Not to contradict too much, but I can assure you if the space was there it would be nice to spill out into it. I've heard from lots of other developers about geometry and texturing getting cut to fit on disk, and if nothing else you generally need to go through a mad dash at the end of shrinking textures and reducing audio size to fit onto a standard DVD. Heck, if you could duplicate data across the disk you could simplify the file ordering mess and simply double up into arbitrary digestible clumps, thus speeding access time.
Either way, having more breathing room, as a devleloper, would save us a lot of optimization time. So long as you don't feel like you "need" to fill it, and nobody seems to feel that, it makes things easier on us and better for the consumer.
You're talking about a system with 1/2 GB of RAM. There are only 8 "clump fulls" of RAM before you run out. Disk size is going to be an issue this generation.
In my view, Sony's major mistake was putting marketing in charge of development. Basically, Sony promised the moon and beyond, and delivered something that one would have realistically expected. However, they managed to deliver it in such a way as to alienate many of their customers and suppliers.
Let's list out their recent Mistakes individually:
Delivering a 6 hundred dollar console. Any rudimentary survey of the market would show this is just too damned much. But they wanted to expand the market for blu-ray, and somehow convinced themselves that it wasn't too much for the next generation of gaming. Then realizing the losses, they actually raised the price for launchs in other parts of the world. Again, not engendering affection from their customers.
Really bad statements about the cost of the console... like that people should want to get a second job to buy one. Or that the first 5 million would sell without any games anyway. Or... the list goes on and on. Somebody's PR guy should have been fired a long time ago with the string of "damage control" that only managed to alienate people who had been thinking about the system.
Repeated slippage of launch date. A little slide here and there is understandable, but if you haven't shipped dev systems out, you have no intention at all of hitting that date. This bit of tactical marketing enraged those customers most likely to line up and buy the console on launch day. Nintendo did the same thing with the N64, and paid the price.
Only 1 anticipated good launch title actually made it to launch. Ok, so that's not bad compared to the legions of 360's stuck playing Geometry Wars for a few months after launch, but it's still about 5 system-sellers less than promised.
Last-minute Sixaxis. This doesn't necessarily hurt the system, it's just a somewhat obviously rushed feature that is, currently, too laggy to be useful. Hopefully future games will find ways to use it despite the obvious shortcomings. In the mean time, they should have focused on improving the other parts of the system which could have used the polish time.
Promising a Live-equaling service, then shifting the burden onto developers while delivering a service that pales in comparison. A lot of 360's live stuff is integrated into the shell or on their servers, which takes a tremendous amount of the work off of the shoulders of developers. Sony, on the other hand, is making promises and leaving them up to us to fulfill. This fits EA's server model, but not many other people's.
HDMI waffling. If you're going to require the expensive version of your system and a potential HDTV upgrade to get the selling feature of your new movie format to work, don't waffle back and forth on whether or not it will be required, then pass the buck to movie studios. Either own up to it and require the protection, or don't. Leaving the people unsure if they need the upgrade or not simply makes them put off the decision.
Two words "Rrrrridge Rrrrracer!"*
* horrible presentations leading up to the system launch that basically insulted the intelligence of the audience. The hype machine was in full swing, but the pictures and games simply weren't congruous with what the speakers were saying.
The PSP UMD debacle. Sure, not directly related to the PS3, but taints them nonetheless with the faint wift of late 90's Sega. This was one of Sony's most public claims about the PSP, one which they staked a large portion of their credibility, and they lost an obvious fight.
Suing Lik-Sang out of business for selling imported hardware, while many of their most prominent executives were customers. Quite frankly, I've never worked at a gaming company that didn't purchase random devleopment bits from Lik-Sang at one point or another. Going after them for something as cherished as importing systems was bad PR amongst the development community.
Things weren't all bad for Sony. For one, Blu-Ray does provide a lot more breathing room for content on dis
So now that we've had a few years to tackle this problem, what is the most viable, likely replacement for e-mail that would be unspammable? Sender-verification? I see IM coming up a lot as a spam-free alternative, though that is probably simply a function of lowest-hanging fruit.
Would someone mind updating us as to the state of technological alternatives on the horizon?
Castlevania 4 was the first castlevania to have 8-directional whipping, whip flailing, rotating playfields, swinging by your whip, etc. It's a great example of sticking with a formula but evolving it based upon the power suddenly available from a system transition. SotN, while a great game (bit easy for my taste), both would have been possible on the SNES and was more of a radical re-envisioning of the series.
A lot of sequals inherently lose the magic that made the first so memorable, simply because the first was an original. Final Fantasy 3 was not as amazing of a game to me as Final Fantasy 2, simply because I had played 2 before. Your option when making sequals are:
Same thing but more... a straightforward path that really only works once or twice, and then only when people are frothing with demand.
Different thing... Change things around completely. Go side view or something. Dangerous, in that you really only give yourself the normal chance of having a not terrible game. See also: Zelda 2. Castlevania 2. Etc.
Update the gameplay... Probably the best option. The risk of putting out a stinker when "updating" a game are lower, but the process really only works if there are obvious deficiencies or a platform / technology change allows for more freedom. See also: Castlevania 4.
