So, any plans to update the plugin so as NOT to destroy the album cover images on an iPod photo whenever the iPod is updated/ejected through WinAMP? That's my first reason for not using the plugin.
The other is that it destroys all my smart playlists, rendering them static.
I'm GLAD they're cutting modded Xboxes off of Live. Why? Because modded Xboxes make cheating a HELL of a lot easier. There have been a lot of problems on Halo 2, for example, with people using hacked a hacked profile that elimiated reload times, and now there are hacked maps that allow people to have more poweful weapons than the other team.
If you're going to hack up your Xbox, just keep it off Live, and you'll be set. If you want to play Live, get an unmodded one.
All I have to say when it comes to the new Xbox 360 visualizations is...
HELL YEAH!
Jeff Minter is doing the things, and with what he's done on the Jag and the Nuon platform with lightsynths and trippy effects, it's safe to say that the visualizations on the 360 will be nothing like the poor things on the Xbox. They're sure to be amazing displays, and I'm really looking forward to them!
I think I used my JagCD more for the visualizations than for gaming...
So this article is completely and totally garbage.
Thank you. That is all.
Re:Why is the parent modded "Insightful"?
on
PS3 vs. Xbox 360
·
· Score: 1
Hey, I'm not saying that the Xbox 360 isn't hyped - there's a lot of hype coming out for both consoles.
Just that Sony has a track record of promising a ton of features, and even showing them on early versions of the console, then having a lot of those things just "disappear" in the final console.
I don't remember the first Xbox coming anywhere near that level of over-promising/under-delivering.
Microsoft cares not for the gaming community, only how to make money off of them. Why let you play Halo and Halo 2 on the 360 for free, when you can pay to buy those games again?
Yeah, cause of course this has been confirmed by Microsoft, right?
I'd make some comment about how unfair it is to take a rumor that's being passed around - one that's been more or less contradicted by a recent interview in Engadget - and use it to attack a company. But this is Slashdot, and people have found a lot flimsier reasons to attack MS. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Look - a large part of the Xbox crew are serious gamers - of COURSE they care about the gaming community. And I fully expect that the Xbox 360 is going to play my copies of Halo and Halo 2 just fine without having to spend another dime on those games.
And I'll probably still be playing tons of Halo 2 when the 360 comes out.:)
With the new gen of consoles, I think I'm most interested in seeing the online experience the various consoles offer. I have broadband, and about 2 1/2 months ago I discovered Xbox Live - which has so been worthwhile overall for me. Sure, I get the obnoxious teenagers spewing garbage, but I also have plenty of friends to play with and talk to, and now an entire clan (w00t! Go PMS!) of people to team up with. So I'm getting plenty more good experiences than bad.
Which is why I want to see how things work with the next gen systems. I want online not to feel like some tacked-on thing, but integral to my gaming on the console. Live for the 360 looks like it's going to be really nice, and Nintendo's may turn out really well also, with all the downloadable games. What about the PS3's version? All that's come from them has more or less been "like Xbox Live but better" - which is meaningless and doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
I know there's not enough broadband out there for it to be the biggest deciding factor, but I bet it's going to make a sigificant impact on console sales, and even more so in the future generations.
The information I have seen comes directly from someone involved on the base software for one of the consoles, who has had the opportunties to analyze what games are actually DOING while they're running.
From the data that's been gathered, games spend 10-20% of their time doing floating point - unless explicitly written otherwise). This is from profiling actual running game code.
Well, remember how overstated the Xbox and PS2 were in regards to processing power when compared to the GameCube? When it came to reality, the GC was right alongside the other two consoles, even though they weren't claiming the same numbers.
Right now, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are being touted with these insane numbers that have no basis to actual GAMES - who cares how many FLOPS the PS3 can do, a very small part of the processing a game has to do is floating point.
Let's wait and see - in regards to the reality of what's created, the Revolution may not be far off the others.
This is a Slashdot article on a Microsoft product - there's no room for reality here! You have to bash MS for things that they're not doing, and explain why they now are responsible for everything wrong in your life!
You start mentioning truth here, people are going to start assuming that MS is paying you and come harass you personally for being evil, since only evil paid MS supporters have anything less than a raving hatred for the company.
