Just an additonal note, this game is confirmed to be released in Q2 2004 (April-June). This game has an anime-influenced art style with other common elements of the 'Tales' series.
I assume you're talking about Traditional RPGs, with random battles and menu-based attack sequences (typically with summons). Sadly, there are only a few options available.
Firstly, the easiest to get a hold of is Skies of Arcadia. With a few twists on the traditional battle system, and a thoroughly satisfying environment (airships, plenty to explore and do, lots of bosses, sometimes too many random battles), this is one of the few options available. Another, much more mediocre game is Evolution Worlds.
In the upcoming months, Japan will see Tales of Symphonia and Baten Kaitos, both of which look promising. Whether either of these will be released in North America remains to be determined, though.
On the other hand, if you really need an RPG + Gamecube fix, I highly recommend getting a GameBoy Player for your GameCube (free with purchase!) and pick up one of the dozens of great RPGs out for GameBoy Advance. The Golden Sun series is one of the best franchises in a long time, and Mega Man Battle Network has also gotten good reviews as well. These games will espeially appeal to you if you're one of those old-schoolers who misses the days of the SNES.
Where were they giving them away? Perhaps they give them out for cheap at first to attract developpers to the console, and then jack up the price when it gets more lucrative.....
Maybe I can score a next generation dev kit in a few years...
Nintendo is turning the most profit, sitting almost dead even with Microsoft in terms of hardware sales, and everyone (the media) predicts their failure.
Well, no one's exaclty predicting their failure yet, but in business, you have to be a little forward thinking to make an attempt to predict what will be popular in the future.
While the Xbox is losing money, it's not like Microsoft is currently experiencing a cash crisis or anything. Microsoft can (and most likely will) prop up the Xbox for as long as it takes to become profitable. I'm sure they can go 100s of years at their current pace, so it's not like they're in a rush or anything.
Nintendo, on the other hand, has nowhere to fall back on. The only two business are GameCube and the GameBoy. Currently, Nintendo makes most of it's money of the gameboys. During the upcoming handheld console wars (N-gage, PSP, Helix, better Cell Phones, etc, etc), Nintendo is not going to enjoy the healthy profit margins it does now. Unless every last competitor is inferior to the GBA in every way, Nintendo is going to need to promote their little machine more than ever, which costs money.
On top of that, after the poor 3rd party support on the N64, if the GC's 3rd paties fizzle out as well (RE4, Tales of Symphonia), it will be VERY difficult to convince 3rd parties to develop for Nintendo's next system. This will result in a smaller library, and this will create less demand for the 'new' console. This situation will just spiral downwards until Nintendo goes under or does something to fix the problem.
I'm hoping (as a GC owner) that the 3rd parties in the next year do well, to keep the system going. But their future is far from uncertain.
...Nintendo, which actually gives away dev kits...
According to Nintendo, a GameCube dev kit costs upwards of $10,000. Not to mention, "Financial stability is expected," which means they don't just loan them out to just-starting developers.
Not that Sony isn't expensive either. And I can't imagine Xbox dev kits being too cheap anymore, either.
SEC is involved, so the reason is because the information available to investors is either not complete or misrepresented. This is important, because if companys do not fully disclose all important details, CEOs (and other owners of big bunchs of stock who know more details about the company) can artificially manipulate the stock for their own personal gains.
Now, the current issue is that game companies record a 'sale' when the recieve an order from the store. The article mentions that a better measure might be to record the 'sale' when the store recieves the shipment. This would make sure no games that were lost or damaged in shipment are recorded as sales (although this would most likely be fixed afterwards).
Now, this might not seem like a big deal, they were talking about 2-days in differences. Here's a possible scenario:
CEO hatches a plan to make money of his (or her) game company's stock. CEO buys a bunch of shares at their regular price. CEO launches game, and ships game to stores. Only the CEO knows uses a cheap shipping service, which damages half the shipments. Very few copies have been sold (so far), but 'the books' say tons of copies sold. Issue press release "x million copies sold". Shares go up. CEO sells stock at high price, making a profit. Truth of bad shipments comes out week later. Stock Price plummets, leaving everyone else with a big loss. Repeat a couple of times, and you could make a couple hundred thousand quite easily.
The SEC is suggesting changing this so the situation I mentioned here (and no doubt various other ones) will not be possible. I don't know if what they're doing is illegal, that is for the Commision to decide.