That having been said... Sequal games I'd like to see:
RC Pro Am III Worms 5: Back to 2D Gargoyle's Quest III Secret of Mana III 2: This time we didn't mess it up Sector Z II Blaster Master 3 Strider 1:2 Alien Gun 2 Zany Golf 2: the burger bites back
Personally, professionally, I think DRM is a great idea to prevent piracy. And as soon as someone has a DRM system that works even in theory and also remains uncracked for longer than 30 fucking seconds, we should institute it.
In the mean time, can we please put this myth bed? Even Macromedia estimates that adding an annoyingly intrusive layer of protection adds only one week to the time-to-crack. All DRM does is ensure that movie and television producers can sell you the same thing two or three times. See a TV show you like? Now, instead of just recording it and watching it again, you can buy it on HD-DVD to see it on your television, then buy it again on iTunes to see it on your portable. Like your tivo? What if it just helped you to spend another dollar and a half to watch your TV shows again? Want to pirate the show? The moment someone anywhere in the world has solved the encryption layer (which, in the case of DVD's, HD-DVD's, Apple's Fairplay, etc) it becomes instantaneously available the globe over, sometimes before the retail disk has been available.
It's all about double and triple dipping legal users, not stopping illicit use.
Coordination would have required for Google Map because google maps on the iPhone knows your location. The normal Google maps does not. They probably had to connect cingular's cellular location services with Google's mapping backend and tie it all together with a pretty iPhone shell to get it to work.
Google already does this with SMS google searches, so it isn't technologically difficult. But it does require cooperation.
1. We are technologists. DRM slows down our machines. Would you expect car enthusiasts to help create a top speed 65 MPH lock on their cars?
2. We are technologists. We know that DRM on an open machine is mathematically impossible. And so to institute effective DRM, machines would have to be locked away from us, the end users. Us, who love the machines.
3. We are technologists. We know that leaked copies spread exponentially, not linearly. Hence, if one person leaks something to the internet, everyone has it, and this DRM is useless.
4. We are technologists. We know that all this level of DRM does is force people to spend thousands of dollars re-buying the same hardware, without actually solving the problem.
We are technologists. But we are not one. Grandparent post, whose pro-copyright post claimed that pro-copyright posts were never modded +5, was modded +5. We are many people with many different opinions. We're all just looking for answers.
Don't forget that Apple is releasing a set-top box, MS already has an end-to-end set top box on millions of people's televisions, and Tivo is planning on upgrading their boxes as well. Oh, and DVD's are actually pretty good looking.
The options available to people these days are staggering. My guess is that HD video adoption will be driven by those cheap 30 dollar DVD players from Taiwan burning out. Then you'll be able to get another cheap DVD player for 20, or you could get a beautiful new HD-DVD or BlueRay player (which will also play DVD's) for just 200 dollars more! How about 50 more? Eventually someone will come out on top through simple DVD atrition.
And that is what customers want... Purdy shiney flashey!
No offence, but what's wrong with this? People generally care about the aesthetics of the things they use every day. Well polished things are generally made better, and any degree of interface simplicity when compounded over millions of repetitions adds greatly to productivity.
Plus, being that most people are firmly stuck in the windows lock-in, the underlying OS code doesn't really matter, as they have to suck it up and take it either way. So being simpler and more straightforward to interact with will be nice. Being able to scale the interface to arbitrary sizes will be nice. Running slower is bad, but most people are just waiting for Outlook to contact exchange.
Window's interface has been a bottleneck to productivity for years. That thing's a sewer of random accumulated refuse, and any movement to clean it up is a positive development.
The Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition exists to help aspiring game developers showcase their work. The festival aids developers through industry connections, peer interaction and national exposure.
Sounds like losing credibility with developers would run counter to the mission of Slamdance.
Because M$ decided on a forced upgrade migration path, Internet Explorer 7 has finally kicked in on all of their MS Windows OS running PCs. In theory, there isn't much wrong with this, but IE7 has failed to comply with many fo the standards it was supposed to.
IE7 is a nightmare of crossbrower compatibility. I recently needed to rewrite a web site so that it works on firefox... and surprisingly enough, when testing the new and the old site on IE7 I discovered that many elements do not function as expected. And "not function as expected" doesn't really cover it, it was more a question of not working at all.
I found some pretty large incompatibilities in their JavaScript submission systems. While I can understand the behavior migration, some functions did not pass parameters correctly etc.. The worst thing was that they disabled submitting data through "input type img" (which in this case was the entire sites data)... I don't blame the programmers for setting things up this way, but I do blame IE for not keeping with standards again.
So with IE7 we come to a new era of "web developers nightmare." It will cause many smaller websites to need to be rewritten, and therefore will crush some of the associated small companies' business.
And a final tip from me! Try to avoid writing JavaScript without testing it 100% on all of the major web browsers: FireFox, IE7, Opera and Safari.
Just a clue: According to W3C, the web browser market share of IE7 for the previous month is: 7.1% and for IE6 is: 49.9%
So with a bit of analyzing as well as some math we can say that IE7 will show a market share of about 60%... which isn't the best picture for us, the developers.
And for those that do like babelfish... English via Italian.
