To all the doubters, I think we've gotten our proof that Nintendo is a contender again.
Big box stores such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart had campers early the night before and easily sold out hours before official store opening.
To say the least. The Future shop picture in that article is at a local mall here. They had nearly 100 units. That line-up had gone all night. But what's really amazing is that right behind that store (past the Winners you can see the sign for) is a Best Buy. With 90 units. Also lined up. Also sold out before store opening. At the other end of the mall is a WalMart. Also sold out before opening.
Half a mile away is another mall, with a Zellers, Toys'r'us, and EB. All sold out before store opening (Toys'r'us several HOURS before). All with dozens of units each. EVERY store, big and small, sold out within the first few minutes after opening. Small towns 50 miles out sold out within minutes.
Nintendo shipped anywhere from 2-5x as many units as Sony, and THEY'RE ALL GONE. Something like 25-50% of the PS3s were on ebay within hours, and the price is already dropped down nearly to retail value. Most Wii owners are actually playing theirs.
This is most definitely NOT the soccer mom and grandpa crowd. These people lined up for hours in the sub-freezing cold to be the first to play the new Zelda. You don't get any more hardcore than that.
Interestingly enough, and I've never seen this with a console launch, GAMES are sold out too. Most stores didn't get near enough copies of Zelda, and only had 3-5 titles each. The only title on the shelves that seems to be in quantity as of this morning is Excite Truck. A local WalMart here has nothing but that - and over 3 dozen copies of it. Look for it to be the first discounted game, if the stores around me are any indication.
The Wii might just end up being the "Tickle Me Elmo" of this year's xmas season.
All the stories about the PS3 launch and sellouts, and not one about the Wii.
I'm not sure what every country is like, but the Wii sold out up here in Canada in MINUTES. Nintendo shipped many times as many units and still couldn't meet demand. Stores all over are scrambling to put up "sold out" signs as they're sick of customer #3000 coming in and asking.
Looks like Nintendo has one hell of a winner on its hands, and I don't see any news coverage at all. The lineups here started overnight and not even half the people in line at 7am got one - and this is with 5-10x as many units shipped as Sony.
If Nintendo actually meets their target of 4 million units by xmas, and this isn't just a fluke, they're going to dominate this generation at least until Sony can get their production issues sorted out.
Using Prey as a reason to be concerned about nanotech research makes about as much sense as using Jurassic Park as a reason to be concerned about the Human Genome Project.
The most newsworthy game story this week? A console is being released WITHOUT lineups, WITHOUT ebay madnes, and WITHOUT riots. We haven't seen that in many years now. You'd think someone would be pointing this out. The lineups are just typical videogame news now.
I've been so trained to pretty much ignore cutscenes, or just turn my brain off as they show some flashy pre-rendered crap, that I died at least once on nearly every cutscene in RE4. You actually have to pay attention in this one!
Then again, I've pretty much always hated cutscenes. They're supposed to advance the plot and add some sort of "story" to the game, but they end up being the literary equivalent of Dick and Jane. "Your mission is to shoot the aliens. The aliens have come to Earth to conquer us. Here's some fancy pre-rendered explosions to distract you from the fact that there really isn't a plot to speak of". Or, for the Warcraft crowd: "Here's an evil wizard. He once was a good wizard, but turned to evil. Now you must destroy his forces. Here's some fancy pre-rendered battle scene".
I hope you're right. I've been hoping for years for Microsoft to make a version of Windows that is practicaly un-piratable, yet pretty much required to run modern Windows applications.
Let's see how many people "choose" to stay with Windows when they're paying $100+ for the privledge. The gamer segment alone promises to be interesting, once new games come out that require Vista (DirectX 10?).
I suppose it might drive a lot of new hardware sales at the very least...
I've actually seen this on *cough* downloaded shows. I missed an episode of Heroes, found it in the usual place, and noticed a slight blurring in the bottom corner of the screen. Someone obviously has been trying to remove the bug. It's not perfect but it works reasonably well and you don't really notice it unless you're looking, or when the scene is full of action.
The day my job is predicated on annoying millions of people is the day I look for new employment.
Maybe I'm an idealist, but some of us have personal ethics.
