According to the Seattle PI this morning: "But with the recount still favoring Rossi yesterday, Vance (State Republican party chairman) said the Democrats would only be dragging the state into a political quagmire. 'That's wrong,' Vance said. 'If Dino Rossi is ahead at the end of the day tomorrow, he is the governor-elect, this is over, and she (Gregoire) needs to do the right thing, the gracious thing and the honorable thing and concede.'
But if Gregoire is ahead, 'That's fundamentally different,' Vance said."
So, apparently, the line is drawn such that if a Democrat calls for a recount, it's political quagmire, but if a Republican calls for a recount, it's just... different.
The article also ignored the great Alex Ross, while making some snide jabs about cartoony art and writing style. Ross' oversized graphic novels feature wonderful, painted art with realistic figures. He also pairs with writers who aren't afraid of mature issues. In Dini's Peace on Earth, Superman tries to single-handedly put a dent in world hunger and fails miserably. People mob him and injure each other getting the food, government agents poison it to maintain their control over the people...this is not cartoony stuff. Waid's Kingdom Come is a telling of the apocalypse according to the Book of Revelation using superheroes. While there are some moments of levity in it, it seems like the author has overlooked a lot of things while making his point, which is biased fairly heavily against comics/graphic novels in general.
Zelda: Wind Waker did have a (rather primitive) system to add increasing musical accents with sword combos. While it wasn't nearly to the point where it sounded as if the music was written after watching the scene, as particularly well-scored movies pull off, it was well-done and on a high-profile title; I wouldn't be surprised if it crops up more often.
in *nix, if you need to install something it goes "hey feed me a password." In Windows it says "screw you, not enough privs." Then you have to logoff, logon admin, and do it.
In XP: right-click on the executable, select Run As. Second option on my menu.
Face it - when your competitor makes it into the dictionary, it's going to be EXTREMELY hard to get people to change the way they search. If you ask many non-techs how they find information on the web, they don't say 'I search for it' they say 'I google it'."
Generic tissue brands seem to be doing well, but people don't say, "Give me a generic tissue to blow my nose," they say, "Give me a Kleenex." Google's not too thrilled about its adoption into the common vernacular for probably exactly this reason.
"Face it - when your competitor makes it into the dictionary, it's going to be EXTREMELY hard to get people to change the way they search. If you ask many non-techs how they find information on the web, they don't say 'I search for it' they say 'I google it'."
Generic tissue brands seem to be doing well, but people don't say, "Give me a generic tissue to blow my nose," they say, "Give me a Kleenex." Google's not too thrilled (Slashdot article about it somewhere) about its adoption into the common vernacular for probably exactly this reason.
"Furthermore, all PS2s are equally compatible. . .."
Tell that to Enix and Namco and their Star Ocean 3 and Xenosaga, respectively, both of which ran into problems with some models of PS2s being incompatible because of changes Sony introduced into later runs.
It is Japan only. It's not a GameCube-independent purchase, though. It's a GameCube with DVD playback all in one unit--it is not an add-on, nor can you purchase it as one.
He cited Pokemon, a franchise that has sold more than 10 million GBA games worldwide, as one exception to the rule and seemed to indicate that the industry needs more titles like that. No question. If Microsoft and Sony would only, then perhaps they could have a glut of non-selling consoles, too!
Are you serious? The GameCube's success or lack thereof has nothing to do with Pokmon (and, incidentally, the GameCube's been outselling the PS2 for a few weeks over in Japan, and last I checked the top two selling titles were both for GameCube, one exclusive). The Game Boy Advance, on which the majority of Pokmon titles are playable, has sold over 2,300,000 in Japan in 2003 alone, while the PS2 is just topping 1,700,000. The GBA also has a much higher installed userbase total (although I don't have the numbers at the moment). So yeah, Sony and Microsoft would sure be doomed if they had franchises successful enough to sell 10 million copies and solidify a hardware platform to that degree...
When you're using a full size DVD-ROM drive for your games, tossing in movie and CD playback is trivial. It takes hardly any resources to add that and certainly doesn't take away from game production/functionality.
When you're not Sony, though, you have to pay fees for your DVD playback capability, which is the reason the Xbox doesn't have it out of the box (a $30 remote is necessary). Plus, you're neglecting that there is a model of GameCube that has DVD playback functionality.
Luca Blight from Suikoden II. Badass the entire game, and twice as badass during the extended last fight(s). If you don't know what I'm talking about, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy if you ever see it on eBay for under $3,500 or whatever it's going for these days.
Even if that were the case, Rockstar can't exactly use the excuse, "Well, without this art, it would obviously not be Liberty City!" Although it's meant to be reminiscent of a real city, the two cases are different in such a way that the analogy isn't close enough to work.
