is instantly a million seller. Everyone who has the system buys the game.
So, piracy good and bad at the same time. Market share or profit margin? I don't see Nintendo going out of business any time soon, but I don't see sony going out either. But I do see XboX turning a loss despite higher market share in the US over the cube. Hmmmm.
The best gamepad for the pc has always been the gravis gamepad. Then it was the gravis gamepad pro. Now, it's the gravis gamepad pro USB. Just plug it into any USB on any pc and it works automatically without a hitch. True, most games use mouse and keyboard, but there are games for which the gamepad is very useful.
1) Emulated games. PS2 to USB converters achieve the same effect however. But $15 Gravis are cheaper than PS controllers.
2) EA Sports games.
3) Some flash games, occasionaly someone is smart enough to add joystick support.
4) old shareware games, you know the ones.
That's what I use the gamepad for. Also, the racing wheel for racing games and the stick/throttle for flight, mech, and other games that need many buttons.
So, there are uses for extra controllers on the pc, but few people still buy sticks and wheels. And those markets are dominated by logitech and saitek and such. And the people who use the gamepad a lot, like me, go with gravis.
I'd be damn happy if someone made backups and mirrors of a site I made. People will visit my site without using bandwith I pay for. Also, if disaster strikes I can get my site back because someone else was kind enough to back me up. The more the merrier
That is true. However, if you install the newest DirectX (which will install no matter how shitty your pc is), and you try to play a game written for say a GeForce4 and you have a TNT2, then your pc can figure out what the card should do and what the cpu should do. So, there is no reason for game designers to code to the least common denominator, they just have to code for the newest DirectX/OpenGL and the user's pc turns on available options for their card, and disables the others.
The reason that the graphics card is under-used is for two reasons. The first is that game designers, as you said, want the game to work well on lower end platforms. If your cpu is good enough you can add better graphical features even if your video card doesn't support it. For example Descent 3 adds motion blur if your cpu is L33t enough. However, the main reason that video cards are underused is that it's a fucking pain in the ass.
Let's say for instance that your name is not John Carmack, and you want to make a 3d game. You code it in C++, Cg, Objective C, Visual C++, OpenGL, DirectX9, whatever. You have all these different layers of 3d graphics you have to deal with, unless you just use someone else's engine. You've got shadows, lighting, colors, textures, mip mapping, bump mapping, shading, animating, it goes on and on with the insane number of things you have to do. When new apis emerge that let you use the video card to do more stuff it is very difficult to learn that much more crap.
It happens all the time no matter what you are coding. Ohhh, there's a function in that library that does that for me! I just wasted my time! Ohhh, there's a way that I can make the video card do that really easily and I will save some cpu and some ram! Nobody, sans Carmack, knows this stuff well enough that they can use the graphics card 100% of the time it is possible and better to do so. Except of course in the most graphically simple of programs. However, I do urge game developers to try to use the GPU more than the CPU. It results in many advantages for the gamer.
The album existed because of the medium of the vinyl record. It had two physical sides, and if it wasn't filled up it was a huge waste. The cassette tape was similar in its two sidedness, but you could put a different amount of tape in the cartridge to reduce waste. CDs are a dime a dozen and you can even get little cds if you want. mp3s take up no "physical" space even though they have to be put on some physical storage device.
If you want to sell me an album of a bunch of your new songs, you're going to have to change a few things. First, all the songs better be damn good. None of this 1 hit on the cd business. For years artists have sold albums to people just trying to get the 1 hit, well it wont work anymore. Also, you have to put a lot of songs on that album. None of this 10 song shit. You better damn well have 80 minutes of audio on there. I'll buy the cd if it's worth the money.
What cds are worth the money? Well, pick any great old album, it's cd form is worth money. Like Queen's A Night at the Opera. But new stuff? The White Stripes suprised me a lot by being a new popular band that has music I really like. They just released new Led Zeppelin (best band ever) dvds and cds of live stuff. Andrew WK also put out an awesome album, I even went to see him live it was so good. And of course there are cds from other countries, like Super Eurobeat and such.