Annoying millions of Slashdotters, on the other hand, I'll continue to keep doing;)
Oh, and for the record: adversiting is nothing more than a tax on the consumer. Who do you think PAYS for all these ads, in the end? Advertising is nothing more than a parasitic drain on the economy. It adds nothing to the system and just ends up making things cost more, all while annoying people. Good riddance, I say. People can find jobs doing more productive work.
What's funny is that a number of years back, due to many consumer complaints, the cable TV (or broadcast, or satellite, I don't recall) industry did a "study" where they concluded that commercials are not at all louder than regular programming. Everyone was just imagining it!
Their "study" took the highest volume for your average show, compared it to the highest volume for the commercials, and concluded that commercials were no louder.
Of course, taking the loudest sound from an action movie, and blasting it for 30 seconds of an advertisement, and no wonder ads seem louder. Most TV programs aren't 22 minutes of solid screaming, whereas most ads are. They entirely ignored the concept of "average volume".
1. HTTP pipelining has nothing to do with DNS. Your machine's IP stack takes care of this, and caches DNS entries regardless. You'll never make multiple DNS requests for the same host in a short period of time, unless you've seriously screwed something up on your client. HTTP pipelining keeps a TCP connection open for more than one object - so, you save yourself the time of a SYN/SYN-ACK/ACK handshake for every further object from the same host. With high-latency links, this can improve performance dramatically as you save a couple of trips back and forth for each object being requested.
2. Even without pipelining, you can make multiple HTTP requests to different hosts while the first is busy. Again, this has nothing to do with DNS.
I guess I figured it would be clear based on my knowledge and use of Ethereal that I am in IT. Well, that and discussing network troubleshooting and character set translation issues.
The problem is not so much that I'm not allowed to much with my desktop - I am, mostly. It's part of my job to install and test random bits of software. The problem is an unwavering fear of anything new and unknown. I won't even start on the "we cannot ever trust any Open Source software" bit - they actually refer to it as "Shareware", just to give you an idea of where the mentality is coming from.
The problem is that we have entirely separate units of the business responsible for things in IT, and sometimes there's no one up there who sees the whole picture. The security folks think I'll somehow hack their passwords (I guess) - my response to this is invariably "if a packet sniffer can compromise your network, you have far deeper problems". I stand by this response in any environment, let alone one I know intimately. The desktop folks (what you refer to as IT, I guess) think I'll break my system by installing anything they've never heard of. Well, the answer, clearly documented for a machine such as mine, is that the "fix" is a user-initiated re-image anyway.
I suspect you've worked with some people in (I dunno) the shipping department who wanted to install all sorts of system-destroying goodies, maybe some movie playing software or a few games. I can entirely see where you're coming from. But when your JOB is IT, doing IT work for yourself is just fine and dandy. No, I won't be creating the next desktop image for the company. However, as it's my responsibility to make sure the desktop image (with all its peculiarities) works, damn right I'm going to be doing this work myself.
It's a bit hard to explain the specific job situation in a website post, but "always go through the proper channels" in IT is silly, especially when you have people with no clue making decisions.
I break, I buy. I'm fully aware and prepared to accept the consequences of my actions. I've signed an agreement stating such. Let me do my job as required, and bring Hell on Earth to me when I screw up.
Slashdot Mirror
To all the doubters, I think we've gotten our proof that Nintendo is a contender again.
Big box stores such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart had campers early the night before and easily sold out hours before official store opening.
To say the least. The Future shop picture in that article is at a local mall here. They had nearly 100 units. That line-up had gone all night. But what's really amazing is that right behind that store (past the Winners you can see the sign for) is a Best Buy. With 90 units. Also lined up. Also sold out before store opening. At the other end of the mall is a WalMart. Also sold out before opening.
Half a mile away is another mall, with a Zellers, Toys'r'us, and EB. All sold out before store opening (Toys'r'us several HOURS before). All with dozens of units each. EVERY store, big and small, sold out within the first few minutes after opening. Small towns 50 miles out sold out within minutes.
Nintendo shipped anywhere from 2-5x as many units as Sony, and THEY'RE ALL GONE. Something like 25-50% of the PS3s were on ebay within hours, and the price is already dropped down nearly to retail value. Most Wii owners are actually playing theirs.
