By the way, in case anyone thought that Game|Life really did redesign their page for the Wii... if you read the article you'd know that they didn't. They just used the Zoom function. They're pretty clear about that, but most people don't get past the initial joke about having redesigned the page just for the Wii.
Agreed. Voice Chat, while a killer feature, is what keeps me off Xbox Live unless I'm playing solely with friends.
That being said, Nintendo's system enforces a friends-only online rule, so in theory, this should completely alleviate that problem. So could the port at the bottom of the Wiimote accommodate a headset? Not sure what the throughput is like on that port, but the Bluetooth implementation of the Wiimote shouldn't have a problem. Hell, theoretically you could use the Wiimote speaker like a walkie-talkie, but that would get tedious, not to mention that shoddy quality.
The ESRB does a great job... when parents can be bothered to read the ratings and understand them, and understanding the GAME, too. The ratings aren't enough.
When Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was coming out, I did some market research into the people buying the game. At one point, while standing in a Toys 'R' Us collecting observational data, I noticed a grandmother buying the game. I asked her who she was buying the game for. "My grandson... he asked for it." I asked her if she was aware of the rating on the game. She wasn't aware that games even had ratings. I showed her where the rating was, and that the game she was buying for her 12-year-old grandson was rated for 17 and up. She was dumbfounded.
So then I asked her, "Ma'am... what's the name of this game?"
"Grand Theft Auto."
"What does that mean to you?"
She couldn't answer. Apparently, it never even occurred to her that buying a game for her grandson that was titled after a CRIME was somehow a bad idea.
The ESRB is good. There needs to be more, though. Parents (and in this case, grandparents) need to be more proactive in learning what their kids are playing, and more importantly, learn to engage their critical thinking skills when it comes to a kid that might be trying to put one over on ol' Grams.
Apparently you don't read mainstream news. The Wii has been making "Top Holiday Toy" lists just about everywhere. Nintendo had a similar thing happen with the N64, where despite having plenty of units (more than expected), there were still shortages. Of course, Nintendo also dropped the price of the N64 $50 just three days before the launch, which may have contributed.
Pre-ordering probably won't be necessary for someone willing to get up a bit early and head to a Best Buy or Walmart that Sunday morning. For people that want to sleep in a bit, you might be better off.
This person installed web filtering software to do his job for him. In a university environment (I'm a college student), sites need to be blocked selectively, not wholesales using a shotgun approach which is what these filtering packages do. Any competent CIO is capable of such a thing.
The excuse is simply lazy, and he's incredibly lucky no student has made a call to the ACLU yet.
They most certainly did lose money. Virtual Boy was a collosal failure. That, however, is the only time, and it didn't impact their profitability as a company.
That's not scary at all. It's common practice at Microsoft to have multiple code branches going. Do you think development stopped while they prepped for RC1? Or any public release? Of course they're working on RTM. It's an on-going build. Working on and RTM build doesn't preclude any other release candidates either.
That's untrue. Blogger will still allow FTP posting to off-site servers, but many of the new features will not work as a result. Google stated that they were committed to continuing FTP posting
I'm a ColdFusion dev from way back, and it only reminds me of ColdFusion in that they are doing a couple of things similarly. Similar in that it would be the most logical, intuitive way to accomplish the task. Other than that, it's nothing like ColdFusion.
Oh, it gets far more interesting and complex than just magazines. Print-on-Demand is a gateway to doing fully personalized stuff. Imagine a comic writer who could make the reader a character in the story by doing a simple name replace on each issue printed. When you can do "one-offs", this becomes what people expect. The bar is being raised quick.
For a marketing agency, this allows you to send out personalized sales brochures and other collateral, which can have a massive impact on response rate. Combine something like this with sophisticated data mining, and I shudder to think how eerie some direct mail could get. "Hey Rob, remember how much fun you had on Space Mountain last year? Walt Disney World wants to invite you and your wife Andrea back for another ride..."
Fair Disclosure: My company, Marketsync does Print-on-Demand for marketing departments and agencies through a salesforce.com plug-in called Marketsync On-Demand Marketing.
Note true... it's easy enough to get a receiver to switch the inputs, which is what any self-respecting gamer should be doing in the first place.