So yeah, I'll buy a cd if it's worth the price. The real reason I don't buy much music anymore is lack of quality product. So if you've got one song, and you don't want to sell me that one song for like 50 cents, guess what? If there's a demand and no legal supply, a black market is created.
Not many people realize the crappiness of american board games. Games like Monopoly and Sorry and other Milton Bradley/Parker Brothers are almost entirely contests of luck. If you are the winner you can't say that you are better than the other players. The majority of your victory was up to dice.
There are some games that involve skill in america, but they are mostly based on knowledge and not strategy. Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble are two. Even our war games are primarily luck based. Risk has dice, Axis + Allies has dice, even the great Shogun (Samurai Swords) has dice.
If you head over to http://www.boardgamegeek.com you'll see there are a ton of board games that just arne't well known in america, but there are two or three companies who bring them over in English. Games like Settlers of Catan, El Grande, and my favorite Puerto Rico! These games are games of pure strategy, and you need a lot of friends to make them happen, so sorry rest of/..
The majority of them fall into a few categories. Tile laying, where you lay out cardboard tiles to form different things. Wooden Cube: where you place wooden cubes in different "bins". And bargaining, where you make deals with other players and make deals to achieve victory. Every game is different and contains multiple different aspects of the three categories. I love Puerto Rico so much because it doesn't fall into any of the 3 categories. It is a pure game of best strategy wins.
So, next time you have 3 to 5 people and nothing to do get yourself a german board game. boardgamegeek will be sure to reccomend a good one. If you have 10 hours you can play Die Macher! the simulation of the german senate. I again highly reccomend Puerto Rico. Also, check out some of the "spiell de jahres"(sp) in german it means game of the year. I think Puerto Rico and Settlers are both past winners. Settlers of Catan is probably the most popular and a good starter game because it does involve a slight random factor.
Piracy on Nintendo systems has always been a fickle topic. Back in the day Nintendo dropped the CD and stuck with the cartridge right up through the N64. Their choice to stick with proprietary optical media on the cube is obviously because they want to have the ultimate defense against piracy.
This seems pretty good for Nintendo. Nintendo makes more profit per unit on games and systems than either MS or Sony. This is how they stay in business despite not being number one. However, I think one of the reasons they aren't number one is because you can't pirate their games.
I know lots of people with Playstation 1's and 2's. It's hard not to. Almost all of these people have modded a system for various reasons, import games, piracy, etc. However, they all have one thing in common. They bought the hardware legitimately, and they all have at least a few legitimate games. Everyone who owns a gamecube has had to buy all of their games and hardware legitimately. People who can't afford to do so, don't buy a cube.
I'm not advocating piracy. I think that if you want to have the privalege of playing all the great cube games you should have to pay for it, like I do. However, I think piracy does increase market share a great deal. By having pirateable games your system becomes prevalent in low income countries and households. Outside of US, Europe, Japan and Australia getting video games is difficult. Often the only option is to get a PS1, which is easily acquireable and pirate games which are un-affordable.
By switching to a pirateable media format like CD or DVD Nintendo will lose some money to decreased software sales to suburban kids and college students. But they will make that money back by selling hardware to low income households who will pirate all their software.
In summary. No piracy causes lower market share, but higher software sales figures. 2 million copies of Zelda as opposed to 1.5 million otherwise. Pirating allows higher market share through more hardware sales, but causes fewer software sales.
The other reason is that Nintendo makes a lot of first party titles. Piracy would cause direct loss of dough to Nintendo. The other systems thrive mostly on third party software. So piracy doesn't hurt Sony or Microsoft as much as it hurts Capcom or EA.
"The Silmarillion" is the name of the book. It mostly concerns itself with the story of Feanor, the elf who forged the Silmarils, the gods of middle earth (there's a very large heirarchy of them), and the fight against morgoth (Sauron's "daddy").
I think it would make a really great movie, I don't know why nobody considers it. There are some pretty huge ass battles with shitloads of dragons and balrogs and insane crap like that. Even though it is a prequel, as it starts at the absolute beginning of the Middle Earth timeline, I reccommend you read it after the other 4 books. It will have a lot more meaning.