This is most definitely NOT the soccer mom and grandpa crowd. These people lined up for hours in the sub-freezing cold to be the first to play the new Zelda. You don't get any more hardcore than that.
Interestingly enough, and I've never seen this with a console launch, GAMES are sold out too. Most stores didn't get near enough copies of Zelda, and only had 3-5 titles each. The only title on the shelves that seems to be in quantity as of this morning is Excite Truck. A local WalMart here has nothing but that - and over 3 dozen copies of it. Look for it to be the first discounted game, if the stores around me are any indication.
The Wii might just end up being the "Tickle Me Elmo" of this year's xmas season.
All the stories about the PS3 launch and sellouts, and not one about the Wii.
I'm not sure what every country is like, but the Wii sold out up here in Canada in MINUTES. Nintendo shipped many times as many units and still couldn't meet demand. Stores all over are scrambling to put up "sold out" signs as they're sick of customer #3000 coming in and asking.
Looks like Nintendo has one hell of a winner on its hands, and I don't see any news coverage at all. The lineups here started overnight and not even half the people in line at 7am got one - and this is with 5-10x as many units shipped as Sony.
If Nintendo actually meets their target of 4 million units by xmas, and this isn't just a fluke, they're going to dominate this generation at least until Sony can get their production issues sorted out.
Why on earth isn't this at least modded up Funny?
Using Prey as a reason to be concerned about nanotech research makes about as much sense as using Jurassic Park as a reason to be concerned about the Human Genome Project.
You do realize that "hardcore gamers" haven't been the largest market segment for a loooooong time now, right?
Assuming the Wii does end up appealing to the general public, it will end up in the #1 spot simply because that's 95% of the market.
Absolutely the news is focussed on the negative.
The most newsworthy game story this week? A console is being released WITHOUT lineups, WITHOUT ebay madnes, and WITHOUT riots. We haven't seen that in many years now. You'd think someone would be pointing this out. The lineups are just typical videogame news now.
We're long since sold out, don't bother.
Local stores here got maybe 10-15 each, and lineups were 50+ people long.
You never had this sort of nonsense when it was just us nerds playing video games.
Damn you Sony for introducing gaming to the beer-drinking, fist-throwing, truck-driving masses!
Because the world doesn't want another Israel.
Or Vietnam.
Or Korea.
Or you're too stupid to mark only one box.
We still need an option for "none of the above, thanks".
Sometimes I wish we had a +100 Funny mod.
Best joke on Slashdot all year. Don't forget the soccer match, though.
For those that didn't get the joke.
I think that was entirely his point.
Some of us understand the concept of birth control.
Actually, at first that really ticked me off!
I've been so trained to pretty much ignore cutscenes, or just turn my brain off as they show some flashy pre-rendered crap, that I died at least once on nearly every cutscene in RE4. You actually have to pay attention in this one!
Then again, I've pretty much always hated cutscenes. They're supposed to advance the plot and add some sort of "story" to the game, but they end up being the literary equivalent of Dick and Jane. "Your mission is to shoot the aliens. The aliens have come to Earth to conquer us. Here's some fancy pre-rendered explosions to distract you from the fact that there really isn't a plot to speak of". Or, for the Warcraft crowd: "Here's an evil wizard. He once was a good wizard, but turned to evil. Now you must destroy his forces. Here's some fancy pre-rendered battle scene".
I hope you're right. I've been hoping for years for Microsoft to make a version of Windows that is practicaly un-piratable, yet pretty much required to run modern Windows applications.
Let's see how many people "choose" to stay with Windows when they're paying $100+ for the privledge. The gamer segment alone promises to be interesting, once new games come out that require Vista (DirectX 10?).
I suppose it might drive a lot of new hardware sales at the very least...
You still use your Amiga, don't you :)
Yeah, instead of closing exploitable network ports, let's throw another layer in front of them! That's sure to be foolproof!
I don't know which is easier to do, get the anti-activation crack or call the 800 number.
Third option: give up on PC gaming and install Linux. I've never looked back.
I was responding to this:
:)
1 - keepalive/pipelining connections means only 1 dns lookup is performed, often cached on your local machine means this delay is minimal.
