You never really see figures about how fast, and how big that chunk of rock (?) was. Gimme a nice scientific factoid, in standard Volkswagen units or something.
Apple could do well to make a low-end "cube", a cheap and portable desktop without the screen
I'm sorry... Apple should make a what?
a cheap and portable desktop
What was that first part?
cheap
Expensive?
cheee -ap
Ex-pensive?
...
Joking aside, I really liked the Cube, but I don't think the expense (or the cracks - which I've never actually seen in real life Cube) was the whole story. I think people took one look at the Cube and just thought 'there is no way that is a powerful computer. It looks like a Bang & Olafsun Toaster.'
Re:Or maybe....
on
G5 in an iMac
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Or maybe it was a typo. Someone so used to typing iMac, that when it came time to type just "Mac" in this document, they put an "i" there by mistake.
The current (official) name for the iMac is "iMac G4", to differentiate from the original G3-based iMac, so the typo probably happened with that number right next to the 4.
Cracked DRM? Damn those anti-corporate open-source hippy weed-smokin' bastards! Leaked Windows source code? Damn those anti-corporate open-source hippy weed-smokin' bastards! A new worm that only affects Outlook or MSIE? Damn those anti-corporate open-source hippy weed-smokin' bastards!
And I for one welcome our new anti-corporate open-source hippy weed-smokin' bastards.
You can't have Christians claiming the earth is only 6000 years old, then claim the flood happened in that time period, and that there was at least one dinosaur crawling around *after* the flood. It's laughable at best.
I'm sorry, we like to call those Jesus Horses now.
There was one passage that struck me in the NYT article, a quote from this guy:
The success of the iPod doesn't seem to have significantly changed Apple's market share," said T. Michael Nevens, a director at both Borland Software and Broadvision and the former director of McKinsey & Company's technology consulting practice. And Mr. Nevens said that there was "no support for the theory" that the new digital appliances would bolster computer sales.
T. Michael Nevens is completely missing the point, I think.
I am reminded of an earlier interview with Jobs - I don't have the link, I believe it was maybe a Time article around the launch of the flatpanel iMac - and the interviewer kicked off the story with a description of his arrival. He came into the room that Jobs was in, sitting on the floor yoga-style, with a powerbook, and he was going through fonts. He sat there for 10 minutes looking at these various fonts, not speaking to the reporter. Then he looked up and said something like, 'Aren't these just beautiful? I love the fonts we licensed for OS X.'
This is a funny insight into Steve Jobs. I think he's just really bent on the idea of these seamless computers. When you really think about it, that real plug-and-play sort of mentality has always dominated the Mac experience. I think Jobs, Zen Weirdo that he is, fucking hates the whole Windows scene because to him it is just really really tacky. Too many options that are crap, none of it consistent, none of it forming something totally coherent from top to bottom.
So when T. Michael Nevens, or Random Slashdot Angrybot, says something about iPods not selling more Macs or affecting Mac sales, or not inreasing market share which clearly they have, just not appreciably in Macs, they are missing the context. Jobs' whole Seamless Vision Thing flows down from his input into the designs. The reason that iPods talk to iTunes so well, which talks to iPhoto and iDVD and all the other iCrap is because he just insists that it should work that way.
Then Rob Glasner talks about opening the iPod up to Rhapsody users, of course Jobs balks because he already has made the concession to market forces in selling the iPod for Windows at all.That is his mea culpa for keeping the original Macintosh project clamped down.
If Jobs had his way all of these little projects would make money - but if some of them have to act as bridges, or enabling mechanisms - the physical stores, the iTMS - then they will do so. The fact that all of the software and hardware work perfectly together is just the way Jobs wants it to work.
"Never ascribe to malice, what can adequately be explained by incompetence."
I love that saying.
In this case, we cannot adequately explain what has happened with incompetence. Every one of Diebold's machines made before the voting rigs had a paper receipt capability.
If you have a Sony Ericsson T68i mobile phone - this is one of the few mobiles out there that will record both sides of the conversation, when taking a Voice Memo.
So if you use it to save driving directions or whatever, you may be breaking this law as well.
When it comes to speaking your mind about almost anything, few countries or people have it as good as the people of the United States, even in this post-September 11 world.
