With that in mind, it becomes obvious that this delay probably has little to do with either console's dev kits. I think that if either version were going to be ready next week, they would release it. Since the budget for this game is ginormous (see the article in gameinformer), each launch delay is probably very costly.
Actually, I don't think they're allowed to release the 360 version before the PS3. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Sony locked up something in the contract saying that the game has to ship simultaneously on all the platforms. Otherwise, there would be a lot of people that just get the game for the 360 as soon as it came out, similar to what most folks did for GTA for the PS2, and later the Xbox.
Hopefully for the developer, they have something in the contract that enables Sony to pay up if that ever happened. However, I really doubt that's the case. It probably *is* a case that the game just isn't ready in general, but I suppose we'll never know (unless someone on the team leaks it).
Yeah, Zonk has been zonk'in a lot of fud lately. I don't know the person but honestly they've been slightly making slashdot a pain in the a lately. Not so much for providing at least some useful content, (which Zonk does do occasionally), but all this FUD on topics that don't matter are annoying. Plus it just gets the fan boys riled up. Zonk, you happen to work at Digg too?
Not supporting achievements, is not FUD. It's a real feature that a lot of people (myself included) were hoping to see, especially since Sony themselves talked about it some time ago.
Have we come full circle? I admit that some of the articles Zonk posts can be rather FUD-ish for Sony, especially when they're just rumors, or just dupes of the same bad news from Sony. But it's gotten back to the point where everything that Zonk posts is already assumed that it's just anti-Sony FUD, when it's not the case. Believe it or not, bad Sony news does still exist, and it's not just "anti-Sony hype".
Youy're overgeneralizing. I refuse to play a lot of online serivces, including battle.net and Live, in large part due to the score. Not all of us are competitive, and not all of us are competitive all the time. And if I'm going to be competitive, it will be in game beating you, not having to tweal my playstyle to maximize some number (nothing pisses me off more in DDO that hear someone talk about how much higher their kill score is when I'm playing a CC wizard or priest. Yeah, you're the man, I suck for my 2 kills. Lets do it again without me webbing half the dungeon). I'm far more likely to use Sony's system than MSes due to the fact there is no score. Which makes it more likely I'll buy the PS version rather than the xbox for non-exclusives. And I'm far from alone. I think this is a great move.
No, it's a stupid move for several reasons.
First of all, you have to admit that your preferred playstyle, is rather rare. The reason why there are rankings in almost every online game is because many gamers are competitive by nature. So it's a silly business decision to ignore the competitive majority. Sony has already acknowledged that they want to have some sort of achievement system, although tweaked so its a bit different (at least per game instead of system-wide). I imagine the main reason why the PS3 launch games don't have Entitlements (Sony's name for achievements), though, is because there just wasn't enough time to add them in.
Secondly, achievements are something that's easily just ignored. I equate it to the rumble feature. Some people don't like it, so they can just turn them off. With the 360 achievements, you can either ignore them, or just never get a gamertag, or don't sign into Xbox Live. The gamerscore is nothing more than just points to "show off". It has no impact on affecting game play (which is something that some people actually want to see). So you can safely play your same game and not give the achievements any consideration. But you should consider the fact that there are a lot of those who DO like said feature (perhaps a bit too passionately).
Personally, I can relate a bit to your situation. I often don't like playing online games, simply because I'm not as good as a lot the kids online, who have far more time than I do to practice any given game. Even though I don't play multiplayer, I still have to acknowledge that it's a play mode that a lot of people do enjoy, so it'd be silly for me to declare, "I don't like multiplayer, so it's a stupid idea for X company to put it in their game", especially since it's something I can just ignore. Yet, I like the gamer score system since that gives me a way to fuel my competitive nature just a little bit, merely by playing a game the same way I mostly would have played it. I don't compare my gamer score to the kids online, who again, have far more time than I do. Instead, I compare it with my friends and co-workers, who are primarily in the same situation I am, so our scores are actually competitive.
Some games just plain aren't suited to the achievements. Developers then go out of their way to use up their allotment. This results either in inane achievements, or in-game tasks that don't fit the game genre. It also encourages and rewards unhealthy gaming habits. For example, one of the achievements in Dead Rising requires you to play for at least 14 hours in a single session. That's if you do it perfectly the first time...
I don't think it's that the games aren't suited to achievements, it's just that this whole notion is still new to developers, so there are still a lots of achievements that are done better than others.
I'd actually have to say that Dead Rising does a pretty decent job handling them, compared to other games. Every achievement is worth only 20 points (which is miniscule, seeing how every full game can dish out 1,000 points). So that survival achievement you mentioned, isn't worth all that much. If you're a perfectionist, sure, you'll try to get them all. Or if you're like most folks (myself included), you'll just play through the game, grab most of the normal achievements along the way, and maybe try for a stretch one or two. The good thing about achievements in DR is that it encourages you to try things you might not normally have wanted to do, and actually enjoy doing it.
For those that don't care for the achievement systems (and I know there are quite a few), it's simple enough to just ignore the whole thing. It's the same with any other platform feature you don't like (such as rumble). That's why I think it's silly for people to argue that system shouldn't be offering something that a lot of people do enjoy. If you don't like it, don't use it. I would have preferred Sony do something similar with the PS3, to maintain some sort of feature parity, and it's upsetting that they've chosen not to do so.