. . . But this guy's Sunshine retrospective took a huge credibility dive when he called Yoshi's Island ridiculous with no other explanation than the graphical style, then followed it up with a lame disclaimer about how he doesn't have anything against kiddy games. Unless I've been reading in all the wrong places, it's rather widely acclaimed as one of the most solid platformers on the system, and the optional Red Coin/Star/Flower collection to unlock bonus levels added replay value and a type of added difficulty level that an Easy/Medium/Difficult toggle could never provide.
They're not unable at all. I, for one, just don't see sufficient rationale behind it. You might as well ask TV manufacturers why most TVs aren't manufactured to be able to display both NTSC and PAL, as computer monitors have been able to handle multiple resolutions and refresh rates for *years*. While branching out is nice and all, why bother taking a risk and expanding when you already have an incredibly profitable industry which has fixed hardware other than the display device and the majority of your sales come from NTSC markets even when games end up being released earlier in PAL territories? The companies are more than willing to hardwire support for HD-TV display modes into their consoles for developers to take advantage of as they choose, so I'd say Europe's just started out as not worth their effort and continued to be not worth their effort, as much as quite a few people would like to have special releases of games despite the fact that they already own all the hardware necessary to play the currently existing ones.
And that's not even getting into the population difference or anything like that.
I'd say the reason is really quite simple. It takes more effort to localize a game for Europe than it does for North America simply because of the video standard (although I'm presuming that it might be difficult to get shelf space in some countries without the game being in their native languages, I've never bothered to actually check that). So, since releases started out sparse and late, just about any European who really had an appetite for video games got accustomed to importing, which ended up cutting the sales on titles once they did get released, and now hardly anyone bothers with Europe at all.
While this is a rather short post, and therefore probably oversimplified and leaving out factors, I'd say that's the root of the problem. Especially given how little support some Japanese companies give to their American branches (*cough* Enix, who basically bankrupted their own subsidiary twice *cough*), it doesn't seem that far of a stretch that the additional hassle of video conversion was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Sony did buy quite a bit of Square stock when they were really hurting, although the amount they have in Square-Enix isn't all that much, given the higher weight given to Enix in the merger.
He didn't claim that Xenogears sucks. He said it was fun to say it and then watch people crawl out of the woodwork to defend it. Much like that, really.
I'd recommend you look at some of Parish's other work to get an idea of when to take him seriously and when not to. This would be an instance of sarcasm, a concept you may have run into in other comments here at Slashdot. For instance, he doesn't actually think that Pac-Man is jingoist, xenophobic anti-Christian propaganda (at least, it's never come up in conversation...). And if you really think Xenogears' protagonist was originally named Fei Ben Jesus, you're beyond help.
My question is why torrent.cx was shut down while sites like Share Reactor are running strong? I didn't view the former before it was shut down, but as I understand it is was a bunch of links you could click on to feed file information to the BitTorrent client, just as Share Reactor is a bunch of links you can click on to feed file information to the eDonkey network client. Is there a significant difference, or is it a matter of the RIAA not knowing about other sites or picking and choosing their legal battles?
In my experience, the people who disliked DQ7 (except for the complete graphics whores), just didn't get the game while they were playing through it. The way the game's structured, you have to actively put together the storyline--It's not a bunch of fractured mini-stories, but you don't really figure out a lot of the islands' interconnections until late in the game. The people I've pointed that out to have mostly gone and replayed the game and gotten a lot more enjoyment out of it.
There's also the second issue of DQ being gone from North American shores for so long. Not only did this make it difficult from a marketing standpoint, especially given the meager budget EoA was given, but people seemed to be approaching the game like they would the original Dragon Quest: mindless leveling. The game doesn't require it--it's not that hard to beat the game with the hero only halfway through his first intermediate class--but if you think it does, and spend a ton of time doing that, you'll tend to forget those little interconnections mentioned above, and get tired of the game, which is pretty long by itself even if you don't spend an extra 20 hours walking in circles (or using Whistle if you were smart enough to be a Shepherd. Good ol' Stampede).
I'll be curious to see if there's a fallout in Japan over the lack of the first-person battle system that's appeared in every other title, given that tradition is pretty much the reason DQ7 appeared as it did, complete with old sound effects and all. Personally, I prefer the old way; the screenshots seem to be showing battle animations that would be quite a bit more lengthy than the ones in previous games, and I've always liked the brisk pace of DQ's battle engine.
I would assume that the free tokens given out over time ended up being an infinite supply of money as long as you stretched out the hand length or somesuch.
