I've seen UPS deliver at least 2 items that had been run over either by the forklift or the delivery truck itself.
What I want to know is, HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU RUN OVER A PACKAGE?!? I can almost see it if the package was VERY thin, but a fully assembled model airplane?! Forklifts aren't know for their off-roading abilities here. They have next to no ground clearance. How do you run over a box that's probably taller than the wheels of the forklift?!
At least they admitted to the problem. I've seen UPS deliver crushed boxes - tire print and all - to customers and then claim there's nothing wrong with them.
I used to work for a company that made 1U web servers.
Our RMA department got back one of our boxes, unopened, with a large dusty truck tire print across it. The customer refused delivery, and was asking for a replacement. Inside, not only was the server's steel casing horribly bent, but the motherboard, RAM and HDD(!!!) were all bent as well. The PSU was totalled, but the board managed to still POST despite its new twist and bent RAM chips. The HDD didn't spin up, of course.
Um...so you're saying that if an English teacher is upset that the physics teacher is getting paid more, the English teacher should just switch over to teaching some higher-paying subject in math or science?
Oh yeah, that's going to work well...
I had some great teachers in my day, but only because they loved the subject they were teaching! I wouldn't want my English Lit. teacher to try to teach math simply because it'd make her more money. She's a good English teacher! Pay her well for the job she's doing!
I'm not saying the current system is working, because it's not, but why should teaching some subjects be "rewarded" whereas others are "punished"?
The entire education system is already falling apart simply by focusing too much on so-called "important" classes like Math and Science, while cutting Engilsh, Music, Art, and Gym.
All this well-meaning, but lopsided program is going to do is just intensify these problems.
Re:Does Vista have anything we need?
on
Is Vista a Trap?
·
· Score: 1
Cue 'Grumpy Old Man':
MMORPG graphics? Bah. In MY day, we didn't have no fancy grahpics in our MMORPGs. We just had text. And we LIKED it. We LOVED it!
Seriously though, upgrading to Vista as a gamer is going to be expensive, especially when you consider the relatively high hardware requirements Vista has just to sit idle on your desktop!
A Vista gamer rig is going to have 4GB of high-end RAM, a "DX10 Grahpics card" (because for some reason, "DX9" cards won't work?!?) and an overclocked Dual Core Extreme processor at 3Ghz+. And that's just what I'd call an mid-range system!
Sure, in 3-4 years, that'll be $300 in BestBuy with a bad printer and tiny monitor. Maybe by then, there'll actually be enough games to justify such a huge upgrade cost.
Re:Does Vista have anything we need?
on
Is Vista a Trap?
·
· Score: 1
Well, the only DX-10 only game I've heard about is Halo2 - a 3(?) year old FPS from the first Xbox. Why bother.
However, Microsoft has made it clear they intend to push the major developers (eg. EA) onto DX10 as fast as possible.
Otherwise, why would gamers upgrade to Vista?
Of course, the way things are right now, if Vista is truly the future of PC gaming, you might as well go buy a XBox 360 now. No stupid driver conflicts or unsuppported hardware, just pop in your game, and away you go. If you're more of a strategy or RPG gamer, chances are you won't need Vista - or DX10 - at all.
Effectively free, maybe, but that still doesn't make it EFFECTIVE (oh, you meant at destroying your computer's productivity? it's plenty effective for that.)
Psychologists can already determine if a child or person can distinguish between reality and fantasy.
The question I have is why isn't this considered in these "video games made him do it!" stories?
I mean, if there was a case of a 16 year old jumping off his roof after reading Peter Pan, and thinking he can fly, you wouldn't hear about the media trying to ban 'Peter Pan' for encouraging, I don't know, "fairy-like behavior", right? So why is it different when a 16 year old decides it'd be "neat" to go on a shooting spree after playing a video game? In both cases, the person in question already lacked a firm grasp on what's reality vs. fantasy. The stimuli is immaterial at that point.
I think there is some truth and interesting ideas in your post, but also consider that parents were hating things from youth culture a lot earlier than the 70s.
My grandparents, for instance, forbid my mom and her sisters from listening to that new-fangled rock music back in the 50s.
Music was blamed for "suggestive movements", "inappropriate dress", "rude language", etc. Some of the names may have changed - Grandma didn't approve of The Twist, today's parents don't approve of Freaking. It's really just the same thing over and over again.