One thing the article doesn't go into is what Sony is planning to do in response to Xbox Live's gamerscore and achievements system. They mentioned a while ago something similar called "Entitlements", but it would have been nice to hear more. As neat as the Friends notification and system are on Xbox Live, it's really the gamerscore that I find really cool. My friends and co-workers are often competing/comparing scores and achievements, and it's gotten to be a bit competitive. I know it's not something everyone cares about, but enough people do.
Microsoft is notorious for trying to run employees into the ground with continuous 60-hour work weeks, never ending political battles, constant re-orgs, and in general an insane culture so absurd that books have been written about it.
Wow, that's a lot of FUD there (go figure). I work at MS and I don't think I've ever had to "dodge flying chairs".:)
I haven't read the earlier books regarding MS culture, but I can tell you that if they were true, then times have certainly changed. Or maybe it's just an indication that the group that I work in has been "fortunate". I haven't worked 60-hour continuous work weeks, nor does anyone else here does, and nor do many of the people that I've talked to. Political battles? Sure, at times, but I wouldn't call it "never ending". (And MS is not the only place where I've worked with those type of battles, I reckon any larger-size company is going to have them)
Re-orgs, that may have some truth in. But again, it really depends on where you work. I've heard of many groups going through "re-orgs" and then it's gone, with all the folks being given opportunities to look elsewhere within the company. But I've gone through several re-orgs where it really does help the group (and no, people don't lose jobs), and people are satisfied with how it worked out. Again, I would have to imagine other larger companies go through similar phases as well.
Finally as for the "insane culture", that might be true... although I don't really know what you're referring to.:) The MS culture definately is different, and I wouldn't say its a bad thing. It's nice having co-workers that are genuinely smart, hard-working, and passionate. I have certainly worked in other companies where that is NOT the case (especially certain government contracting firms). It's also fun having co-workers that love the same types of things: games, geek culture, tech trends, etc. And most of us have great work-life balance too, with many of us having families, or doing lots of outdoors stuff (skiing, snowboarding, biking, even scuba diving).
I have heard stories about the "old days" from my bosses, who have been in MS far longer than I have. In some ways, it's exciting because that's when MS was still new, the stock was soaring, etc. But there WERE lots of work-life balance problems, and many people really getting disgruntled by "the grind" (which explains why so many people left and retired, as the stock started settling). The MS nowadays is a lot "softer" (which ironically, some of the older folks dislike), which I vastly prefer.
Oh, I wasn't trying to say that Seamus was a nobody (actually, I said so in my original post), just that it wasn't something coined by "marketing or strategy". It doesn't mention it in the Wikipedia, but it took a lot of convincing before it would get real MS backing. Although you're right that there might be a little revision history going on, so that little point might be lost nowadays.
I actually agree that it's very difficult for a "nobody" to bring a large, well-known product to launch. (Although I have seem some lesser-known products championed by only one or two people) Probably the best place to work in MS, if you're interested in just pure innovation, is in MS Research. They hold a technology fest every year, and it's filled with all sorts of interesting programs, gadgets, gizmos, and ideas. Some of them do go on to be integrated into a real product, although many (presumably) die off, because it's just not practical or "ahead of its time".
"Interesting" projects? It depends ...
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Sounds like he'd be better off not working for some giant corporation. I work for a small company, and although I don't get paid as much as some of my peers, it's nice knowing that I don't have to stay at work until 7 pm every night, or work weekends. I also get to do work on a lot of different and interesting projects, instead of being pigeon holed into some tiny insignificant role in the company. I find that people who work for larger corporations end up doing the same thing day after day, refining a very small piece of code, while I'm always doing new things, getting to work on everything from the database right up to the UI of the application.
As I've noted in my other posts, I work for MS and I'd have to disagree somewhat. It all depends on the groups you end up in. I definately know of people here that work on tiny, insignificant roles in the company. Most often, they seem to be in the "big divisions" (Windows and Office). But I know of many people (including those in my group), that work on a wide variety of "different and interesting" projects, that have a key impact on customers. Maybe not on MS overall, but if I had to choose between making MS happy, and making millions of customers happy, it's certainly the latter that I'm choosing.
The way MS works is that there are a ton of these little product units that almost act like a company within themselves. So you get a lot of the benefits of working in a small company (high visibility among your peers) along with the benefits of a large company (stability, etc). Granted, there are a lot of disadvantages as well (red-tape, paperwork, etc.).
It's probably moot for the author, since I would imagine it's the same setup at Google as well. It appears they have many little teams as well, all working on their own bit of Google-goodness. So my advice: check out which groups gave you an offer, and decide what you would rather work on. Personally, I only chose to work at MS because I got to work in the games industry. I definately would not have come here just to work on Office or Windows, despite them being the huge drivers of the company.
When was the last time that a nobody started a project for MS? It was back in the 80's. All the other items have come from Marketing and strategy groups. The days of a nobody geek developing a product for MS that they take to the market are LONG over (not that MS really had been innovative).
Actually, I thought Xbox fit that model. It wasn't started by a "nobody" per say, but I'm pretty sure it was NOT through marketing or strategy. If anything, Bill and company had to be really convinced to dive into the console industry.
