for those of you not running windows here is the license text:
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No right to create modifications or derivatives of this Specification is granted herein.
There is a separate patent license available to parties interested in implementing software programs that can read and write files that conform to the Specification. This patent license is available at this location: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpaten tlicense.asp.
THE SPECIFICATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND MICROSOFT MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR TITLE; THAT THE CONTENTS OF THE SPECIFICATION ARE SUITABLE FOR ANY PURPOSE; NOR THAT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SUCH CONTENTS WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS.
MICROSOFT WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO ANY USE OR DISTRIBUTION OF THE SPECIFICATION.
The name and trademarks of Microsoft may NOT be used in any manner, including advertising or publicity pertaining to the Specification or its contents without specific, written prior permission. Title to copyright in the Specification will at all times remain with Microsoft.
No other rights are granted by implication, estoppel or otherwise.
first of all, it's XBOX (or perhaps, if you like, xbox), not xBox -- what did you smoke too much nVidia or ATi crack or something?
//end grammar nazi rant
Ok, now as far as XBOX's outselling PS2's, it's probably because everybody already has a PS2 already. I dont have specific numbers but I think the PS2 has sold some 7 million consoles worldwide, the XBOX has sold a little over 1 million (this is from memory and is probably outdated/wrong information, please correct me if I'm wrong). Also the last figures I had seen, in Japan the XBOX was being outsold by the Wonderswan Crystal -- a dead system. Plus the fact that Microsoft has lost billions of dollars on the XBOX isn't too healthy either.
As far as XBOX 2 and PS3 are concerned they haven't even been officially announced, let alone given set release dates (which by all means could slip -- look at Longhorn), how can you say that XBOX 2 will be out before the PS3? All indications would point to that, but it isn't certain.
Oh gaming is no problem on this. From the Warcraft 3 specs it is plenty enough power to run Warcraft 3 and it could run World of Warcraft just fine if you add another 256mb of ram.
Actually Wendy's is number one in the fast food business, followed by McDonalds and then BK. I used to work for BK for about 3 years and would always read the monthly newsletter. Its been a while since I worked there, so this information could be dated. As far as pop (or soda if you prefer) is conserned, you forgot about Dr.Pepper/7Up. Until I worked at BK I thought they were owned by Pepsi, but they are their own company. Either way though, your point about 2-3 dominant players is correct.
To answer a question with a question, why hasn't anybody made an indipendent film on the scale of Lord of the Rings or using only donations, volunteers, and working in their spare time.
Sure you might beable to do it but it will take a long time and by the time it comes out it will probably already be dated.
Hmmm... maybe that is why Duke Nukem Forever is taking so long...
FTA: "Gigabyte creates first dual-GPU graphics card"
In the infamous words of Bill Lumbergh: "Riiiight," I think they forgot about this card.
Maybe they meant to say, Gigabyte creates first dual-GPU nVidia card, or some such. Or, maybe since only nVidia uses the term GPU (ATi uses VPU) it is implied that it is an nVidia card and thus the first dual-GPU nVidia card.
I just happened across this the other day. Filling out an accident claim I saw this page on the MN Dept. of Public Safety site which has a picture of the new liscense. My first impression was not terribly positive. To me it looks pretty ugly, but whatever.
My memory differs from the wikipedia, I seem to remember there being a Voodoo 4 4000 and I believe the 3dfx site listed it as the Voodoo 6 6000 and not a Voodoo 5 6000. Although most of my information was looking around on the 3dfx site back in the day so it may be they listed cards that weren't actually released (like the 5000 which I remember seeing there too).
you can find pictures of it here
Also according to the wikipedia entry, the Voodoo 6 6000 would have beat the GeForce 2 GTS but not the Ultra or the GeForce 3.
women are time and money thus translated in to the equation:
women = time * money
and since time is money
women = money * money or
women = money^2
and since money is the root of all evil
women = (evil^1/2)^2 and thus
women = evil
There you have it pure mathematics, women are evil. And since this is slashdot and of course we know that we are not the evil ones, there are no women on slashdot and we don't associate with their evil kind.
Hmmm... begs the question though, if this holds true, is Bill Gates really a woman?
Get a Gamecube (if you don't already) and a Gameboy Player. It will only cost you around $150USD and you can play pretty much any GC, GB, GBC, and GBA game out there. Also you might want to try importing the SNES style GC controller which was designed for the player.
Notice in the benchmarks, for example the first one, both the Fx-53 and the 3800+ beat all the intel processors. Thus two AMD 2.4GHz beat a 3.0, 3.4, and a 3.6GHz intel processors.