Taxes (GST, propertry taxes, income taxes, they're all much higher than the US, with few exceptions)
Colder Weather (although it depends on where you live)
Current trend towards privatization (depends on your beliefs)
While individual freedoms are rarely infringed upon in Canada, they are not necessarily guaranteed by law (Talk of a National ID card)
If you just move across the border (say, from Detroit to Windsor), you would notice very little differences, but everything varies from city to city. For instance, Alberta is still fighting homosexual marriages, but Toronto now weds couples daily.
The father you move from where you are, the more things are different, regardless if you go to a different country (Los Angeles -> Montreal) or not (Los Angeles -> New York).
The Broadband adapter just needs to access 'the internet'. You don't specify to clearly how your dozen computers are sharing through your main PC, but if I'm correct in assuming you have kind of Windows Internet Sharing set-up with a router, you should be fine.
Just set up the broadband adapter the same as you would your other computers (DHCP or Static IPs, whichever method you are using).
I've never heard that you need to plug it directly into a cable or DSL modem. I even wonder if most games support PPPoE over DSL.
I've been playing that game myself, and while I've had quite a bit of fun with it, I sincerely hope the sequel isn't so tedious.
The worst are the ship battles, where the turn goes for a good 4 minutes before you can input any commands again (depending on the number of special attacks). And why is it that you can skip your Secial Moves, but nothing else? Not to mention the random battles. I can't even believe they 'toned it down' from the Dreamcast version, I can't even fathom that.
However, I've gotten more jaded over RPGs in general recently. I can't even touch FFX it goes on, and on so long. I hope someone manages to make a game with the best elements of an RPG (a plot, characters, more strategic battles) with the best elements of action games (no long forced movies, regular involvement of the player, exciting gameplay).
Well, you're being a tad unfair in what you're comparing between the Xbox and the GC.
For the Xbox, you purely mentioned future titles, with all the hype of a fanboy. A few of them are even on GC as well (XIII, EA Sports, Starcraft:Ghost).
Meanwhile, you mentioned GC games that have been out for awhile (Mario Sunshine, Metroid: Prime, Rogue Leader, Skies of Arcadia), whereas it's the new games that really take advantage of the system.
So you either have to compare older Xbox games (Splinter Cell (not exclusive), Elder Scrolls III, Timesplitters 2 (not exclusive), Unreal Championship), or take a look at the new, upcoming GameCube games. Games like Viewtiful Joe, F-Zero GX, Final Fantasy:Crystal Chronicles, Baten Kaitos, Pikmin 2, Resident Evil 4, Rebel Strike, Killer 7, Billy Hatcher, all of which are exclusive to the GameCube.
While you're facts are right, I think I disagree with your opinion that Nintendo is trying to duplicate the N64.
The problem with the N64 is that while it was profitable, many owners were unsatisfied with the lack of games. Sure, certain niches were popular (Party Games and Wrestling Games come to mind), but the 'casual gamer' doesn't stick with niches. They want to play the big, glitzy games, and publishers want the big, glitzy games to sell a lot to make up for the extra expenses (see: Enter the Matrix).
If Nintendo merely maintains the Status Quo, they will slowly turn away all 3rd party developers, and all their customers except for the core enthusiasts who love Zelda and Mario.
Nintendo doesn't need to be #1, but they do need a variety of games from a variety of sources to attract the casual gamer (read: easy money).
Don't believe me? Don't take my word for it. Nintendo has recently embarked on an effort to push 3rd party games to a level unprecendented with the company:
They've lowered the per-disc fee they collect to an all-time low.
They have recently bundled a demo disk with new GameCubes featuring only 3rd party games (Splinter Cell, Sonic, Viewtiful Joe, Soul Calibur).
They have started an advertising campaign for big-ticket games coming out months in the future (Star Wars, Soul Calibur)
I'm hoping this big push pulls off, as I am a long time Nintendo fan, but I can't tell if this will be succesful or not, and with the PSP coming out, soon Nintendo will be fighting a war on two fronts.
The much better article on gamesindustry.biz doesn't leave out some important details that like this article. Mainly:
"Microsoft and Sony have now rolled out online services in all three major global territories for their consoles, but the numbers of subscribers remain relatively low - with estimates for the combined numbers of console online gamers ranging from one to two million players, only a tiny fraction of the 60-million odd installed base of the two consoles." (emphasis mine)
Yes, Sony and (especially) Microsoft may be establishing themselves as an 'online' brand. But they are not getting a very big finnancial benefit out of it, and will it be a big boost in the long run? If brand was all that mattered, shouldn't Atari be ruling the market right now?