It all depends which group you are in
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I work in MS, and I can tell you that we don't work 60+ weeks where I am. It's the same way with other groups. But there are teams that are under crunch time, and I'm sure they might be putting in late hours (Vista anyone?). I'm guessing it's the same way with Google. Some groups are going to be under more pressure than others, or maybe it's the end of a milestone, etc.
If anything MS is trying to push for a more "friendly, softer side" of things regarding work-life balance, etc. We've had some major HR overhauls and revisions in the past few months, and I can say that it is making a difference. Also, the benefits package in general for MS is amazing. I don't know what Google offers, but the author should definately take that into account.
I'm from Seattle and I'd say we have 2 seasons ...
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We have actual seasons, as opposed to many cities that seem to only have two, with a range of decently hot weather, to not-too-cool winters.
Umm, really? I grew up in the Northern Virginia area (suburbs of DC), and we truly had four seasons there. After living in Seattle for the past few years (now working at MS, go figure), I'd have to say it's Seattle that has two seasons:
1) Rainy/wet season (Late fall, winter, early spring)
2) Awesome non-humid, always-sunny, summer season
The first season does admittedly suck. It actually doesn't rain heavily, it just drizzles... constantly. In the winter, it never gets cold enough to snow (and beware Seattle-ites when it DOES snow), so I can't say there's really a "winter" in Seattle. HOWEVER, the mountains nearby usually get plenty of the white stuff, which makes the skiing and snowboarding pretty awesome (at least compared to East Coast slopes).
The second season, many people don't know about. The Seattle area can go for weeks without a drop of rain, during the summer. Don't believe me? Check out the climate chart. It doesn't get overly hot or humid either, with highs only in the 70s most of the time. While much of the country was boiling in heat waves this summer, it was often clear skies with a high of 75 around here.
Weird, I have to check my cable bill to be sure, but HD programming is only $5/month for me. It's another $5/month to rent their HD-DVR box. I use Comcast and live in Washington, close to Seattle.
Then again, I started off with the digital cable package already, with Starz and HBO, so my bill was already pretty high. That might be the problem. You might not be able to get HD programming unless you already have many of the premium items.
IMHO, it's TV viewers that will drive this whole HDTV-debate, not gamers. So to talk about whether or not gamers really need HDTV is moot.
We all seem to forget that the primary use for the TV in most households, is to view TV shows. If Joe Bob is going to get an HDTV, it's not because he or his kids want to play video games in HD, but because the whole family has this need: Mom wants to see her prime-time shows in all HD glory, Dad wants to catch his football shows in HD, the kids want to play games in HD, etc.
So, is HD adoption in general growing in the US? It certainly is. Every holiday season, it seems like HDTV is the "big gift" to save up for. If not then, its the tax-return season. Or around the time of the Superbowl (guys want to get a new TV in time for the "big game"). Eventually we'll get to the point where half the country now has some sort of HD TV set. It's anyone's guess how long it will be (I'm betting it won't be for another 5-10 years).
Just a guess but is it multiplication? Like golf the lowest score gets the prize? (ie: the lowest score = x 0). Hence they 2nd numbering system starts @ 0. HTD
Ahh, bingo. I believe that's it. I know of some groups that just need one score to focus on, and will simply multiply priority by severity. But if a bug is truly pri 0 (blocking all other tasks), you want that to be worked on no matter what its severity is.
If you notice, Bugzilla even has a Severity and Priority field. It seems that this system of two different types of "priorities" works well for many different types of people.
I'm guessing that this system has existed for a long time, and from a field that was not in the software industry. It's just a good way for a product team of anything, to determine the right priority order of working on tasks.
The Nielsen study probably focused on casual gaming sites, such as Pogo.com, Yahoo Games, and MSN Games. The games on there are mostly casual games, such as Bejeweled, Zuma, and your simple card & board games (Spades, Hearts, Backgammon, etc.). If you spend some time around these sites, especially in the lobby/chat areas, you'll find that the audience IS mainly women, talking about their kids and family, etc.
Are they gamers? Sure they are, since they DO play games (and for long periods of time too!). Would they call themselves gamers? Oh heavens no, it's just something they do to pass the time. How many of them are there? Quite a lot, since these sites are often home to hundreds of thousands of players. (Take a look at the concurrent population on some of these sites, especially during the weekdays)
I happen to work in QA for a very commercial software firm (MS in fact, although it's in the games group). I agree whole-heartedly with your comments.
Commercial software has no "lock" on QA. Good fundamentals can be practiced anywhere. And I've certainly seen many testers coming from other commercial firms that have no idea what it does to be a good tester. (Definately instances of that in MS as well, we're a very large company)
I think the only difference "commercial vs OSS" has on QA is perhaps the environment that you're in. OSS projects can benefit from generally being smaller, so they can be more agile, try better software engineering methods, etc. On the other hand, it naturally can take a lot longer to change a larger, commercial firm, away from traditional the waterfall model, etc. On the flip-side, commercial firms benefit from just being able to spend more money: hiring more testers, doing more formal usability studies, etc. Larger OSS projects probably don't have problem recruiting good talent, but I imagine the smaller ones might. Of course there are always exceptions to the above generalizations, and I am in no way trying to say that one is necessarily better than the other. (And I could be wrong about some of them as well, I have not contributed to any OSS projects myself)
But to generalize that commercial software always has a stronger QA engineering component than OSS is bull.