The Internet Explorer 7 has given of soccer to within in end on all the OS of MS Windows that ago to work the PC because of determined the M$ fact in order to force it is customers to migrare through the modernization. The sink really is not much evil with the this here but IE7 has been supposed to more join the champions who what in effects is not to align. IE7 is a cavalla of night for the greater part of the sviluppatori that try to join to the champions for crossbrowsing. Recently I have had to rewrite a Web site so as to it works to firefox equally... and the surprise element was that when examines the new and old place on IE7 I have uncovered that many things does not work as previewed and "the function poichè previewed" it is not the just word for it, it was more one issue than operation at all. I have found that submiting with the Javascript it has some graceful things of uncool that incolpo of the IE but some functions really did not work when no-go gage all the parameters and therefore via. And the GREATER PART of the thing of the assassin was the incapacity of the IE in order to introduce the data through "the type img of the input" that really it was the entire data of the places... Really not incolpo of the programmatori that have made it therefore but of the IE not to still maintain with the champions. Therefore really with IE7 we come to one new was "of the incubus of the sviluppatori of fotoricettore" poichè will demand the EVIL and perhaps DEFECTIVE places therefore of fotoricettore will not be rewritten and this with crushing some of the commerce of the small enterprises. And a final TIP from me! Tests to avoid the Javascript of writing without to verify it 100% on all the browsers used main of fotoricettore like FireFox, IE7, the work and the safari. As soon as for having an indication: According to W3C the percentage of the market of web browser of IE7 for the previous month is: 7.1% and for IE6 are: 49.9% Therefore with a little analyzing to the situation and the facts therefore as to make a sure one for the mathematics we can say that IE7 will show a percentage of the market of approximately 60% according to W3C... which is not the better image for we the devs.
The console that is doing best is the one which is most likely to attract development dollars. Which, in turn, causes original titles to be released. Which makes the console a better prospect for ownership.
Basically, in the gaming world you want to own the most popular console, as that way you will have the broadest possible selection of games available to you. So paying attention to who is "in the lead" is very important.
The NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Sony Playstation, and PS2 all had a lot of western developed games (and Japaneese games) which didn't have senseless/cutesy story lines.
Not to mention A: PC games are largely western developed (with personal PC ownership traditionally lower in Asia), and B: Sega actually stands for SErvice and GAmes, originally started by an American.
Not to be too Pro-Microsoft, but I've always found their games division to be really good to work with. At heart they're a bunch of game geeks who are thrilled that they've got the juggernaut to bankroll whatever it is they want to do. And, generally, they seem to want to fund nifty stuff. From a communication standpoint as a platform company they've been every bit as good about communication as Sony and Nintendo, and in certain respects better (in others, worse. Each has their quirks). But, of course, get the toothbrush salesmen involved at a higher level, and who knows what MS will do.
The french company that is licensed to work on this title has a good history of licensed conversions, some with MS IP. But they've never handled anything that would lead one to believe they could do Halo as anything other than a 2D sidescrolling shooter. And they started with wallpapers and ringtones... not exactly a prelude to doing an IP justice. Plus with an IP license cost that alone could develop a mid-level PS2 game, how much could they have left over to actually develop the title?
So I really wouldn't know who to believe without more evidence, but I'd be willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt until other stories like this emerged from developers. In my admittedly limited experience, this doesn't sound like the kind of thing MS's game division usually does. Anyone with more experience working with licensed IP from Redmond willing to share?
DRM is a just tool for content producers. Unprotected media should be entirely unaffected by it.
My company churns out a lot of demonstration videos, usually in some sort of WMP format (as that's what the artists are familiar with). There are many times I'd like to take a screenshot of this video, mark up changes I'd like to see, and send it back. However, under XP this is impossible. No media player stuff shows up in screenshots, to help prevent video theft. And, hence, I spend more time than necessary sketching out facsimilies of the videos to explain what I want.
So yes, while DRM is a tool for content producers, there are system-wide consequences of its implementation.
Just a quick list of things the iPod did first in an MP3 player:
1. the smaller, more expensive drives 2. touch wheel 3. click wheel 4. database frontend 5. an annoying hardware dock 6. shipping earbuds that aren't terrible 7. non-replacable batteries in an integrated form factor 8. No stop button (?) 9. No screen 10. Companion music store 11. DRM 12. Random-only play 13. Podcasting 14. Prioritizing physical size over storage space
They're like The Matrix. Revolutionary when it came out, copied to the point of being trite now. But Apple has done some very original things with the line throughout the years, and should be recognized for such.
But it is illegal to source your store from overseas, as you point out. So as a US citizen you can buy music from overseas, but what you can't do is walk into a store that sells overseas music.
Likewise, it's not illegal to own a region-free DVD player, but actually getting one is very difficult due to other coercive forces on the market. And to convert an existing player to a region-free one is illegal under US law.
There are other ways the force of law can be brought against the free market rather than the direct "thou shalt not."
The sixaxis was overshadowed by the Wii's revolutionary controller, but it's still a very cool feature and makes the XBox 360's controller look disabled by comparison
No offence, but have you used the sixaxis? The actual tilt mechanism is quite, quite laggy. And unfortunately in any control interface a little bit of lag will lead to a lot of player overcompensation oscillation cycles. It's basically unusable in the current crop of games, though the potential exists that they could improve their bluetooth drivers and get the lag under control. Ultimately, though, it really doesn't make the 360's controller look disabled, especially with the 360's unique guide button, headset jack, and vibration.