My problem is that it's overkill. Why send audio down the same cable to the TV when most people just need to get video into the TV/Monitor, and sound is processed elsewhere? I'd rather dedicate a cable to each to maintain higher quality, not to mention ease in splitting. Sure, it's more cable, but it's really not that big a problem.
For what it's worth, I used to work at AT&T Wireless. I was told that the ban on in-flight cell phone use was an FCC regulation, not FAA (so the airplane equipment theory is pretty much bunk), and was further told that the ban was due to complications in billing due to the speed at which you are travelling between cell sites.
Just one little problem with your hypotheses. You're going to a STORE for this information. If you want that data, you need to go past retail, past even customer service, and up the chain of command. The FBI would never start an investigation by requesting call records from a STORE.
Oh... wow, thanks for mentioning that. See, when you guys kept saying that you wanted more transparency from Microsoft, we thought you meant it literally, so that's why we made Aero Glass!
Well, it's too late to change it now, but we'll see if we can add more of that transparency stuff to the next version of Windows. Thanks for the suggestions!
For someone currently using the new Office beta, and having been intimately familiar with previous versions, I'd just like to say that the learning curve is suprisingly low. I've had little problem getting going with it, and my documents look arguably more polished now since some features are better "exposed" with the ribbon.
On the flip-side, finding the options and changing defaults is trickier if you don't know what to look for. But overall, I think the "retraining" argument doesn't hold a lot of weight.
Re:Nintendo's Wii akin to Chevrolet's Nova?
on
Both Sides of Wii
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· Score: 1
And do you really think that people who don't normally play games (the ones Nintendo is trying to reach) will bother reading any reasons for the name? Isn't it more likely that they'll chuckle to themselves and then pick a product that doesn't require them to embarass themselves in the middle of a store?
There's something to be said for enertainment value, for christ's sake. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate, or even 5%. It does, however, need to read at a good pace and keep your interest. Brown's books excel at that. Sure, I roll my eyes at some of his "facts" too, but I'm still entertained.
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By the way, in case anyone thought that Game|Life really did redesign their page for the Wii ... if you read the article you'd know that they didn't. They just used the Zoom function. They're pretty clear about that, but most people don't get past the initial joke about having redesigned the page just for the Wii.
Whatever happened to reading comprehension?
Agreed. Voice Chat, while a killer feature, is what keeps me off Xbox Live unless I'm playing solely with friends.
That being said, Nintendo's system enforces a friends-only online rule, so in theory, this should completely alleviate that problem. So could the port at the bottom of the Wiimote accommodate a headset? Not sure what the throughput is like on that port, but the Bluetooth implementation of the Wiimote shouldn't have a problem. Hell, theoretically you could use the Wiimote speaker like a walkie-talkie, but that would get tedious, not to mention that shoddy quality.
The ESRB does a great job ... when parents can be bothered to read the ratings and understand them, and understanding the GAME, too. The ratings aren't enough.
... he asked for it." I asked her if she was aware of the rating on the game. She wasn't aware that games even had ratings. I showed her where the rating was, and that the game she was buying for her 12-year-old grandson was rated for 17 and up. She was dumbfounded.
... what's the name of this game?"
When Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was coming out, I did some market research into the people buying the game. At one point, while standing in a Toys 'R' Us collecting observational data, I noticed a grandmother buying the game. I asked her who she was buying the game for. "My grandson
So then I asked her, "Ma'am
"Grand Theft Auto."
"What does that mean to you?"
She couldn't answer. Apparently, it never even occurred to her that buying a game for her grandson that was titled after a CRIME was somehow a bad idea.
The ESRB is good. There needs to be more, though. Parents (and in this case, grandparents) need to be more proactive in learning what their kids are playing, and more importantly, learn to engage their critical thinking skills when it comes to a kid that might be trying to put one over on ol' Grams.
Apparently you don't read mainstream news. The Wii has been making "Top Holiday Toy" lists just about everywhere. Nintendo had a similar thing happen with the N64, where despite having plenty of units (more than expected), there were still shortages. Of course, Nintendo also dropped the price of the N64 $50 just three days before the launch, which may have contributed.
Pre-ordering probably won't be necessary for someone willing to get up a bit early and head to a Best Buy or Walmart that Sunday morning. For people that want to sleep in a bit, you might be better off.