Another aspect I think you overlooked is kids' inherent need to rebel against their parents. In fact, as kids, we think it's cool to rebel and show our independence. After all, wasn't that the whole reason James Dean was an icon to my mom's generation, just as rap stars are the icons of today's youth?
Even looking further back in history, all sorts of things were considered bad influences for youth. Before comic books there were pulp novels, and paperback books. Even the first fictional novel written in Japan was considered a demonic work, and its author condemned as an unholy liar.
Well, I presumed broadband access - after all, most telecommuters have broadband access of some sort now a days. And if you're someplace where you don't have broadband access, you probably shouldn't be working anyways (eg. the beach):-)
You don't need VPN to use VNC/Remote Desktop. Someone already mentioned SSH tunnelling, for instance.
Even without broadband, I would think you could still find ways of being productive remotely without having to replicate your entire work environment on single mega laptop. Might be cheaper to just use 2 (or more?) laptops. Use one for compiling, one for running, one for editting...? Considering you could end up spending a couple grand on just the RAM for one laptop, multiple, modestly equipped laptops might be a better solution.
I can sympathize having a VPN in place that doesn't allow VNC/Remote Desktop. It makes no sense to me either, but corporate IT at my current employer takes paranoia to all new heights.
The CompUSA's in my area closed a long time ago. Can't say I'm disappointed or anything. The last time I went to one looking for an external HDD enclosure. I was shocked to discover they really were hardly selling computers anymore, but were very intent on selling me a flat screen TV (way over priced compared to the nearby Best Buy, Frys, even Circuit City...) They had no more Mac stuff. Their PC displays were about 2 years old, and still selling at full price. Made me wonder why the store was called "Comp" anymore since that certainly wasn't their primary business.
Then I heard they merged with Good Guys, and now all those stores are gone too. At least the folks at Good Guys were friendly and knowledgeable even if their stores and selection was small.
Between its crummy customer service, bad sales people that make Frys employees look like geniuses, terrible prices and even worse selection, does ANYONE actually shop at CompUSA anymore?
The only reason there's so much shock and outrage over this is because many people STILL think of video games as being something only for kids.
There was an equal amount of outrage and shock from these groups when it was discovered that you could put porn on a memory stick and view it on your PSP which is also - gasp - a video game platform that was seen as something only for children. Even the DS got its turn when some idiot figured out that it could be entirely possible to have a child molester using the DS' pictochat feature to...CHAT WITH YOUR CHILD! Assuming your child was using pictochat as well, and was within range of said pervert - but that wasn't mentioned in the story. "Child molester", however, was mentioned several times even though...
There is, of course, the sensationalism angle here as well. I only wish more journalists would ignore it, or would be chastised by their bosses for dealing in such dreck...
At the same time, you never hear about outraged parents demanding a certain 2000+ year old book be banned for its multiple descriptions of sex, brutal violence, cruelty, and other acts of evil... After all, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Instead of creating a portable development environment/lab on your laptop, why not setup a secure network, and use something like Remote Desktop or VNC to access your big-beefy-box (BBB) at the office?
Use the laptop for light file editting and whatnot, then upload the files to your remote BBB for compilation and testing.
I used to do this at a former job when telecommuting. It was a lot easier when I could simply access "my desktop" exactly as it was as if I were sitting in the office. Well, OK, I only had 1 monitor when telecommuting, but I could still be productive.
Step 1: Spend millions developing game. Step 2: Only release said game in one chain. Step 3: ? Step 4: Profit??
From the game publiser's point of view, how exactly does only releasing into one store help revenues? Considering that some publishers are claiming game development costs are nearing $30mil for a single game, why would you seemingly shoot yourself in the foot by only releasing the game into one chain?
I don't know about you, but I have much better things to do with my time than drive around town going to Best Buy, Circuit City, Frys, and then Gamestop looking for a specific title. I don't usually go to Gamestop unless I'm specificaly looking for used games. Otherwise, they charge full price on new games - even games you can get for less at Costco or Frys. Actually, Frys is my first choice for games since they have a good broad selection, and sometimes discount new titles when first released.
Furthermore, has anyone actually BEEN to a Gamestop lately? They're a mess! The ones in the malls near me are a disaster. There's game cases all over the place. There are pre-order boxes shoved in among the used titles, there's GameCube titles shoved in the Xbox area. Even the so-called "New" game cases look pretty bad after being pawed by countless people...