Also, the sixaxis's shoulder buttons, an attempt to immitate the smoother analog functionality of the original Xbox and Game Cube, are actually quite broken. They both curve away from the hand quite significantly, and rotate away as you press them. In other words, they're difficult to hold without slipping off, a major oversight that should have been corrected after the first or second focus test.
The potential of the cell processor architecture is significant. Once developers figure out how to make optimal use of it it could potentially take games to a new level (think realistic physics, better AI, a better online experience, etc..). Here, potential is the key word as it really depends on how well Sony helps game developers make use of its hardware.
Actually, you don't need better AI. You have all of the clock cycles you need on the PS2 to make dumb AI. And dumb AI is a lot more fun to play against than crafty, intelligent AI. You want enemies that run straight at you while being mowed down, rather than ones that sneak up behind you and club you with a ratchet while you aren't looking. The 360 has more than enough power for that.
Realistic physics is a double edged sword as well. You want physics that look realistic, but you don't want actual real physics. You don't want the player to be killed if they bump into a vending machine which falls onto them. Jumping 2 feet into the air is boring. The ability to scatter a room full of stuff with a grenade is a neat visual effect, but the 360 can already do that.
You also don't need better CPU's for better online experiences. What you need is a fatter pipe and lower ping times, along with a more flexible underlying server infrastructure for handling online transactions, matchmaking, etc. Those are the limitations, and unfortunately none have to do with system power. In this area, Microsoft actually has the clear advantage, as their online service simply rocks, and allows for amazingly smooth transitions to online play for developers. Sony, whose online strategy has been "eh, we'll let developers write it," has a lot of catching up to in terms of supportive infrastructure.
Blu-ray is a gamble, for sure. I think Sony pushed the format too soon. But if the gamble pays off and it does become the new standard, suddenly everyone's gonna wish they got a PS3 and those who don't have one will get one. In any case, Blu-ray allows game developers to put more content on the PS3 version of their games. This initially might just be bonus features (such as the-making-of videos) but eventually will translate into more gameplay content (extra levels perhaps?)
More likely you'll see more geometry and textures in existing levels. Blu-Ray really is the one major feature that could separate the PS3 from the 360, as DVD content storage levels are precipitously tight. Nearly every game these days is slammed up against the 4 GB wall. I doubt you'll see developers creating more levels specifically for the PS3 (we're a lazy bunch), but better texturing and more level content is a definite possibility. Programmatically generated content, like time-specific shadow maps, are also a possibility. I'd expect content creators to create their full games on the PS3, then cut back some of the more storage-intensive features
Xbox live gold has proven that a DRM'ed box can sell a lot of DRM'ed content, a concept that is pushing forth in the beta and release versions of Windows Vista.
Apple's online store may be faltering, but still the strongest in the space. Sales of DRM'ed TV shows online are up.
Cellphone unlocking was ruled legal, but cellular providers still have a lock on the content space of your phone.
The HDMI standard really started to become standard on HDTV's this year, finally allowing people to re-buy their electronics ONE MORE TIME if they want high-resolution video output. This has been pushed forward by the popularity of consoles, themselves DRM'ed to heck.
The "universally compatible" DRM initiative by Microsoft, called "plays anywhere," was scrapped by them in favor of a newer, more proprietary DRM for their Zune portable. Apparently the last one wasn't evil enough.
Eventually to maintain that growth they'll have to start protecting rights or they'll become a victim like they have been victimizing the rest of the world. How good do you feel paying $10 to see a movie so the Chinese can pay a $1 for a DVD?
It's funny you mention that. I was in Thailand not too long ago, and the price of a legal, licensed VCD was about $1. Legal DVD's were about $40, because they were a luxury item that only the rich could afford anyway.
Companies charge whatever the market will bear. If movie studios think they can get $10 out of an American audience to watch a movie, that's what they'll charge. It doesn't matter what's going on in China, except to say that they'll throw up all sorts of technical and legal barriers to importing their cheaper goods from that region. Likewise, a new CD in Brazil can cost 3 - 5 dollars. Again, legally.
China and other less restrictive countries are looked upon as bastions of IP freedom because there are some major ways in which they are. India, for example, allowed knockoff drugs for a very long time on the grounds that it was immoral to value western company's exploitive drug pricing schemes above human life. Go to Taiwan and *gasp* you can get DVD players that will let you play movies you have legally bought and paid for in any region of the world. You can get CD's in other regions of the world where the corporations convicted of illegal price fixing actually compete with local music companies and pirate CD creators to come to a more reasonable cost structure. Heck, until a few weeks ago you had to travel abroad to get the cellphone you've purchased unlocked from that one restrictive provider.
All of the above seem reasonable, but are completely banned in the US. It's nice to go to a country where the huge companies do not simply write whatever laws they want, but have to contest with the needs of the consumer, who have alternatives to the restrictive legal route.
China is also not communist, but that's another issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to contradict too much, but I can assure you if the space was there it would be nice to spill out into it. I've heard from lots of other developers about geometry and texturing getting cut to fit on disk, and if nothing else you generally need to go through a mad dash at the end of shrinking textures and reducing audio size to fit onto a standard DVD. Heck, if you could duplicate data across the disk you could simplify the file ordering mess and simply double up into arbitrary digestible clumps, thus speeding access time.
