So, bookstores will stop selling "inappropriate" books to minors? But who's saying what's "inapproprirate" again? Oh, the government? Uh-uh... That won't work.
You're telling me a kid could buy the novelization of the movie Platoon, but not buy/rent the movie or the game? That makes no sense.
Or, you're telling me that the government gets to say what we can rent/buy/watch/read.
Either way, no way. There's a very good reason all of these proposed laws get shot down by the courts with a vengence...
You've just given the first half of the argument used to defeat these proposals.
If you're going to target video games, why not apply the same thing to movies? That sounds reasonable, right? After all, we also have a rating system there as well. Next, why not also put restrictions on movie purchases and rentals. Again, since we already have a rating system, this isn't too far out of the realm of possibility.
But then, what about books, magazines, and other forms of print? Wait...what? You want the GOVERNMENT to decide what can and cannot be read by its citizens? What was the first amendment about again?
Now, if the stores want to form their own initiative to enforce the ratings on their products, that's a different matter. The stores are private entities.
Each time one of these videogame laws is proposed, it's shot down by the first amendment. You'd hope that a politican would have a good understanding of the US constitution, and by being a leader, would vow to honor it in his day-to-day activities... Or at the very least, you'd hope that the politicians would be stupid enough to realize that performing the same task over and over again while expecting a different result is at best a counterproductive activity, and at worst, a sign of insanity.
But gee-whiz, you can't buy better press coverage with taxpayer money!
"They would have the tools if laws like this weren't fought tooth and nail"
Bullshit.
When I was growing up, any game purchase had to be cleared with both parents - even though it was "my" money (months of allowance.)
I also had to ask my parents before going to see any movie in the theaters - it didn't matter if it was G, PG or R. I still had to get permission.
This was circa 1985, a good 10 years before the ESRB.
Parents have the tools, and have always had them. Whether or not they choose to USE them is another matter.
I have no objection to the ESRB itself - it serves the same purpose as the MPAA's movie rating system and is designed to help consumers make intelligent choices about games.
What I do object to is the government using this or any other system to determine what is - or is not - suitable for my child. That should be MY job - not the government's.
Furthermore, why is this only targetting games? At least in my area, theaters don't prevent kids from going into R rated movies alone, nor does anyone stop them from buying R rated DVDs or M rated games. Even if this law went into affect in my area, you're telling me that a kid could go see, say, Resident Evil in the theater, then buy the DVD, but COULDN'T buy the game? How does that make sense?
It doesn't. Each time one of these politicians speak out against video games, it's only for one purpose - their own publicity. And in each time, these bills get shot down for the very same reason, but only after wasting huge amounts of time and money on what's a non-issue.
Any enforcement of the ratings on movies (or games for that matter) is currently on a voluntary. While some theaters or stores may have policies to restrict kids from buying/renting R or M material, the vast majority of them DO NOT.
This proposal would make this enforcement a LEGAL requirement. It wouldn't be so bad if it covered ALL media - games, movies, DVDs, rentals, etc. However, it only targets video games, and as such will probably get shot down like all the other similar proposals...but only after the politicians in question get their soundbites at a cost of several million dollars in taxpayer money.
I doubt the PS3 with the larger HDD will be the same price as the 60GB one. Although maybe Sony will drop the price of the 60GB model to $550 or something, and price the proposed 80GB model at $600?
Hah. Right. I'm sure the 80GB model will come with a few other items and cost $700 or something outrageous like that.
We know that the PS3 over in Europe already lost its PS2 hardware in favor of a software emulator for PS2 game backwards compatibility. It's only a matter of time before that change shows up in PS3s elsewhere. However, I would think the next things to go would be the useless card reader (really now, does ANYONE plan on using their PS3 as a photo album?) and the WiFi addon. Sony could charge separately for those while still keeping the price of the PS3 the same.
Furthermore, I'm confused by the article's insinuation that Sony could actually *change* the PS3's core specs by removing memory or cache. This isn't a generic PC we're talking about here. Games developed for consoles are very tightly tied to the underlying hardware. This allows them to get better performance because you don't have a full blown OS doing hardware abstraction. At best, such a change to the hardware like this would result in an unacceptable loss of performance in a game, and at worst, might prevent the game from working at all
This isn't even addressing the issue that the PS3 is already arguably starved for RAM, AND has a slower media drive on top of that.