Yes, this is true. Console Manufacturers usually make a bit of a profit at the end of a console's lifespan, even though it is relatively cheap to buy at that point.
Resident Evil 1 (If you haven't played the original)
Ikaruga
Burnout 2
Star Wars Rogue Leader
Skies of Arcadia Legends
Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1, 2, 3 (only 3 is currently exclusive)
Bomberman Generations
Beach Spikers
Sonic Mega Collection
Lost Kingdoms 1+2
Cubivore (3rd party published in North America)
Godzilla: DAMM (was exclusive for a time)
Granted, some of these are borderline, but if you like carefully at the Xbox lineup, you won't find many more exclusive 3rd party titles.
The real problem is that while Microsoft has billions of dollars to cut exclusive deals with publishers to improve the visibility of those 3rd part games, Nintendo actually has to make a profit on their business. Nintendo can't afford to prop up every single 3rd party game that comes out, but they try with the limited budget they have. (The new demo discs are a good step in the right direction)
But yeah, Acclaim generally sucks with its games. Except Burnout. That game is a blast.
Going over old games, the picks seem to be a combination of great successes (Metal Gear Solid 2, Half-Life, Soul Calibur, Halo, Tony Hawk, Gran Turismo, Splinter Cell...) and spectacular failures (Sims Online, Majestic, Black & White, Dreamcast...) and a LOT of games that get awards for 3 years in a row (Star Wars Galaxies, Neverwinter Nights)
It seems as if this is really about the hype machine, and how the games/products were PRESENTED, and not how good they actually are or could be.
It's too bad that no one actually tries to go behind the crazy hype machines to give an impression of what GAME is the best.
The difference is that with CEOs, there are a whole bunch of executives waiting to climb the corporate ladder, just a litle bit younger. This progresses all the way down to the interns, fresh out of college/university.
Law firms have lots of younger junior partners just itching for a step up, and paralegals and other staff behind them.
But who's waiting to take over for the COBOL programmers? No one now, no one coming soon, and no one in the forseeable future. That's the problem.
given that there's no pay-to-listen alternative to MuchMusic (Canadian MTV) up here
This is without a doubt, false. First, there is a free alternative (MuchMoreMusic), although, being owned by the same company, it may or may not be what you're looking for.
But on the new Digital Specialty Channels, (which cost extra) there are at least 5 different music channels: MTV Canada, MTV Canada 2, MuchLoud, MuchVibe, and EdgeTV. The ones without a 'Much' in their name are not owned by CHUM, and all offer different styles of programming.
Now, I can't exactly vouch for the quality of these channels, but at least now you know they exist.
A bit of a correction here: I don't know about the Compaq pen's in particular, but all Tablet PC's I've seen do not have battery-powered pens.
The pens are in fact passively powered by the Tablet by the electromagnetic field the dispaly projects across the surface of the display. The pens are not terribly complicated, and while they are definitely not regular pens, they will be replacable for around $20. This would probably vary by manufacturer.
The rest of your points are very valid and relevant though, in addition to the high cost of investment currently involved.
First, I think the 'copyright' here is actually not too far off the base from Google's PageRank technology.
They use some algorithm to sort web sites (into rankings for Google, and into blocked or not-blocked for this case).
They then both base their entire service around the effectiveness of this algorithm.
I think the company's fears (which at least makes sense, even if they are ridiculous) that if they gave a complete list of their blocked sites, their algorithm could be deduced. If you were given a complete listing of all sites in Google's Directory sorted by PageRanking, would you figure out the algorithm? Of course, I imagine the algorithm in this case is several degrees simpler than PageRank.
Additionally, the difficulty is defining on how you can reverse engineer the product. Okay, so we can't get the list of the company, says this judge, what next? Are we allowed to test out the software ourselves to find out what sites are and aren't blocked?
See http://www.memorystick.org for more details. It appears to be a standard being promoted by Sony only right now. It's difficult to say how 'open' it really is.
MARGE: Well, I was sure you'd be on foot because you say public transportation is for losers, and I'd be sure you be heading west because Springfield slopes that way, and I knew you'd be here because you're attracted to blinking lights.