Either way, having more breathing room, as a devleloper, would save us a lot of optimization time. So long as you don't feel like you "need" to fill it, and nobody seems to feel that, it makes things easier on us and better for the consumer.
You're talking about a system with 1/2 GB of RAM. There are only 8 "clump fulls" of RAM before you run out. Disk size is going to be an issue this generation.
In my view, Sony's major mistake was putting marketing in charge of development. Basically, Sony promised the moon and beyond, and delivered something that one would have realistically expected. However, they managed to deliver it in such a way as to alienate many of their customers and suppliers.
Let's list out their recent Mistakes individually:
Delivering a 6 hundred dollar console. Any rudimentary survey of the market would show this is just too damned much. But they wanted to expand the market for blu-ray, and somehow convinced themselves that it wasn't too much for the next generation of gaming. Then realizing the losses, they actually raised the price for launchs in other parts of the world. Again, not engendering affection from their customers.
Really bad statements about the cost of the console... like that people should want to get a second job to buy one. Or that the first 5 million would sell without any games anyway. Or... the list goes on and on. Somebody's PR guy should have been fired a long time ago with the string of "damage control" that only managed to alienate people who had been thinking about the system.
Repeated slippage of launch date. A little slide here and there is understandable, but if you haven't shipped dev systems out, you have no intention at all of hitting that date. This bit of tactical marketing enraged those customers most likely to line up and buy the console on launch day. Nintendo did the same thing with the N64, and paid the price.
Only 1 anticipated good launch title actually made it to launch. Ok, so that's not bad compared to the legions of 360's stuck playing Geometry Wars for a few months after launch, but it's still about 5 system-sellers less than promised.
Last-minute Sixaxis. This doesn't necessarily hurt the system, it's just a somewhat obviously rushed feature that is, currently, too laggy to be useful. Hopefully future games will find ways to use it despite the obvious shortcomings. In the mean time, they should have focused on improving the other parts of the system which could have used the polish time.
Promising a Live-equaling service, then shifting the burden onto developers while delivering a service that pales in comparison. A lot of 360's live stuff is integrated into the shell or on their servers, which takes a tremendous amount of the work off of the shoulders of developers. Sony, on the other hand, is making promises and leaving them up to us to fulfill. This fits EA's server model, but not many other people's.
HDMI waffling. If you're going to require the expensive version of your system and a potential HDTV upgrade to get the selling feature of your new movie format to work, don't waffle back and forth on whether or not it will be required, then pass the buck to movie studios. Either own up to it and require the protection, or don't. Leaving the people unsure if they need the upgrade or not simply makes them put off the decision.
Two words "Rrrrridge Rrrrracer!"*
* horrible presentations leading up to the system launch that basically insulted the intelligence of the audience. The hype machine was in full swing, but the pictures and games simply weren't congruous with what the speakers were saying.
The PSP UMD debacle. Sure, not directly related to the PS3, but taints them nonetheless with the faint wift of late 90's Sega. This was one of Sony's most public claims about the PSP, one which they staked a large portion of their credibility, and they lost an obvious fight.
Suing Lik-Sang out of business for selling imported hardware, while many of their most prominent executives were customers. Quite frankly, I've never worked at a gaming company that didn't purchase random devleopment bits from Lik-Sang at one point or another. Going after them for something as cherished as importing systems was bad PR amongst the development community.
Things weren't all bad for Sony. For one, Blu-Ray does provide a lot more breathing room for content on dis
So now that we've had a few years to tackle this problem, what is the most viable, likely replacement for e-mail that would be unspammable? Sender-verification? I see IM coming up a lot as a spam-free alternative, though that is probably simply a function of lowest-hanging fruit.
Would someone mind updating us as to the state of technological alternatives on the horizon?
Castlevania 4 was the first castlevania to have 8-directional whipping, whip flailing, rotating playfields, swinging by your whip, etc. It's a great example of sticking with a formula but evolving it based upon the power suddenly available from a system transition. SotN, while a great game (bit easy for my taste), both would have been possible on the SNES and was more of a radical re-envisioning of the series.
How did I miss that one? Bionic Commando was one of the most underrated games of the late 80's.
It would be Bionic Commando 3, though. There was a Game Boy sequal, replete with new terrible art style and same great gameplay.
If you can find a copy, I recommend picking one up.
A lot of sequals inherently lose the magic that made the first so memorable, simply because the first was an original. Final Fantasy 3 was not as amazing of a game to me as Final Fantasy 2, simply because I had played 2 before. Your option when making sequals are:
Same thing but more... a straightforward path that really only works once or twice, and then only when people are frothing with demand.
Different thing... Change things around completely. Go side view or something. Dangerous, in that you really only give yourself the normal chance of having a not terrible game. See also: Zelda 2. Castlevania 2. Etc.
Update the gameplay... Probably the best option. The risk of putting out a stinker when "updating" a game are lower, but the process really only works if there are obvious deficiencies or a platform / technology change allows for more freedom. See also: Castlevania 4.
That having been said... Sequal games I'd like to see:
RC Pro Am III
Worms 5: Back to 2D
Gargoyle's Quest III
Secret of Mana III 2: This time we didn't mess it up
Sector Z II
Blaster Master 3
Strider 1:2
Alien Gun 2
Zany Golf 2: the burger bites back
How, exactly, has prior art been stopping patents from being granted?