This is an interesting thing to say, I find, especially coming from American citizens. I am of the opinion that there are quite a few places, and people, in the world who can say whatever they damn well please.
ObQuoteSimpsons:
"Where else but in America - or perhaps Canada - could one do such a thing?"
There are certainly a large number of countries that are repressive, and limiting to free speech, but the US is hardly a beacon of shining light in this particular area these days. I can say a lot of things in Canada. Or Britain, or Australia, or Demnark, or Spain, or.. you get the point. In fact one could make the argument that I have more freedom in what I say in Canada, just due to the fact that many of the limitations on free speech are imposed by private citizens who control some form of media or forum, and have an axe to grind. Those Muzzle Awards about the kids who wore the NRA/GWB-terrorist shirts to school for instance.. if a kid wore a shirt calling Paul Martin a terrorist, he would likely get invited to join the debate club, in Ontario.
I get annoyed, however, at people, most notably the cults of personalities we call celebrities, who think that they have a right to make their words and comments louder or have them deemed more important than others. Two words: Barbra Streisand. Another two words: Jane Fonda. Look, I'm glad the two of you have an opinion, but just because you make millions in Hollywood and have played many roles in film doesn't give you any more credibility than the guy who slaves all day for his family.
I completely agree, but why are you annoyed? You don't have to listen to them.
Another problem I have is how some people think that Free Speech is a one-way thing, as if they can say what they want without criticism. The Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines learned this lesson the hard way. True, as an American on our soil you are free to express an opinion. However, the Americans who are listening to you are also free to react to your opinion by counter-comment, or even just to ignore what you said. In the case of Ms. Maines, some folks decided that they would ignore her group's album for a while.
The Dixie Chicks learned the 'hard way' that if they voice an unpopular political opinion, their fans will punish them economically, in the only way they can. That is a limit on free speech, albeit a self-imposed one, like I mentioned above. I think you should buy Dixie Chicks albums if you like the music. If you totally hate the thought of listening to music you like, sung by someone critical of a President you like, you should think about why you cannot separate those two ideas in your head.
Free speech always costs somebody something. My feeling is that the Right of Free Speech wouldn't be worth anything if you didn't lose something as you exercised your right.
What an odd thing to say.. we (collectively, Western Civilization 'we') already lost something... a bunch of people who died during the World Wars. They paid. We shouldn't have to lose anything more to exercise our hard-fought rights.
Free speech is self-correcting as well. That is its true power.
Absolutely - in a Free Society. If you don't get a chance, or worse, if the citizenry just decides that your particular speech is Bad... that's when it starts to crumble.
What makes you think Office for the Mac is 100% compatible with Office for Windows? Even things like different kinds of font antialiasing can be enough to break compatibility in some scenarios, let alone things like Win32 specific VBScripts (that use WSH etc). Actually, it is of course possible to use the Real Thing(tm) on Linux courtesy of CrossOver, if you need it.
Just to pick nits - I don't think the antialiasing thing is true. That is a function of the drawing layer in whatever respective OS you are using. Word/Office can't really mess with that other than calling it. (Bad fonts are bad fonts however and will mess up lots of things, but thats neither here nor there.) I've certainly never seen that problem, and I've moved literally hundreds of Word and Excel files through my Mac and back to Windows, with nary an issue. PowerPoint, on the other hand....
VBScripts aren't just incompatible, they won't work at all - I don't think there is any kind of VB engine in the Mac version. Which is fine by me.
The other problem is prices. Now, before you go calling me a troll, hear me out. I agree that a Mac is most of the time a better value than a PC. But when people see ads on TV for $500 Dells and they found out that Macs start at $700 or so, you're in trouble. If they could lower the price of the lowest one (say to $600) that would help. They should also ADVERTISE their lowest model and it's price (the eMac). Point out in the ads that it comes with iTunes, movie editing software, photo editing software, video conferenceing software, DVD burning software, and such. Compare the price of that $500 Dell once you include the monitor, that software above, and such. Maybe include a nice office suite (Open Office or anything else) so it will be a "complete computer" with anything most people would need. This will sell some real computers. Advertise how they are practically immune to viruses and hackers (compared to Windows) so you don't have to worry when you're on the internet. Show the cool features like expose (eye candy is always good). Show that Macs can play games too.
