"I'm not surprised someone with a name like "NetAvenger" is a walking MSDN brochure. Sheesh! Windows Presentation Foundation will always be slower than the native Quartz because WPF is running in Microsoft's completely arbitrary and pointless intermediate.NET layer and based on XML, so now all these great new dual-core processors we're getting will be slowed down again by Microsoft! It sucks that the first thing they do when we get faster chips is add another abstraction layer to slow it all down again."
MS's first job is to cater to developers..NET happens to be a very elegant framework to program for and is fairly efficient. Outside the initial windows forms "draw" (that little graphics delay you first get when starting up a.NET app), all the.NET apps I've coded run like butta. The abstraction layer is worth it if it makes apps easier to code. I mean, what did you want to them to do? Keep MFC?
As for Quartz, it's had it issues, too. Remember the "pre-Quartz Extreme" days, when genie effects ran like crap on the fastest video cards? When the windowing process would cause the spinning beachball of death? Heck, even the original version of Keynote tried to get around Quartz and write directly to the graphics hardware (causing kernel panics in the process).
By the way, I'm noticing a trend in your posts. I understand your points, but if you want people to take them seriously, you must at least make them more objective.
Keep in mind that the original OS X interface ran godawfully slow when it first came out. I remember trying to drag windows on a Bondi blue iMac (one of the listed machines on the box) and watching the "slideshow effect" (shudder). Apple made no effort to scale settings back automatically like MS is trying to do. If the genie effect looked like a clogged drain --tough, buy a new Mac.
Also, note that MS is trying to do something Apple didn't: maintain compatibility with 20+ years worth of app within the Aero UI. All Apple provided was an OS 9 emulator (oh, and you can code in Carbon, which few seemed to actually do). The fact that we can run Windows 3.1 apps in a.NET, 3D-accelerated is pretty impressive.
And don't mistake what I'm saying for a troll. I have a (very) large number of PCs in my home, and the Macs are where I do much of my daily work (the Windows boxes are mostly for games and a few apps that don't run well anywhere else). I don't think there's any need to discredit, however, the effort MS is putting into the new UI.
Re:Nintendo is in trouble with the Revolution
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Nintendo's New Look
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· Score: 1
Honestly, you come off just as much a fanboy as the OP was a "troll". You honestly seemed blinded by Nintendo's marketing machine, which has not shown a single game for the console, a single screenshot running on Revolution hardware, etc.
"On the subject of high definition:
Shigeru Miyamoto has said, "The majority of people won't be playing our system with an HDTV, though with the Revolution, 480p resolution will be standard."
While not 720p, it's still a lot better than SD."
Well, actually, no it's not. 480p looks extremely jagged on most HDTVs. NTSC looks outright hideous, but that's besides the point.
Also, Shigeru Miyamoto is wrong -- HDTV prices have plummetted alongside Plasma/LCD. It's very reasonable than in the next 3 years (minimum lifespan of the console), most people will be using cheap HDTVs.
"On the subject of console prices:
Compare the PSP to the DS. The technical specs of the PSP leave the DS in the dust, but its pricetag leaves a lot to be desired. Parents don't want to buy a PSP for $280 when they can have a DS and three games for the same price. (Sorry, Canadian prices here) This helps explain in part the popularity of the DS."
Both are very popular. If you go to any schoolyard, you'll see children with both systems.
Also, your opinion that "the pricetag leaves a lot to be desired" is a little off. Those same children are carrying in $100 cell phones and $300 iPods. PSPs are just a drop in the bucket.
"On the subject of "What will Revolution bring us?"
- Innovative controller and new game genres - Downloadable games - Online play"
2 of those 3 have existed for over 20 years. Microsoft has pretty much perfected it this time around.
The "new genres" comment is debatable. What "new genres" has the DS brought with its innovative control scheme? A lawyer game? A doctor game? You need multiple games of one type to establish a "genre". I don't see a host of doctor games flooding the market.
The Revolution is going to see experimentation and innovation, but neither is a recipe for success.
While I agree partially with this, the chief sign of power in the 21st century is affecting cultural change. This can be done with war, but I wouldn't consider that "indirect". Clinton's administration controlled the global currency basis much more effectively by diplomacy, sanctions, and occasionally gunfire. Bush's approach ends up slaughtering innocents and may lead up to being attacked on our soil again.
I don't argue that there isn't a power party -- in fact, I imagine the idea of "power parties" have been around since the days of vassals. There are subtler ways, however, to move the invisible hand than what he's doing. Power is nothing if you can't wield it effectively.
"This war and the mindless support US citizens have given it will go down as one of the greatest crimes of modern history, and those who knowingly support it deserve at least as bad as what is coming to them, and probably worse."
I would like to note that there is a VERY large number of us US citizens(bordering on 49%) that are very against the war, knew the whole thing was an oil-enabled farce from the beginning, and believe this president is one of the biggest warmongers in US history. We're talking close to 150 million people.
That said, the US is a democracy (republic, if you want to get technical). Individual voices have a large say in public affairs. A lot of individual voices can sway them entirely. Right now the 51% want things run a certain away. The next election, that may change (in fact, it's likely).