Thus, the slower processors beat the faster processors.
The thing I hate about every review of Disgaea and La Pucelle I have seen is they nock them down for graphics. Just because they use sprites (which all Tactical RPG's to my knowledge do) doesn't mean they don't look good. Personally I prefer sprites in some cases to polygons. Sprites lend more to the anime feel they gave the game and I believe that they had some of the most stylish graphics of any game to date.
Reminds me of an episode of Mr. Show. Members of a board try to figure out who green-lighted "Coupon: The Movie" which failed miserably at the box office. They eventually concur that it was the American people's fault for not making it a big success. They claim the American public tricked them in to thinking that the most popular coupon in the country warranted a movie. They then proceed to sue the pants off every person in America.
Um, sorry but GT3: A-Spec was not a launch game.
The PS2 launched in America on Oct 26, 2000 and Gran Turismo 3 came out July 09, 2001. That is almost 9 months with very few (if any) games available. Sure you could play all those PSX games on a PS2 but then, why would you need to buy a PS2 in the first place if you can play all your PSX? If Sony released the PS3 right now without any launch titles for it, it would tank. You have to give the customer some incentive to buy it. Why buy a $300-400 machine to play all your old games that you can play right now for free.
Why not just analyze the music and create step data based on certain beats, patterns, etc... Don't they do this sort of thing in visualizations already? Granted, it won't be as good as hand created step data, since you can make it harder or easier depending on your preference. But then, you could just fine tune the data by editing it yourself.
DDR is a pretty cool game (especially to watch) except it can get very annoying after a while. Case in point, I was at the CPL in Dallas and they had a DDR2 machine set up close by. Not many people were playing it so it sat at the title screen with some annoying dj announcer guy repeating D-D-R over and over again. It is pretty cool to watch some of those guys dance, nut no matter how good any DDR player is I can't imagine they are better than this guy.
But with the car boat, you get a sports car and a boat all in one. If you just bought a regular boat and a sports car, you would also need a truck or at least a car capable of towing the boat. With the car boat, you never need to get the boat ready and you never have to worry about parking your car/truck and trailer (or worry about vandalism, theft, etc...). It's more of a convenience than anything. Plus it turns heads more than a normal boat or sports car would.
Is it the better than the sum of it's parts? No. But for anyone who has the time, money, and knowledge, it would be pretty cool to build.
Well, the hard drive in the Xbox is 'technology' and it makes a huge difference.
* speed of loading
What about games like Metroid Prime on the Gamecube which have *no* loading times whatsoever?
* speed of saves
I haven't noticed any speed issues with saving since the Playstation.
* number of saves
Ok, so I can have a billion saves. Thats nice, but what if I want to use my save at a friends house?
* amount of user-defined information
Not exactly sure what you're talking about here.
* downloaded content
Ok that is kinda nice, but it's more of a perk than a "killer feature."
* knowing that everyone has room for the save
See number of saves above.
* custom soundtracks
Pretty much only good for FPS, racing, or Tony Hawk-style games. Otherwise I want to hear that great music on my Final Fantasy, Zelda, Mario, or Metroid games. Also whats stopping you from turning the BGM to 0 and using a cd player?
The two things that my Gamecube and PS2 owning friends drool over when they finally get to experience them...the hard-drive, and of course Live.
Internet gaming is an over-hyped feature. The majority of games available are single player only. Also I think most people would agree that they enjoy playing with their friends *in the same room* more than playing against someone you don't know on the other side of the country/world/galaxy. Don't get me started about cheater/griefers/fuckheads on the internet.
The only reason I am thinking about getting an XBOX is for Panzer Dragoon Orta (long time SEGA fan) and making it into a cheap media center.
Slashdot Mirror
for those of you not running windows here is the license text:
/ html/odcXMLRefLegalNotice.asp?frame=true.
n tlicense.asp.
/ html/odcXMLRefLegalNotice.asp
Legal Notice
Permission to copy, display and distribute the contents of this document (the "Specification"), in any medium for any purpose without fee or royalty is hereby granted, provided that you include the following notice on ALL copies of the Specification, or portions thereof, that you make:
Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Permission to copy, display and distribute this document is available at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odcXMLRef
No right to create modifications or derivatives of this Specification is granted herein.
There is a separate patent license available to parties interested in implementing software programs that can read and write files that conform to the Specification. This patent license is available at this location: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpate
THE SPECIFICATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND MICROSOFT MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR TITLE; THAT THE CONTENTS OF THE SPECIFICATION ARE SUITABLE FOR ANY PURPOSE; NOR THAT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SUCH CONTENTS WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS.
