Let's bug the hell out of Atari and other gaming houses to say, "Eh, what the hell - go nuts and spread the love of roms around, now that the bloody thing is 30 years old."
Why would they do that if they can re-release them every so often and get you to buy old code again? The PSX disc was even a "greatest hits" member. Now they're being ported to PDA's and the GBA.
Atari is such a strong brand people still talk about "their old Atari" like when old people talk about "the war" - as if there were only one.
Friend of mine once paid for his burrito at a local restruaunt with the then-brand new $20 bill. They gave him change for a $100 bill. Suffice it to say his order was suddenly "to go".
I may be wrong here, but I don't think there was ever an IE 1.0. Microsoft, like dozens of other companies, bought the right to "brand" a distribution of Mosaic and either they rolled some of their own crap into it and called it "2.0" or they based it on 2.0 of Mosaic.
I don't know or recall if there's any shreds of Mosaic in IE 6.0 (or even if there were any in 3.0, the first IE to be a "contender") but like MS buying QDOS and making it MS-DOS, they did the same with Mosaic.
All I remember is that it used to suck to have to set up Windows NT 4.0 on a system and try to download all the latest service packs, browsers, etc. to discover that the POS IE 2.0 they bundled with it couldn't read ASP pages (insisted on.htm or.html) which is what MS put its updates on microsoft.com in.
Actually since MS bundled IE 2.0 with NT all along and no one complained, then they bundled IE 4.0 with 98 and caught hell about it, if IE 4.0 is so bad, why did people complain? IE 2.0 was bad and no one griped...
Because the bartender is not supposed to serve liquor to someone who is drunk. In some states the law says "visibly drunk". The bartender is supposed to know when the person is drunk. If the bartender makes the person drunk, that's one thing but if the person is drunk and then the bartender serves some more then they can be liable. It's akin to shooting an intruder more than once - once is considered self defense, more than once can be considered murder.
Of course, IANAL or a bartender. And in our town some kid drank himself to death on his 21st birthday at a local establishment because his multiple not-drunk friends kept getting him more drinks and feeding them to him and the bars are getting fucked as a result.
The getaway car analogy is childish ...
A better analogy might be firearms
Actually the one I was thinking of was where there was some company making a semi-automatic pistol called the "TEC-9" or somesuch (I'm sure I have that name wrong but that's how it was pronounced). They advertised the gun as having a coating that was "especially resistant to fingerprints", practically inviting crime. The Gov't. fucked them over for that ad and the gun's no longer made (I think the company may have gone under as well). Firearms do have legit uses, but when you make a gun expressly for the purpose of being condusive to illegitimate purposes there's less of an argument about "fair use".
After the students graduated, a good portion of them found that since they were already used to using Mac's, it was easier for them to buy a Mac than it was to get a PC.
That may have worked at first, but by and large once you get off into the real world you discover that while Apple was aiming at the kids, Microsoft was aiming at the adults, and when the kids became adults, they had to change because the adults weren't going to. This is why Apple is a bit player these days and were it not for the aesthetics of their new machines and the $150 million cash infusion Microsoft gave them they wouldn't be around anymore.
In reality, Microsoft is the only one that has bought in to this "lose money on the hardware" idea.
I somehow doubt that Nintendo/Sony are not losing any money on their consoles so far.
On Day 1, they sell the XBox for $389 or so to those one million "early adopters" that would frankly pay anything to get their hands on a new game console.
Perhaps this idea worked in 1995, but if you don't think Sony priced the PS2 at $299 in 10/2000 to be competitive, you're wrong
If, on average, every XBox owner buys 7 software titles over the life of the console (a reasonable estimate)
Still seems too low to me. You're telling me the PSX/N64 only sold average seven titles each?
how many millions of people are eagerly awaiting Dreamcast 2? That's right, zero million
High praise indeeed considering there will NEVER be a Dreamcast 2. Perhaps a better analogy would be how many millions of people were waiting on "Saturn 2" (Dreamcast). Well there were at least 2 million or so in the U.S. but comaring that to however many million the PSX sold or the PS2 sold in one year it's small potatoes.
Not a bad article, and good to see one from an economist's viewpoint, but not from the viewpoint of someone closely versed in the game industry.
Will Sun give a fig about Piracy? Let's be honest - Office, in some packages prior to 2000, like Windows prior to XP, was easy to pirate and now since it's the standard (possibly in part due to piracy) institutions and businesses have to buy it in bulk. If StarOffice is easy to pirate it might find itself in the same place - so will/should Sun care about piracy?
Perhaps a better question is whether or not OpenOffice 1.0 is a close enough approximation to not even care about pirating the "real thing".
Yes, but there are two things about MAME emulation of Neo Geo titles:
1. MAME has an internal "ethics" clause forcing them to wait two years before emulating a game, so if Metal Slug 4 is released this year then it will be 2004 before MAME emulates it. Granted, if MS4 never hits the arcade, then perhaps MAME will never emulate it (since it's an arcade emulator).
2. Neo Geo games, at least at one point in time, employed heavy encryption. As a result, it takes quite a while to dump the cartridges in any working form. Metal Slug 3 was released in 2000 but it was mid-2001 before working dumps showed up, and of course 2002 before MAME would support it.
Granted, Kawaks supported it right away and the old NeoRageX doesn't have to have predefined games, so as soon as a game gets dumped you can usually play it right away, but it's not like a "on the Internet before it's in stores ala AOTC" situation.
Well what was there to spoil? I mean, even if you're only vaguely familiar with Spiderman Canon (like I am) you pretty much know what the movie is like - kid gets bit by spider, turns into Spider-Man, has to fight genetically altered bad guy, has lots of fights, gets nearly killed towards the end, eventually prevails in time to set up the sequel.
