"You can even fool your pursuers completely by repainting your car or changing clothes. "
I tried to outrun a cop once by pulling into a Maaco. Getting arrested wasn't so bad, but I was pissed off that they repainted my car but didn't repair the engine!
"You should check out Grand Theft Auto 3. You can walk down the street and beat a regular person to a bloody pulp, and nothing happens."
Not true. The first one might slip under their radar, but do it a couple-three times and they will start looking for you. If you beat somebody up or run them down in front of a cop, the cop will try to arrest you. The game keeps track of everybody you kill. Go kill three people in the remotist of areas and your wanted level will go up.
I'm a little annoyed at the FUD you attempted to spread here. When you play the game for any length of time, it trains you NOT to kill random people. You avoid running over civillians like the plague. Having the cops chase you in that game really impedes your ability to complete a mission. When the wanted level rises, they get more and more aggressive to the point that it's nearly impossible to escape, causing you to restart your mission.
Just because you can in a game doesn't mean you should. Running around and killing innocent people or cops in GTA will not help you at all what so ever in beating the game, instead it'll make it a lot harder to do.
"Whoah! I guess some pr0n really have decent articles."
Heh when I went to Brazil I brought back a porn mag in Portuguese. A year or so later my gf found it and asked me that was about. I told her I just read the articles. She opened it up and with a quizzical look on her face just put it down and dropped the topic.
.. anybody would think that computers that multitask with a number of programs made from a number of different programmers running on a virtually infinite combination of hardware all operating under a variety of environmental conditions can work under the idea that a computer could be made that doesn't crash. Hell, all you have to do is shine a light on RAM chips and that'll cause stray bit flippings.
"So, the PS2 can be used as:...therefore it is less successful?"
Apples are not the same as oranges. I'll explain why. The PS2 can be used as a console for playing PS2 and PSX games. PSX compatiblity is for gaming and as such does not contradict what I said.
As a DVD Player, as I've already mentioned, the PS2 suffers. The time and money put into making that work would have been better spent making the system a better machine. The graphics on the PS2 looked blurry compared to the Dreamcast simply because of a little bottleneck in the system. Sony had a terrible time at launch as a result of that.
As for the Linux Terminal or the Qcast whatchamacallit, as they are add-ons, they don't contradict my point either. You can't argue that if the PS2 came out for $500 + a hard drive and a crippled version of Linux that the system would do anything but flounder.
"That seems at odds with reality, if you ask me, and probably not deserving of an "Insightful" mod"
No, it's at odds with your perception of what I said. It's not 'insightful' to you because you were applying incompatible reasoning to it. Perhaps you should have asked me to clarify instead of trying to butt heads with me over it?
"Even if you meant it could have been more successful without any but the first ability, I still dont' believe your statement."
Depends on how you measure success. If the PS2 didn't have a DVD player capability, it would have had a miserable launch in Japan. The launch titles with the system sucked, but as a DVD player the system was pretty cheap over there. I suppose you could label that as a bending of the guideline that I mentioned. That'd be acceptable, afterall I don't live in a world of absolutes. However, the PS2 would be NOWHERE today without good game playing capabilities. Thankfully, they had the PS1 to derive all the ideas from. "Well, we don't need to update the controller or anything like that."
"None of the above secondary abilities (DVD, PSX compatibility, Linux distro) have necessarily made it sell any better (although DVD and PSX were important to me, and others) but they certainly haven't hurt it either."
Oh I agree, they didn't do anything to help PS2's popularity. I dobut very many PS2s were sold so somebody could throw on a crippled Linux distro on it for another $200(!). Did it hurt it? The R&D that went into those products were not successful in the same way a game would have been. If the effort were put into a decent game, Sony would have benefitted more. Depending on your perception, it could be argued that Sony was indeed hurt by the development of those products. However, I wouldn't make that claim simply because the game would have to be good in the first place. In much the same way a degree in aeronautics doesn't mean you can be a brain surgeon, it can't be expected that the companies involved in making those products could suddenly turn out the next Final Fantasy.