MICROSOFT WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO ANY USE OR DISTRIBUTION OF THE SPECIFICATION.
The name and trademarks of Microsoft may NOT be used in any manner, including advertising or publicity pertaining to the Specification or its contents without specific, written prior permission. Title to copyright in the Specification will at all times remain with Microsoft.
No other rights are granted by implication, estoppel or otherwise.
©2003-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Permission to copy, display and distribute this document is available at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odcXMLRef
"I imagine that it is time for a small time vendor to start making 100% Linux compatible laptops and if they survive and make money then great"
You mean like LinuxCertified? They have been around for a while now actually.
first of all, it's XBOX (or perhaps, if you like, xbox), not xBox -- what did you smoke too much nVidia or ATi crack or something?
//end grammar nazi rant
Ok, now as far as XBOX's outselling PS2's, it's probably because everybody already has a PS2 already. I dont have specific numbers but I think the PS2 has sold some 7 million consoles worldwide, the XBOX has sold a little over 1 million (this is from memory and is probably outdated/wrong information, please correct me if I'm wrong). Also the last figures I had seen, in Japan the XBOX was being outsold by the Wonderswan Crystal -- a dead system. Plus the fact that Microsoft has lost billions of dollars on the XBOX isn't too healthy either.
As far as XBOX 2 and PS3 are concerned they haven't even been officially announced, let alone given set release dates (which by all means could slip -- look at Longhorn), how can you say that XBOX 2 will be out before the PS3? All indications would point to that, but it isn't certain.
Oh gaming is no problem on this. From the Warcraft 3 specs it is plenty enough power to run Warcraft 3 and it could run World of Warcraft just fine if you add another 256mb of ram.
Doom 3 wouldnt run however.
Actually Wendy's is number one in the fast food business, followed by McDonalds and then BK. I used to work for BK for about 3 years and would always read the monthly newsletter. Its been a while since I worked there, so this information could be dated. As far as pop (or soda if you prefer) is conserned, you forgot about Dr.Pepper/7Up. Until I worked at BK I thought they were owned by Pepsi, but they are their own company. Either way though, your point about 2-3 dominant players is correct.
To answer a question with a question, why hasn't anybody made an indipendent film on the scale of Lord of the Rings or using only donations, volunteers, and working in their spare time.
Sure you might beable to do it but it will take a long time and by the time it comes out it will probably already be dated.
Hmmm... maybe that is why Duke Nukem Forever is taking so long...
Transparent transistor + Blue LED = Rice-pc modder wet dream.
Just imagine:
Modder - "Pffft. Activity lights on the case are so lame, when my computer is thinking my whole processor lights up!"
Obligatory MST3K quote:
Tom Servo - "Ya know, maybe it's time to destroy him [Joel]."
Crow - "Nah"
Tom Servo - "No it's fatal for humans, there's no reboot system -- and get this -- no backup copy! (laughs)"
Crow - "No backup copy?!"
Together - "Now that's funny!"
from Season 1 - Ep. 14 - "Mighty Jack"
FTA: "Gigabyte creates first dual-GPU graphics card"
In the infamous words of Bill Lumbergh: "Riiiight," I think they forgot about this card.
Maybe they meant to say, Gigabyte creates first dual-GPU nVidia card, or some such. Or, maybe since only nVidia uses the term GPU (ATi uses VPU) it is implied that it is an nVidia card and thus the first dual-GPU nVidia card.
Well I guess it didn't link to the right page, darn ASP. Anyways, here is the correct URL
I just happened across this the other day. Filling out an accident claim I saw this page on the MN Dept. of Public Safety site which has a picture of the new liscense. My first impression was not terribly positive. To me it looks pretty ugly, but whatever.
No the Voodoo 6 6000 needed the external power brick because it had 4 chips. The 5500 had only 2 and the 4500 had 1.
From wikipedia
My memory differs from the wikipedia, I seem to remember there being a Voodoo 4 4000 and I believe the 3dfx site listed it as the Voodoo 6 6000 and not a Voodoo 5 6000. Although most of my information was looking around on the 3dfx site back in the day so it may be they listed cards that weren't actually released (like the 5000 which I remember seeing there too). you can find pictures of it here
Also according to the wikipedia entry, the Voodoo 6 6000 would have beat the GeForce 2 GTS but not the Ultra or the GeForce 3.
no the formula is:
women are time and money thus translated in to the equation:
women = time * money
and since time is money
women = money * money or
women = money^2
and since money is the root of all evil
women = (evil^1/2)^2 and thus
women = evil
There you have it pure mathematics, women are evil. And since this is slashdot and of course we know that we are not the evil ones, there are no women on slashdot and we don't associate with their evil kind.