There's only one problem with this, but its a big problem: The low-end computer market is no fun.
I don't think Apple wants to be there, and I don't really blame them. You've got tiny little margins. You need to strip out quality parts for 3rd-rate crap that doesn't last as long. And most importantly, you won't make a hell of a lot of money at it unless you are the only game in town... like Dell.
Think about it. Dell has successfully bludgeoned the other once-promising clone makers into fine powder; Gateway is closing its stores, IBM got out of PCs entirely, Compaq is a smudge under HP's ass... am I missing anyone?
The users who are willing to shop around and build (or commission) a custom PC using the cheapest parts are not a large market, nor are they a market that's willing to spend a lot of money.
Just like Palm computers, its a cutthroat business and doesn't really leave you time to innovate or do new, interesting things (like 23" displays for instance). Especially when you are Apple, and you manage (pay for) both the platform and OS development.
If it helps, I think that's how all the console manufacturers are now. There are certain things they might not allow - for example, for PS1 games, it used to be an automatic failure if you had a church in your game. It didn't matter what the context or purpose was, Sony just didn't want religious imagery/buildings in PS games. I expect that rule is no longer in force (I haven't checked).
While I'm sure that was probably true at some point, that policy must have changed during the PS1's heyday - I can think of one specific example off the top of my head, Medevil - made by Sony's in-house studio - that was full of Burtonesque churches, cross, skeletons, etc.
I do agree that I don't think Nintendo is enforcing anything like this anymore, and the latest crop of Cube games certainly proves it. Do you remember when Resident Evil came out for Cube? I was a big deal, because that was the signal from Nintendo that you can now do more 'grown up' (ha!) game content. I have no idea as to the extent or nature of their original guidelines, but I would not be surprised to see a big push from Nintendo at E3 this year - not just for the new console, but for a whole new attitude in their games.
Your point about Nintendo footing the bill for development and managing sales expectations is well taken.
But Sony do exactly the same thing. Seen many 2D games on the PS2 in the US lately? SCEA are known to be anti-2D and frankly your game will not be given the OK be released if it is 2D.
I don't think that has anything to do with Sony; that's just the general direction of the game industry. Forget PS2 - I don't see many 2D games, period.
To answer your question about 2D fighters however, I do believe that some of the SNK offerings are on PS2.
Depends if it's for the purpose of increasing quality or, in your words, to create "Disneyfied" games. It's a case-by-case deal, not something where you just say "Hands off!" and that's it.
See, I would argue that it should be 'hands off and that's it'. At least in some capacity, or studio, or whatever the structure is. I'm all for being able to screen the crappier, or more violent, or more explicit games from youngsters. However when there is a kind of blanket limit on what kinds of games can be made at all - that's when I have a problem. And to finish the point I'm not even sure that Nintendo does do this, but somehow that effect seems to be in place, whether purposeful or not.
First of all, the latest Mario Kart game (and the two before them) were all first-party Nintendo titles, meaning they didn't force a vision on anyone but themselves. You may argue that they're still stifling their in-house developers, but that's not really what we're worried about at the moment.
Agreed. Nintendo set a style, and a rather nice style at that, totally their prerogative.
And lastly, i'm curious who you mean, exactly, by "people who eventually get sick of MarioKart's colour scheme.". Would that include the teenaged segment of the population that worships stuff like Halo, GTA3, or DOA: Extreme Volleyball?
Well, I'm not sure how to address that. I chose my words poorly with the MarioKart comment. Let me try and explain more clearly.
When MarioKart (to run with that again) came out, I liked it quite a bit; what I got bored of was the look and music of the game. I would never argue that both aspects were lacking in any way. I just got tired of it because, at the end of the day, this music was nothing I would normally listen to. These graphics, while masterful for that oeuvre if you will, would have done nothing for me outside of the gameplay experience they had created. Eventually I turned to playing Wipeout for my PS2, as it had music I actually liked, and would listen to normally. It had a look that was this dire, dystopian, futuristic thing that was cool - and violent. I wanted missles instead of bloody mushrooms, you know?