I work at MS. In my group (and I imagine it's the same in others), a bug can be many things. Here's what they typically are though:
A product defect - This is the typical meaning behind the word "bug".
DCR (Design Change Request) - That's where your TeX complaint would fall under. It's "by design" that it doesn't have an iconic user interface, but that doesn't mean it's something that shouldn't be addressed ever
Work item - This is actually a result of the bug tracking system that we use. Rather than sending e-mail, which often gets lost, we often track work items as bugs. For example, "Need to turn off switch X on the test server when we get to milestone Y"
To further complicate things, there is a severity and priority attached to every bug. Severity is a measure of the impact the bug has on the customer/end-product. It can range from 1 (Bug crashes system) to 4 (Just a typo). Priority is a measure of the importance of the bug. It ranges from 0 (Bug blocks team from doing any further work, must fix now), to 3 (Trivial bug, fix if there is time). (I don't know why the ranges don't match, BTW, seems silly to me)
As anyone who works on large-scale project probably knows, there are always a wide range of bugs, across all the pri/sev levels. To me, a simple count of all the bugs isn't terribly useful. A project could have a ton of bugs, but most of them being DCRs (which are knowingly going to be postponed till the next release) and/or low pri/sev bugs. Or maybe it's the beginning of the project and they're all known work items. Or a project could have only a few bugs, but with all of them being critical pri/sev ones.
So, whenever I see a report that simply talks about bug count, I take it with a huge grain of salt. If I had to guess (I skimmed the article), it seems like OSS projects have far more bugs, but perhaps lower pri/sev since the product itself has been evaluated as being higher quality. In the end, it's the quality that the customer really cares about.
I figured I should chip in, since I'm a Dev that works in QA.
Somebody please explain to me exactly what kind of software bug can be found by automatic scanning that isn't found by standard debugging and compile-time checks. If a computer can ascertain exactly what the programmer intended to do, why do we need programmers?
Well first of all, you have to assume that all programmers even do the "standard debugging and compile-time checks". Even then, those checks are often hardly comprehensive. You can build some scanners that will catch rudimentary bugs that SHOULD have been caught, but were not. For example, assign things to null, test boundary conditions, etc. These are all things that should be part of a standard unit test that's delivered along with the code.
Also, things like memory leaks can be difficult to pinpoint. That's where tools like BoundsChecker are nifty.
Considering that most software bugs are logic bugs (off by one, etc) that can't be directly seen in the code without actually, you know, RUNNING the program, I find it difficult to believe that AI has come to the point where it can guess the coder's intentions and infer the purpose of an application.
No one is saying that a program or "AI" (as you call it) can find all bugs. But it can certainly be used to find some rather simple ones. Overall, though, I agree that you can't depend on running programs to catch bugs. You've got to have a solid QA department, which will use all the right tools to get the job done and try to maintain quality to the highest degree.
I'm not saying that OSS can't do this at all. I certainly think it can be done, but it does take more process and structure. Not having worked on any OSS projects myself, I imagine the largest, most important code-bases have a lot of this in place to drive quality. But your smaller or even mid-size OSS projects may be lacking in that department (much in the same way smaller and mid-size dev houses lack a decent QA department).
As several people have pointed out, Nintendo has had several design problems in the past. The biggest examples are with the lack-of-backlight original GBA portables, and the bulky original DS unit (with a stupidly positioned power button). That said, they were all completely playable (I had both handhelds), but when the redesigned units came out, they were much superior to the original.
A cynic could argue that even the design problems were "by design", as its a great way to get gamers to buy more hardware in the end.:)
I haven't had any quality issues with the hardware itself though. In fact, while many people were lamenting about dead pixel problems with first batch of PSPs, there wasn't a similar issue with the DS, AFAIK.
Apparently you don't know how to read. Here is a quote from your post, which I replied to originally:
As for the Japanesse[sic] developers making RPGs for the 360, I would not call the support "a lot".
So yes, the original topic WAS about RPGs. Well, at least that's what I thought you were referring to. That's why I started talking about RPG support for the 360 getting better.
Anyway, it's apparent that you're nothing but a Sony-fanboi troll (as suspected), who can only throw ad hominem attacks, rather that participate in any meaningful debate. Way to go!
It's not technically a First-Person Shooter (FPS) game, since the view is in the 3rd-person, over-the-shoulder. It's got a lot of the same elements otherwise, though, where aiming is important and it is team-based. So technically not an FPS, but it sure acts like one. And it is a "fast action" game, not a "simulation" type.
Lost Planet is another similar title. I just recently checked out the demo on Live Marketplace, and it has similar control-scheme. I remember reading somewhere that it was Capcom's attempt to make an FPS-like game that Japanese gamers would actually like. That is, have a lot of the action elements, without the traditional FPS control scheme that a lot of folks (myself included) don't like on a console. (I much prefer keyboard + mouse)
If both those games really take off, then that might signify the end of the traditonal FPS control scheme... or at least open up a new "sub-genre" of the FPS.