However, don't lump all US citizens together as "mindless support". We are not mindless, and we do not support our president in his decisions. We're making ourselves very clear about this (look at his opinion polls). In 2008 there likely WILL be a major change.
They don't know. No one knows -- that's the point. What is MS going to do? Check how many connect to Live and report that to the 3rd parties? Nope, can't do that -- some of the consoles will never be connected to a network.
The numbers of hacked machines is probably extremely small. 30% would be way too high. I'd venture to say 3%, if that. And a lot of those machines DO end up being used to play games, so they should be part of the overall figures anyway.
And to clear things up, the console manufacturers usually make the bulk of their money on that initial fee, not the per game fee. A game can totally flop and they'll still get hundreds of thousands of dollars from EA. The goal is to make the initial "sale" look good to the licensie -- actually selling the games is the licensie's problem.
Kids, how many times are we going to go over basic video game economics?
The manufacturers make the bulk of their money on 3RD-PARTY LICENSE FEES. 3RD-PARTY LICENSE FEES ARE DETERMINED BY CONSOLES OUT THERE, NOT HOW THEY'RE USED. Total consoles in homes = more a company can charge for license fees, and more 3rd parties making games. The money console makers "lose" in the hardware sale is neglible.
Your buying the console increases the fees they can charge. When they go to EA, Ubisoft et all, they can say "We have 10,000,000 consoles out there. Our competitors have 8 million. Therefore we're charging $100,000 versus $80,000 for the initial license fee and $1 versus $0.80 per game."
Every time a console is bought, the numbers increment by 1. It doesn't matter if the console is being used to play games, hacked, or as a doorstop. That one extra sale is a worth little more money in licenses.
Want to truly deprive MS of money? DON'T BUY THE CONSOLE.
"Yes, we all know how accurate gaming publications are."
Some are extremely biased, some are paid out, but the industry as a whole gives good indications whether or not a game is worth the money. That's why I use Gamerankings.com.
"This is like comparing Virtua Fighter to Marvel vs. Capcom. They're both in the same genre, but they're definitely different games. Oh, and the graphics are basically a "step" above what's come before, not a revolutionary improvement. "
They are both racing sims. Neither has an arcade feel (which can be discouraging to some). Gran Turismo has better cars, Gotham has better tracks. Both are nearly the same in terms of gameplay.
"Yeah, grandmother mindshare is definitely a good indicator of how fun a game is."
The discussion is "big name" titles. Not quality titles. Reread the original post.
"I didn't hear of this game until this fall, and I've owned every Nintendo system (sans VB) since the NES."
Then you're blind. Kameo was originally scheduled for N64, then GameCube, then Xbox, then Xbox 360. It was previed in countless gaming rags as a "Gamecube exclusive". It's a classic case of Rare taking forever to produce a game. In the end it was above average, but nothing extraordinary.
"Not really underrated. It's one of those games you either like or think "meh".
It got scores between 80-90%. Most people were expecting higher.
"I was under the impression you were listing "big-name" releases. These are all either indie games or quick cash-ins."
Gauntlet is an indie game? It's owned by a multimillion dollar company. Outpost Karoki is an indie game. Regardless of it being a "cash-in", it's still incredibly fun.
I think you may have a bug up your ass about Microsoft. Real gamers own all three systems, and don't let fanboyism get in the way of a good game. If you put down your "hate MS" veneer, and actually played the system, you'd realize they did a pretty good job.
Your argument sounds like the typical Nintendo fan's (graphics aren't everything), so let's look at the GameCube early lineup.
Luigi's Mansion: Another puzzle game, this time with particle effects. Reused characters. Pikmin: Another puzzle game, this time with horrible controls. Mario Sunshine: Mario 64. With a water gun on his back. Nothing really new here. Eternal Darkness: Now this was cool. Take the survival horror theme and add "insanity" to the player (pretend the controller is unplugged, for example). Too bad the rest of it was poorly executed. That Star Wars game: Can't remember what it was, but it was very similar to X-Wing.
None of what Nintendo (or Sony, or Microsoft) produces is in any way original. What we are talking about is "Big name" titles, fun titles, not originality. In that case, the name "Perfect Dark" is just as recognizable as "Halo" or "Quake". Whether it's good or not is another discussion (although, it is pretty good according to the reviews).
I've got to say Yahoo has impressed me lately. Not in search, which still pales compared to Google, but in everything surrounding it.