Well, if I've brought only a couple people down to earth with my posting, then it was worth the time to do it. It's not the people that would believe a claim from Sony that the PS3 could handle them uploading their brains into it that I care about - they're already long gone.
Besides, the sane people know that hardware specs are mostly meaningless - it's the games, and possibly this generation, also about the online services.
It also doesn't matter how powerful it is if you can't write good games that can easily take advantage of that power - look at the Jaguar. Lots of power at the time, yet too hard to code for, so very little made use of what it could do.
Remember the PS2 Hype?
on
PS3 vs. Xbox 360
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
You know, one from when people were so excited about all the USB ports and the Firewire port and the PCMCIA port on the PS2, how it could render Toy Story in real-time and movie studios were looking at using them for render farms. Where it would be easy to edit home movies on the PS2. And how it was HD compatible so you could play all your games in HD.
Or how Sony stated that the PS2 would be a viable entertainment platform for 10 years.
Does anyone actually expect the PS3 to ship with the 255 different ports on the thing that the E3 demo one had? I sure as hell don't. I expect the PS3 that is sold to be a substantially different machine. The Xbox 360, however, will be little changed.
You know what I spend all my console time playing? Halo 2 on Xbox Live.
I've had years of experience with PC online gaming - I remember looking up Quake server lists on Stomped.com in the pre-Quakespy (later Gamespy) era. I've seen the changes over time. But I find Xbox Live to be the best online service I've used to date, because it's so well integrated with the console and at least games like Halo 2.
You're right - online play wasn't a big thing with this generation, though it's a much bigger thing to Xbox owners than to the other two because of the ease of use. However, I think it's going to be a LOT more important to the next generation. And I have to say that I'd give the Xbox 360 the clear advantage here because they've already done it for a generation, learned what works and what doesn't, and plan on making it a very integral part of the 360 experience for those that have broadband.
I can say right now that I sure as hell will be getting a Xbox 360 (especially with the backwards compat news), and my Xbox Live subscription won't be lapsing anytime soon.
I hope Nintendo has been paying close attention to Xbox Live and knows how to pick out the good stuff - especially with the downloading of older games, the online experience will be VITAL for the console.
I keep seeing people talking about "Revolution vs. other console" - but something tells me this may not exactly be their main goal. They don't have to be the console that everyone goes after first.
Depending on how the situation is with being able to play the old games, it may be enough of a draw to anyone who has ever owned or played a Nintendo console to be THE 2nd console that everyone goes after - to the point that it could quite possibly outsell the other two if it reaches such a status.
Give people enough free game downloads with the console, and it may well attract people for just that purpose - I know it's already got me thinking about getting one (depending on more information, of course).
I wonder if that's their intenion - not trying to be the console that everyone goes nuts for with the big-name games, but being the affordable one with 5 different generation's worth of titles available easily and cheaply. The one that is such a good deal that nobody can pass it up.
For a while, the only current-gen console I had was the GC - and it got a LOT of use. Metroid Prime. MK:DD. SC2. Animal Crossing. Super Monkey Ball 1/2. Eternal Darkness. SSB:M.
After I bought my Xbox, the use went down - then stopped once I became addicted to Halo 2 on Xbox Live. It's not that I don't want to continue to play on it, just that I don't have enough time for all the Halo 2 I want to play, let alone play on the GC also.:)
They're planning on having multiple "zones" on Live, for different types of players. One for casual gamers, one for those who see themselves as pros, and "underground" zone (WTF does this mean?), and a family one. I assume that the rules for what goes on each zone is different - swearing and screaming in the family zone is likely to get you banned QUICKLY, while perhaps anything goes in the "underground" zone.
And yes, there's the reputation thing also, and when you leave negative feedback for others, the system will remember that and decrease the chances that it'll match you up with such people again - and perhaps try and match you up more often with people you leave good feedback for.
And friends lists go a LONG way toward making Live much more enjoyable - I spend most of my Halo 2 time playing with friends, coworkers, and clan-mates (PMS, baby!).
Re:Sony should be very scared indeed...
on
Out Of The XBox
·
· Score: 1
You do realize that the video from OurColony.net contained footage of people playing Halo 2 on the Xbox 360, along with pics of the Xbox Live Dashboard in the "Xbox 1" zone, and the Fable icon present?
Of course, the latter could be explained by them testing out the new Live Dashboard on the Xbox, if they've done that. Footage of Halo 2 (and another game) on the Xbox 360, though, is a slightly different story.