BTW - I got a chance to play Gears of War as well, and I have to say that it did take a little bit of time to get used to. But that was a good thing, since as I mentioned before, I'm not a fan of traditional FPS console controls. I liked it quite a bit, and am definately looking forward to it. I suspect that all Epic Games needs to do is release a demo of it on Live Marketplace, and that alone should sell a lot of copies (similar to how it helped Dead Rising really succeed almost out of nowhere). I'm always a fan of letting people try things out themselves, rather than hyping it to death using traditional marketing.
I definately agree that Lost gets awfully close to "jumping the shark" at times. Still, I'm already hooked and invested a lot of time with the show and its characters, so I'll be watching the entire season.
I agree that Heroes definately has its stupid, tacky, non-sensical moments. But for some reason, I'm still stoked that there's a show about mutants on primetime TV that's being treated seriously. It helps that I was a huge comic fan growing up.
I see some different trends among the next-gen consoles.
360 - Tag line is "Jump in", emphasis on all the Live services, and being part of a "living, breathing" community (Gamescore, achievements, Live Marketplace, Live Arcade, etc.)
Wii - Emphasis on innovation, being "Mom-friendly", brand new control scheme found nowhere else
PS3 - Focus on Blu-ray and "HD only begins with us!" (1080p, HDMI)
(I'm ignoring the PS3's attempt at their own network service, as they haven't really talked much about it, or their own motion-sensing controller, as those don't really distinguish themselves apart from the others... it seems too much of a "me too" approach)
Network services for the 360? Big hit for a lot of folks, especially considering broadband penetration in the US is rapidly increasing. New control scheme for the Wii? Very popular, particularly with gamers that are becoming disillusioned with the current type of games (more graphics, less gameplay, and less fun).
The trend that Sony is focusing on, unfortunately for them, is something that the vast majority of users won't care about. They don't have an HDTV, much less one that does 1080p or perhaps does HDMI.
What Sony SHOULD have done is just focus on their massive developer support, and on the games themselves. They've certainly talked about it with the PS3, but that message is diluted too much with the rest of the Blu-ray, 1080p, SIXAXIS talk going on. If all they did was thump their chest and focus on the games, they would have sold a lot more people on the PS3 (myself included).
You can read more about SCEA's official response, which blamed the reduction on the component shortage. Notice, however, that Sony is still sticking to their final fiscal year numbers. I'm pretty sure they would have gotten slammed pretty hard in the stock market if they reduced that estimate. But having the launch shortage will obviously make it harder to "catch up" to those finale estimates. That's why I'm saying an artificial shortage is crazy.
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Actually, I don't think they're allowed to release the 360 version before the PS3. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Sony locked up something in the contract saying that the game has to ship simultaneously on all the platforms. Otherwise, there would be a lot of people that just get the game for the 360 as soon as it came out, similar to what most folks did for GTA for the PS2, and later the Xbox.
Hopefully for the developer, they have something in the contract that enables Sony to pay up if that ever happened. However, I really doubt that's the case. It probably *is* a case that the game just isn't ready in general, but I suppose we'll never know (unless someone on the team leaks it).
Not supporting achievements, is not FUD. It's a real feature that a lot of people (myself included) were hoping to see, especially since Sony themselves talked about it some time ago.
Have we come full circle? I admit that some of the articles Zonk posts can be rather FUD-ish for Sony, especially when they're just rumors, or just dupes of the same bad news from Sony. But it's gotten back to the point where everything that Zonk posts is already assumed that it's just anti-Sony FUD, when it's not the case. Believe it or not, bad Sony news does still exist, and it's not just "anti-Sony hype".
No, it's a stupid move for several reasons.
First of all, you have to admit that your preferred playstyle, is rather rare. The reason why there are rankings in almost every online game is because many gamers are competitive by nature. So it's a silly business decision to ignore the competitive majority. Sony has already acknowledged that they want to have some sort of achievement system, although tweaked so its a bit different (at least per game instead of system-wide). I imagine the main reason why the PS3 launch games don't have Entitlements (Sony's name for achievements), though, is because there just wasn't enough time to add them in.
Secondly, achievements are something that's easily just ignored. I equate it to the rumble feature. Some people don't like it, so they can just turn them off. With the 360 achievements, you can either ignore them, or just never get a gamertag, or don't sign into Xbox Live. The gamerscore is nothing more than just points to "show off". It has no impact on affecting game play (which is something that some people actually want to see). So you can safely play your same game and not give the achievements any consideration. But you should consider the fact that there are a lot of those who DO like said feature (perhaps a bit too passionately).
Personally, I can relate a bit to your situation. I often don't like playing online games, simply because I'm not as good as a lot the kids online, who have far more time than I do to practice any given game. Even though I don't play multiplayer, I still have to acknowledge that it's a play mode that a lot of people do enjoy, so it'd be silly for me to declare, "I don't like multiplayer, so it's a stupid idea for X company to put it in their game", especially since it's something I can just ignore. Yet, I like the gamer score system since that gives me a way to fuel my competitive nature just a little bit, merely by playing a game the same way I mostly would have played it. I don't compare my gamer score to the kids online, who again, have far more time than I do. Instead, I compare it with my friends and co-workers, who are primarily in the same situation I am, so our scores are actually competitive.
I don't think it's that the games aren't suited to achievements, it's just that this whole notion is still new to developers, so there are still a lots of achievements that are done better than others.