1) Less clutter. They still have the occassional (highly annoying) Flash ads, but a year or two ago people screamed at them for literally clogging the pages with ads. Today they've scaled them back quite a bit, and the content vastly outnumbers the ads (which it should). 2.) Yahoo Mail Beta. If you get a chance to use this thing, do it. It's f'ing amazing. Think Outlook in a website. Works great on Firefox. Easily blows the doors off even Google Maps in terms of sheer "How the hell did they program that?" One can argue whether or not Outlook in a website is a good idea (I love it) but you can't help but be impressed by the programming. 3.) Yahoo News. Sorry, Google still owns search, but their news site (even out of beta)... lacks. Yahoo cleanly brings a ton of sources together with a lot of great photos. Browsing the "Most Viewed Photos" is fun (even if it results in seeing one-eyes cats). 4.) Yahoo Widgets. Which they bouugh (Konfabulator). Excellent acquisiton. Konfabulator's always been awesome (I've programmed a number of widgets) and the graphical polish is way better than anything you see on most Windows apps. 5.) Yahoo Groups. Still the best source for free pr0n. I mean... a great way to get friends and family together.;)
I still use Google all the time for search, but Yahoo is commanding more and more of my attention for everything else. If they used Google as the search engine, I'd probably head there full time.
Call of Duty 2: Awesome game. Plays just as well on Xbox 360 as on PC. Received PC Game of the Year honors from many pubs. Project Gotham Racing 3: Arguably better than Gran Turismo. Eye-popping graphics. Ton of EA support: Argue quality all you want, but Madden and any of the other "2006" titles have big names. Heck, my grandmother has heard of Madden. Kameo: Totally underrated and a lot of fun. Nintendo fans have known the name for years. Perfect Dark: Again, underrated and a lot of fun. Everyone knows Perfect Dark. Geometry Wars, Gauntlet, Joust: These have pretty much redefined "budget" titles. Click a button, pay a few bucks and start the arcade game. Who doesn't know the name Gauntlet?
Spin the launch all you want (Microsoft deserves it after not having enough boxes on shelves). Fact of the matter is there have been some very good games released at launch. Most consoles launch with 2-3 great games. Of the 20+ launch titles for Xbox 360, more than half received 90% or higher. Some were given "game of the year" honors.
You know, I keep reading quotes from this guy and, while obtuse, they aren't exactly insightful. The guy created 1 great game (Metal Gear: Solid) and the rest have been mediocre. The stories, characters and writing in general in every other Metal Gear game have been awful. The game mechanics have been mediocre and cliched ever since Solid (and don't tell me Metal Gear for NES was any good -- it wasn't).
Ask Miyamoto what's art. Or Will Wright. Not this guy.
No one said that. These restrictions are being applied to MEDIVH and MANNOROTH because THEY had severe problems last night. The queue reached upwards of 2 hours because a bunch of idiots decided to create alts named "Icrashmedivh" and "Aqueueforyou". Many on Medivh had been working very hard to get the gates open the past few weeks, and some couldn't even log on to the server to see the results of that work. Instead, there was a bunch of idiots trying to crash the damn thing.
They were porting people out selectively. A lot of level 1-5s got ported out of the Silithus zone quickly. They let 5-25 stay unless there was severe lag, at which time they were ported.
"Its already easy to make your game run on windows, mac and linux, you just have to choose to do it. Most companies don't because the extra support costs."
No, most don't do it because OpenGL sucks, from a development standpoint. The libraries drag behind Direct3D in terms of functionality (pixel shaders et all), you don't have the nice integration with other DirectX stuff (sound, input, etc) and there (still) isn't a solid OpenGL development library. I think it's pretty indicative when Carmack himself says he prefers the DNA (DirectX development tools) to anything else.
OpenGL has a place, and crossplatform is it. However, that's no reason why functionality and ease of coding should be thrown out the window. If OpenGL kept up with DirectX, and actually had ways (for example) to manipulate meshes and deal with textures efficiently, it would kick DirectX's ass. As it stands, OpenGL is just an old set of libraries and it's getting outpaced by DirectX every day.
I'm a little disappointed by the graphics on the new, uh... MacBook (going to be a while before that rolls off the tongue). The Mobility 1600 is a decent card, but they could've done better on a $2000 machine. I know Apple has deals with ATI, but the nVidia 7800 would've fit better, especially at the high end. (And before you say "Don't game on a laptop", sorry, but people do. I have a high-end rig I built for gaming and a Dell Inspiron with a 6800 Go for on the road gaming. It holds its own until I get back to my rig). If Apple shipped one with a really high-end card, I'd jump on it immediately.
Everything else (the dual core, engineering, etc) look solid. I'm a little scared about that magnetized cord (let's hope no one gets floppies or, more likely in this day and age, a spare hard drive near that thing). And there's a little note about moving the WiFi antenna from the screen to the latch. What's that all about?
"and fuck you for implying people wanting to rip their own disks are planning to break for law."
Except studies have proven that is actually the case (whether the user knows it or not). The first time a new iPod meets a friend's computer, people ask how to copy the music off it. I had a 45-year old employee wonder why she couldn't copy her music on her daughter's computer (who was at college at the time) and her own. Well, because that's the law.
Don't like the law? Circumventing it doesn't help -- it just makes lobbyists go after congress harder for tighter controls (let me repeat that: your "rip first and ask questions later" mentality is making it WORSE). The better solution is to go after the lawmakers themselves and convince them "Hey, all I'm trying to do here is play this thing on my own iPod." Heavy-handy approaches (when you're not a lobbyist with cash) get nowhere.