1) Make the GUI really flashy and super cool. Or at least show the boss a super cool and flashy GUI, even if that isn't the one for your program. It doesn't even matter if your program is supposed to have a GUI. If the boss isn't smart enough to realize the superiority of the in house solution then he is stupid enough to be fooled by good looks.
2) Official written proposal. Official written things are good because it makes physical evidence. Make it good enough to convince any arbitrary 3rd party. That way, even if the boss says no, you can make him look like an idiot by showing the paper to someone else and saying "he said no to this".
3) Use big fancy buzzwords. It seems to work for a lot of other people.
4) Break the current solution. If it aint broke, don't fix it, is a common management philosophy. So if you want to improve on something just break it on purpose. It will give you an opportunity to present your better solution. As long as you don't get caught!
5) After you do all of the above, tell the bosses boss. Also, get fellow employees to help you. If 10 people go to the office to tell him to give the ok, he's more likely than if one goes. And nobody is a bigger influence on the boss, than his boss.
If that doesn't work, either your whole place is stupid and you should find a new job (however hard it may be). Or, your solution sucks.
Their premium features will be the same as everyone elses. You will now have to pay for what you are used to getting for free. As soon as it is no longer available for free anywhere else it becomes special.
What I wonder about though is all the faqs. They aren't owned by gamefaqs. They are written by others for everyone else for free. If cnet tries to profit off the faqs written by random gamers, can't the gamers sue them for mad cash? This will surely be intersting. I hope the gamefaqs poll doesn't go away though, it is high quality.
How does a guy who writes an article like this get posted to slashdot? Seriously. Even my "Hopefully this will lead to more truly innovative and quality titles like Splinter Cell, Nascar: Dirt to Daytona and Burnout 2..."
If you think those games are innovative there is something seriously wrong with you. Of the three Burnout 2 is probably the most so, and only in it's awesome crashing action.
Nintendo makes the most innovative and fun video games in the world, they always have. So, slashdot, if you're going to continue posting quality stuff like this why not post some of the shit that I write when I'm bored and sleepy?
This looks like something that would make a great gaim plugin. It would create a new buddy group named Strangers. It would put people in that group who are on the same IM networks as you who are also using the plugin/trepia and have similar interest, location, etc.
From trying out the trepia client it seems that it doesn't take a lot of information about your interests. Just a text box named Profile. And as far as location, it was way off. London = an ocean away.
Logitech. Logitech makes the highest quality mouses and keyboards. This discounts special purpose mouses and keyboards like digitizers and those keyboards that can withstand being tossed in the crack of doom. I reccomend you get whatever the current ultra elite super cordless mouse-keyboard wireless combo is. I believe the current one has a mouse that sits in a cradle a recharges when you aren't using it. That's a good thing if you don't use it often.
Uplink is an awesome awesome game. You have this awesome interface that makes you feel as if you are really hacking, movie style. It comes complete with the map that shows you relaying connections and getting traced. It even has plot! If you haven't played it, you should. I'm all for showing more realistic hacking in movies. Clean out some of the false impressions and stereotypes in peoples minds.
than which "standard" you choose, is that even if you make up something new or arbitrary, that it is open. What really stifles innovation is when someone makes up something new and doesn't tell anyone else. Too often the best ways of doing things are patented and proprietary. File systems are a good example.
your music has to be good. I'm not going to pay for music that sucks. The future of music advertising I think is in non-conventional methods. I highly suggest you get a third party to make a meme out of one of your songs. I found out about an awesome dude Master Zap http://www.z4p.com after hearing one of his songs in an anime music video. I found out about Tatu because Gabe from Penny Arcade told me about it. Just making a website with mp3s and advertising isn't enough. Your music actually has to be good and has to have an association in peoples minds with something else that's cool. Car commercials work well.
An optical router. An incredible array of lenses and lasers and "light controllers". It would take up an entire room and be a dust free vacuum. It would be so awesome, not to mention cool looking.