Hmmm... begs the question though, if this holds true, is Bill Gates really a woman?
Don't you mean Doom 3?
Get a Gamecube (if you don't already) and a Gameboy Player. It will only cost you around $150USD and you can play pretty much any GC, GB, GBC, and GBA game out there. Also you might want to try importing the SNES style GC controller which was designed for the player.
Notice in the benchmarks, for example the first one, both the Fx-53 and the 3800+ beat all the intel processors. Thus two AMD 2.4GHz beat a 3.0, 3.4, and a 3.6GHz intel processors. Thus, the slower processors beat the faster processors.
While I agree with most of what you said. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was made by id.
The thing I hate about every review of Disgaea and La Pucelle I have seen is they nock them down for graphics. Just because they use sprites (which all Tactical RPG's to my knowledge do) doesn't mean they don't look good. Personally I prefer sprites in some cases to polygons. Sprites lend more to the anime feel they gave the game and I believe that they had some of the most stylish graphics of any game to date.
So to reiterate, sprites != bad graphics.
G4TV is (from there site) "The only TV network dedicated to video games and the millions that play them."
Reminds me of an episode of Mr. Show. Members of a board try to figure out who green-lighted "Coupon: The Movie" which failed miserably at the box office. They eventually concur that it was the American people's fault for not making it a big success. They claim the American public tricked them in to thinking that the most popular coupon in the country warranted a movie. They then proceed to sue the pants off every person in America.
Um, sorry but GT3: A-Spec was not a launch game. The PS2 launched in America on Oct 26, 2000 and Gran Turismo 3 came out July 09, 2001. That is almost 9 months with very few (if any) games available. Sure you could play all those PSX games on a PS2 but then, why would you need to buy a PS2 in the first place if you can play all your PSX? If Sony released the PS3 right now without any launch titles for it, it would tank. You have to give the customer some incentive to buy it. Why buy a $300-400 machine to play all your old games that you can play right now for free.
Why not just analyze the music and create step data based on certain beats, patterns, etc... Don't they do this sort of thing in visualizations already? Granted, it won't be as good as hand created step data, since you can make it harder or easier depending on your preference. But then, you could just fine tune the data by editing it yourself.
DDR is a pretty cool game (especially to watch) except it can get very annoying after a while. Case in point, I was at the CPL in Dallas and they had a DDR2 machine set up close by. Not many people were playing it so it sat at the title screen with some annoying dj announcer guy repeating D-D-R over and over again. It is pretty cool to watch some of those guys dance, nut no matter how good any DDR player is I can't imagine they are better than this guy.
But with the car boat, you get a sports car and a boat all in one. If you just bought a regular boat and a sports car, you would also need a truck or at least a car capable of towing the boat. With the car boat, you never need to get the boat ready and you never have to worry about parking your car/truck and trailer (or worry about vandalism, theft, etc...). It's more of a convenience than anything. Plus it turns heads more than a normal boat or sports car would.
Is it the better than the sum of it's parts? No. But for anyone who has the time, money, and knowledge, it would be pretty cool to build.
Maybe they don't trust someone named Darl McBride?
or Maybe they just didn't want to check wether it really was a link to goatse.cx
Well, the hard drive in the Xbox is 'technology' and it makes a huge difference.
* speed of loading
What about games like Metroid Prime on the Gamecube which have *no* loading times whatsoever?
* speed of saves
I haven't noticed any speed issues with saving since the Playstation.
* number of saves
Ok, so I can have a billion saves. Thats nice, but what if I want to use my save at a friends house?
* amount of user-defined information
Not exactly sure what you're talking about here.
* downloaded content
Ok that is kinda nice, but it's more of a perk than a "killer feature."
* knowing that everyone has room for the save
See number of saves above.
* custom soundtracks
Pretty much only good for FPS, racing, or Tony Hawk-style games. Otherwise I want to hear that great music on my Final Fantasy, Zelda, Mario, or Metroid games. Also whats stopping you from turning the BGM to 0 and using a cd player?
The two things that my Gamecube and PS2 owning friends drool over when they finally get to experience them...the hard-drive, and of course Live.
Internet gaming is an over-hyped feature. The majority of games available are single player only. Also I think most people would agree that they enjoy playing with their friends *in the same room* more than playing against someone you don't know on the other side of the country/world/galaxy. Don't get me started about cheater/griefers/fuckheads on the internet.
The only reason I am thinking about getting an XBOX is for Panzer Dragoon Orta (long time SEGA fan) and making it into a cheap media center.