"I'll assume that the music is in WMA format, which, for me, is a reason right there not to download it"
WMA by itself isn't evil. It delivers solid audio. WMV isn't evil either -- it's accepted as an HD-DVD standard because it happens to produce really clear video at good file sizes.
What's evil is DRM, and every major tech company is wrestling with this (including Apple). MSN Music's DRM was no more or less evil than Fairplay. These companies have to play by these rules because the content companies are setting them.
"Message to Microsoft: If you want to attract people who are currently downloading their music for free elsewhere, you have to offer more than what other music stores offer. Let people who download music through the subscription service (with perhaps a decent per-month limit, say, 100 tracks, to keep people from trying to download the entire database) keep their music when their subscription ends. Otherwise, the service has no value to me, because I know later on I'll get tired of downloading music for a while, and quit paying for the privilege to do so; that doesn't mean I want my entire music collection that I've already paid for to stop working."
Actually, every subscription service has music that stops working when your subscription expires. I don't know of one that continues to allow you to listen after your payments are up.
"I'd also recommend using non-DRM MP3, but hey, this is Microsoft we're talking about. Can't expect everything..."
Can't expect it out of Apple, either, or any other tech company. Again, these are the rules the content guys are setting. Don't like it? Don't consume their content.
Except that this is the same stories Nintendo fanboys come up with every console launch -- Revolution being no exception. The Gamecube was not successful. The N64 was not successful. The SNES was successful, but certainly took a beating from the Genesis. The NES was widely successful because Nintendo dared launch a console when no one else would.
Nintendo has owned the handheld market. The handheld market is not the same as the console market. MS and Sony "get it" -- people do want some kind of convergence in the living room. All the people who complain when custom soundtracks aren't enabled in an Xbox game are proof of this. Ditto everyone who originally scoffed at MS's HDTV pitch then realized how good it looks.
There's some damn fine games on every console. Nintendo having a special controller isn't going to make them any more successful than they were the Gamecube Wavebird, N64 Rumble Pak, etc.
What's going to happen, and Nintendo fans do not want to admit this, is that Nintendo is going to become a software company. Like Sega, they will publish for other companies' consoles. They'll continue to make handhelds, because they're good at this, but the war for the living room is going to be between Sony and MS. After this generation, there will only be 2 hardware manufacturers.
I've been playing my Xbox 360 many many hours with a number of my friends. Not one of us has had problems with overheating, disc scratching, or anything else. The console hasn't raped my mom or taken my dog hostage. It doesn't throw up on my couch or wet the bed. It just does what it's supposed to, and I've been very happy with it.
Why Slashdot posts these stories is beyond me (well, actually, I know why: to get page views and ad revenue). The simple fact of the matter is this: every launch has a small number of consoles go haywire. Every time this happens, Slashdot et all post a couple of guys' opinions on blogs and forums as The Absolute Truth (tm). Meanwhile, the rest of us go on playing the games, hacking the console, etc. in various levels of merriment.
Don't believe everything you read. The Xbox 360 is just fine. Play a couple of games, judge it for yourself, but no need for the childish bashing. It's just going to repeat itself come the PS3 and Revolution.
All Visual Studio does is provide a GUI to exposing/consuming web services: writing the code "automagically". That doesn't mean the code isn't already there -- you can type out the code in Notepad if you want and compile it with any number of MS command line compilers (all free, I may add; Google for where to get them and the syntax).
And the OP was right. Comparitively,.NET (and C#) has much much better support for web services than Java. I could consume a service with a few lines of code on.NET -- it may require dozens in Java..NET was built around the time when web services were starting to take off; Java was written before, so a lot of this stuff was tacked on afterwards.
[quote]Until the 360 can do at least what XBMC can do, it is both a joke and a failure. I really want to disconnect my original xbox, Microsoft needs to come through with a serious media player.[/quote]
By what measure, exactly? Tons of press, fairly good reviews on a relatively large launch library, sold out (well, we can blame that on limited hardware yields), it can play most formats people care about (MP3, unprotected AAC, MPEG2 and most graphic formats), overall well designed hardware and an intuitive interface. As far as I can see, that's not much of a "failure".
Oh wait... you're looking at a specific role you *tacked-on* to the original Xbox as being missing here. You're dismissing the whole console as a failure.
Here's an idea: be somewhat intelligent. Do what I did: buy a decent shuttle case (there are many that look great even in the living room -- much better than the original Xbox did), put in a large hard drive and add a decent TV tuner. Put any number of quality open source media managers on it. Viola: a much MUCH better solution than even XBMC provided, and you don't need to hack your box to do it.
I'm always amazed at the shit people find to complain about. I added a bagel slicer to my toaster, and now that Toaster 2 has come out from Microtoast without one, I'm Royally Pissed (tm). Just use the right techology for a change: bagel slicer off to the side, shuttle box for a media center.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'm not surprised someone with a name like "NetAvenger" is a walking MSDN brochure. Sheesh! Windows Presentation Foundation will always be slower than the native Quartz because WPF is running in Microsoft's completely arbitrary and pointless intermediate .NET layer and based on XML, so now all these great new dual-core processors we're getting will be slowed down again by Microsoft! It sucks that the first thing they do when we get faster chips is add another abstraction layer to slow it all down again."