Slashdot Mirror
According to the Seattle PI this morning:
"But with the recount still favoring Rossi yesterday, Vance (State Republican party chairman) said the Democrats would only be dragging the state into a political quagmire. 'That's wrong,' Vance said. 'If Dino Rossi is ahead at the end of the day tomorrow, he is the governor-elect, this is over, and she (Gregoire) needs to do the right thing, the gracious thing and the honorable thing and concede.'
But if Gregoire is ahead, 'That's fundamentally different,' Vance said."
So, apparently, the line is drawn such that if a Democrat calls for a recount, it's political quagmire, but if a Republican calls for a recount, it's just... different.
The article also ignored the great Alex Ross, while making some snide jabs about cartoony art and writing style. Ross' oversized graphic novels feature wonderful, painted art with realistic figures. He also pairs with writers who aren't afraid of mature issues. In Dini's Peace on Earth, Superman tries to single-handedly put a dent in world hunger and fails miserably. People mob him and injure each other getting the food, government agents poison it to maintain their control over the people...this is not cartoony stuff. Waid's Kingdom Come is a telling of the apocalypse according to the Book of Revelation using superheroes. While there are some moments of levity in it, it seems like the author has overlooked a lot of things while making his point, which is biased fairly heavily against comics/graphic novels in general.
Zelda: Wind Waker did have a (rather primitive) system to add increasing musical accents with sword combos. While it wasn't nearly to the point where it sounded as if the music was written after watching the scene, as particularly well-scored movies pull off, it was well-done and on a high-profile title; I wouldn't be surprised if it crops up more often.
in *nix, if you need to install something it goes "hey feed me a password." In Windows it says "screw you, not enough privs." Then you have to logoff, logon admin, and do it.
In XP: right-click on the executable, select Run As. Second option on my menu.
Face it - when your competitor makes it into the dictionary, it's going to be EXTREMELY hard to get people to change the way they search. If you ask many non-techs how they find information on the web, they don't say 'I search for it' they say 'I google it'."
Generic tissue brands seem to be doing well, but people don't say, "Give me a generic tissue to blow my nose," they say, "Give me a Kleenex." Google's not too thrilled about its adoption into the common vernacular for probably exactly this reason.
"Face it - when your competitor makes it into the dictionary, it's going to be EXTREMELY hard to get people to change the way they search. If you ask many non-techs how they find information on the web, they don't say 'I search for it' they say 'I google it'."
Generic tissue brands seem to be doing well, but people don't say, "Give me a generic tissue to blow my nose," they say, "Give me a Kleenex." Google's not too thrilled (Slashdot article about it somewhere) about its adoption into the common vernacular for probably exactly this reason.
"Furthermore, all PS2s are equally compatible. . . ."
Tell that to Enix and Namco and their Star Ocean 3 and Xenosaga, respectively, both of which ran into problems with some models of PS2s being incompatible because of changes Sony introduced into later runs.
The Atari ST has had web browser software for some time. It's called the Crystal Atari Browser.
It is Japan only. It's not a GameCube-independent purchase, though. It's a GameCube with DVD playback all in one unit--it is not an add-on, nor can you purchase it as one.
He cited Pokemon, a franchise that has sold more than 10 million GBA games worldwide, as one exception to the rule and seemed to indicate that the industry needs more titles like that.
No question. If Microsoft and Sony would only, then perhaps they could have a glut of non-selling consoles, too!
Are you serious? The GameCube's success or lack thereof has nothing to do with Pokmon (and, incidentally, the GameCube's been outselling the PS2 for a few weeks over in Japan, and last I checked the top two selling titles were both for GameCube, one exclusive). The Game Boy Advance, on which the majority of Pokmon titles are playable, has sold over 2,300,000 in Japan in 2003 alone, while the PS2 is just topping 1,700,000. The GBA also has a much higher installed userbase total (although I don't have the numbers at the moment). So yeah, Sony and Microsoft would sure be doomed if they had franchises successful enough to sell 10 million copies and solidify a hardware platform to that degree...
When you're using a full size DVD-ROM drive for your games, tossing in movie and CD playback is trivial. It takes hardly any resources to add that and certainly doesn't take away from game production/functionality.
When you're not Sony, though, you have to pay fees for your DVD playback capability, which is the reason the Xbox doesn't have it out of the box (a $30 remote is necessary). Plus, you're neglecting that there is a model of GameCube that has DVD playback functionality.
Luca Blight from Suikoden II. Badass the entire game, and twice as badass during the extended last fight(s). If you don't know what I'm talking about, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy if you ever see it on eBay for under $3,500 or whatever it's going for these days.
Let me know when I can emulate Metroid Prime.
Even if that were the case, Rockstar can't exactly use the excuse, "Well, without this art, it would obviously not be Liberty City!" Although it's meant to be reminiscent of a real city, the two cases are different in such a way that the analogy isn't close enough to work.