Does anyone here honestly think that Katamari Damacy would have been nearly as big a hit in the US had Namco ONLY sold it through Gamestop? As I said, that's the LAST place I look for games. And casual gamers? Pfft. They go to Best Buy or Circuit City. If it's not there, they've never heard of it.
Is Gamestop literally throwing millions of dollars at each exclusive title here? Again, I can't see this making sense since even Capcom and EA are saying it takes at least a few hundred thousand sales to even break even on smaller titles, much less pay off the investment from larger titles.
I agree for often used applications, this model doesn't work out (for the consumer, that is.)
But what about other applications? I usually find I need to use Partition Magic about once a year. Some time ago, I bought a copy but now find it unable to handle today's larger HDDs, not to mention newer OS's. I paid $60 originally, and upgrading to the latest version would cost me another $50 or so even with the rebate.
I would have rather have the option to rent the program for maybe a day or a week. This way I'd get the latest version without having to pay $50 every few years for something I rarely use.
Yes, I've seen that disclaimer. It just makes me wonder how you can rate a game that relies on input from a human being?
After all, you could take any game and come up with an example of something that's probably not suited for "children", even though it's probably children that are doing it.
After Hot Coffee, I'm assuming that "game play" must include easter eggs.
However, I can remember in one of the SimCity games, if you typed in a profanity 3 times, suddenly the game would start building churches everywhere as a punishment.
Now then, does this mean SimCity suddenly gets hit with a "T" rating instead of "E"?
What about other sandbox games, like The Sims? Sure, you could be nice and build a nice house for your Sims. or you could be cruel, and lock them in a room with no food or bathroom just to watch them die. Does this mean The Sims is "E", "T", or "M"? After all, I'm sure if you made a movie about a sadistic villian torturing his victims to death, it certainly wouldn't be rated "G"...
Another example would be Roller Coaster Tycoon. I had a rollercoaster of mine malfunction, causing the train to jump the tracks, and fly over my park while the riders screamed in terror until they crashed into the ground and exploded. So if the game allows for death - if you were so inclined - does that make it a "M" game?
(side note: no matter how many times I fixed that rollercoaster, it always sent its riders to their doom. after a crash, obviously no one wanted to ride it, but each time I "fixed" it, it was the most popular ride in the park!)
I've seen both on display at Best Buy. I don't see any differences between them. Add in the fact that virtually no one wants to get involved in another VHS/Betamax battle - assuming they even HAVE the prerequisite HDTV in the first place!
The PS3 is totally immaterial to this "war" not just for the reasons above, but that anyone who IS interested in buying a blu-ray player isn't going to consider a game console - a toy - for the job.
Finally, with multi-format players this close to being a commercial reality, I predict this whole HD video thing will go the way of the burnable DVD - two identical standards that are incompatible, and continue to cause confusion in consumers. Someone should have played the role of diplomat and just gotten this thing over with rather than making us, the consumers,choose fo
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCEA, SCE-J, etc.) is not the same entity as Sony's movie studios. Yes, "Sony" makes money from each Blu-ray movie sold, but SCE-A/J/Eu would much rather you buy PS3 games - not Blu-Ray movies.
Percentage-wise, Sony makes the most from game sales, not Blu-Ray movies, or TVs - those have really bad margins due to their highly competitive markets.
The 360 is still selling well, it's outselling the PS3, and they still have a sizable lead on the Wii.
I think Microsoft is depending on its upcoming games, most notably Halo3, to keep sales high.
And what gives you the idea that Microsoft isn't competing with Nintendo? I know everyone expected a PS3/360 showdown, but it's quickly becoming a Wii/360 showdown. Even Bill Gates went on record saying that Nintendo is their biggest competition, probably because he considers Sony to have already have lost the battle.
Sony has said the PS3 will have a 10 year lifecycle. Granted, the PS1 stuck around for about a year or two after the PS2 came out, so this doesn't mean the PS3 won't launch until 2016.
And even if Sony throws its hands up and gives up on this generation, what makes you think they'll do better with the PS4? If the PS3 utterly tanks, how do you expect Sony to retain and/or regain developers on the new platform when the market will have been dominated by the 360 and the Wii.
No, Sony cannot just sit by and wait, they need to take action now. A previous poster got it exactly right - poor sales will scare off developers, which will result in fewer exclusive games (and fewer games period) for that platform which will result in even poorer sales.