Anything you can dream, as long as it is sufficiently ugly, you can build.
Personally, professionally, I think DRM is a great idea to prevent piracy. And as soon as someone has a DRM system that works even in theory and also remains uncracked for longer than 30 fucking seconds, we should institute it.
In the mean time, can we please put this myth bed? Even Macromedia estimates that adding an annoyingly intrusive layer of protection adds only one week to the time-to-crack. All DRM does is ensure that movie and television producers can sell you the same thing two or three times. See a TV show you like? Now, instead of just recording it and watching it again, you can buy it on HD-DVD to see it on your television, then buy it again on iTunes to see it on your portable. Like your tivo? What if it just helped you to spend another dollar and a half to watch your TV shows again? Want to pirate the show? The moment someone anywhere in the world has solved the encryption layer (which, in the case of DVD's, HD-DVD's, Apple's Fairplay, etc) it becomes instantaneously available the globe over, sometimes before the retail disk has been available.
It's all about double and triple dipping legal users, not stopping illicit use.
Coordination would have required for Google Map because google maps on the iPhone knows your location. The normal Google maps does not. They probably had to connect cingular's cellular location services with Google's mapping backend and tie it all together with a pretty iPhone shell to get it to work.
Google already does this with SMS google searches, so it isn't technologically difficult. But it does require cooperation.
1. We are technologists. DRM slows down our machines. Would you expect car enthusiasts to help create a top speed 65 MPH lock on their cars?
2. We are technologists. We know that DRM on an open machine is mathematically impossible. And so to institute effective DRM, machines would have to be locked away from us, the end users. Us, who love the machines.
3. We are technologists. We know that leaked copies spread exponentially, not linearly. Hence, if one person leaks something to the internet, everyone has it, and this DRM is useless.
4. We are technologists. We know that all this level of DRM does is force people to spend thousands of dollars re-buying the same hardware, without actually solving the problem.
We are technologists. But we are not one. Grandparent post, whose pro-copyright post claimed that pro-copyright posts were never modded +5, was modded +5. We are many people with many different opinions. We're all just looking for answers.
Don't forget that Apple is releasing a set-top box, MS already has an end-to-end set top box on millions of people's televisions, and Tivo is planning on upgrading their boxes as well. Oh, and DVD's are actually pretty good looking.
The options available to people these days are staggering. My guess is that HD video adoption will be driven by those cheap 30 dollar DVD players from Taiwan burning out. Then you'll be able to get another cheap DVD player for 20, or you could get a beautiful new HD-DVD or BlueRay player (which will also play DVD's) for just 200 dollars more! How about 50 more? Eventually someone will come out on top through simple DVD atrition.
My theory? Anything NetFlix gets behind will win.
And that is what customers want... Purdy shiney flashey!
No offence, but what's wrong with this? People generally care about the aesthetics of the things they use every day. Well polished things are generally made better, and any degree of interface simplicity when compounded over millions of repetitions adds greatly to productivity.
Plus, being that most people are firmly stuck in the windows lock-in, the underlying OS code doesn't really matter, as they have to suck it up and take it either way. So being simpler and more straightforward to interact with will be nice. Being able to scale the interface to arbitrary sizes will be nice. Running slower is bad, but most people are just waiting for Outlook to contact exchange.
Window's interface has been a bottleneck to productivity for years. That thing's a sewer of random accumulated refuse, and any movement to clean it up is a positive development.
The Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition exists to help aspiring game developers showcase their work. The festival aids developers through industry connections, peer interaction and national exposure.
Sounds like losing credibility with developers would run counter to the mission of Slamdance.
For those of you who don't like babel fish:
Because M$ decided on a forced upgrade migration path, Internet Explorer 7 has finally kicked in on all of their MS Windows OS running PCs. In theory, there isn't much wrong with this, but IE7 has failed to comply with many fo the standards it was supposed to.
IE7 is a nightmare of crossbrower compatibility. I recently needed to rewrite a web site so that it works on firefox... and surprisingly enough, when testing the new and the old site on IE7 I discovered that many elements do not function as expected. And "not function as expected" doesn't really cover it, it was more a question of not working at all.
I found some pretty large incompatibilities in their JavaScript submission systems. While I can understand the behavior migration, some functions did not pass parameters correctly etc.. The worst thing was that they disabled submitting data through "input type img" (which in this case was the entire sites data)... I don't blame the programmers for setting things up this way, but I do blame IE for not keeping with standards again.
So with IE7 we come to a new era of "web developers nightmare." It will cause many smaller websites to need to be rewritten, and therefore will crush some of the associated small companies' business.
And a final tip from me! Try to avoid writing JavaScript without testing it 100% on all of the major web browsers: FireFox, IE7, Opera and Safari.
Just a clue:
According to W3C, the web browser market share of IE7 for the previous month is: 7.1%
and for IE6 is: 49.9%
So with a bit of analyzing as well as some math we can say that IE7 will show a market share of about 60%... which isn't the best picture for us, the developers.
And for those that do like babelfish... English via Italian.