As for the Halo/GTA3/Volleyball comment... well, I do worship GTA3, I think its a brilliant freeform gameplay mechanic and a ridiculously fun game, with a cheezy 3rd-rate Sopranos storyline that just makes it funnier. Halo I'm lukewarm on, Volleyball does not bear mentioning. (no Xbox either.)
Again, if your sole reason for not playing a game is embarassment over a bright, colorful color scheme or oddball premise, maybe you should think about how mature you really are.
It's not the colour scheme. Really. I agree with you. I only mention this to point out that a great many Nintendo games - too many - fall into the supercute category, and the platform suffers a stigma as a result, in the common perceptions of Western gamers. It ain't necessarily right, and I'll defend to the death artworks like Metroid Prime and Pikmon, but Nintendo should have done more (earlier) to let publishers stretch out a bit.
I mention Sony because, as far as I know, they say nothing about how you should develop the content of your game. This is better, I think. There are better ways to sort out how appropriate content is for some players than making sure that possibly objectionable content never exists in the first place.
For a long time I wanted to play GTA3. I pondered buying a $199 PS2 and then said "Naah, I'll wait for the price to go down". That was a year and a half ago, and they are still $179. Last year I bought GTA3 for my PC and a game controller very similar to the PS2 controller. Together the pair cost me maybe $65 and the graphics blow away the PS2.
That's because you 'just had' a PC around, and you're not adding the cost to that.
Do the calculation for the lifetime of a console (about 4 years), figure in video card upgrades and Windows licenses, etc., add any downtime and screwing around due to drivers, viruses, etc. and then come talk to me about which is cheaper. Hell man, your video card alone costs the same as a console.
I realize you're not (directly) bashing Nintendo, but this rubbish that they only target little kids needs to stop. Just because they make games without massive blood, violence, or sex does not make them any less mature or enjoyable.
Actually, it does.
Now don't get me wrong - I do not mean to disagree with your point. I like Nintendo a lot and they make some great games. However, I disagree with your last statement.
Any sort of creative control that Nintendo exercises over the content of the games on their system is a bad thing. They have no place meddling in someone else's art. Sure its their right, as the console manufacturer, to enforce this Disneyfied vision on their developers, but it hurts them with other markets... like people who eventually get sick of MarioKart's colour scheme.
Sony has it right. Games are so mainstream now, they must be treated like movies - and more importantly, art, when warranted. Put a rating on the thing and stay the hell out of the creative. It stunts the available offerings.
(Disclaimer: I also realize that Nintendo has lightened up a bit of late)
FairPlay is actually owned by Veridisc so it may not be up to Apple to choose who to licence it to (if at all).
Someby please mod this up. It's kind of a crucial fact.
As far as I can tell anyone can go and license FairPlay just like Apple did. How this works specifically with the iPod, I'm not sure, but unrestricted AACs and MP3s work fine as well...
I don't wat to have to leave the window open all the time to find out who's online. It should just stay open in a way that is unobtrusive.
Just enable the 'Show status in menu bar' checkbox, in the prefs. One-click access to who's online. I never leave the window open. This is better than Adium's method IMHO.
And I don't want my music in any format related to Quicktime.
That is a mighty list of formats, my friend. Can you take a look at this page and tell me you don't use even one of those formats?
QuickTime is not like WMP or Real. It is a media architecture. It is not a codec. Apple barely has any codecs to speak of that they themselves have made (Pixlet being one of the exceptions).
Slashdot Mirror
You never really see figures about how fast, and how big that chunk of rock (?) was. Gimme a nice scientific factoid, in standard Volkswagen units or something.
Score: -1, Unbelievably Cynical
I'm sorry... Apple should make a what?
a cheap and portable desktop
What was that first part?
cheap
Expensive?
cheee -ap
Ex-pensive?
Joking aside, I really liked the Cube, but I don't think the expense (or the cracks - which I've never actually seen in real life Cube) was the whole story. I think people took one look at the Cube and just thought 'there is no way that is a powerful computer. It looks like a Bang & Olafsun Toaster.'
The current (official) name for the iMac is "iMac G4", to differentiate from the original G3-based iMac, so the typo probably happened with that number right next to the 4.