Nor can Sony depend on the PS3 as a blu-ray player to carry the sales in the short term until the games arrive. Not many people are interested in getting involved in this latest HD war that isn't even on the vast majority of the market's radar simply because they don't have a HDTV. In addition, I'm certain that we will see affordable, fully working combo players capable of handling both HD-DVD and blu-ray. When this happens, the "war" will be even more irrelevant and there goes the PS3's last - and only - distinguishing feature.
The PS3 needs good exclusive games - and it needs them now. Not in 9 months, not even in 3 months. NOW.
As for Nintendo, they've continually said they don't care about HD this time around - and that's a valid strategy considering how few homes have or will have a HDTV this time around. As a result, they've been able to keep their hardware development costs low, while still providing an excellent product. More importantly, they have a good initial library of exclusive games, which continues to grow.
Will Vista, your apps and data even fit on a HDD that small? Doesn't Vista need 10-15GB(!) by itself?
Your processor is fine, though what sort of video system does the laptop have? Many have integrated video that uses your computer's main RAM instead of having separate, dedicated video memory, so the OS/applications may not have access to that entire gigabyte of RAM.
Also, Aero requires a video card with 3d acceleration - something that most older laptops don't have - so Aero is probably out of the question. This is just as well - you'll probably want to use your computer to run your applications anyways.
To paraphrase Monty Python, "It's not dead yet..."
Granted, it's been in severe decline since the mid-90s. Lots of games and genres have just faded away, and many companies are moving to console development where even a bad release will outsell a PC game many times over.
PC gaming seems like it is returning to when most of the interesting stuff was done by independent developers - when most games were freeware or shareware. Then came DOOM...
Though, even when the next "DOOM" type of smash-hit is created, we'll see distribution remain mostly electronic, like Steam or GameTap. Even all 3 next-gen consoles offer electronic distribution for smaller games, be it Xbox's Live Arcade, the Wii's Virtual Console, or whatever Sony is calling their game download service.
Stardock's been doing this for years - and with much much much lower hardware requirements that Vista's Aero requires.
http://www.stardock.com/products/odnt/
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3d avatar...decorate your own 'house'...customized items...arcade games... Gee, sounds like someone at Sony played 'Animal Crossing'.
This isn't going to help sell PS3s.
I've seen UPS deliver at least 2 items that had been run over either by the forklift or the delivery truck itself.
What I want to know is, HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU RUN OVER A PACKAGE?!? I can almost see it if the package was VERY thin, but a fully assembled model airplane?! Forklifts aren't know for their off-roading abilities here. They have next to no ground clearance. How do you run over a box that's probably taller than the wheels of the forklift?!
At least they admitted to the problem. I've seen UPS deliver crushed boxes - tire print and all - to customers and then claim there's nothing wrong with them.
I used to work for a company that made 1U web servers.
Our RMA department got back one of our boxes, unopened, with a large dusty truck tire print across it. The customer refused delivery, and was asking for a replacement. Inside, not only was the server's steel casing horribly bent, but the motherboard, RAM and HDD(!!!) were all bent as well. The PSU was totalled, but the board managed to still POST despite its new twist and bent RAM chips. The HDD didn't spin up, of course.
Um...so you're saying that if an English teacher is upset that the physics teacher is getting paid more, the English teacher should just switch over to teaching some higher-paying subject in math or science?
Oh yeah, that's going to work well...
I had some great teachers in my day, but only because they loved the subject they were teaching! I wouldn't want my English Lit. teacher to try to teach math simply because it'd make her more money. She's a good English teacher! Pay her well for the job she's doing!
I'm not saying the current system is working, because it's not, but why should teaching some subjects be "rewarded" whereas others are "punished"?
The entire education system is already falling apart simply by focusing too much on so-called "important" classes like Math and Science, while cutting Engilsh, Music, Art, and Gym.
All this well-meaning, but lopsided program is going to do is just intensify these problems.
Cue 'Grumpy Old Man':
MMORPG graphics? Bah. In MY day, we didn't have no fancy grahpics in our MMORPGs. We just had text. And we LIKED it. We LOVED it!
Seriously though, upgrading to Vista as a gamer is going to be expensive, especially when you consider the relatively high hardware requirements Vista has just to sit idle on your desktop!