I agree that the internet is the new place for games. It will remain so until something else comes around and completely revolutionizes our world again. However, the arcade is making a comeback. If the popularity of DDR isn't enough for you just check out Time Crisis 3 and the new F-ZeroAC. Time Crisis 3 is perhaps the best gun game ever. F-Zero will provide connectivity between the soon to be release GameCube F-Zero game and the arcade one. The arcade still has a use. It is the place to play games with peripherals that you can't have at home. If companies started making more really great games with interesting peripherals, the arcades would be packed. If more people opened up arcades...
Slashdot Mirror
Why are you visiting american websites? Aren't there any Hungarian internet stores to buy from? If not, opening one up could prove profitable.
- Major cities
- Tourist attractions
- Dave+Buster's/Jillians
- chuck e cheeze
Things like DDR, Time Crisis 3, and F-Zero are giving kids a reason to head to the arcade. The problem is that there aren't any. And where there are arcades, prices are high. 1 dollar per credit is a little nuts if you ask me. And most arcades don't update with the newest games.Someone should open up a chain of very small arcades in areas with lots of gamers and no arcades, like suburbs. The arcades don't need a lot of games, just the new big ones. They can make money of skee-ball, crane machines, mini golf, a skate park, birthday parties, etc. However, they should also be run with the gamer in mind. When new games come out that will be popular the arcade should get them asap. High Score and such should be taken seriously. Tournaments could be hosted. A LAN area would work well too. Set up a chain/franchise of these and money is coming your way.
Also, back in the day arcade games used to be superior to home games. Obviously today they aren't. Expensive peripherals like light guns and ddr pads add something. But what we really need are arcade games that use vastly superior technology than console and pc games. Think about it. A 300$ console setup + television has a game of equal quality to a 3000$ arcade machine? For the very high prices arcade machines could have extremely powerful computers inside and have pixar quality graphics and surround sound, etc. that gamers can't get in their homes.
Every school, starting in elementary or middle school, should have required computer classes. Everyone who graduates public high school in the united states should have knowledge in the following topics.
Schools have computers, and they use them to teach everything, except about computers. You buy paint and brushes to teach about art, and novels to teach about literature, why buy computers to teach something besides computers? I think in the world today this is really a necessity to teach these skills to everybody.
I think I talked about this before, but now I get to post early so more people will see it!
Pretty much piracy is a double edged sword. If your system is pirateable like MS or Sony you get increased market share. But at the same time if your system is unpirateable you get more profit per sale.
Check this. Playstation games are pirateable, probably the most pirated games ever. The PS1 is a cheap and easily obtainable and moddable piece of hardware. Low income people (most of the world) can afford to get the Playstation because they can get the hardware cheap and can pirate games. I know a lot of people who have PSOnes. Sometimes I think I'm the only person without one. But all of them that I know have both legitimate and pirated/imported games. Because games are pirateable more people buy the system, and those who own the system are highly likely to buy a few legitimate games. However, because of piracy you will have a few people who would have and could have bought the game, but pirate instead. And of course if your system is pirateable there is the extra revenue you get by winning lawsuits against pirates.
Then you look at an unpirateable system like the cube. Everyone who owns a cube paid for it. They paid for every game they own and every accesory for the system. So on every sale Nintendo makes profit. The only people who own a cube are people who want it and can afford it. Nobody else has one, so Nintendo's market share is low. But when a game comes out for the cube that is awesome, like wind waker, it is instantly a million seller. Everyone who has the system buys the game.
So, piracy good and bad at the same time. Market share or profit margin? I don't see Nintendo going out of business any time soon, but I don't see sony going out either. But I do see XboX turning a loss despite higher market share in the US over the cube. Hmmmm.
The best gamepad for the pc has always been the gravis gamepad. Then it was the gravis gamepad pro. Now, it's the gravis gamepad pro USB. Just plug it into any USB on any pc and it works automatically without a hitch. True, most games use mouse and keyboard, but there are games for which the gamepad is very useful.
1) Emulated games. PS2 to USB converters achieve the same effect however. But $15 Gravis are cheaper than PS controllers.
2) EA Sports games.
3) Some flash games, occasionaly someone is smart enough to add joystick support.
4) old shareware games, you know the ones.
That's what I use the gamepad for. Also, the racing wheel for racing games and the stick/throttle for flight, mech, and other games that need many buttons.