I have nothing against Sony for the features you mentioned, but $300 is too much for a system. I probably would have bought one if it were released at the $200 level. Instead, I got a GameCube, and I'm quite happy with it.
"Really? I thought it was inspired by the chariot race in Ben Hur."
Well I phrased that really badly. I meant the vehicle design of the twin engines pulling the pod behind them was inspired by the lady with the dog. The action in the scene was probably inspired by Ben Hur as you suggest.
Had the right idea in mind, but I didn't express it very well.;)
"Why not? It's supposed to do the same thing -- play a movie."
The problem occured because Sony didn't put enough energy into developing it or testing it as a DVD Player. It's hard to justify putting that much energy into that aspect of the unit when the primary (and profitable) purpose is to play games. It was inevitable that it'd be half-assed at best.
It's an unwritten law: the more your game console does besides play games, the less successful it will be. The Phillips CD-I pops into mind. It wanted to be a game machine and a movie player, but didn't exactly excel at either. As a game unit, it didn't have a very good controller, nor did it have the graphics hardware to do anything particularly interesting. It couldn't even scroll images without it being choppy. As a movie player, it was kind of cool because this was before DVDs. Unfortunately, the movies were roughly VHS quality and you had to swap discs, at least the audio was really good on it.
So yes, the PS2 was supposed to 'do the same thing' as a DVD player, but they didn't focus it on that, and the consumer got burnt. Fortunately for most consumes, DVD players are cheap enough (even considered a household item) so a lot of people just didn't care.
"PlayStation 1 was a breakthrough in computer technology due in part to its capability to play computer games on CDs."
It's a breakthrough to do something that had been done many times previously? The only radical thing Sony did with the PS1 was to not include a disc activity light.
"Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing us to this class action lawsuit against Sony regarding the Playstation 2's DVD player."
Nintendo made a pretty strong stand with the GameCube that a game machine should only be a game machine. Gotta admit, they had a point. The GameCube was $100 cheaper than the PS2 or XBOX, plus it was considerably smaller. From what I gather from this story, the DVD player on the PS2 wasn't exactly a stellar. For the cost of a DVD Player and a GameCube, you could get a Playstation 2 that wasn't exactly stellar at either. I realize that the PS2 has games people like, however at launch Dreamcast games were looking better because of a nasty little bottleneck the Playstation 2 has.
Well I've drifted away from the point a bit. When making a game system, focus on making it play games. Not everybody is happy to spend $300 on a game system.
""Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning." -- Igor Stravinsky (emphasis mine) "
I'd like to see Stravinsky compose music in a cubicle.
"buzzwords are fun. does it also have BLAST PROCESSING? "
heheheh oh my I remember those ads. There was one game... ugh I can't remember which one it was, but it was for the Super Nintendo. On the box it said "featuring Blaze Processing! Gee...
" Imagine the Final Fantasy writer saying "I'm going to go scuba diving because I might get an inspiration about goo"
You should watch the 'making of' DVD of Final Fantasy. While you're at it, watch the extras DVD that comes with Monsters Inc about Pixar. Heck, one place I applied to assigned Nerf weapons to all its employees. The places that treat their creative people the best are, coincidentally, the ones that consistently produce compelling content. Square employees (the games division) get a month off after a game's released to rejuvinate themselves. Not exactly something that commonly happens in the engineering world.
"Artists have a habit of calling any time-wasting activity "inspirational" and declaring that it improves their so-called "work". "
This is insightful? Have you noticed that a lot of modern games use art these days? Have you noticed that in school, artists study other works of art?
Creativity is not a scientific process. It's not something that works better just by throwing more hours into it. It's something that comes along when your brain is stimulated. I can't imagine you listening to music and not understanding that concept.
Interesting note:
- In the movie Final Fantasy, the scene where the soldiers drop down from a ship and land in a goo like substance to cushion their fall was inspired by a scuba diving trip.
- In Star Wars, The Phantom Menace, the pod race scene was inspired by a woman walking her two dogs that were nearly dragging her along by the leash.