. . . But this guy's Sunshine retrospective took a huge credibility dive when he called Yoshi's Island ridiculous with no other explanation than the graphical style, then followed it up with a lame disclaimer about how he doesn't have anything against kiddy games. Unless I've been reading in all the wrong places, it's rather widely acclaimed as one of the most solid platformers on the system, and the optional Red Coin/Star/Flower collection to unlock bonus levels added replay value and a type of added difficulty level that an Easy/Medium/Difficult toggle could never provide.
And since when are you allowed to share music that you own online? Last time I checked, you're not.
Silly me. I better unshare those recordings of my original music.
They're not unable at all. I, for one, just don't see sufficient rationale behind it. You might as well ask TV manufacturers why most TVs aren't manufactured to be able to display both NTSC and PAL, as computer monitors have been able to handle multiple resolutions and refresh rates for *years*. While branching out is nice and all, why bother taking a risk and expanding when you already have an incredibly profitable industry which has fixed hardware other than the display device and the majority of your sales come from NTSC markets even when games end up being released earlier in PAL territories? The companies are more than willing to hardwire support for HD-TV display modes into their consoles for developers to take advantage of as they choose, so I'd say Europe's just started out as not worth their effort and continued to be not worth their effort, as much as quite a few people would like to have special releases of games despite the fact that they already own all the hardware necessary to play the currently existing ones.
And that's not even getting into the population difference or anything like that.
I'd say the reason is really quite simple. It takes more effort to localize a game for Europe than it does for North America simply because of the video standard (although I'm presuming that it might be difficult to get shelf space in some countries without the game being in their native languages, I've never bothered to actually check that). So, since releases started out sparse and late, just about any European who really had an appetite for video games got accustomed to importing, which ended up cutting the sales on titles once they did get released, and now hardly anyone bothers with Europe at all.
While this is a rather short post, and therefore probably oversimplified and leaving out factors, I'd say that's the root of the problem. Especially given how little support some Japanese companies give to their American branches (*cough* Enix, who basically bankrupted their own subsidiary twice *cough*), it doesn't seem that far of a stretch that the additional hassle of video conversion was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Sony did buy quite a bit of Square stock when they were really hurting, although the amount they have in Square-Enix isn't all that much, given the higher weight given to Enix in the merger.
He didn't claim that Xenogears sucks. He said it was fun to say it and then watch people crawl out of the woodwork to defend it. Much like that, really.
I'd recommend you look at some of Parish's other work to get an idea of when to take him seriously and when not to. This would be an instance of sarcasm, a concept you may have run into in other comments here at Slashdot. For instance, he doesn't actually think that Pac-Man is jingoist, xenophobic anti-Christian propaganda (at least, it's never come up in conversation...). And if you really think Xenogears' protagonist was originally named Fei Ben Jesus, you're beyond help.
My question is why torrent.cx was shut down while sites like Share Reactor are running strong? I didn't view the former before it was shut down, but as I understand it is was a bunch of links you could click on to feed file information to the BitTorrent client, just as Share Reactor is a bunch of links you can click on to feed file information to the eDonkey network client. Is there a significant difference, or is it a matter of the RIAA not knowing about other sites or picking and choosing their legal battles?
In my experience, the people who disliked DQ7 (except for the complete graphics whores), just didn't get the game while they were playing through it. The way the game's structured, you have to actively put together the storyline--It's not a bunch of fractured mini-stories, but you don't really figure out a lot of the islands' interconnections until late in the game. The people I've pointed that out to have mostly gone and replayed the game and gotten a lot more enjoyment out of it.
There's also the second issue of DQ being gone from North American shores for so long. Not only did this make it difficult from a marketing standpoint, especially given the meager budget EoA was given, but people seemed to be approaching the game like they would the original Dragon Quest: mindless leveling. The game doesn't require it--it's not that hard to beat the game with the hero only halfway through his first intermediate class--but if you think it does, and spend a ton of time doing that, you'll tend to forget those little interconnections mentioned above, and get tired of the game, which is pretty long by itself even if you don't spend an extra 20 hours walking in circles (or using Whistle if you were smart enough to be a Shepherd. Good ol' Stampede).
I'll be curious to see if there's a fallout in Japan over the lack of the first-person battle system that's appeared in every other title, given that tradition is pretty much the reason DQ7 appeared as it did, complete with old sound effects and all. Personally, I prefer the old way; the screenshots seem to be showing battle animations that would be quite a bit more lengthy than the ones in previous games, and I've always liked the brisk pace of DQ's battle engine.
I would assume that the free tokens given out over time ended up being an infinite supply of money as long as you stretched out the hand length or somesuch.