So, there are uses for extra controllers on the pc, but few people still buy sticks and wheels. And those markets are dominated by logitech and saitek and such. And the people who use the gamepad a lot, like me, go with gravis.
I'd be damn happy if someone made backups and mirrors of a site I made. People will visit my site without using bandwith I pay for. Also, if disaster strikes I can get my site back because someone else was kind enough to back me up. The more the merrier
That is true. However, if you install the newest DirectX (which will install no matter how shitty your pc is), and you try to play a game written for say a GeForce4 and you have a TNT2, then your pc can figure out what the card should do and what the cpu should do. So, there is no reason for game designers to code to the least common denominator, they just have to code for the newest DirectX/OpenGL and the user's pc turns on available options for their card, and disables the others.
The reason that the graphics card is under-used is for two reasons. The first is that game designers, as you said, want the game to work well on lower end platforms. If your cpu is good enough you can add better graphical features even if your video card doesn't support it. For example Descent 3 adds motion blur if your cpu is L33t enough. However, the main reason that video cards are underused is that it's a fucking pain in the ass.
Let's say for instance that your name is not John Carmack, and you want to make a 3d game. You code it in C++, Cg, Objective C, Visual C++, OpenGL, DirectX9, whatever. You have all these different layers of 3d graphics you have to deal with, unless you just use someone else's engine. You've got shadows, lighting, colors, textures, mip mapping, bump mapping, shading, animating, it goes on and on with the insane number of things you have to do. When new apis emerge that let you use the video card to do more stuff it is very difficult to learn that much more crap.
It happens all the time no matter what you are coding. Ohhh, there's a function in that library that does that for me! I just wasted my time! Ohhh, there's a way that I can make the video card do that really easily and I will save some cpu and some ram! Nobody, sans Carmack, knows this stuff well enough that they can use the graphics card 100% of the time it is possible and better to do so. Except of course in the most graphically simple of programs. However, I do urge game developers to try to use the GPU more than the CPU. It results in many advantages for the gamer.
The album existed because of the medium of the vinyl record. It had two physical sides, and if it wasn't filled up it was a huge waste. The cassette tape was similar in its two sidedness, but you could put a different amount of tape in the cartridge to reduce waste. CDs are a dime a dozen and you can even get little cds if you want. mp3s take up no "physical" space even though they have to be put on some physical storage device.
If you want to sell me an album of a bunch of your new songs, you're going to have to change a few things. First, all the songs better be damn good. None of this 1 hit on the cd business. For years artists have sold albums to people just trying to get the 1 hit, well it wont work anymore. Also, you have to put a lot of songs on that album. None of this 10 song shit. You better damn well have 80 minutes of audio on there. I'll buy the cd if it's worth the money.
What cds are worth the money? Well, pick any great old album, it's cd form is worth money. Like Queen's A Night at the Opera. But new stuff? The White Stripes suprised me a lot by being a new popular band that has music I really like. They just released new Led Zeppelin (best band ever) dvds and cds of live stuff. Andrew WK also put out an awesome album, I even went to see him live it was so good. And of course there are cds from other countries, like Super Eurobeat and such.
So yeah, I'll buy a cd if it's worth the price. The real reason I don't buy much music anymore is lack of quality product. So if you've got one song, and you don't want to sell me that one song for like 50 cents, guess what? If there's a demand and no legal supply, a black market is created.
Not many people realize the crappiness of american board games. Games like Monopoly and Sorry and other Milton Bradley/Parker Brothers are almost entirely contests of luck. If you are the winner you can't say that you are better than the other players. The majority of your victory was up to dice.
/..
There are some games that involve skill in america, but they are mostly based on knowledge and not strategy. Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble are two. Even our war games are primarily luck based. Risk has dice, Axis + Allies has dice, even the great Shogun (Samurai Swords) has dice.