The Internet Explorer 7 has given of soccer to within in end on all the OS of MS Windows that ago to work the PC because of determined the M$ fact in order to force it is customers to migrare through the modernization. The sink really is not much evil with the this here but IE7 has been supposed to more join the champions who what in effects is not to align. IE7 is a cavalla of night for the greater part of the sviluppatori that try to join to the champions for crossbrowsing. Recently I have had to rewrite a Web site so as to it works to firefox equally... and the surprise element was that when examines the new and old place on IE7 I have uncovered that many things does not work as previewed and "the function poichè previewed" it is not the just word for it, it was more one issue than operation at all. I have found that submiting with the Javascript it has some graceful things of uncool that incolpo of the IE but some functions really did not work when no-go gage all the parameters and therefore via. And the GREATER PART of the thing of the assassin was the incapacity of the IE in order to introduce the data through "the type img of the input" that really it was the entire data of the places... Really not incolpo of the programmatori that have made it therefore but of the IE not to still maintain with the champions. Therefore really with IE7 we come to one new was "of the incubus of the sviluppatori of fotoricettore" poichè will demand the EVIL and perhaps DEFECTIVE places therefore of fotoricettore will not be rewritten and this with crushing some of the commerce of the small enterprises. And a final TIP from me! Tests to avoid the Javascript of writing without to verify it 100% on all the browsers used main of fotoricettore like FireFox, IE7, the work and the safari. As soon as for having an indication: According to W3C the percentage of the market of web browser of IE7 for the previous month is: 7.1% and for IE6 are: 49.9% Therefore with a little analyzing to the situation and the facts therefore as to make a sure one for the mathematics we can say that IE7 will show a percentage of the market of approximately 60% according to W3C... which is not the better image for we the devs.
The console that is doing best is the one which is most likely to attract development dollars. Which, in turn, causes original titles to be released. Which makes the console a better prospect for ownership.
Basically, in the gaming world you want to own the most popular console, as that way you will have the broadest possible selection of games available to you. So paying attention to who is "in the lead" is very important.
The NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Sony Playstation, and PS2 all had a lot of western developed games (and Japaneese games) which didn't have senseless/cutesy story lines.
Not to mention A: PC games are largely western developed (with personal PC ownership traditionally lower in Asia), and B: Sega actually stands for SErvice and GAmes, originally started by an American.
Not to be too Pro-Microsoft, but I've always found their games division to be really good to work with. At heart they're a bunch of game geeks who are thrilled that they've got the juggernaut to bankroll whatever it is they want to do. And, generally, they seem to want to fund nifty stuff. From a communication standpoint as a platform company they've been every bit as good about communication as Sony and Nintendo, and in certain respects better (in others, worse. Each has their quirks). But, of course, get the toothbrush salesmen involved at a higher level, and who knows what MS will do.
The french company that is licensed to work on this title has a good history of licensed conversions, some with MS IP. But they've never handled anything that would lead one to believe they could do Halo as anything other than a 2D sidescrolling shooter. And they started with wallpapers and ringtones... not exactly a prelude to doing an IP justice. Plus with an IP license cost that alone could develop a mid-level PS2 game, how much could they have left over to actually develop the title?
So I really wouldn't know who to believe without more evidence, but I'd be willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt until other stories like this emerged from developers. In my admittedly limited experience, this doesn't sound like the kind of thing MS's game division usually does. Anyone with more experience working with licensed IP from Redmond willing to share?
DRM is a just tool for content producers. Unprotected media should be entirely unaffected by it.
My company churns out a lot of demonstration videos, usually in some sort of WMP format (as that's what the artists are familiar with). There are many times I'd like to take a screenshot of this video, mark up changes I'd like to see, and send it back. However, under XP this is impossible. No media player stuff shows up in screenshots, to help prevent video theft. And, hence, I spend more time than necessary sketching out facsimilies of the videos to explain what I want.
So yes, while DRM is a tool for content producers, there are system-wide consequences of its implementation.
You can get a decent optical drive in an ultraportable. I'd recommend it... otherwise how do you re-install the OS?
Otherwise, an ultraportable 11" widescreen powerbook would be great. Like Sony's TX line, but not constantly breaking.
Just a quick list of things the iPod did first in an MP3 player:
1. the smaller, more expensive drives
2. touch wheel
3. click wheel
4. database frontend
5. an annoying hardware dock
6. shipping earbuds that aren't terrible
7. non-replacable batteries in an integrated form factor
8. No stop button (?)
9. No screen
10. Companion music store
11. DRM
12. Random-only play
13. Podcasting
14. Prioritizing physical size over storage space
They're like The Matrix. Revolutionary when it came out, copied to the point of being trite now. But Apple has done some very original things with the line throughout the years, and should be recognized for such.
But it is illegal to source your store from overseas, as you point out. So as a US citizen you can buy music from overseas, but what you can't do is walk into a store that sells overseas music.
Likewise, it's not illegal to own a region-free DVD player, but actually getting one is very difficult due to other coercive forces on the market. And to convert an existing player to a region-free one is illegal under US law.
There are other ways the force of law can be brought against the free market rather than the direct "thou shalt not."