I'd actually have to say that Dead Rising does a pretty decent job handling them, compared to other games. Every achievement is worth only 20 points (which is miniscule, seeing how every full game can dish out 1,000 points). So that survival achievement you mentioned, isn't worth all that much. If you're a perfectionist, sure, you'll try to get them all. Or if you're like most folks (myself included), you'll just play through the game, grab most of the normal achievements along the way, and maybe try for a stretch one or two. The good thing about achievements in DR is that it encourages you to try things you might not normally have wanted to do, and actually enjoy doing it.
For those that don't care for the achievement systems (and I know there are quite a few), it's simple enough to just ignore the whole thing. It's the same with any other platform feature you don't like (such as rumble). That's why I think it's silly for people to argue that system shouldn't be offering something that a lot of people do enjoy. If you don't like it, don't use it. I would have preferred Sony do something similar with the PS3, to maintain some sort of feature parity, and it's upsetting that they've chosen not to do so.
One thing the article doesn't go into is what Sony is planning to do in response to Xbox Live's gamerscore and achievements system. They mentioned a while ago something similar called "Entitlements", but it would have been nice to hear more. As neat as the Friends notification and system are on Xbox Live, it's really the gamerscore that I find really cool. My friends and co-workers are often competing/comparing scores and achievements, and it's gotten to be a bit competitive. I know it's not something everyone cares about, but enough people do.
Wow, that's a lot of FUD there (go figure). I work at MS and I don't think I've ever had to "dodge flying chairs".
I haven't read the earlier books regarding MS culture, but I can tell you that if they were true, then times have certainly changed. Or maybe it's just an indication that the group that I work in has been "fortunate". I haven't worked 60-hour continuous work weeks, nor does anyone else here does, and nor do many of the people that I've talked to. Political battles? Sure, at times, but I wouldn't call it "never ending". (And MS is not the only place where I've worked with those type of battles, I reckon any larger-size company is going to have them)
Re-orgs, that may have some truth in. But again, it really depends on where you work. I've heard of many groups going through "re-orgs" and then it's gone, with all the folks being given opportunities to look elsewhere within the company. But I've gone through several re-orgs where it really does help the group (and no, people don't lose jobs), and people are satisfied with how it worked out. Again, I would have to imagine other larger companies go through similar phases as well.
Finally as for the "insane culture", that might be true
I have heard stories about the "old days" from my bosses, who have been in MS far longer than I have. In some ways, it's exciting because that's when MS was still new, the stock was soaring, etc. But there WERE lots of work-life balance problems, and many people really getting disgruntled by "the grind" (which explains why so many people left and retired, as the stock started settling). The MS nowadays is a lot "softer" (which ironically, some of the older folks dislike), which I vastly prefer.
Oh, I wasn't trying to say that Seamus was a nobody (actually, I said so in my original post), just that it wasn't something coined by "marketing or strategy". It doesn't mention it in the Wikipedia, but it took a lot of convincing before it would get real MS backing. Although you're right that there might be a little revision history going on, so that little point might be lost nowadays.
I actually agree that it's very difficult for a "nobody" to bring a large, well-known product to launch. (Although I have seem some lesser-known products championed by only one or two people) Probably the best place to work in MS, if you're interested in just pure innovation, is in MS Research. They hold a technology fest every year, and it's filled with all sorts of interesting programs, gadgets, gizmos, and ideas. Some of them do go on to be integrated into a real product, although many (presumably) die off, because it's just not practical or "ahead of its time".
As I've noted in my other posts, I work for MS and I'd have to disagree somewhat. It all depends on the groups you end up in. I definately know of people here that work on tiny, insignificant roles in the company. Most often, they seem to be in the "big divisions" (Windows and Office). But I know of many people (including those in my group), that work on a wide variety of "different and interesting" projects, that have a key impact on customers. Maybe not on MS overall, but if I had to choose between making MS happy, and making millions of customers happy, it's certainly the latter that I'm choosing.
The way MS works is that there are a ton of these little product units that almost act like a company within themselves. So you get a lot of the benefits of working in a small company (high visibility among your peers) along with the benefits of a large company (stability, etc). Granted, there are a lot of disadvantages as well (red-tape, paperwork, etc.).
It's probably moot for the author, since I would imagine it's the same setup at Google as well. It appears they have many little teams as well, all working on their own bit of Google-goodness. So my advice: check out which groups gave you an offer, and decide what you would rather work on. Personally, I only chose to work at MS because I got to work in the games industry. I definately would not have come here just to work on Office or Windows, despite them being the huge drivers of the company.
Actually, I thought Xbox fit that model. It wasn't started by a "nobody" per say, but I'm pretty sure it was NOT through marketing or strategy. If anything, Bill and company had to be really convinced to dive into the console industry.
I work in MS, and I can tell you that we don't work 60+ weeks where I am. It's the same way with other groups. But there are teams that are under crunch time, and I'm sure they might be putting in late hours (Vista anyone?). I'm guessing it's the same way with Google. Some groups are going to be under more pressure than others, or maybe it's the end of a milestone, etc.
If anything MS is trying to push for a more "friendly, softer side" of things regarding work-life balance, etc. We've had some major HR overhauls and revisions in the past few months, and I can say that it is making a difference. Also, the benefits package in general for MS is amazing. I don't know what Google offers, but the author should definately take that into account.