I guess the only thing the average movie goer didn't expect was that in the end - instead of getting the chick he killed the lone gunmen.
Actually, what probably happened is they were told that they had too many violent images to get a PG rating and they had to cut at least one - best to cut the least interesting/important one (light saber to the face = important, head butt != important)
I'm just glad to be in the USA where movie ratings aren't enforced by law.
Also odd is the fact that we know, thanks to the preview trailers, that *someone* in the movie gets a light saber to the face - but a head-butt is a no no.
Occasionally when I compile an online COBOL program I get a message saying "an error has occurred" or "a serious error has occured" but you know you're fucked (not really) when "a catastrophic error has occured". I always think it's hilarious when the compilers feel it neccessary to rank the errors - as if some were less in need of fixing than others.
Ergo, I wonder if Catastrophe Hedging Program 2.5 ever has a catastophic error. Better question - does this program share any code with Microsoft Money?
Tilde was voiced by Kate Botello, and she left to go to New York (with her hubby I presume) so no more Tilde (or at least not as we know it). TechTV's kinda died down when the dot-com thing went bust (Tech Live was 9.5 hours, now it's 30 minutes). Maybe MH as TechTV spokesman would be a good idea. Plus it's not like Matt Frewer's off curing cancer or anything...
All of their flesh explodes off of their skeleton in a colorful, chunky spray
Yes, this fucked me up pretty bad as a kid, too! It was in the commercial for the british movie version on some video my folks rented. I was pretty chilled back then but in hindsight I wonder if it would just make me laugh today. I mean, how could someone explode but leave their skeleton intact on a barka lounger? Wouldn't there be more smoke, fire and bone destruction? I think the idea was to be humorous but since a lot of the people who like Max Headroom were children, I think it was misplaced (which explains why ABC axed that sequence).
On that tip, imagine my mother's shock when I caught Max cussing and discussing condoms with Dr. Ruth on that CineMAX show he hosted once.
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Atari is such a strong brand people still talk about "their old Atari" like when old people talk about "the war" - as if there were only one.
yeah but PONG was the first successful arcade game, so it gets the credit for inventing the industry, if not the arcade game.
Friend of mine once paid for his burrito at a local restruaunt with the then-brand new $20 bill. They gave him change for a $100 bill. Suffice it to say his order was suddenly "to go".
For the sake of refrerence his name is Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel
Goddamn I love Chick Tracts.
I don't know or recall if there's any shreds of Mosaic in IE 6.0 (or even if there were any in 3.0, the first IE to be a "contender") but like MS buying QDOS and making it MS-DOS, they did the same with Mosaic.
All I remember is that it used to suck to have to set up Windows NT 4.0 on a system and try to download all the latest service packs, browsers, etc. to discover that the POS IE 2.0 they bundled with it couldn't read ASP pages (insisted on .htm or .html) which is what MS put its updates on microsoft.com in.
Actually since MS bundled IE 2.0 with NT all along and no one complained, then they bundled IE 4.0 with 98 and caught hell about it, if IE 4.0 is so bad, why did people complain? IE 2.0 was bad and no one griped...
Of course, IANAL or a bartender. And in our town some kid drank himself to death on his 21st birthday at a local establishment because his multiple not-drunk friends kept getting him more drinks and feeding them to him and the bars are getting fucked as a result.
Not a bad article, and good to see one from an economist's viewpoint, but not from the viewpoint of someone closely versed in the game industry.
Perhaps a better question is whether or not OpenOffice 1.0 is a close enough approximation to not even care about pirating the "real thing".
1. MAME has an internal "ethics" clause forcing them to wait two years before emulating a game, so if Metal Slug 4 is released this year then it will be 2004 before MAME emulates it. Granted, if MS4 never hits the arcade, then perhaps MAME will never emulate it (since it's an arcade emulator).
2. Neo Geo games, at least at one point in time, employed heavy encryption. As a result, it takes quite a while to dump the cartridges in any working form. Metal Slug 3 was released in 2000 but it was mid-2001 before working dumps showed up, and of course 2002 before MAME would support it.
Granted, Kawaks supported it right away and the old NeoRageX doesn't have to have predefined games, so as soon as a game gets dumped you can usually play it right away, but it's not like a "on the Internet before it's in stores ala AOTC" situation.
I guess the only thing the average movie goer didn't expect was that in the end - instead of getting the chick he killed the lone gunmen.
I'm just glad to be in the USA where movie ratings aren't enforced by law.
Also odd is the fact that we know, thanks to the preview trailers, that *someone* in the movie gets a light saber to the face - but a head-butt is a no no.
No sorry that's backwards - R movies can be seen by children with adults and NC-17 is restricted to 17 and up only (No Children under 17)
Are you sure it's the Delaware stripe? Maybe Delaware is at the bottom and it's Virginia that's been cut.
http://www.donho.ho/
Don Ho dot ho
Ergo, I wonder if Catastrophe Hedging Program 2.5 ever has a catastophic error. Better question - does this program share any code with Microsoft Money?
Tilde was voiced by Kate Botello, and she left to go to New York (with her hubby I presume) so no more Tilde (or at least not as we know it). TechTV's kinda died down when the dot-com thing went bust (Tech Live was 9.5 hours, now it's 30 minutes). Maybe MH as TechTV spokesman would be a good idea. Plus it's not like Matt Frewer's off curing cancer or anything...
Well he's not the first to get "VHS" and "VCR" confused - the first, though, was in 1986
On that tip, imagine my mother's shock when I caught Max cussing and discussing condoms with Dr. Ruth on that CineMAX show he hosted once.
I got it the first time I ran it and then when I tried to run it again the problem went away. Keep at it, I guess.