Fire the CIO. Seriously.
This person installed web filtering software to do his job for him. In a university environment (I'm a college student), sites need to be blocked selectively, not wholesales using a shotgun approach which is what these filtering packages do. Any competent CIO is capable of such a thing.
The excuse is simply lazy, and he's incredibly lucky no student has made a call to the ACLU yet.
They most certainly did lose money. Virtual Boy was a collosal failure. That, however, is the only time, and it didn't impact their profitability as a company.
No. The "Controller Glove" is made by BD&A, so it sounds like it's just a carrying case for the Wii-mote.
Exactly. Microsoft nearly had a beta-tester revolt on their hands with Windows ME.
That's not scary at all. It's common practice at Microsoft to have multiple code branches going. Do you think development stopped while they prepped for RC1? Or any public release? Of course they're working on RTM. It's an on-going build. Working on and RTM build doesn't preclude any other release candidates either.
That's untrue. Blogger will still allow FTP posting to off-site servers, but many of the new features will not work as a result. Google stated that they were committed to continuing FTP posting
I'm a ColdFusion dev from way back, and it only reminds me of ColdFusion in that they are doing a couple of things similarly. Similar in that it would be the most logical, intuitive way to accomplish the task. Other than that, it's nothing like ColdFusion.
I like it for one reason, and one reason only. Easy Achievement Points. :)
For a marketing agency, this allows you to send out personalized sales brochures and other collateral, which can have a massive impact on response rate. Combine something like this with sophisticated data mining, and I shudder to think how eerie some direct mail could get. "Hey Rob, remember how much fun you had on Space Mountain last year? Walt Disney World wants to invite you and your wife Andrea back for another ride ..."
Fair Disclosure: My company, Marketsync does Print-on-Demand for marketing departments and agencies through a salesforce.com plug-in called Marketsync On-Demand Marketing.
Note true ... it's easy enough to get a receiver to switch the inputs, which is what any self-respecting gamer should be doing in the first place.
My problem is that it's overkill. Why send audio down the same cable to the TV when most people just need to get video into the TV/Monitor, and sound is processed elsewhere? I'd rather dedicate a cable to each to maintain higher quality, not to mention ease in splitting. Sure, it's more cable, but it's really not that big a problem.
And none of these "options" provide you with the AUDIO.
For what it's worth, I used to work at AT&T Wireless. I was told that the ban on in-flight cell phone use was an FCC regulation, not FAA (so the airplane equipment theory is pretty much bunk), and was further told that the ban was due to complications in billing due to the speed at which you are travelling between cell sites.
Just one little problem with your hypotheses. You're going to a STORE for this information. If you want that data, you need to go past retail, past even customer service, and up the chain of command. The FBI would never start an investigation by requesting call records from a STORE.
Galvanized steel? My Cobalt Flux is wood and plastic, unless you're talking about the screws.
Oh ... wow, thanks for mentioning that. See, when you guys kept saying that you wanted more transparency from Microsoft, we thought you meant it literally, so that's why we made Aero Glass!
Well, it's too late to change it now, but we'll see if we can add more of that transparency stuff to the next version of Windows. Thanks for the suggestions!
Mad props for the Demolition Man reference.
That is, in fact, exactly how the classic controller connects to Wii, becoming wireless in the process.
For someone currently using the new Office beta, and having been intimately familiar with previous versions, I'd just like to say that the learning curve is suprisingly low. I've had little problem getting going with it, and my documents look arguably more polished now since some features are better "exposed" with the ribbon.
On the flip-side, finding the options and changing defaults is trickier if you don't know what to look for. But overall, I think the "retraining" argument doesn't hold a lot of weight.
And do you really think that people who don't normally play games (the ones Nintendo is trying to reach) will bother reading any reasons for the name? Isn't it more likely that they'll chuckle to themselves and then pick a product that doesn't require them to embarass themselves in the middle of a store?
There's something to be said for enertainment value, for christ's sake. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate, or even 5%. It does, however, need to read at a good pace and keep your interest. Brown's books excel at that. Sure, I roll my eyes at some of his "facts" too, but I'm still entertained.
There was a heroine in Digital Fortress, too.