- The game Tempest was inspired by a nightmare Jeff Minter had about monsters that'd crawl out of a hole in the ground.
So yeah, tell me all about how 'time wasting activities' aren't inspirational.
" Should we all take this article to our bosses with requests for installing a GameCube on every desk?"
Interesting that you should mention that. I'm a free-lance artist working in 3D. I recently discovered that when I play graphically interesing games on my GameCube (Star Fox Adventures, for example...) I get inspired with a new energy to work in Lightwave. I think I'm in an unusual scenario, though...
Gaming during work hours is a double-edged sword. It can be used effectively, it can be abused. At my full-time job, I'd occasionally fire up a game of Starcraft and spend about 45 mins or so (part of it during lunch break) playing it. But then when it came time to go home, I was comfortable leaving later. Instead of leaving because it was time to leave, I was leaving because I'd finished what I was working on. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not, but when you have to put off getting off, you look for whatever rational reason you can think of to leave work.
So yeah, I'd say there's some truth to it. If I could take say an hour during my day to pursue an interest of mine, I'd be less restless.
Slashdot Mirror
"You can even fool your pursuers completely by repainting your car or changing clothes. "
I tried to outrun a cop once by pulling into a Maaco. Getting arrested wasn't so bad, but I was pissed off that they repainted my car but didn't repair the engine!
"You should check out Grand Theft Auto 3. You can walk down the street and beat a regular person to a bloody pulp, and nothing happens."
Not true. The first one might slip under their radar, but do it a couple-three times and they will start looking for you. If you beat somebody up or run them down in front of a cop, the cop will try to arrest you. The game keeps track of everybody you kill. Go kill three people in the remotist of areas and your wanted level will go up.
I'm a little annoyed at the FUD you attempted to spread here. When you play the game for any length of time, it trains you NOT to kill random people. You avoid running over civillians like the plague. Having the cops chase you in that game really impedes your ability to complete a mission. When the wanted level rises, they get more and more aggressive to the point that it's nearly impossible to escape, causing you to restart your mission.
Just because you can in a game doesn't mean you should. Running around and killing innocent people or cops in GTA will not help you at all what so ever in beating the game, instead it'll make it a lot harder to do.
"I'm afraid a "puff of compressed air" ain't gonna unstick those pages."
Perhaps. But a few good puffs of air could have prevented the pages from sticking.
"Whoah! I guess some pr0n really have decent articles."
Heh when I went to Brazil I brought back a porn mag in Portuguese. A year or so later my gf found it and asked me that was about. I told her I just read the articles. She opened it up and with a quizzical look on her face just put it down and dropped the topic.
Redundant? I answered the guy's question!
.. anybody would think that computers that multitask with a number of programs made from a number of different programmers running on a virtually infinite combination of hardware all operating under a variety of environmental conditions can work under the idea that a computer could be made that doesn't crash. Hell, all you have to do is shine a light on RAM chips and that'll cause stray bit flippings.
"So, the PS2 can be used as: ...therefore it is less successful?"
Apples are not the same as oranges. I'll explain why. The PS2 can be used as a console for playing PS2 and PSX games. PSX compatiblity is for gaming and as such does not contradict what I said.
As a DVD Player, as I've already mentioned, the PS2 suffers. The time and money put into making that work would have been better spent making the system a better machine. The graphics on the PS2 looked blurry compared to the Dreamcast simply because of a little bottleneck in the system. Sony had a terrible time at launch as a result of that.
As for the Linux Terminal or the Qcast whatchamacallit, as they are add-ons, they don't contradict my point either. You can't argue that if the PS2 came out for $500 + a hard drive and a crippled version of Linux that the system would do anything but flounder.
"That seems at odds with reality, if you ask me, and probably not deserving of an "Insightful" mod"
No, it's at odds with your perception of what I said. It's not 'insightful' to you because you were applying incompatible reasoning to it. Perhaps you should have asked me to clarify instead of trying to butt heads with me over it?