The PS3 does this already. The 360 does as well - assuming you have a HDD attached.
Even so, reading data off the PS3's blu-ray drive is slower than reading it from the 360's drive, which could cause some performance differences when the data is first written to the HDD.
The question isn't whether developers can fill a blu-ray disc or not. For instance, take something like Xenosaga, and remaster its 5 hours(?) of cutscenes into HD and you'll probably end up with a 50GB game.
What I want to see is title that clearly couldn't be fit onto a single DVD due to the game itself - not the fact that it contains 15GB of cutscenes...
I've only come across a few RPGs that spanned multiple DVDs - and multi-disc RPGs aren't anything new.
Even then, this is a pretty small number when you consider how many multi-disc games there were for the PS1. Also consider that two of the better release titles for the PS2 came on DVD (DOA, SSX) and both clearly showed that DVD was needed for games due to its larger storage capacity. Event then, most PS2 games barely necessitated a dual-layer disc, so I really don't see the pressing need for the jump from DVD to blu-ray.
Even the PS3's flagship launch title, Resistance: Fall Of Man, which was supposed to show the world once and for all why Blu-Ray was needed for this generation. However it was discoverd that the game was so large because it had replicated files around the disc in order to reduce seek times in the PS3's relatively slow Blu-Ray drive.
None of the other PS3 launch titles came close to filling up a DVD's worth of space, much less the more expensive blu-ray discs they were using.
How the heck this got marked as "insightful" is beyond me...
Question: if you didn't have the money to buy the legitmate product in the first place, what "savings" are we talking about here? If I can't afford a $50 item, so I steal it, I haven't "saved" anything.
"I'm sorry mr. store owner, but I can't afford to buy anything, so I'll just steal it - but don't worry - I'll spend savings elsewhere, so I'm still doing good for the economy!"
Actually, my understanding has been there was more interest in the $500 model since many didn't care about WiFi or the larger HDD, or the completely pointless CF media reader....
This is just a move by Sony to force folks to buy the larger model which has better margins. Sony will still lose money on each one, but at least they'll be losing LESS.
Next up: Sony updates the PS3 in the US to remove the PS2 hardware and replace it with the sucky emulator they inflicted on Europe.
What if you already had a wireless or ethernet solution in place? I have a wired switch behind my entertainment unit. No need for WiFi, so that's a $100 I'd rather not have to waste.
Larger HDD...eh. Maybe. But again, I could just buy a 50GB HDD from Frys for $50.
As for the lame, HDD-less 360 "Core", I think Microsoft will keep it around as a way to compete with Nintendo, even though it is $50 more. Besides, $299.99 is a lot more...friendly...to price constrained (but not necessarily educated) consumers.
I've never seen a 20GB PS3 in stores, only the 60GB ones. Even Sony admitted they were going to be shipping 4 60GB PS3s for every 1 20GB PS3. Assuming this was true, then there was obviously demand for the 20GB model, as it actually sold out.
However, what I suspect is going on is that Sony was losing more money per console on the 20GB model verus the 60GB one, even though it has "more stuff" in it.
I know of many schools which would just use a private LAN. They'd setup a machine with DNS and a webserver on it, so the kids could practice making webpages without having access to the internet. Seems to me that would make a lot of issues a lot simpler.
While I can think of many classes that could require the use of computers, I can't really think of any that would require use of the internet. Yeah, sure, internet access in the library for research purposes, but in every classroom/lab?
Um, porn is a bad example since it IS illegal for minors to view/receive/buy porn. You know, the whole contributing to the delinquincy of a minor and all that...
As a result, the schools almost have no choice but to at least provide a best attempt at blocking such material. Again, any filtering system can be overcome with enough technical know-how but the idea is that the system should do a good job at preventing most students from getting around it.
However, why DIDN'T the principal (or at least the IT person!) contact MySpace and have them remove the profiles? Surely this wouldn't have been the first time something like this has happend. I don't think it would even require a court order as it's clear that the profiles are fake and it would be easy enough for the guy to prove his identity. Heck, MySpace might have even helped track down the culprits. Since at least one student created one of the profiles from home, would have been pretty efficient without having such an impact on the school.