If you head over to http://www.boardgamegeek.com you'll see there are a ton of board games that just arne't well known in america, but there are two or three companies who bring them over in English. Games like Settlers of Catan, El Grande, and my favorite Puerto Rico! These games are games of pure strategy, and you need a lot of friends to make them happen, so sorry rest of
The majority of them fall into a few categories. Tile laying, where you lay out cardboard tiles to form different things. Wooden Cube: where you place wooden cubes in different "bins". And bargaining, where you make deals with other players and make deals to achieve victory. Every game is different and contains multiple different aspects of the three categories. I love Puerto Rico so much because it doesn't fall into any of the 3 categories. It is a pure game of best strategy wins.
So, next time you have 3 to 5 people and nothing to do get yourself a german board game. boardgamegeek will be sure to reccomend a good one. If you have 10 hours you can play Die Macher! the simulation of the german senate. I again highly reccomend Puerto Rico. Also, check out some of the "spiell de jahres"(sp) in german it means game of the year. I think Puerto Rico and Settlers are both past winners. Settlers of Catan is probably the most popular and a good starter game because it does involve a slight random factor.
Piracy on Nintendo systems has always been a fickle topic. Back in the day Nintendo dropped the CD and stuck with the cartridge right up through the N64. Their choice to stick with proprietary optical media on the cube is obviously because they want to have the ultimate defense against piracy.
This seems pretty good for Nintendo. Nintendo makes more profit per unit on games and systems than either MS or Sony. This is how they stay in business despite not being number one. However, I think one of the reasons they aren't number one is because you can't pirate their games.
I know lots of people with Playstation 1's and 2's. It's hard not to. Almost all of these people have modded a system for various reasons, import games, piracy, etc. However, they all have one thing in common. They bought the hardware legitimately, and they all have at least a few legitimate games. Everyone who owns a gamecube has had to buy all of their games and hardware legitimately. People who can't afford to do so, don't buy a cube.
I'm not advocating piracy. I think that if you want to have the privalege of playing all the great cube games you should have to pay for it, like I do. However, I think piracy does increase market share a great deal. By having pirateable games your system becomes prevalent in low income countries and households. Outside of US, Europe, Japan and Australia getting video games is difficult. Often the only option is to get a PS1, which is easily acquireable and pirate games which are un-affordable.
By switching to a pirateable media format like CD or DVD Nintendo will lose some money to decreased software sales to suburban kids and college students. But they will make that money back by selling hardware to low income households who will pirate all their software.
In summary. No piracy causes lower market share, but higher software sales figures. 2 million copies of Zelda as opposed to 1.5 million otherwise. Pirating allows higher market share through more hardware sales, but causes fewer software sales.
The other reason is that Nintendo makes a lot of first party titles. Piracy would cause direct loss of dough to Nintendo. The other systems thrive mostly on third party software. So piracy doesn't hurt Sony or Microsoft as much as it hurts Capcom or EA.
This would make like a reply from MS on every single /. story a requirement.
But I bet no matter what they say MS's replies will be spelled correctly.
xmllint to validate and such
saxon for sxlt action
python - from xml import * in an interactive session and away we go
A text editor - I prefer Kwrite.
A web browser if needed - I prefer MozFire
Even better if you learn how to spell.
"The Silmarillion" is the name of the book. It mostly concerns itself with the story of Feanor, the elf who forged the Silmarils, the gods of middle earth (there's a very large heirarchy of them), and the fight against morgoth (Sauron's "daddy").
I think it would make a really great movie, I don't know why nobody considers it. There are some pretty huge ass battles with shitloads of dragons and balrogs and insane crap like that. Even though it is a prequel, as it starts at the absolute beginning of the Middle Earth timeline, I reccommend you read it after the other 4 books. It will have a lot more meaning.
Indeed there is a country where people work for free! Not just one, but two!
Sourceforgeria and Freshmetialand.
Follow these simple steps
1) Make the GUI really flashy and super cool. Or at least show the boss a super cool and flashy GUI, even if that isn't the one for your program. It doesn't even matter if your program is supposed to have a GUI. If the boss isn't smart enough to realize the superiority of the in house solution then he is stupid enough to be fooled by good looks.
2) Official written proposal. Official written things are good because it makes physical evidence. Make it good enough to convince any arbitrary 3rd party. That way, even if the boss says no, you can make him look like an idiot by showing the paper to someone else and saying "he said no to this".