Pipelining does not change behaviour to multiple hosts in the slightest. It's a keepalive of the connection to the same host.
I think I misinterpreted your second point a bit
I've actually seen this on *cough* downloaded shows. I missed an episode of Heroes, found it in the usual place, and noticed a slight blurring in the bottom corner of the screen. Someone obviously has been trying to remove the bug. It's not perfect but it works reasonably well and you don't really notice it unless you're looking, or when the scene is full of action.
The day my job is predicated on annoying millions of people is the day I look for new employment.
;)
Maybe I'm an idealist, but some of us have personal ethics.
Annoying millions of Slashdotters, on the other hand, I'll continue to keep doing
Oh, and for the record: adversiting is nothing more than a tax on the consumer. Who do you think PAYS for all these ads, in the end? Advertising is nothing more than a parasitic drain on the economy. It adds nothing to the system and just ends up making things cost more, all while annoying people. Good riddance, I say. People can find jobs doing more productive work.
What's funny is that a number of years back, due to many consumer complaints, the cable TV (or broadcast, or satellite, I don't recall) industry did a "study" where they concluded that commercials are not at all louder than regular programming. Everyone was just imagining it!
Their "study" took the highest volume for your average show, compared it to the highest volume for the commercials, and concluded that commercials were no louder.
Of course, taking the loudest sound from an action movie, and blasting it for 30 seconds of an advertisement, and no wonder ads seem louder. Most TV programs aren't 22 minutes of solid screaming, whereas most ads are. They entirely ignored the concept of "average volume".
1. HTTP pipelining has nothing to do with DNS. Your machine's IP stack takes care of this, and caches DNS entries regardless. You'll never make multiple DNS requests for the same host in a short period of time, unless you've seriously screwed something up on your client. HTTP pipelining keeps a TCP connection open for more than one object - so, you save yourself the time of a SYN/SYN-ACK/ACK handshake for every further object from the same host. With high-latency links, this can improve performance dramatically as you save a couple of trips back and forth for each object being requested.
2. Even without pipelining, you can make multiple HTTP requests to different hosts while the first is busy. Again, this has nothing to do with DNS.
3. is mostly correct, though.
DeBeers would have quickly wrote a MUCH larger check.
Or just had the site owners killed.
Or, someone could just develop a desktop OS that doesn't sit and listen to network traffic out of the box.
:)
Nah, that'd never work
Let me say, fully tongue in cheek, thanks Mom :)
I guess I figured it would be clear based on my knowledge and use of Ethereal that I am in IT. Well, that and discussing network troubleshooting and character set translation issues.
The problem is not so much that I'm not allowed to much with my desktop - I am, mostly. It's part of my job to install and test random bits of software. The problem is an unwavering fear of anything new and unknown. I won't even start on the "we cannot ever trust any Open Source software" bit - they actually refer to it as "Shareware", just to give you an idea of where the mentality is coming from.
The problem is that we have entirely separate units of the business responsible for things in IT, and sometimes there's no one up there who sees the whole picture. The security folks think I'll somehow hack their passwords (I guess) - my response to this is invariably "if a packet sniffer can compromise your network, you have far deeper problems". I stand by this response in any environment, let alone one I know intimately. The desktop folks (what you refer to as IT, I guess) think I'll break my system by installing anything they've never heard of. Well, the answer, clearly documented for a machine such as mine, is that the "fix" is a user-initiated re-image anyway.
I suspect you've worked with some people in (I dunno) the shipping department who wanted to install all sorts of system-destroying goodies, maybe some movie playing software or a few games. I can entirely see where you're coming from. But when your JOB is IT, doing IT work for yourself is just fine and dandy. No, I won't be creating the next desktop image for the company. However, as it's my responsibility to make sure the desktop image (with all its peculiarities) works, damn right I'm going to be doing this work myself.
It's a bit hard to explain the specific job situation in a website post, but "always go through the proper channels" in IT is silly, especially when you have people with no clue making decisions.
I break, I buy. I'm fully aware and prepared to accept the consequences of my actions. I've signed an agreement stating such. Let me do my job as required, and bring Hell on Earth to me when I screw up.