Seriously, I hope the rest of the parents whose children had classes cancelled because of this gang-bang sue both the principal and the stupid school board for allowing this to get so out of hand. Clearly the Principal abused his power in tracking down these students, to the detriment of the rest of the student body.
If I left the PS3 on overnight (say 10 hours a day), that would still cost me about $10-12/month in electricity alone (I live in California) The compensation from Sony had better be worth in excess of that, otherwise, Sony is making money from me.
Now then, what's this got to do with games? $600 is an awfully big investment to make up-front for just a few bucks a month profit...
"but it's hard to develop for..." yeah, yeah. The developers always complained about this, but it was never an issue for the PS1 and PS2, despite the competition having better hardware and better development tools than Sony.
Of course, once games started selling a million copies, the developers got oddly quiet about how "difficult" it was to deal with the PS' architecture...
This time, however, the 360 has proven to be a solid competitor, and arguably, this is the first time Sony's had to deal with such a thing in the video console market...
The biggest problem is that even without Sony's hype, everyone expected the PS3 to surpass the PS2 and once again dominate the market.
That hasn't happend.
Worse still, it probably won't happen.
The PS3 isn't a bad machine per se, but again, it's the games that sell the hardware. Sony has forgotten this by mainly emphasizing the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player to a market that doesn't quite care about that. Meanwhile, the PS3 suffers from a lack of good exclusive titles. Most of the good games for the PS3 are also playable on the 360 - with identical graphics/gameplay, on a platform that costs less money, and arguably has a better online service. That's a tough position to be in if you're Sony.
With no single console poised to totally dominate the market this time around we're probably going to see much fewer exclusive titles this time around. If exclusives made the PS2 a success, their lack can mean failure for the PS3. Fewer exclusives will mean fewer consoles sold. Fewer consoles will make more developers hesitate (at best), make an exclusive title a multi-platform release, or even move an exclusive title to another console. We've seen all 3 happen for the PS3 so far. Many developers, including EA, announced they were going to take a 'wait and see' policy with some games. Meanwhile, other titles - most notably GTA4 - have announced they'll be doing a simultaneous release across the PS3 and 360. Another Playstation exclusive, Ace Combat(?), has moved to the 360 and won't release on the PS3 at all.
While none of these individually will doom the PS3, it's a culmulative effect. The more developers hold back for the PS3, the greater the chance that other developers will also hold back, leading to there being fewer PS3 titles which will result in fewer sales, and even MORE hesitant developers.
But shows like The Sopranos and Prison Break are OK because they don't glofify crimes or violence against an otherwise law-abiding society?
Not to mention our continual worship of and fascination with real-life, violent criminals ranging from Billy The Kid to Al Capone.
The most normal, law-abiding citizen is going to ocassionally fantasize about being "evil", or taking a baseball bat to their neighbor's face after he played movies on his surround sound system so loudly, that your floor was vibrating until 3am. The difference is that the normal, mature adult will put aside these impulses and deal with the problem in a more constructive manner.
Even writers admit that they enjoy writing for the villian more than for the hero as it gives them an opportunity to explore those dark impulses in a harmless and constructive fashion.
So long as such dalliances into the darker side of human nature remain fantasy, there's no harm. In fact, I'd say they're a healthy way to channel your aggressions and stress from accumulated from day-to-day living. After all, you really can't go around smashing things up in real-life, but in a video game? Feel free to go nuts! Bad drive home? Pop in some Burnout, go looking for that #*!)%# blue car that cut you off today so you can send him flying into the path of that oncoming semi-truck.
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So, bookstores will stop selling "inappropriate" books to minors? But who's saying what's "inapproprirate" again? Oh, the government? Uh-uh... That won't work.
You're telling me a kid could buy the novelization of the movie Platoon, but not buy/rent the movie or the game? That makes no sense.
Or, you're telling me that the government gets to say what we can rent/buy/watch/read.
Either way, no way. There's a very good reason all of these proposed laws get shot down by the courts with a vengence...
You've just given the first half of the argument used to defeat these proposals.