And I for one welcome our new anti-corporate open-source hippy weed-smokin' bastards.
We know CDs suck for longevity. This has been discussed on Slashdot more than JonKatz.
I'm sorry, we like to call those Jesus Horses now.
(Thanks Onion)
I know what you mean, man. When my signal strength is down, posting to Slashdot is a real bitch.
The success of the iPod doesn't seem to have significantly changed Apple's market share," said T. Michael Nevens, a director at both Borland Software and Broadvision and the former director of McKinsey & Company's technology consulting practice. And Mr. Nevens said that there was "no support for the theory" that the new digital appliances would bolster computer sales.
T. Michael Nevens is completely missing the point, I think.
I am reminded of an earlier interview with Jobs - I don't have the link, I believe it was maybe a Time article around the launch of the flatpanel iMac - and the interviewer kicked off the story with a description of his arrival. He came into the room that Jobs was in, sitting on the floor yoga-style, with a powerbook, and he was going through fonts. He sat there for 10 minutes looking at these various fonts, not speaking to the reporter. Then he looked up and said something like, 'Aren't these just beautiful? I love the fonts we licensed for OS X.'
This is a funny insight into Steve Jobs. I think he's just really bent on the idea of these seamless computers. When you really think about it, that real plug-and-play sort of mentality has always dominated the Mac experience. I think Jobs, Zen Weirdo that he is, fucking hates the whole Windows scene because to him it is just really really tacky. Too many options that are crap, none of it consistent, none of it forming something totally coherent from top to bottom.
So when T. Michael Nevens, or Random Slashdot Angrybot, says something about iPods not selling more Macs or affecting Mac sales, or not inreasing market share which clearly they have, just not appreciably in Macs, they are missing the context. Jobs' whole Seamless Vision Thing flows down from his input into the designs. The reason that iPods talk to iTunes so well, which talks to iPhoto and iDVD and all the other iCrap is because he just insists that it should work that way.
Then Rob Glasner talks about opening the iPod up to Rhapsody users, of course Jobs balks because he already has made the concession to market forces in selling the iPod for Windows at all. That is his mea culpa for keeping the original Macintosh project clamped down.
If Jobs had his way all of these little projects would make money - but if some of them have to act as bridges, or enabling mechanisms - the physical stores, the iTMS - then they will do so. The fact that all of the software and hardware work perfectly together is just the way Jobs wants it to work.
They bought the software for that UI from Pixo.
Not to say that they didn't do a fast and excellent job.
Ah, but software is only half of the answer, grasshopper.
Now go -
ponder the Thumbwheel,
and the Infinitely Reduced Number of Buttons.
Meditate on the Zen of No Moving Parts.
Dwell on the mystical FireWire Integration.
And do not ignore the Inviting Symmetry of the Thing.
(I leave it to someone else to set up a crack about the battery)
I love that saying.
In this case, we cannot adequately explain what has happened with incompetence. Every one of Diebold's machines made before the voting rigs had a paper receipt capability.
So if you use it to save driving directions or whatever, you may be breaking this law as well.
This is an interesting thing to say, I find, especially coming from American citizens. I am of the opinion that there are quite a few places, and people, in the world who can say whatever they damn well please.
ObQuoteSimpsons:
"Where else but in America - or perhaps Canada - could one do such a thing?"
There are certainly a large number of countries that are repressive, and limiting to free speech, but the US is hardly a beacon of shining light in this particular area these days. I can say a lot of things in Canada. Or Britain, or Australia, or Demnark, or Spain, or.. you get the point. In fact one could make the argument that I have more freedom in what I say in Canada, just due to the fact that many of the limitations on free speech are imposed by private citizens who control some form of media or forum, and have an axe to grind. Those Muzzle Awards about the kids who wore the NRA/GWB-terrorist shirts to school for instance.. if a kid wore a shirt calling Paul Martin a terrorist, he would likely get invited to join the debate club, in Ontario.
I get annoyed, however, at people, most notably the cults of personalities we call celebrities, who think that they have a right to make their words and comments louder or have them deemed more important than others. Two words: Barbra Streisand. Another two words: Jane Fonda. Look, I'm glad the two of you have an opinion, but just because you make millions in Hollywood and have played many roles in film doesn't give you any more credibility than the guy who slaves all day for his family.