The sixaxis was overshadowed by the Wii's revolutionary controller, but it's still a very cool feature and makes the XBox 360's controller look disabled by comparison
No offence, but have you used the sixaxis? The actual tilt mechanism is quite, quite laggy. And unfortunately in any control interface a little bit of lag will lead to a lot of player overcompensation oscillation cycles. It's basically unusable in the current crop of games, though the potential exists that they could improve their bluetooth drivers and get the lag under control. Ultimately, though, it really doesn't make the 360's controller look disabled, especially with the 360's unique guide button, headset jack, and vibration.
Also, the sixaxis's shoulder buttons, an attempt to immitate the smoother analog functionality of the original Xbox and Game Cube, are actually quite broken. They both curve away from the hand quite significantly, and rotate away as you press them. In other words, they're difficult to hold without slipping off, a major oversight that should have been corrected after the first or second focus test.
The potential of the cell processor architecture is significant. Once developers figure out how to make optimal use of it it could potentially take games to a new level (think realistic physics, better AI, a better online experience, etc..). Here, potential is the key word as it really depends on how well Sony helps game developers make use of its hardware.
Actually, you don't need better AI. You have all of the clock cycles you need on the PS2 to make dumb AI. And dumb AI is a lot more fun to play against than crafty, intelligent AI. You want enemies that run straight at you while being mowed down, rather than ones that sneak up behind you and club you with a ratchet while you aren't looking. The 360 has more than enough power for that.
Realistic physics is a double edged sword as well. You want physics that look realistic, but you don't want actual real physics. You don't want the player to be killed if they bump into a vending machine which falls onto them. Jumping 2 feet into the air is boring. The ability to scatter a room full of stuff with a grenade is a neat visual effect, but the 360 can already do that.
You also don't need better CPU's for better online experiences. What you need is a fatter pipe and lower ping times, along with a more flexible underlying server infrastructure for handling online transactions, matchmaking, etc. Those are the limitations, and unfortunately none have to do with system power. In this area, Microsoft actually has the clear advantage, as their online service simply rocks, and allows for amazingly smooth transitions to online play for developers. Sony, whose online strategy has been "eh, we'll let developers write it," has a lot of catching up to in terms of supportive infrastructure.
Blu-ray is a gamble, for sure. I think Sony pushed the format too soon. But if the gamble pays off and it does become the new standard, suddenly everyone's gonna wish they got a PS3 and those who don't have one will get one. In any case, Blu-ray allows game developers to put more content on the PS3 version of their games. This initially might just be bonus features (such as the-making-of videos) but eventually will translate into more gameplay content (extra levels perhaps?)
More likely you'll see more geometry and textures in existing levels. Blu-Ray really is the one major feature that could separate the PS3 from the 360, as DVD content storage levels are precipitously tight. Nearly every game these days is slammed up against the 4 GB wall. I doubt you'll see developers creating more levels specifically for the PS3 (we're a lazy bunch), but better texturing and more level content is a definite possibility. Programmatically generated content, like time-specific shadow maps, are also a possibility. I'd expect content creators to create their full games on the PS3, then cut back some of the more storage-intensive features
DRM's victories this year:
Xbox live gold has proven that a DRM'ed box can sell a lot of DRM'ed content, a concept that is pushing forth in the beta and release versions of Windows Vista.
Apple's online store may be faltering, but still the strongest in the space. Sales of DRM'ed TV shows online are up.
Cellphone unlocking was ruled legal, but cellular providers still have a lock on the content space of your phone.
The HDMI standard really started to become standard on HDTV's this year, finally allowing people to re-buy their electronics ONE MORE TIME if they want high-resolution video output. This has been pushed forward by the popularity of consoles, themselves DRM'ed to heck.
The "universally compatible" DRM initiative by Microsoft, called "plays anywhere," was scrapped by them in favor of a newer, more proprietary DRM for their Zune portable. Apparently the last one wasn't evil enough.
Eventually to maintain that growth they'll have to start protecting rights or they'll become a victim like they have been victimizing the rest of the world. How good do you feel paying $10 to see a movie so the Chinese can pay a $1 for a DVD?
It's funny you mention that. I was in Thailand not too long ago, and the price of a legal, licensed VCD was about $1. Legal DVD's were about $40, because they were a luxury item that only the rich could afford anyway.
Companies charge whatever the market will bear. If movie studios think they can get $10 out of an American audience to watch a movie, that's what they'll charge. It doesn't matter what's going on in China, except to say that they'll throw up all sorts of technical and legal barriers to importing their cheaper goods from that region. Likewise, a new CD in Brazil can cost 3 - 5 dollars. Again, legally.
China and other less restrictive countries are looked upon as bastions of IP freedom because there are some major ways in which they are. India, for example, allowed knockoff drugs for a very long time on the grounds that it was immoral to value western company's exploitive drug pricing schemes above human life. Go to Taiwan and *gasp* you can get DVD players that will let you play movies you have legally bought and paid for in any region of the world. You can get CD's in other regions of the world where the corporations convicted of illegal price fixing actually compete with local music companies and pirate CD creators to come to a more reasonable cost structure. Heck, until a few weeks ago you had to travel abroad to get the cellphone you've purchased unlocked from that one restrictive provider.
All of the above seem reasonable, but are completely banned in the US. It's nice to go to a country where the huge companies do not simply write whatever laws they want, but have to contest with the needs of the consumer, who have alternatives to the restrictive legal route.
China is also not communist, but that's another issue.