If you're going to target video games, why not apply the same thing to movies? That sounds reasonable, right? After all, we also have a rating system there as well. Next, why not also put restrictions on movie purchases and rentals. Again, since we already have a rating system, this isn't too far out of the realm of possibility.
But then, what about books, magazines, and other forms of print? Wait...what? You want the GOVERNMENT to decide what can and cannot be read by its citizens? What was the first amendment about again?
Now, if the stores want to form their own initiative to enforce the ratings on their products, that's a different matter. The stores are private entities.
Each time one of these videogame laws is proposed, it's shot down by the first amendment. You'd hope that a politican would have a good understanding of the US constitution, and by being a leader, would vow to honor it in his day-to-day activities... Or at the very least, you'd hope that the politicians would be stupid enough to realize that performing the same task over and over again while expecting a different result is at best a counterproductive activity, and at worst, a sign of insanity.
But gee-whiz, you can't buy better press coverage with taxpayer money!
"They would have the tools if laws like this weren't fought tooth and nail"
Bullshit.
When I was growing up, any game purchase had to be cleared with both parents - even though it was "my" money (months of allowance.)
I also had to ask my parents before going to see any movie in the theaters - it didn't matter if it was G, PG or R. I still had to get permission.
This was circa 1985, a good 10 years before the ESRB.
Parents have the tools, and have always had them. Whether or not they choose to USE them is another matter.
I have no objection to the ESRB itself - it serves the same purpose as the MPAA's movie rating system and is designed to help consumers make intelligent choices about games.
What I do object to is the government using this or any other system to determine what is - or is not - suitable for my child. That should be MY job - not the government's.
Furthermore, why is this only targetting games? At least in my area, theaters don't prevent kids from going into R rated movies alone, nor does anyone stop them from buying R rated DVDs or M rated games. Even if this law went into affect in my area, you're telling me that a kid could go see, say, Resident Evil in the theater, then buy the DVD, but COULDN'T buy the game? How does that make sense?
It doesn't. Each time one of these politicians speak out against video games, it's only for one purpose - their own publicity. And in each time, these bills get shot down for the very same reason, but only after wasting huge amounts of time and money on what's a non-issue.
Any enforcement of the ratings on movies (or games for that matter) is currently on a voluntary. While some theaters or stores may have policies to restrict kids from buying/renting R or M material, the vast majority of them DO NOT.
This proposal would make this enforcement a LEGAL requirement. It wouldn't be so bad if it covered ALL media - games, movies, DVDs, rentals, etc. However, it only targets video games, and as such will probably get shot down like all the other similar proposals...but only after the politicians in question get their soundbites at a cost of several million dollars in taxpayer money.
I doubt the PS3 with the larger HDD will be the same price as the 60GB one. Although maybe Sony will drop the price of the 60GB model to $550 or something, and price the proposed 80GB model at $600?
Hah. Right. I'm sure the 80GB model will come with a few other items and cost $700 or something outrageous like that.
What's left to pull?
We know that the PS3 over in Europe already lost its PS2 hardware in favor of a software emulator for PS2 game backwards compatibility. It's only a matter of time before that change shows up in PS3s elsewhere. However, I would think the next things to go would be the useless card reader (really now, does ANYONE plan on using their PS3 as a photo album?) and the WiFi addon. Sony could charge separately for those while still keeping the price of the PS3 the same.
Furthermore, I'm confused by the article's insinuation that Sony could actually *change* the PS3's core specs by removing memory or cache. This isn't a generic PC we're talking about here. Games developed for consoles are very tightly tied to the underlying hardware. This allows them to get better performance because you don't have a full blown OS doing hardware abstraction. At best, such a change to the hardware like this would result in an unacceptable loss of performance in a game, and at worst, might prevent the game from working at all
This isn't even addressing the issue that the PS3 is already arguably starved for RAM, AND has a slower media drive on top of that.
The PS3 does this already. The 360 does as well - assuming you have a HDD attached.
Even so, reading data off the PS3's blu-ray drive is slower than reading it from the 360's drive, which could cause some performance differences when the data is first written to the HDD.
The question isn't whether developers can fill a blu-ray disc or not. For instance, take something like Xenosaga, and remaster its 5 hours(?) of cutscenes into HD and you'll probably end up with a 50GB game.