Umm, really? I grew up in the Northern Virginia area (suburbs of DC), and we truly had four seasons there. After living in Seattle for the past few years (now working at MS, go figure), I'd have to say it's Seattle that has two seasons:
1) Rainy/wet season (Late fall, winter, early spring)
2) Awesome non-humid, always-sunny, summer season
The first season does admittedly suck. It actually doesn't rain heavily, it just drizzles
The second season, many people don't know about. The Seattle area can go for weeks without a drop of rain, during the summer. Don't believe me? Check out the climate chart. It doesn't get overly hot or humid either, with highs only in the 70s most of the time. While much of the country was boiling in heat waves this summer, it was often clear skies with a high of 75 around here.
Weird, I have to check my cable bill to be sure, but HD programming is only $5/month for me. It's another $5/month to rent their HD-DVR box. I use Comcast and live in Washington, close to Seattle.
Then again, I started off with the digital cable package already, with Starz and HBO, so my bill was already pretty high. That might be the problem. You might not be able to get HD programming unless you already have many of the premium items.
IMHO, it's TV viewers that will drive this whole HDTV-debate, not gamers. So to talk about whether or not gamers really need HDTV is moot.
We all seem to forget that the primary use for the TV in most households, is to view TV shows. If Joe Bob is going to get an HDTV, it's not because he or his kids want to play video games in HD, but because the whole family has this need: Mom wants to see her prime-time shows in all HD glory, Dad wants to catch his football shows in HD, the kids want to play games in HD, etc.
So, is HD adoption in general growing in the US? It certainly is. Every holiday season, it seems like HDTV is the "big gift" to save up for. If not then, its the tax-return season. Or around the time of the Superbowl (guys want to get a new TV in time for the "big game"). Eventually we'll get to the point where half the country now has some sort of HD TV set. It's anyone's guess how long it will be (I'm betting it won't be for another 5-10 years).
Just a guess but is it multiplication? Like golf the lowest score gets the prize? (ie: the lowest score = x 0). Hence they 2nd numbering system starts @ 0. HTD
Ahh, bingo. I believe that's it. I know of some groups that just need one score to focus on, and will simply multiply priority by severity. But if a bug is truly pri 0 (blocking all other tasks), you want that to be worked on no matter what its severity is.
If you notice, Bugzilla even has a Severity and Priority field. It seems that this system of two different types of "priorities" works well for many different types of people.
I'm guessing that this system has existed for a long time, and from a field that was not in the software industry. It's just a good way for a product team of anything, to determine the right priority order of working on tasks.
The Nielsen study probably focused on casual gaming sites, such as Pogo.com, Yahoo Games, and MSN Games. The games on there are mostly casual games, such as Bejeweled, Zuma, and your simple card & board games (Spades, Hearts, Backgammon, etc.). If you spend some time around these sites, especially in the lobby/chat areas, you'll find that the audience IS mainly women, talking about their kids and family, etc.
Are they gamers? Sure they are, since they DO play games (and for long periods of time too!). Would they call themselves gamers? Oh heavens no, it's just something they do to pass the time. How many of them are there? Quite a lot, since these sites are often home to hundreds of thousands of players. (Take a look at the concurrent population on some of these sites, especially during the weekdays)
I happen to work in QA for a very commercial software firm (MS in fact, although it's in the games group). I agree whole-heartedly with your comments.
Commercial software has no "lock" on QA. Good fundamentals can be practiced anywhere. And I've certainly seen many testers coming from other commercial firms that have no idea what it does to be a good tester. (Definately instances of that in MS as well, we're a very large company)
I think the only difference "commercial vs OSS" has on QA is perhaps the environment that you're in. OSS projects can benefit from generally being smaller, so they can be more agile, try better software engineering methods, etc. On the other hand, it naturally can take a lot longer to change a larger, commercial firm, away from traditional the waterfall model, etc. On the flip-side, commercial firms benefit from just being able to spend more money: hiring more testers, doing more formal usability studies, etc. Larger OSS projects probably don't have problem recruiting good talent, but I imagine the smaller ones might. Of course there are always exceptions to the above generalizations, and I am in no way trying to say that one is necessarily better than the other. (And I could be wrong about some of them as well, I have not contributed to any OSS projects myself)
But to generalize that commercial software always has a stronger QA engineering component than OSS is bull.
- This is the typical meaning behind the word "bug".
- That's where your TeX complaint would fall under. It's "by design" that it doesn't have an iconic user interface, but that doesn't mean it's something that shouldn't be addressed ever
- This is actually a result of the bug tracking system that we use. Rather than sending e-mail, which often gets lost, we often track work items as bugs. For example, "Need to turn off switch X on the test server when we get to milestone Y"
To further complicate things, there is a severity and priority attached to every bug. Severity is a measure of the impact the bug has on the customer/end-product. It can range from 1 (Bug crashes system) to 4 (Just a typo). Priority is a measure of the importance of the bug. It ranges from 0 (Bug blocks team from doing any further work, must fix now), to 3 (Trivial bug, fix if there is time). (I don't know why the ranges don't match, BTW, seems silly to me)
As anyone who works on large-scale project probably knows, there are always a wide range of bugs, across all the pri/sev levels. To me, a simple count of all the bugs isn't terribly useful. A project could have a ton of bugs, but most of them being DCRs (which are knowingly going to be postponed till the next release) and/or low pri/sev bugs. Or maybe it's the beginning of the project and they're all known work items. Or a project could have only a few bugs, but with all of them being critical pri/sev ones.