A Vista gamer rig is going to have 4GB of high-end RAM, a "DX10 Grahpics card" (because for some reason, "DX9" cards won't work?!?) and an overclocked Dual Core Extreme processor at 3Ghz+. And that's just what I'd call an mid-range system!
Sure, in 3-4 years, that'll be $300 in BestBuy with a bad printer and tiny monitor. Maybe by then, there'll actually be enough games to justify such a huge upgrade cost.
Well, the only DX-10 only game I've heard about is Halo2 - a 3(?) year old FPS from the first Xbox. Why bother.
However, Microsoft has made it clear they intend to push the major developers (eg. EA) onto DX10 as fast as possible.
Otherwise, why would gamers upgrade to Vista?
Of course, the way things are right now, if Vista is truly the future of PC gaming, you might as well go buy a XBox 360 now. No stupid driver conflicts or unsuppported hardware, just pop in your game, and away you go. If you're more of a strategy or RPG gamer, chances are you won't need Vista - or DX10 - at all.
Effectively free, maybe, but that still doesn't make it EFFECTIVE (oh, you meant at destroying your computer's productivity? it's plenty effective for that.)
Psychologists can already determine if a child or person can distinguish between reality and fantasy.
The question I have is why isn't this considered in these "video games made him do it!" stories?
I mean, if there was a case of a 16 year old jumping off his roof after reading Peter Pan, and thinking he can fly, you wouldn't hear about the media trying to ban 'Peter Pan' for encouraging, I don't know, "fairy-like behavior", right? So why is it different when a 16 year old decides it'd be "neat" to go on a shooting spree after playing a video game? In both cases, the person in question already lacked a firm grasp on what's reality vs. fantasy. The stimuli is immaterial at that point.
I think there is some truth and interesting ideas in your post, but also consider that parents were hating things from youth culture a lot earlier than the 70s.
My grandparents, for instance, forbid my mom and her sisters from listening to that new-fangled rock music back in the 50s.
Music was blamed for "suggestive movements", "inappropriate dress", "rude language", etc. Some of the names may have changed - Grandma didn't approve of The Twist, today's parents don't approve of Freaking. It's really just the same thing over and over again.
Another aspect I think you overlooked is kids' inherent need to rebel against their parents. In fact, as kids, we think it's cool to rebel and show our independence. After all, wasn't that the whole reason James Dean was an icon to my mom's generation, just as rap stars are the icons of today's youth?
Even looking further back in history, all sorts of things were considered bad influences for youth. Before comic books there were pulp novels, and paperback books. Even the first fictional novel written in Japan was considered a demonic work, and its author condemned as an unholy liar.
Well, I presumed broadband access - after all, most telecommuters have broadband access of some sort now a days. And if you're someplace where you don't have broadband access, you probably shouldn't be working anyways (eg. the beach) :-)
You don't need VPN to use VNC/Remote Desktop. Someone already mentioned SSH tunnelling, for instance.
Even without broadband, I would think you could still find ways of being productive remotely without having to replicate your entire work environment on single mega laptop. Might be cheaper to just use 2 (or more?) laptops. Use one for compiling, one for running, one for editting...? Considering you could end up spending a couple grand on just the RAM for one laptop, multiple, modestly equipped laptops might be a better solution.
I can sympathize having a VPN in place that doesn't allow VNC/Remote Desktop. It makes no sense to me either, but corporate IT at my current employer takes paranoia to all new heights.
The CompUSA's in my area closed a long time ago. Can't say I'm disappointed or anything. The last time I went to one looking for an external HDD enclosure. I was shocked to discover they really were hardly selling computers anymore, but were very intent on selling me a flat screen TV (way over priced compared to the nearby Best Buy, Frys, even Circuit City...) They had no more Mac stuff. Their PC displays were about 2 years old, and still selling at full price. Made me wonder why the store was called "Comp" anymore since that certainly wasn't their primary business.
Then I heard they merged with Good Guys, and now all those stores are gone too. At least the folks at Good Guys were friendly and knowledgeable even if their stores and selection was small.
Between its crummy customer service, bad sales people that make Frys employees look like geniuses, terrible prices and even worse selection, does ANYONE actually shop at CompUSA anymore?
The only reason there's so much shock and outrage over this is because many people STILL think of video games as being something only for kids.