What I want to see is title that clearly couldn't be fit onto a single DVD due to the game itself - not the fact that it contains 15GB of cutscenes...
How often do you swap discs in a game anyways? Once every, what, 15-20 hours? Oh, you poor baby.
And usually the game is designed so that once you move from disc one to disc two, you don't need to insert disc one anymore.
Come on now, multi-disc games have been a fact of life on consoles ever since the CD drive arrived.
I've only come across a few RPGs that spanned multiple DVDs - and multi-disc RPGs aren't anything new.
Even then, this is a pretty small number when you consider how many multi-disc games there were for the PS1. Also consider that two of the better release titles for the PS2 came on DVD (DOA, SSX) and both clearly showed that DVD was needed for games due to its larger storage capacity. Event then, most PS2 games barely necessitated a dual-layer disc, so I really don't see the pressing need for the jump from DVD to blu-ray.
Even the PS3's flagship launch title, Resistance: Fall Of Man, which was supposed to show the world once and for all why Blu-Ray was needed for this generation. However it was discoverd that the game was so large because it had replicated files around the disc in order to reduce seek times in the PS3's relatively slow Blu-Ray drive.
None of the other PS3 launch titles came close to filling up a DVD's worth of space, much less the more expensive blu-ray discs they were using.
You can always import - that wouldn't be illegal (at least, not technically)
With import stores dotting the internet, there's no excuse to outright pirate anything - not even games that aren't available in your region.
Yeah, the money saved buying pirated goods gets spent on....more pirated goods.
How the heck this got marked as "insightful" is beyond me...
Question: if you didn't have the money to buy the legitmate product in the first place, what "savings" are we talking about here? If I can't afford a $50 item, so I steal it, I haven't "saved" anything.
"I'm sorry mr. store owner, but I can't afford to buy anything, so I'll just steal it - but don't worry - I'll spend savings elsewhere, so I'm still doing good for the economy!"
Actually, my understanding has been there was more interest in the $500 model since many didn't care about WiFi or the larger HDD, or the completely pointless CF media reader....
This is just a move by Sony to force folks to buy the larger model which has better margins. Sony will still lose money on each one, but at least they'll be losing LESS.
Next up: Sony updates the PS3 in the US to remove the PS2 hardware and replace it with the sucky emulator they inflicted on Europe.
What if you already had a wireless or ethernet solution in place? I have a wired switch behind my entertainment unit. No need for WiFi, so that's a $100 I'd rather not have to waste.
Larger HDD...eh. Maybe. But again, I could just buy a 50GB HDD from Frys for $50.
As for the lame, HDD-less 360 "Core", I think Microsoft will keep it around as a way to compete with Nintendo, even though it is $50 more. Besides, $299.99 is a lot more...friendly...to price constrained (but not necessarily educated) consumers.
So that makes it a collector's item, right?
EBAY!
Finally, PS3 owners will get the $1000+ auctions they were dreaming of!
That seems a bit unbalanced.
I've never seen a 20GB PS3 in stores, only the 60GB ones. Even Sony admitted they were going to be shipping 4 60GB PS3s for every 1 20GB PS3. Assuming this was true, then there was obviously demand for the 20GB model, as it actually sold out.
However, what I suspect is going on is that Sony was losing more money per console on the 20GB model verus the 60GB one, even though it has "more stuff" in it.
The last time I googled myself, it came back with a website of a homosexual real estate agent living down in Texas.
Now, according to you, this would cause an employer to immediatly assume my resume is a lie.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Of course, if the employer is really that stupid, I'm better off not getting hired.
I know of many schools which would just use a private LAN. They'd setup a machine with DNS and a webserver on it, so the kids could practice making webpages without having access to the internet. Seems to me that would make a lot of issues a lot simpler.
While I can think of many classes that could require the use of computers, I can't really think of any that would require use of the internet. Yeah, sure, internet access in the library for research purposes, but in every classroom/lab?
Um, porn is a bad example since it IS illegal for minors to view/receive/buy porn. You know, the whole contributing to the delinquincy of a minor and all that...