.NET happens to be a very elegant framework to program for and is fairly efficient. Outside the initial windows forms "draw" (that little graphics delay you first get when starting up a .NET app), all the .NET apps I've coded run like butta. The abstraction layer is worth it if it makes apps easier to code. I mean, what did you want to them to do? Keep MFC?
MS's first job is to cater to developers.
As for Quartz, it's had it issues, too. Remember the "pre-Quartz Extreme" days, when genie effects ran like crap on the fastest video cards? When the windowing process would cause the spinning beachball of death? Heck, even the original version of Keynote tried to get around Quartz and write directly to the graphics hardware (causing kernel panics in the process).
By the way, I'm noticing a trend in your posts. I understand your points, but if you want people to take them seriously, you must at least make them more objective.
Keep in mind that the original OS X interface ran godawfully slow when it first came out. I remember trying to drag windows on a Bondi blue iMac (one of the listed machines on the box) and watching the "slideshow effect" (shudder). Apple made no effort to scale settings back automatically like MS is trying to do. If the genie effect looked like a clogged drain --tough, buy a new Mac.
.NET, 3D-accelerated is pretty impressive.
Also, note that MS is trying to do something Apple didn't: maintain compatibility with 20+ years worth of app within the Aero UI. All Apple provided was an OS 9 emulator (oh, and you can code in Carbon, which few seemed to actually do). The fact that we can run Windows 3.1 apps in a
And don't mistake what I'm saying for a troll. I have a (very) large number of PCs in my home, and the Macs are where I do much of my daily work (the Windows boxes are mostly for games and a few apps that don't run well anywhere else). I don't think there's any need to discredit, however, the effort MS is putting into the new UI.
Honestly, you come off just as much a fanboy as the OP was a "troll". You honestly seemed blinded by Nintendo's marketing machine, which has not shown a single game for the console, a single screenshot running on Revolution hardware, etc.
o n_faq"
"On the subject of high definition:
Shigeru Miyamoto has said, "The majority of people won't be playing our system with an HDTV, though with the Revolution, 480p resolution will be standard."
While not 720p, it's still a lot better than SD."
Well, actually, no it's not. 480p looks extremely jagged on most HDTVs. NTSC looks outright hideous, but that's besides the point.
Also, Shigeru Miyamoto is wrong -- HDTV prices have plummetted alongside Plasma/LCD. It's very reasonable than in the next 3 years (minimum lifespan of the console), most people will be using cheap HDTVs.
"On the subject of console prices:
Compare the PSP to the DS. The technical specs of the PSP leave the DS in the dust, but its pricetag leaves a lot to be desired. Parents don't want to buy a PSP for $280 when they can have a DS and three games for the same price. (Sorry, Canadian prices here) This helps explain in part the popularity of the DS."
Both are very popular. If you go to any schoolyard, you'll see children with both systems.
Also, your opinion that "the pricetag leaves a lot to be desired" is a little off. Those same children are carrying in $100 cell phones and $300 iPods. PSPs are just a drop in the bucket.
"On the subject of "What will Revolution bring us?"
- Innovative controller and new game genres
- Downloadable games
- Online play"
2 of those 3 have existed for over 20 years. Microsoft has pretty much perfected it this time around.
The "new genres" comment is debatable. What "new genres" has the DS brought with its innovative control scheme? A lawyer game? A doctor game? You need multiple games of one type to establish a "genre". I don't see a host of doctor games flooding the market.
The Revolution is going to see experimentation and innovation, but neither is a recipe for success.
"Read more here: http://www.revolutionreport.com/nintendo_revoluti
Final word of advice: never trust a gaming rag that only supports one company.
While I agree partially with this, the chief sign of power in the 21st century is affecting cultural change. This can be done with war, but I wouldn't consider that "indirect". Clinton's administration controlled the global currency basis much more effectively by diplomacy, sanctions, and occasionally gunfire. Bush's approach ends up slaughtering innocents and may lead up to being attacked on our soil again.
I don't argue that there isn't a power party -- in fact, I imagine the idea of "power parties" have been around since the days of vassals. There are subtler ways, however, to move the invisible hand than what he's doing. Power is nothing if you can't wield it effectively.
"This war and the mindless support US citizens have given it will go down as one of the greatest crimes of modern history, and those who knowingly support it deserve at least as bad as what is coming to them, and probably worse."
I would like to note that there is a VERY large number of us US citizens(bordering on 49%) that are very against the war, knew the whole thing was an oil-enabled farce from the beginning, and believe this president is one of the biggest warmongers in US history. We're talking close to 150 million people.
That said, the US is a democracy (republic, if you want to get technical). Individual voices have a large say in public affairs. A lot of individual voices can sway them entirely. Right now the 51% want things run a certain away. The next election, that may change (in fact, it's likely).
However, don't lump all US citizens together as "mindless support". We are not mindless, and we do not support our president in his decisions. We're making ourselves very clear about this (look at his opinion polls). In 2008 there likely WILL be a major change.