There was an equal amount of outrage and shock from these groups when it was discovered that you could put porn on a memory stick and view it on your PSP which is also - gasp - a video game platform that was seen as something only for children. Even the DS got its turn when some idiot figured out that it could be entirely possible to have a child molester using the DS' pictochat feature to...CHAT WITH YOUR CHILD! Assuming your child was using pictochat as well, and was within range of said pervert - but that wasn't mentioned in the story. "Child molester", however, was mentioned several times even though...
There is, of course, the sensationalism angle here as well. I only wish more journalists would ignore it, or would be chastised by their bosses for dealing in such dreck...
At the same time, you never hear about outraged parents demanding a certain 2000+ year old book be banned for its multiple descriptions of sex, brutal violence, cruelty, and other acts of evil... After all, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Instead of creating a portable development environment/lab on your laptop, why not setup a secure network, and use something like Remote Desktop or VNC to access your big-beefy-box (BBB) at the office?
Use the laptop for light file editting and whatnot, then upload the files to your remote BBB for compilation and testing.
I used to do this at a former job when telecommuting. It was a lot easier when I could simply access "my desktop" exactly as it was as if I were sitting in the office. Well, OK, I only had 1 monitor when telecommuting, but I could still be productive.
Step 1: Spend millions developing game.
Step 2: Only release said game in one chain.
Step 3: ?
Step 4: Profit??
From the game publiser's point of view, how exactly does only releasing into one store help revenues? Considering that some publishers are claiming game development costs are nearing $30mil for a single game, why would you seemingly shoot yourself in the foot by only releasing the game into one chain?
I don't know about you, but I have much better things to do with my time than drive around town going to Best Buy, Circuit City, Frys, and then Gamestop looking for a specific title. I don't usually go to Gamestop unless I'm specificaly looking for used games. Otherwise, they charge full price on new games - even games you can get for less at Costco or Frys. Actually, Frys is my first choice for games since they have a good broad selection, and sometimes discount new titles when first released.
Furthermore, has anyone actually BEEN to a Gamestop lately? They're a mess! The ones in the malls near me are a disaster. There's game cases all over the place. There are pre-order boxes shoved in among the used titles, there's GameCube titles shoved in the Xbox area. Even the so-called "New" game cases look pretty bad after being pawed by countless people...
Does anyone here honestly think that Katamari Damacy would have been nearly as big a hit in the US had Namco ONLY sold it through Gamestop? As I said, that's the LAST place I look for games. And casual gamers? Pfft. They go to Best Buy or Circuit City. If it's not there, they've never heard of it.
Is Gamestop literally throwing millions of dollars at each exclusive title here? Again, I can't see this making sense since even Capcom and EA are saying it takes at least a few hundred thousand sales to even break even on smaller titles, much less pay off the investment from larger titles.
I agree for often used applications, this model doesn't work out (for the consumer, that is.)
But what about other applications? I usually find I need to use Partition Magic about once a year. Some time ago, I bought a copy but now find it unable to handle today's larger HDDs, not to mention newer OS's. I paid $60 originally, and upgrading to the latest version would cost me another $50 or so even with the rebate.
I would have rather have the option to rent the program for maybe a day or a week. This way I'd get the latest version without having to pay $50 every few years for something I rarely use.
Yes, I've seen that disclaimer. It just makes me wonder how you can rate a game that relies on input from a human being?
After all, you could take any game and come up with an example of something that's probably not suited for "children", even though it's probably children that are doing it.
After Hot Coffee, I'm assuming that "game play" must include easter eggs.
However, I can remember in one of the SimCity games, if you typed in a profanity 3 times, suddenly the game would start building churches everywhere as a punishment.
Now then, does this mean SimCity suddenly gets hit with a "T" rating instead of "E"?
What about other sandbox games, like The Sims? Sure, you could be nice and build a nice house for your Sims. or you could be cruel, and lock them in a room with no food or bathroom just to watch them die. Does this mean The Sims is "E", "T", or "M"? After all, I'm sure if you made a movie about a sadistic villian torturing his victims to death, it certainly wouldn't be rated "G"...
Another example would be Roller Coaster Tycoon. I had a rollercoaster of mine malfunction, causing the train to jump the tracks, and fly over my park while the riders screamed in terror until they crashed into the ground and exploded. So if the game allows for death - if you were so inclined - does that make it a "M" game?
(side note: no matter how many times I fixed that rollercoaster, it always sent its riders to their doom. after a crash, obviously no one wanted to ride it, but each time I "fixed" it, it was the most popular ride in the park!)