So, whenever I see a report that simply talks about bug count, I take it with a huge grain of salt. If I had to guess (I skimmed the article), it seems like OSS projects have far more bugs, but perhaps lower pri/sev since the product itself has been evaluated as being higher quality. In the end, it's the quality that the customer really cares about.
Well first of all, you have to assume that all programmers even do the "standard debugging and compile-time checks". Even then, those checks are often hardly comprehensive. You can build some scanners that will catch rudimentary bugs that SHOULD have been caught, but were not. For example, assign things to null, test boundary conditions, etc. These are all things that should be part of a standard unit test that's delivered along with the code.
Also, things like memory leaks can be difficult to pinpoint. That's where tools like BoundsChecker are nifty.
No one is saying that a program or "AI" (as you call it) can find all bugs. But it can certainly be used to find some rather simple ones. Overall, though, I agree that you can't depend on running programs to catch bugs. You've got to have a solid QA department, which will use all the right tools to get the job done and try to maintain quality to the highest degree.
I'm not saying that OSS can't do this at all. I certainly think it can be done, but it does take more process and structure. Not having worked on any OSS projects myself, I imagine the largest, most important code-bases have a lot of this in place to drive quality. But your smaller or even mid-size OSS projects may be lacking in that department (much in the same way smaller and mid-size dev houses lack a decent QA department).
As several people have pointed out, Nintendo has had several design problems in the past. The biggest examples are with the lack-of-backlight original GBA portables, and the bulky original DS unit (with a stupidly positioned power button). That said, they were all completely playable (I had both handhelds), but when the redesigned units came out, they were much superior to the original.
:)
A cynic could argue that even the design problems were "by design", as its a great way to get gamers to buy more hardware in the end.
I haven't had any quality issues with the hardware itself though. In fact, while many people were lamenting about dead pixel problems with first batch of PSPs, there wasn't a similar issue with the DS, AFAIK.
So yes, the original topic WAS about RPGs. Well, at least that's what I thought you were referring to. That's why I started talking about RPG support for the 360 getting better.
Anyway, it's apparent that you're nothing but a Sony-fanboi troll (as suspected), who can only throw ad hominem attacks, rather that participate in any meaningful debate. Way to go!
We're done here. kthxbye.
It's not technically a First-Person Shooter (FPS) game, since the view is in the 3rd-person, over-the-shoulder. It's got a lot of the same elements otherwise, though, where aiming is important and it is team-based. So technically not an FPS, but it sure acts like one. And it is a "fast action" game, not a "simulation" type.
... or at least open up a new "sub-genre" of the FPS.
Lost Planet is another similar title. I just recently checked out the demo on Live Marketplace, and it has similar control-scheme. I remember reading somewhere that it was Capcom's attempt to make an FPS-like game that Japanese gamers would actually like. That is, have a lot of the action elements, without the traditional FPS control scheme that a lot of folks (myself included) don't like on a console. (I much prefer keyboard + mouse)
If both those games really take off, then that might signify the end of the traditonal FPS control scheme
BTW - I got a chance to play Gears of War as well, and I have to say that it did take a little bit of time to get used to. But that was a good thing, since as I mentioned before, I'm not a fan of traditional FPS console controls. I liked it quite a bit, and am definately looking forward to it. I suspect that all Epic Games needs to do is release a demo of it on Live Marketplace, and that alone should sell a lot of copies (similar to how it helped Dead Rising really succeed almost out of nowhere). I'm always a fan of letting people try things out themselves, rather than hyping it to death using traditional marketing.
I definately agree that Lost gets awfully close to "jumping the shark" at times. Still, I'm already hooked and invested a lot of time with the show and its characters, so I'll be watching the entire season.
I agree that Heroes definately has its stupid, tacky, non-sensical moments. But for some reason, I'm still stoked that there's a show about mutants on primetime TV that's being treated seriously. It helps that I was a huge comic fan growing up.
(I'm ignoring the PS3's attempt at their own network service, as they haven't really talked much about it, or their own motion-sensing controller, as those don't really distinguish themselves apart from the others
Network services for the 360? Big hit for a lot of folks, especially considering broadband penetration in the US is rapidly increasing. New control scheme for the Wii? Very popular, particularly with gamers that are becoming disillusioned with the current type of games (more graphics, less gameplay, and less fun).
The trend that Sony is focusing on, unfortunately for them, is something that the vast majority of users won't care about. They don't have an HDTV, much less one that does 1080p or perhaps does HDMI.
What Sony SHOULD have done is just focus on their massive developer support, and on the games themselves. They've certainly talked about it with the PS3, but that message is diluted too much with the rest of the Blu-ray, 1080p, SIXAXIS talk going on. If all they did was thump their chest and focus on the games, they would have sold a lot more people on the PS3 (myself included).
You can read more about SCEA's official response, which blamed the reduction on the component shortage. Notice, however, that Sony is still sticking to their final fiscal year numbers. I'm pretty sure they would have gotten slammed pretty hard in the stock market if they reduced that estimate. But having the launch shortage will obviously make it harder to "catch up" to those finale estimates. That's why I'm saying an artificial shortage is crazy.