They don't know. No one knows -- that's the point. What is MS going to do? Check how many connect to Live and report that to the 3rd parties? Nope, can't do that -- some of the consoles will never be connected to a network.
The numbers of hacked machines is probably extremely small. 30% would be way too high. I'd venture to say 3%, if that. And a lot of those machines DO end up being used to play games, so they should be part of the overall figures anyway.
And to clear things up, the console manufacturers usually make the bulk of their money on that initial fee, not the per game fee. A game can totally flop and they'll still get hundreds of thousands of dollars from EA. The goal is to make the initial "sale" look good to the licensie -- actually selling the games is the licensie's problem.
Kids, how many times are we going to go over basic video game economics?
The manufacturers make the bulk of their money on 3RD-PARTY LICENSE FEES. 3RD-PARTY LICENSE FEES ARE DETERMINED BY CONSOLES OUT THERE, NOT HOW THEY'RE USED. Total consoles in homes = more a company can charge for license fees, and more 3rd parties making games. The money console makers "lose" in the hardware sale is neglible.
Your buying the console increases the fees they can charge. When they go to EA, Ubisoft et all, they can say "We have 10,000,000 consoles out there. Our competitors have 8 million. Therefore we're charging $100,000 versus $80,000 for the initial license fee and $1 versus $0.80 per game."
Every time a console is bought, the numbers increment by 1. It doesn't matter if the console is being used to play games, hacked, or as a doorstop. That one extra sale is a worth little more money in licenses.
Want to truly deprive MS of money? DON'T BUY THE CONSOLE.
"Yes, we all know how accurate gaming publications are."
Some are extremely biased, some are paid out, but the industry as a whole gives good indications whether or not a game is worth the money. That's why I use Gamerankings.com.
"This is like comparing Virtua Fighter to Marvel vs. Capcom. They're both in the same genre, but they're definitely different games. Oh, and the graphics are basically a "step" above what's come before, not a revolutionary improvement. "
They are both racing sims. Neither has an arcade feel (which can be discouraging to some). Gran Turismo has better cars, Gotham has better tracks. Both are nearly the same in terms of gameplay.
"Yeah, grandmother mindshare is definitely a good indicator of how fun a game is."
The discussion is "big name" titles. Not quality titles. Reread the original post.
"I didn't hear of this game until this fall, and I've owned every Nintendo system (sans VB) since the NES."
Then you're blind. Kameo was originally scheduled for N64, then GameCube, then Xbox, then Xbox 360. It was previed in countless gaming rags as a "Gamecube exclusive". It's a classic case of Rare taking forever to produce a game. In the end it was above average, but nothing extraordinary.
"Not really underrated. It's one of those games you either like or think "meh".
It got scores between 80-90%. Most people were expecting higher.
"I was under the impression you were listing "big-name" releases. These are all either indie games or quick cash-ins."
Gauntlet is an indie game? It's owned by a multimillion dollar company. Outpost Karoki is an indie game. Regardless of it being a "cash-in", it's still incredibly fun.
I think you may have a bug up your ass about Microsoft. Real gamers own all three systems, and don't let fanboyism get in the way of a good game. If you put down your "hate MS" veneer, and actually played the system, you'd realize they did a pretty good job.
Your argument sounds like the typical Nintendo fan's (graphics aren't everything), so let's look at the GameCube early lineup.
Luigi's Mansion: Another puzzle game, this time with particle effects. Reused characters.
Pikmin: Another puzzle game, this time with horrible controls.
Mario Sunshine: Mario 64. With a water gun on his back. Nothing really new here.
Eternal Darkness: Now this was cool. Take the survival horror theme and add "insanity" to the player (pretend the controller is unplugged, for example). Too bad the rest of it was poorly executed.
That Star Wars game: Can't remember what it was, but it was very similar to X-Wing.
None of what Nintendo (or Sony, or Microsoft) produces is in any way original. What we are talking about is "Big name" titles, fun titles, not originality. In that case, the name "Perfect Dark" is just as recognizable as "Halo" or "Quake". Whether it's good or not is another discussion (although, it is pretty good according to the reviews).
I've got to say Yahoo has impressed me lately. Not in search, which still pales compared to Google, but in everything surrounding it.
;)
1) Less clutter. They still have the occassional (highly annoying) Flash ads, but a year or two ago people screamed at them for literally clogging the pages with ads. Today they've scaled them back quite a bit, and the content vastly outnumbers the ads (which it should).
2.) Yahoo Mail Beta. If you get a chance to use this thing, do it. It's f'ing amazing. Think Outlook in a website. Works great on Firefox. Easily blows the doors off even Google Maps in terms of sheer "How the hell did they program that?" One can argue whether or not Outlook in a website is a good idea (I love it) but you can't help but be impressed by the programming.
3.) Yahoo News. Sorry, Google still owns search, but their news site (even out of beta)... lacks. Yahoo cleanly brings a ton of sources together with a lot of great photos. Browsing the "Most Viewed Photos" is fun (even if it results in seeing one-eyes cats).