I've seen both on display at Best Buy. I don't see any differences between them. Add in the fact that virtually no one wants to get involved in another VHS/Betamax battle - assuming they even HAVE the prerequisite HDTV in the first place!
The PS3 is totally immaterial to this "war" not just for the reasons above, but that anyone who IS interested in buying a blu-ray player isn't going to consider a game console - a toy - for the job.
Finally, with multi-format players this close to being a commercial reality, I predict this whole HD video thing will go the way of the burnable DVD - two identical standards that are incompatible, and continue to cause confusion in consumers. Someone should have played the role of diplomat and just gotten this thing over with rather than making us, the consumers,choose fo
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCEA, SCE-J, etc.) is not the same entity as Sony's movie studios. Yes, "Sony" makes money from each Blu-ray movie sold, but SCE-A/J/Eu would much rather you buy PS3 games - not Blu-Ray movies.
Percentage-wise, Sony makes the most from game sales, not Blu-Ray movies, or TVs - those have really bad margins due to their highly competitive markets.
The 360 is still selling well, it's outselling the PS3, and they still have a sizable lead on the Wii.
I think Microsoft is depending on its upcoming games, most notably Halo3, to keep sales high.
And what gives you the idea that Microsoft isn't competing with Nintendo? I know everyone expected a PS3/360 showdown, but it's quickly becoming a Wii/360 showdown. Even Bill Gates went on record saying that Nintendo is their biggest competition, probably because he considers Sony to have already have lost the battle.
Sony has said the PS3 will have a 10 year lifecycle. Granted, the PS1 stuck around for about a year or two after the PS2 came out, so this doesn't mean the PS3 won't launch until 2016.
And even if Sony throws its hands up and gives up on this generation, what makes you think they'll do better with the PS4? If the PS3 utterly tanks, how do you expect Sony to retain and/or regain developers on the new platform when the market will have been dominated by the 360 and the Wii.
No, Sony cannot just sit by and wait, they need to take action now. A previous poster got it exactly right - poor sales will scare off developers, which will result in fewer exclusive games (and fewer games period) for that platform which will result in even poorer sales.
Nor can Sony depend on the PS3 as a blu-ray player to carry the sales in the short term until the games arrive. Not many people are interested in getting involved in this latest HD war that isn't even on the vast majority of the market's radar simply because they don't have a HDTV. In addition, I'm certain that we will see affordable, fully working combo players capable of handling both HD-DVD and blu-ray. When this happens, the "war" will be even more irrelevant and there goes the PS3's last - and only - distinguishing feature.
The PS3 needs good exclusive games - and it needs them now. Not in 9 months, not even in 3 months. NOW.
As for Nintendo, they've continually said they don't care about HD this time around - and that's a valid strategy considering how few homes have or will have a HDTV this time around. As a result, they've been able to keep their hardware development costs low, while still providing an excellent product. More importantly, they have a good initial library of exclusive games, which continues to grow.
Which would you rather do? Spend the time to make your code more efficient, or just tell everyone to buy another stick of RAM?
Besides, I'm pretty sure Microsoft is getting kickbacks from memory chip vendors.
Will Vista, your apps and data even fit on a HDD that small? Doesn't Vista need 10-15GB(!) by itself?
Your processor is fine, though what sort of video system does the laptop have? Many have integrated video that uses your computer's main RAM instead of having separate, dedicated video memory, so the OS/applications may not have access to that entire gigabyte of RAM.
Also, Aero requires a video card with 3d acceleration - something that most older laptops don't have - so Aero is probably out of the question. This is just as well - you'll probably want to use your computer to run your applications anyways.
To paraphrase Monty Python, "It's not dead yet..."
Granted, it's been in severe decline since the mid-90s. Lots of games and genres have just faded away, and many companies are moving to console development where even a bad release will outsell a PC game many times over.
PC gaming seems like it is returning to when most of the interesting stuff was done by independent developers - when most games were freeware or shareware. Then came DOOM...
Though, even when the next "DOOM" type of smash-hit is created, we'll see distribution remain mostly electronic, like Steam or GameTap. Even all 3 next-gen consoles offer electronic distribution for smaller games, be it Xbox's Live Arcade, the Wii's Virtual Console, or whatever Sony is calling their game download service.
Stardock's been doing this for years - and with much much much lower hardware requirements that Vista's Aero requires. http://www.stardock.com/products/odnt/