Slashdot Mirror
Just an additonal note, this game is confirmed to be released in Q2 2004 (April-June). This game has an anime-influenced art style with other common elements of the 'Tales' series.
I assume you're talking about Traditional RPGs, with random battles and menu-based attack sequences (typically with summons). Sadly, there are only a few options available.
Firstly, the easiest to get a hold of is Skies of Arcadia. With a few twists on the traditional battle system, and a thoroughly satisfying environment (airships, plenty to explore and do, lots of bosses, sometimes too many random battles), this is one of the few options available. Another, much more mediocre game is Evolution Worlds.
In the upcoming months, Japan will see Tales of Symphonia and Baten Kaitos, both of which look promising. Whether either of these will be released in North America remains to be determined, though.
On the other hand, if you really need an RPG + Gamecube fix, I highly recommend getting a GameBoy Player for your GameCube (free with purchase!) and pick up one of the dozens of great RPGs out for GameBoy Advance. The Golden Sun series is one of the best franchises in a long time, and Mega Man Battle Network has also gotten good reviews as well. These games will espeially appeal to you if you're one of those old-schoolers who misses the days of the SNES.
Where were they giving them away? Perhaps they give them out for cheap at first to attract developpers to the console, and then jack up the price when it gets more lucrative.....
Maybe I can score a next generation dev kit in a few years...
Nintendo is turning the most profit, sitting almost dead even with Microsoft in terms of hardware sales, and everyone (the media) predicts their failure.
Well, no one's exaclty predicting their failure yet, but in business, you have to be a little forward thinking to make an attempt to predict what will be popular in the future.
While the Xbox is losing money, it's not like Microsoft is currently experiencing a cash crisis or anything. Microsoft can (and most likely will) prop up the Xbox for as long as it takes to become profitable. I'm sure they can go 100s of years at their current pace, so it's not like they're in a rush or anything.
Nintendo, on the other hand, has nowhere to fall back on. The only two business are GameCube and the GameBoy. Currently, Nintendo makes most of it's money of the gameboys. During the upcoming handheld console wars (N-gage, PSP, Helix, better Cell Phones, etc, etc), Nintendo is not going to enjoy the healthy profit margins it does now. Unless every last competitor is inferior to the GBA in every way, Nintendo is going to need to promote their little machine more than ever, which costs money.
On top of that, after the poor 3rd party support on the N64, if the GC's 3rd paties fizzle out as well (RE4, Tales of Symphonia), it will be VERY difficult to convince 3rd parties to develop for Nintendo's next system. This will result in a smaller library, and this will create less demand for the 'new' console. This situation will just spiral downwards until Nintendo goes under or does something to fix the problem.
I'm hoping (as a GC owner) that the 3rd parties in the next year do well, to keep the system going. But their future is far from uncertain.
...Nintendo, which actually gives away dev kits...
According to Nintendo, a GameCube dev kit costs upwards of $10,000. Not to mention, "Financial stability is expected," which means they don't just loan them out to just-starting developers.
Not that Sony isn't expensive either. And I can't imagine Xbox dev kits being too cheap anymore, either.
SEC is involved, so the reason is because the information available to investors is either not complete or misrepresented. This is important, because if companys do not fully disclose all important details, CEOs (and other owners of big bunchs of stock who know more details about the company) can artificially manipulate the stock for their own personal gains.
Now, the current issue is that game companies record a 'sale' when the recieve an order from the store. The article mentions that a better measure might be to record the 'sale' when the store recieves the shipment. This would make sure no games that were lost or damaged in shipment are recorded as sales (although this would most likely be fixed afterwards).
Now, this might not seem like a big deal, they were talking about 2-days in differences. Here's a possible scenario:
CEO hatches a plan to make money of his (or her) game company's stock. CEO buys a bunch of shares at their regular price. CEO launches game, and ships game to stores. Only the CEO knows uses a cheap shipping service, which damages half the shipments. Very few copies have been sold (so far), but 'the books' say tons of copies sold. Issue press release "x million copies sold". Shares go up. CEO sells stock at high price, making a profit. Truth of bad shipments comes out week later. Stock Price plummets, leaving everyone else with a big loss. Repeat a couple of times, and you could make a couple hundred thousand quite easily.
The SEC is suggesting changing this so the situation I mentioned here (and no doubt various other ones) will not be possible. I don't know if what they're doing is illegal, that is for the Commision to decide.