4.) Yahoo Widgets. Which they bouugh (Konfabulator). Excellent acquisiton. Konfabulator's always been awesome (I've programmed a number of widgets) and the graphical polish is way better than anything you see on most Windows apps.
5.) Yahoo Groups. Still the best source for free pr0n. I mean... a great way to get friends and family together.
I still use Google all the time for search, but Yahoo is commanding more and more of my attention for everything else. If they used Google as the search engine, I'd probably head there full time.
"Despite the wait for big-name game releases"
Huh? What were the following?
Call of Duty 2: Awesome game. Plays just as well on Xbox 360 as on PC. Received PC Game of the Year honors from many pubs.
Project Gotham Racing 3: Arguably better than Gran Turismo. Eye-popping graphics.
Ton of EA support: Argue quality all you want, but Madden and any of the other "2006" titles have big names. Heck, my grandmother has heard of Madden.
Kameo: Totally underrated and a lot of fun. Nintendo fans have known the name for years.
Perfect Dark: Again, underrated and a lot of fun. Everyone knows Perfect Dark.
Geometry Wars, Gauntlet, Joust: These have pretty much redefined "budget" titles. Click a button, pay a few bucks and start the arcade game. Who doesn't know the name Gauntlet?
Spin the launch all you want (Microsoft deserves it after not having enough boxes on shelves). Fact of the matter is there have been some very good games released at launch. Most consoles launch with 2-3 great games. Of the 20+ launch titles for Xbox 360, more than half received 90% or higher. Some were given "game of the year" honors.
You know, I keep reading quotes from this guy and, while obtuse, they aren't exactly insightful. The guy created 1 great game (Metal Gear: Solid) and the rest have been mediocre. The stories, characters and writing in general in every other Metal Gear game have been awful. The game mechanics have been mediocre and cliched ever since Solid (and don't tell me Metal Gear for NES was any good -- it wasn't).
Ask Miyamoto what's art. Or Will Wright. Not this guy.
They tested it on Mythbusters. Adam put his arm in a jar full of them until one bit. He didn't die.
No one said that. These restrictions are being applied to MEDIVH and MANNOROTH because THEY had severe problems last night. The queue reached upwards of 2 hours because a bunch of idiots decided to create alts named "Icrashmedivh" and "Aqueueforyou". Many on Medivh had been working very hard to get the gates open the past few weeks, and some couldn't even log on to the server to see the results of that work. Instead, there was a bunch of idiots trying to crash the damn thing.
They were porting people out selectively. A lot of level 1-5s got ported out of the Silithus zone quickly. They let 5-25 stay unless there was severe lag, at which time they were ported.
And I would know. I'm on Medivh.
"Its already easy to make your game run on windows, mac and linux, you just have to choose to do it. Most companies don't because the extra support costs."
No, most don't do it because OpenGL sucks, from a development standpoint. The libraries drag behind Direct3D in terms of functionality (pixel shaders et all), you don't have the nice integration with other DirectX stuff (sound, input, etc) and there (still) isn't a solid OpenGL development library. I think it's pretty indicative when Carmack himself says he prefers the DNA (DirectX development tools) to anything else.
OpenGL has a place, and crossplatform is it. However, that's no reason why functionality and ease of coding should be thrown out the window. If OpenGL kept up with DirectX, and actually had ways (for example) to manipulate meshes and deal with textures efficiently, it would kick DirectX's ass. As it stands, OpenGL is just an old set of libraries and it's getting outpaced by DirectX every day.
I'm a little disappointed by the graphics on the new, uh... MacBook (going to be a while before that rolls off the tongue). The Mobility 1600 is a decent card, but they could've done better on a $2000 machine. I know Apple has deals with ATI, but the nVidia 7800 would've fit better, especially at the high end. (And before you say "Don't game on a laptop", sorry, but people do. I have a high-end rig I built for gaming and a Dell Inspiron with a 6800 Go for on the road gaming. It holds its own until I get back to my rig). If Apple shipped one with a really high-end card, I'd jump on it immediately.
Everything else (the dual core, engineering, etc) look solid. I'm a little scared about that magnetized cord (let's hope no one gets floppies or, more likely in this day and age, a spare hard drive near that thing). And there's a little note about moving the WiFi antenna from the screen to the latch. What's that all about?
"and fuck you for implying people wanting to rip their own disks are planning to break for law."
Except studies have proven that is actually the case (whether the user knows it or not). The first time a new iPod meets a friend's computer, people ask how to copy the music off it. I had a 45-year old employee wonder why she couldn't copy her music on her daughter's computer (who was at college at the time) and her own. Well, because that's the law.
Don't like the law? Circumventing it doesn't help -- it just makes lobbyists go after congress harder for tighter controls (let me repeat that: your "rip first and ask questions later" mentality is making it WORSE). The better solution is to go after the lawmakers themselves and convince them "Hey, all I'm trying to do here is play this thing on my own iPod." Heavy-handy approaches (when you're not a lobbyist with cash) get nowhere.
Name the last console that didn't have at least 1 sequel (or characters from previous games) among its launch lineup.