"Even if you meant it could have been more successful without any but the first ability, I still dont' believe your statement."
Depends on how you measure success. If the PS2 didn't have a DVD player capability, it would have had a miserable launch in Japan. The launch titles with the system sucked, but as a DVD player the system was pretty cheap over there. I suppose you could label that as a bending of the guideline that I mentioned. That'd be acceptable, afterall I don't live in a world of absolutes. However, the PS2 would be NOWHERE today without good game playing capabilities. Thankfully, they had the PS1 to derive all the ideas from. "Well, we don't need to update the controller or anything like that."
"None of the above secondary abilities (DVD, PSX compatibility, Linux distro) have necessarily made it sell any better (although DVD and PSX were important to me, and others) but they certainly haven't hurt it either."
Oh I agree, they didn't do anything to help PS2's popularity. I dobut very many PS2s were sold so somebody could throw on a crippled Linux distro on it for another $200(!). Did it hurt it? The R&D that went into those products were not successful in the same way a game would have been. If the effort were put into a decent game, Sony would have benefitted more. Depending on your perception, it could be argued that Sony was indeed hurt by the development of those products. However, I wouldn't make that claim simply because the game would have to be good in the first place. In much the same way a degree in aeronautics doesn't mean you can be a brain surgeon, it can't be expected that the companies involved in making those products could suddenly turn out the next Final Fantasy.
I have nothing against Sony for the features you mentioned, but $300 is too much for a system. I probably would have bought one if it were released at the $200 level. Instead, I got a GameCube, and I'm quite happy with it.
"Uhhh.... if they said they could get me free money I wouldn't care if they had a point or not..."
Yeah but judging from your recent posts it's safe to say you're not the type of person who puts a lot of thought into the decision making process.
"...queercakes."
Queercakes? Heh. Are you implying that I'm attractive to you? I mean I'm flattered and all, but I'll stay with my girlfriend.
"Lawyers SUCK. I shouldn't have to explain it to you. "
Lawyers couldn't get people to jump onto the class-action lawsuit bandwagon if they didn't have a point.
"Really? I thought it was inspired by the chariot race in Ben Hur."
;)
Well I phrased that really badly. I meant the vehicle design of the twin engines pulling the pod behind them was inspired by the lady with the dog. The action in the scene was probably inspired by Ben Hur as you suggest.
Had the right idea in mind, but I didn't express it very well.
"Why not? It's supposed to do the same thing -- play a movie."
The problem occured because Sony didn't put enough energy into developing it or testing it as a DVD Player. It's hard to justify putting that much energy into that aspect of the unit when the primary (and profitable) purpose is to play games. It was inevitable that it'd be half-assed at best.
It's an unwritten law: the more your game console does besides play games, the less successful it will be. The Phillips CD-I pops into mind. It wanted to be a game machine and a movie player, but didn't exactly excel at either. As a game unit, it didn't have a very good controller, nor did it have the graphics hardware to do anything particularly interesting. It couldn't even scroll images without it being choppy. As a movie player, it was kind of cool because this was before DVDs. Unfortunately, the movies were roughly VHS quality and you had to swap discs, at least the audio was really good on it.
So yes, the PS2 was supposed to 'do the same thing' as a DVD player, but they didn't focus it on that, and the consumer got burnt. Fortunately for most consumes, DVD players are cheap enough (even considered a household item) so a lot of people just didn't care.
"PlayStation 1 was a breakthrough in computer technology due in part to its capability to play computer games on CDs."
It's a breakthrough to do something that had been done many times previously? The only radical thing Sony did with the PS1 was to not include a disc activity light.
"Sleazy lawyers.
..."
I wonder if lawyers get spam with "make money fast, do a class action suit against
Sleazy Lawyers? Sleazy Sony! A class action lawsuit wouldn't be possible if people weren't irritated at being lied to.
"If you don't like a product, don't buy it. "
Too late. My Mr. Fusion needs some servicing.
"Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing us to this class action lawsuit against Sony regarding the Playstation 2's DVD player."