If you just move across the border (say, from Detroit to Windsor), you would notice very little differences, but everything varies from city to city. For instance, Alberta is still fighting homosexual marriages, but Toronto now weds couples daily.
The father you move from where you are, the more things are different, regardless if you go to a different country (Los Angeles -> Montreal) or not (Los Angeles -> New York).
The Broadband adapter just needs to access 'the internet'. You don't specify to clearly how your dozen computers are sharing through your main PC, but if I'm correct in assuming you have kind of Windows Internet Sharing set-up with a router, you should be fine.
Just set up the broadband adapter the same as you would your other computers (DHCP or Static IPs, whichever method you are using).
I've never heard that you need to plug it directly into a cable or DSL modem. I even wonder if most games support PPPoE over DSL.
Gamecube only suppors 480p.
720p is one form of 'True' HDTV.
I've been playing that game myself, and while I've had quite a bit of fun with it, I sincerely hope the sequel isn't so tedious.
The worst are the ship battles, where the turn goes for a good 4 minutes before you can input any commands again (depending on the number of special attacks). And why is it that you can skip your Secial Moves, but nothing else? Not to mention the random battles. I can't even believe they 'toned it down' from the Dreamcast version, I can't even fathom that.
However, I've gotten more jaded over RPGs in general recently. I can't even touch FFX it goes on, and on so long. I hope someone manages to make a game with the best elements of an RPG (a plot, characters, more strategic battles) with the best elements of action games (no long forced movies, regular involvement of the player, exciting gameplay).
Well, you're being a tad unfair in what you're comparing between the Xbox and the GC.
For the Xbox, you purely mentioned future titles, with all the hype of a fanboy. A few of them are even on GC as well (XIII, EA Sports, Starcraft:Ghost).
Meanwhile, you mentioned GC games that have been out for awhile (Mario Sunshine, Metroid: Prime, Rogue Leader, Skies of Arcadia), whereas it's the new games that really take advantage of the system.
So you either have to compare older Xbox games (Splinter Cell (not exclusive), Elder Scrolls III, Timesplitters 2 (not exclusive), Unreal Championship), or take a look at the new, upcoming GameCube games. Games like Viewtiful Joe, F-Zero GX, Final Fantasy:Crystal Chronicles, Baten Kaitos, Pikmin 2, Resident Evil 4, Rebel Strike, Killer 7, Billy Hatcher, all of which are exclusive to the GameCube.
See the CAW website for details
The problem with the N64 is that while it was profitable, many owners were unsatisfied with the lack of games. Sure, certain niches were popular (Party Games and Wrestling Games come to mind), but the 'casual gamer' doesn't stick with niches. They want to play the big, glitzy games, and publishers want the big, glitzy games to sell a lot to make up for the extra expenses (see: Enter the Matrix).
If Nintendo merely maintains the Status Quo, they will slowly turn away all 3rd party developers, and all their customers except for the core enthusiasts who love Zelda and Mario.
Nintendo doesn't need to be #1, but they do need a variety of games from a variety of sources to attract the casual gamer (read: easy money).
Don't believe me? Don't take my word for it. Nintendo has recently embarked on an effort to push 3rd party games to a level unprecendented with the company:
They've lowered the per-disc fee they collect to an all-time low.
They have recently bundled a demo disk with new GameCubes featuring only 3rd party games (Splinter Cell, Sonic, Viewtiful Joe, Soul Calibur).
They have started an advertising campaign for big-ticket games coming out months in the future (Star Wars, Soul Calibur)
I'm hoping this big push pulls off, as I am a long time Nintendo fan, but I can't tell if this will be succesful or not, and with the PSP coming out, soon Nintendo will be fighting a war on two fronts.
The much better article on gamesindustry.biz doesn't leave out some important details that like this article. Mainly:
"Microsoft and Sony have now rolled out online services in all three major global territories for their consoles, but the numbers of subscribers remain relatively low - with estimates for the combined numbers of console online gamers ranging from one to two million players, only a tiny fraction of the 60-million odd installed base of the two consoles." (emphasis mine)
Yes, Sony and (especially) Microsoft may be establishing themselves as an 'online' brand. But they are not getting a very big finnancial benefit out of it, and will it be a big boost in the long run? If brand was all that mattered, shouldn't Atari be ruling the market right now?
Yes, this is true. Console Manufacturers usually make a bit of a profit at the end of a console's lifespan, even though it is relatively cheap to buy at that point.