You're going to have to go back pretty damn far.
"I'll assume that the music is in WMA format, which, for me, is a reason right there not to download it"
WMA by itself isn't evil. It delivers solid audio. WMV isn't evil either -- it's accepted as an HD-DVD standard because it happens to produce really clear video at good file sizes.
What's evil is DRM, and every major tech company is wrestling with this (including Apple). MSN Music's DRM was no more or less evil than Fairplay. These companies have to play by these rules because the content companies are setting them.
"Message to Microsoft: If you want to attract people who are currently downloading their music for free elsewhere, you have to offer more than what other music stores offer. Let people who download music through the subscription service (with perhaps a decent per-month limit, say, 100 tracks, to keep people from trying to download the entire database) keep their music when their subscription ends. Otherwise, the service has no value to me, because I know later on I'll get tired of downloading music for a while, and quit paying for the privilege to do so; that doesn't mean I want my entire music collection that I've already paid for to stop working."
Actually, every subscription service has music that stops working when your subscription expires. I don't know of one that continues to allow you to listen after your payments are up.
"I'd also recommend using non-DRM MP3, but hey, this is Microsoft we're talking about. Can't expect everything..."
Can't expect it out of Apple, either, or any other tech company. Again, these are the rules the content guys are setting. Don't like it? Don't consume their content.
Except that this is the same stories Nintendo fanboys come up with every console launch -- Revolution being no exception. The Gamecube was not successful. The N64 was not successful. The SNES was successful, but certainly took a beating from the Genesis. The NES was widely successful because Nintendo dared launch a console when no one else would.
Nintendo has owned the handheld market. The handheld market is not the same as the console market. MS and Sony "get it" -- people do want some kind of convergence in the living room. All the people who complain when custom soundtracks aren't enabled in an Xbox game are proof of this. Ditto everyone who originally scoffed at MS's HDTV pitch then realized how good it looks.
There's some damn fine games on every console. Nintendo having a special controller isn't going to make them any more successful than they were the Gamecube Wavebird, N64 Rumble Pak, etc.
What's going to happen, and Nintendo fans do not want to admit this, is that Nintendo is going to become a software company. Like Sega, they will publish for other companies' consoles. They'll continue to make handhelds, because they're good at this, but the war for the living room is going to be between Sony and MS. After this generation, there will only be 2 hardware manufacturers.
I've been playing my Xbox 360 many many hours with a number of my friends. Not one of us has had problems with overheating, disc scratching, or anything else. The console hasn't raped my mom or taken my dog hostage. It doesn't throw up on my couch or wet the bed. It just does what it's supposed to, and I've been very happy with it.
Why Slashdot posts these stories is beyond me (well, actually, I know why: to get page views and ad revenue). The simple fact of the matter is this: every launch has a small number of consoles go haywire. Every time this happens, Slashdot et all post a couple of guys' opinions on blogs and forums as The Absolute Truth (tm). Meanwhile, the rest of us go on playing the games, hacking the console, etc. in various levels of merriment.
Don't believe everything you read. The Xbox 360 is just fine. Play a couple of games, judge it for yourself, but no need for the childish bashing. It's just going to repeat itself come the PS3 and Revolution.
All Visual Studio does is provide a GUI to exposing/consuming web services: writing the code "automagically". That doesn't mean the code isn't already there -- you can type out the code in Notepad if you want and compile it with any number of MS command line compilers (all free, I may add; Google for where to get them and the syntax).
.NET (and C#) has much much better support for web services than Java. I could consume a service with a few lines of code on .NET -- it may require dozens in Java. .NET was built around the time when web services were starting to take off; Java was written before, so a lot of this stuff was tacked on afterwards.
And the OP was right. Comparitively,
[quote]Until the 360 can do at least what XBMC can do, it is both a joke and a failure. I really want to disconnect my original xbox, Microsoft needs to come through with a serious media player.[/quote]
By what measure, exactly? Tons of press, fairly good reviews on a relatively large launch library, sold out (well, we can blame that on limited hardware yields), it can play most formats people care about (MP3, unprotected AAC, MPEG2 and most graphic formats), overall well designed hardware and an intuitive interface. As far as I can see, that's not much of a "failure".
Oh wait... you're looking at a specific role you *tacked-on* to the original Xbox as being missing here. You're dismissing the whole console as a failure.
Here's an idea: be somewhat intelligent. Do what I did: buy a decent shuttle case (there are many that look great even in the living room -- much better than the original Xbox did), put in a large hard drive and add a decent TV tuner. Put any number of quality open source media managers on it. Viola: a much MUCH better solution than even XBMC provided, and you don't need to hack your box to do it.
I'm always amazed at the shit people find to complain about. I added a bagel slicer to my toaster, and now that Toaster 2 has come out from Microtoast without one, I'm Royally Pissed (tm). Just use the right techology for a change: bagel slicer off to the side, shuttle box for a media center.
Flamebait. Mark it.
Oh, and watch for similar issues when the PS3, and how we'll actually mark it flamebait right from the getgo.