I completely agree, but why are you annoyed? You don't have to listen to them.
Another problem I have is how some people think that Free Speech is a one-way thing, as if they can say what they want without criticism. The Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines learned this lesson the hard way. True, as an American on our soil you are free to express an opinion. However, the Americans who are listening to you are also free to react to your opinion by counter-comment, or even just to ignore what you said. In the case of Ms. Maines, some folks decided that they would ignore her group's album for a while.
The Dixie Chicks learned the 'hard way' that if they voice an unpopular political opinion, their fans will punish them economically, in the only way they can. That is a limit on free speech, albeit a self-imposed one, like I mentioned above. I think you should buy Dixie Chicks albums if you like the music. If you totally hate the thought of listening to music you like, sung by someone critical of a President you like, you should think about why you cannot separate those two ideas in your head.
Free speech always costs somebody something. My feeling is that the Right of Free Speech wouldn't be worth anything if you didn't lose something as you exercised your right.
What an odd thing to say.. we (collectively, Western Civilization 'we') already lost something... a bunch of people who died during the World Wars. They paid. We shouldn't have to lose anything more to exercise our hard-fought rights.
Free speech is self-correcting as well. That is its true power.
Absolutely - in a Free Society. If you don't get a chance, or worse, if the citizenry just decides that your particular speech is Bad... that's when it starts to crumble.
Just to pick nits - I don't think the antialiasing thing is true. That is a function of the drawing layer in whatever respective OS you are using. Word/Office can't really mess with that other than calling it. (Bad fonts are bad fonts however and will mess up lots of things, but thats neither here nor there.) I've certainly never seen that problem, and I've moved literally hundreds of Word and Excel files through my Mac and back to Windows, with nary an issue. PowerPoint, on the other hand....
VBScripts aren't just incompatible, they won't work at all - I don't think there is any kind of VB engine in the Mac version. Which is fine by me.
There's only one problem with this, but its a big problem:
The low-end computer market is no fun.
I don't think Apple wants to be there, and I don't really blame them. You've got tiny little margins. You need to strip out quality parts for 3rd-rate crap that doesn't last as long. And most importantly, you won't make a hell of a lot of money at it unless you are the only game in town... like Dell.
Think about it. Dell has successfully bludgeoned the other once-promising clone makers into fine powder; Gateway is closing its stores, IBM got out of PCs entirely, Compaq is a smudge under HP's ass... am I missing anyone?
The users who are willing to shop around and build (or commission) a custom PC using the cheapest parts are not a large market, nor are they a market that's willing to spend a lot of money.
Just like Palm computers, its a cutthroat business and doesn't really leave you time to innovate or do new, interesting things (like 23" displays for instance). Especially when you are Apple, and you manage (pay for) both the platform and OS development.
While I'm sure that was probably true at some point, that policy must have changed during the PS1's heyday - I can think of one specific example off the top of my head, Medevil - made by Sony's in-house studio - that was full of Burtonesque churches, cross, skeletons, etc.
I do agree that I don't think Nintendo is enforcing anything like this anymore, and the latest crop of Cube games certainly proves it. Do you remember when Resident Evil came out for Cube? I was a big deal, because that was the signal from Nintendo that you can now do more 'grown up' (ha!) game content. I have no idea as to the extent or nature of their original guidelines, but I would not be surprised to see a big push from Nintendo at E3 this year - not just for the new console, but for a whole new attitude in their games.
Your point about Nintendo footing the bill for development and managing sales expectations is well taken.
I don't think that has anything to do with Sony; that's just the general direction of the game industry. Forget PS2 - I don't see many 2D games, period.
To answer your question about 2D fighters however, I do believe that some of the SNK offerings are on PS2.
See, I would argue that it should be 'hands off and that's it'. At least in some capacity, or studio, or whatever the structure is. I'm all for being able to screen the crappier, or more violent, or more explicit games from youngsters. However when there is a kind of blanket limit on what kinds of games can be made at all - that's when I have a problem. And to finish the point I'm not even sure that Nintendo does do this, but somehow that effect seems to be in place, whether purposeful or not.