3) Use big fancy buzzwords. It seems to work for a lot of other people.
4) Break the current solution. If it aint broke, don't fix it, is a common management philosophy. So if you want to improve on something just break it on purpose. It will give you an opportunity to present your better solution. As long as you don't get caught!
5) After you do all of the above, tell the bosses boss. Also, get fellow employees to help you. If 10 people go to the office to tell him to give the ok, he's more likely than if one goes. And nobody is a bigger influence on the boss, than his boss.
If that doesn't work, either your whole place is stupid and you should find a new job (however hard it may be). Or, your solution sucks.
Their premium features will be the same as everyone elses. You will now have to pay for what you are used to getting for free. As soon as it is no longer available for free anywhere else it becomes special.
What I wonder about though is all the faqs. They aren't owned by gamefaqs. They are written by others for everyone else for free. If cnet tries to profit off the faqs written by random gamers, can't the gamers sue them for mad cash? This will surely be intersting. I hope the gamefaqs poll doesn't go away though, it is high quality.
How does a guy who writes an article like this get posted to slashdot? Seriously. Even my "Hopefully this will lead to more truly innovative and quality titles like Splinter Cell, Nascar: Dirt to Daytona and Burnout 2..."
If you think those games are innovative there is something seriously wrong with you. Of the three Burnout 2 is probably the most so, and only in it's awesome crashing action.
Nintendo makes the most innovative and fun video games in the world, they always have. So, slashdot, if you're going to continue posting quality stuff like this why not post some of the shit that I write when I'm bored and sleepy?
This looks like something that would make a great gaim plugin. It would create a new buddy group named Strangers. It would put people in that group who are on the same IM networks as you who are also using the plugin/trepia and have similar interest, location, etc.
From trying out the trepia client it seems that it doesn't take a lot of information about your interests. Just a text box named Profile. And as far as location, it was way off. London = an ocean away.
Logitech. Logitech makes the highest quality mouses and keyboards. This discounts special purpose mouses and keyboards like digitizers and those keyboards that can withstand being tossed in the crack of doom. I reccomend you get whatever the current ultra elite super cordless mouse-keyboard wireless combo is. I believe the current one has a mouse that sits in a cradle a recharges when you aren't using it. That's a good thing if you don't use it often.
gcc and a text editor is all you need to make any game. A net connection helps.
Uplink is an awesome awesome game. You have this awesome interface that makes you feel as if you are really hacking, movie style. It comes complete with the map that shows you relaying connections and getting traced. It even has plot! If you haven't played it, you should. I'm all for showing more realistic hacking in movies. Clean out some of the false impressions and stereotypes in peoples minds.
than which "standard" you choose, is that even if you make up something new or arbitrary, that it is open. What really stifles innovation is when someone makes up something new and doesn't tell anyone else. Too often the best ways of doing things are patented and proprietary. File systems are a good example.
your music has to be good. I'm not going to pay for music that sucks. The future of music advertising I think is in non-conventional methods. I highly suggest you get a third party to make a meme out of one of your songs. I found out about an awesome dude Master Zap http://www.z4p.com after hearing one of his songs in an anime music video. I found out about Tatu because Gabe from Penny Arcade told me about it. Just making a website with mp3s and advertising isn't enough. Your music actually has to be good and has to have an association in peoples minds with something else that's cool. Car commercials work well.
An optical router. An incredible array of lenses and lasers and "light controllers". It would take up an entire room and be a dust free vacuum. It would be so awesome, not to mention cool looking.
I agree that the internet is the new place for games. It will remain so until something else comes around and completely revolutionizes our world again. However, the arcade is making a comeback. If the popularity of DDR isn't enough for you just check out Time Crisis 3 and the new F-ZeroAC. Time Crisis 3 is perhaps the best gun game ever. F-Zero will provide connectivity between the soon to be release GameCube F-Zero game and the arcade one. The arcade still has a use. It is the place to play games with peripherals that you can't have at home. If companies started making more really great games with interesting peripherals, the arcades would be packed. If more people opened up arcades...