As a result, the schools almost have no choice but to at least provide a best attempt at blocking such material. Again, any filtering system can be overcome with enough technical know-how but the idea is that the system should do a good job at preventing most students from getting around it.
Yes!
;)
Well, maybe not so much the 2nd option...
However, why DIDN'T the principal (or at least the IT person!) contact MySpace and have them remove the profiles? Surely this wouldn't have been the first time something like this has happend. I don't think it would even require a court order as it's clear that the profiles are fake and it would be easy enough for the guy to prove his identity. Heck, MySpace might have even helped track down the culprits. Since at least one student created one of the profiles from home, would have been pretty efficient without having such an impact on the school.
Seriously, I hope the rest of the parents whose children had classes cancelled because of this gang-bang sue both the principal and the stupid school board for allowing this to get so out of hand. Clearly the Principal abused his power in tracking down these students, to the detriment of the rest of the student body.
And of course, just because it's on the Internet, it MUST be true, right?
That would depend on how much you could make.
If I left the PS3 on overnight (say 10 hours a day), that would still cost me about $10-12/month in electricity alone (I live in California) The compensation from Sony had better be worth in excess of that, otherwise, Sony is making money from me.
Now then, what's this got to do with games? $600 is an awfully big investment to make up-front for just a few bucks a month profit...
"but it's hard to develop for..." yeah, yeah. The developers always complained about this, but it was never an issue for the PS1 and PS2, despite the competition having better hardware and better development tools than Sony.
Of course, once games started selling a million copies, the developers got oddly quiet about how "difficult" it was to deal with the PS' architecture...
This time, however, the 360 has proven to be a solid competitor, and arguably, this is the first time Sony's had to deal with such a thing in the video console market...
The biggest problem is that even without Sony's hype, everyone expected the PS3 to surpass the PS2 and once again dominate the market.
That hasn't happend.
Worse still, it probably won't happen.
The PS3 isn't a bad machine per se, but again, it's the games that sell the hardware. Sony has forgotten this by mainly emphasizing the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player to a market that doesn't quite care about that. Meanwhile, the PS3 suffers from a lack of good exclusive titles. Most of the good games for the PS3 are also playable on the 360 - with identical graphics/gameplay, on a platform that costs less money, and arguably has a better online service. That's a tough position to be in if you're Sony.
With no single console poised to totally dominate the market this time around we're probably going to see much fewer exclusive titles this time around. If exclusives made the PS2 a success, their lack can mean failure for the PS3. Fewer exclusives will mean fewer consoles sold. Fewer consoles will make more developers hesitate (at best), make an exclusive title a multi-platform release, or even move an exclusive title to another console. We've seen all 3 happen for the PS3 so far. Many developers, including EA, announced they were going to take a 'wait and see' policy with some games. Meanwhile, other titles - most notably GTA4 - have announced they'll be doing a simultaneous release across the PS3 and 360. Another Playstation exclusive, Ace Combat(?), has moved to the 360 and won't release on the PS3 at all.
While none of these individually will doom the PS3, it's a culmulative effect. The more developers hold back for the PS3, the greater the chance that other developers will also hold back, leading to there being fewer PS3 titles which will result in fewer sales, and even MORE hesitant developers.
But shows like The Sopranos and Prison Break are OK because they don't glofify crimes or violence against an otherwise law-abiding society?
Not to mention our continual worship of and fascination with real-life, violent criminals ranging from Billy The Kid to Al Capone.
The most normal, law-abiding citizen is going to ocassionally fantasize about being "evil", or taking a baseball bat to their neighbor's face after he played movies on his surround sound system so loudly, that your floor was vibrating until 3am. The difference is that the normal, mature adult will put aside these impulses and deal with the problem in a more constructive manner.
Even writers admit that they enjoy writing for the villian more than for the hero as it gives them an opportunity to explore those dark impulses in a harmless and constructive fashion.
So long as such dalliances into the darker side of human nature remain fantasy, there's no harm. In fact, I'd say they're a healthy way to channel your aggressions and stress from accumulated from day-to-day living. After all, you really can't go around smashing things up in real-life, but in a video game? Feel free to go nuts! Bad drive home? Pop in some Burnout, go looking for that #*!)%# blue car that cut you off today so you can send him flying into the path of that oncoming semi-truck.