First of all, the latest Mario Kart game (and the two before them) were all first-party Nintendo titles, meaning they didn't force a vision on anyone but themselves. You may argue that they're still stifling their in-house developers, but that's not really what we're worried about at the moment.
Agreed. Nintendo set a style, and a rather nice style at that, totally their prerogative.
And lastly, i'm curious who you mean, exactly, by "people who eventually get sick of MarioKart's colour scheme.". Would that include the teenaged segment of the population that worships stuff like Halo, GTA3, or DOA: Extreme Volleyball?
Well, I'm not sure how to address that. I chose my words poorly with the MarioKart comment. Let me try and explain more clearly.
When MarioKart (to run with that again) came out, I liked it quite a bit; what I got bored of was the look and music of the game. I would never argue that both aspects were lacking in any way. I just got tired of it because, at the end of the day, this music was nothing I would normally listen to. These graphics, while masterful for that oeuvre if you will, would have done nothing for me outside of the gameplay experience they had created. Eventually I turned to playing Wipeout for my PS2, as it had music I actually liked, and would listen to normally. It had a look that was this dire, dystopian, futuristic thing that was cool - and violent. I wanted missles instead of bloody mushrooms, you know?
As for the Halo/GTA3/Volleyball comment... well, I do worship GTA3, I think its a brilliant freeform gameplay mechanic and a ridiculously fun game, with a cheezy 3rd-rate Sopranos storyline that just makes it funnier. Halo I'm lukewarm on, Volleyball does not bear mentioning. (no Xbox either.)
Again, if your sole reason for not playing a game is embarassment over a bright, colorful color scheme or oddball premise, maybe you should think about how mature you really are.
It's not the colour scheme. Really. I agree with you. I only mention this to point out that a great many Nintendo games - too many - fall into the supercute category, and the platform suffers a stigma as a result, in the common perceptions of Western gamers. It ain't necessarily right, and I'll defend to the death artworks like Metroid Prime and Pikmon, but Nintendo should have done more (earlier) to let publishers stretch out a bit.
I mention Sony because, as far as I know, they say nothing about how you should develop the content of your game. This is better, I think. There are better ways to sort out how appropriate content is for some players than making sure that possibly objectionable content never exists in the first place.
That's because you 'just had' a PC around, and you're not adding the cost to that.
Do the calculation for the lifetime of a console (about 4 years), figure in video card upgrades and Windows licenses, etc., add any downtime and screwing around due to drivers, viruses, etc. and then come talk to me about which is cheaper. Hell man, your video card alone costs the same as a console.
Actually, it does.
Now don't get me wrong - I do not mean to disagree with your point. I like Nintendo a lot and they make some great games. However, I disagree with your last statement.
Any sort of creative control that Nintendo exercises over the content of the games on their system is a bad thing. They have no place meddling in someone else's art. Sure its their right, as the console manufacturer, to enforce this Disneyfied vision on their developers, but it hurts them with other markets... like people who eventually get sick of MarioKart's colour scheme.
Sony has it right. Games are so mainstream now, they must be treated like movies - and more importantly, art, when warranted. Put a rating on the thing and stay the hell out of the creative. It stunts the available offerings.
(Disclaimer: I also realize that Nintendo has lightened up a bit of late)
Someby please mod this up. It's kind of a crucial fact.
As far as I can tell anyone can go and license FairPlay just like Apple did. How this works specifically with the iPod, I'm not sure, but unrestricted AACs and MP3s work fine as well...
I'll pick another one: In a way, I was embarassed on your behalf.
Just enable the 'Show status in menu bar' checkbox, in the prefs. One-click access to who's online. I never leave the window open. This is better than Adium's method IMHO.
That is a mighty list of formats, my friend. Can you take a look at this page and tell me you don't use even one of those formats?
QuickTime is not like WMP or Real. It is a media architecture. It is not a codec. Apple barely has any codecs to speak of that they themselves have made (Pixlet being one of the exceptions).
You know, that is a great setup.
Somebody should sell a 2-part controller: a rollerball mouse and a unit that is just like the left side of the PS2 controller.
Thanks for the input.