Nintendo made a pretty strong stand with the GameCube that a game machine should only be a game machine. Gotta admit, they had a point. The GameCube was $100 cheaper than the PS2 or XBOX, plus it was considerably smaller. From what I gather from this story, the DVD player on the PS2 wasn't exactly a stellar. For the cost of a DVD Player and a GameCube, you could get a Playstation 2 that wasn't exactly stellar at either. I realize that the PS2 has games people like, however at launch Dreamcast games were looking better because of a nasty little bottleneck the Playstation 2 has.
Well I've drifted away from the point a bit. When making a game system, focus on making it play games. Not everybody is happy to spend $300 on a game system.
"Testing just Windows is like test driving the Indy 500 ... driving a Pinto. You certainly won't be getting the full eXPerience."
Funny you should mention that, I just played one of a pile of Indy 500 games on Windows XP. How ya doin on Linux over there?
"And Windows XXXP support!"
Complete with Orifice XP!
""Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning." -- Igor Stravinsky (emphasis mine) "
I'd like to see Stravinsky compose music in a cubicle.
"buzzwords are fun. does it also have BLAST PROCESSING? "
heheheh oh my I remember those ads. There was one game... ugh I can't remember which one it was, but it was for the Super Nintendo. On the box it said "featuring Blaze Processing! Gee...
"Warning! Opera isn't free software."
Warning! It's ad-supported so you don't need to pay cash for it!
(note: It's the good kind of ad-supported, i.e. no pop-ups/unders or anything like that. Just a reserved part of Opera's real-estate.)
"You've got a new fan."
I do? Tell me about it?
"Jeff Minter was not the original programmer for Tempest, it was Dave Theurer (KLOV - Tempest)"
:)
Ah! Yes you're right, thank you for the correction.
" Imagine the Final Fantasy writer saying "I'm going to go scuba diving because I might get an inspiration about goo"
You should watch the 'making of' DVD of Final Fantasy. While you're at it, watch the extras DVD that comes with Monsters Inc about Pixar. Heck, one place I applied to assigned Nerf weapons to all its employees. The places that treat their creative people the best are, coincidentally, the ones that consistently produce compelling content. Square employees (the games division) get a month off after a game's released to rejuvinate themselves. Not exactly something that commonly happens in the engineering world.
"Artists have a habit of calling any time-wasting activity "inspirational" and declaring that it improves their so-called "work". "
This is insightful? Have you noticed that a lot of modern games use art these days? Have you noticed that in school, artists study other works of art?
Creativity is not a scientific process. It's not something that works better just by throwing more hours into it. It's something that comes along when your brain is stimulated. I can't imagine you listening to music and not understanding that concept.
Interesting note:
- In the movie Final Fantasy, the scene where the soldiers drop down from a ship and land in a goo like substance to cushion their fall was inspired by a scuba diving trip.
- In Star Wars, The Phantom Menace, the pod race scene was inspired by a woman walking her two dogs that were nearly dragging her along by the leash.
- The game Tempest was inspired by a nightmare Jeff Minter had about monsters that'd crawl out of a hole in the ground.
So yeah, tell me all about how 'time wasting activities' aren't inspirational.
" Should we all take this article to our bosses with requests for installing a GameCube on every desk?"
Interesting that you should mention that. I'm a free-lance artist working in 3D. I recently discovered that when I play graphically interesing games on my GameCube (Star Fox Adventures, for example...) I get inspired with a new energy to work in Lightwave. I think I'm in an unusual scenario, though...
Gaming during work hours is a double-edged sword. It can be used effectively, it can be abused. At my full-time job, I'd occasionally fire up a game of Starcraft and spend about 45 mins or so (part of it during lunch break) playing it. But then when it came time to go home, I was comfortable leaving later. Instead of leaving because it was time to leave, I was leaving because I'd finished what I was working on. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not, but when you have to put off getting off, you look for whatever rational reason you can think of to leave work.
So yeah, I'd say there's some truth to it. If I could take say an hour during my day to pursue an interest of mine, I'd be less restless.