Taken from the top 100 GameCube Games on gamerankings.com:
Super Monkey Ball (1 + 2, and soon 3)
Resident Evil 1 (If you haven't played the original)
Ikaruga
Burnout 2
Star Wars Rogue Leader
Skies of Arcadia Legends
Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1, 2, 3 (only 3 is currently exclusive)
Bomberman Generations
Beach Spikers
Sonic Mega Collection
Lost Kingdoms 1+2
Cubivore (3rd party published in North America)
Godzilla: DAMM (was exclusive for a time)
Granted, some of these are borderline, but if you like carefully at the Xbox lineup, you won't find many more exclusive 3rd party titles.
The real problem is that while Microsoft has billions of dollars to cut exclusive deals with publishers to improve the visibility of those 3rd part games, Nintendo actually has to make a profit on their business. Nintendo can't afford to prop up every single 3rd party game that comes out, but they try with the limited budget they have. (The new demo discs are a good step in the right direction)
But yeah, Acclaim generally sucks with its games. Except Burnout. That game is a blast.
http://cube.ign.com/articles/423/423736p1.html
The multiplayer component requires 1 GameCube, and 1 GameBoy for multiplayer play. The cable may even be packaged with the game like it was in Japan.
Going over old games, the picks seem to be a combination of great successes (Metal Gear Solid 2, Half-Life, Soul Calibur, Halo, Tony Hawk, Gran Turismo, Splinter Cell...) and spectacular failures (Sims Online, Majestic, Black & White, Dreamcast...) and a LOT of games that get awards for 3 years in a row (Star Wars Galaxies, Neverwinter Nights)
It seems as if this is really about the hype machine, and how the games/products were PRESENTED, and not how good they actually are or could be.
It's too bad that no one actually tries to go behind the crazy hype machines to give an impression of what GAME is the best.
The difference is that with CEOs, there are a whole bunch of executives waiting to climb the corporate ladder, just a litle bit younger. This progresses all the way down to the interns, fresh out of college/university.
Law firms have lots of younger junior partners just itching for a step up, and paralegals and other staff behind them.
But who's waiting to take over for the COBOL programmers? No one now, no one coming soon, and no one in the forseeable future. That's the problem.
Oh yes, Giant Robots are an extremely new idea in North America that has never been done before!!!
Oh, you mean done well? Maybe with a plot and character development? When was the last big-budget movie with all that?
given that there's no pay-to-listen alternative to MuchMusic (Canadian MTV) up here
This is without a doubt, false. First, there is a free alternative (MuchMoreMusic), although, being owned by the same company, it may or may not be what you're looking for.
But on the new Digital Specialty Channels, (which cost extra) there are at least 5 different music channels: MTV Canada, MTV Canada 2, MuchLoud, MuchVibe, and EdgeTV. The ones without a 'Much' in their name are not owned by CHUM, and all offer different styles of programming.
Now, I can't exactly vouch for the quality of these channels, but at least now you know they exist.
A bit of a correction here: I don't know about the Compaq pen's in particular, but all Tablet PC's I've seen do not have battery-powered pens.
The pens are in fact passively powered by the Tablet by the electromagnetic field the dispaly projects across the surface of the display. The pens are not terribly complicated, and while they are definitely not regular pens, they will be replacable for around $20. This would probably vary by manufacturer.
The rest of your points are very valid and relevant though, in addition to the high cost of investment currently involved.
I'm a little bit confused on this as well.
First, I think the 'copyright' here is actually not too far off the base from Google's PageRank technology.
I think the company's fears (which at least makes sense, even if they are ridiculous) that if they gave a complete list of their blocked sites, their algorithm could be deduced. If you were given a complete listing of all sites in Google's Directory sorted by PageRanking, would you figure out the algorithm? Of course, I imagine the algorithm in this case is several degrees simpler than PageRank.
Additionally, the difficulty is defining on how you can reverse engineer the product. Okay, so we can't get the list of the company, says this judge, what next? Are we allowed to test out the software ourselves to find out what sites are and aren't blocked?
See http://www.memorystick.org for more details. It appears to be a standard being promoted by Sony only right now. It's difficult to say how 'open' it really is.
MARGE: Well, I was sure you'd be on foot because you say public transportation is for losers, and I'd be sure you be heading west because Springfield slopes that way, and I knew you'd be here because you're attracted to blinking lights.