Microsoft values diversity in its hiring practices for various reasons. They WANT a variety of people working here. This helps to attract great talent.
However, the people that work at Microsoft also have to live in the surrounding communities. And while employees won't have to face discrimination at work, if they have to deal with it when going about the rest of their lives, it will negatively impact their desire to work in such a place. It doesn't matter if you can work at MS if you're getting denied for housing, or your partner is unable to find a job.
So from a perspective of finding the best employees, this is related to business.
It's not just a "feel good campaign". It does affect the company - MS has lost employees over this, and had possible employees turn down offers and even change their minds on previously accepted offers. And that doesn't even take into account business lost because of the decision.
Attracting and retaining talent is very important - which is one of the reasons for the pro-diversity attitide inside the company. They've realized that supporting things inside isn't enough when people also have to live in areas where they may not find the same attitude toward diversity. No matter how accepting MS may be of gay employees, if that employee can't find housing because of being discriminated against, they're not going to work at MS. This helps support that goal.
I submitted the story myself (and was rejected) right before they posted it - because I waited until I saw that Microsoft had actually made the letter available outside the company, as I figured it was very important to have that formal statement to really show it's happening.
It's been a great morning, and a lot of people who were very upset earlier this morning are feeling much happier now. It shows that the company truly is committed to diversity and supporting ALL their employees.
And yeah, I know some employees are going to feel like this is NOT supporting them, but to be fair, supporting us doesn't mean supporting discrimination for those who disagree with us - which is what it would have been if they supported the other side. The company knows they'll have trouble attracting the best employees if some of them have to face discrimination in housing and such.
Wierd - I must have been seeing a cached version when I was looking, because nothing had changed.
I'm not worried about the lvl 1 range. The change in the experience levels out to get people up and out of there quickly enough that there shouldn't be too much of a skill difference for those that do hang around there long term - and the ones that are better get out of there quickly anyway.
I'm quite interested in seeing how thing settle out now with the changes. I should be able to get back up to 12 in no time at all. I'm quite curious to see where I start to stabilize though - especially since I hadn't stabilized before, having only played 2 months and still improving significantly.
I didn't see any evidence of such a change on the stats overview page. Can you point me to where they have that information?
Besides, now that the levels should be a lot more even in skill level, the games should actually be MORE interesting and closer than they were before. At least once people start drifting to the proper levels.
For random matchmaking play, the audio chat is rarely of any value whatsoever - other than the idiots opening their mouth to spew crap so you can find the people to leave negative feedback for.
However, playing with friends - especially when you're all on a team - shows that there is a lot of value to the chat. Keeping teammates informed about what's happening leads to better team play - get told where the sniper is so you can avoid/kill them, know where they're taking the flag/bomb, call a teammate over to get them the weapon they're best with - all very useful when done.
And a little trash talk (done right) is a FUN thing.
(GT: GibGirl for anyone caring - include a voice msg if you FR me)
Well, the rumours have been going around that the Xbox 2 would use wireless controllers only - the supposed leaked pics of the control don't have a wire, which would support that theory.
I don't take the article seriously, however, since "unnamed" sources are confirming things. This we can't confirm that their sources are of any value. In fact, I have an "unnamed" source that will confirm that it will be called the "Xtreme Xbox", feature 6 controller ports, have 10 7.8 Ghz processors and a 2Tb hard drive, and retail for $2499. My source is just as trustworthy.
Slashdot Mirror
So, any plans to update the plugin so as NOT to destroy the album cover images on an iPod photo whenever the iPod is updated/ejected through WinAMP? That's my first reason for not using the plugin.
The other is that it destroys all my smart playlists, rendering them static.
I'm GLAD they're cutting modded Xboxes off of Live. Why? Because modded Xboxes make cheating a HELL of a lot easier. There have been a lot of problems on Halo 2, for example, with people using hacked a hacked profile that elimiated reload times, and now there are hacked maps that allow people to have more poweful weapons than the other team.
If you're going to hack up your Xbox, just keep it off Live, and you'll be set. If you want to play Live, get an unmodded one.
All I have to say when it comes to the new Xbox 360 visualizations is...
HELL YEAH!
Jeff Minter is doing the things, and with what he's done on the Jag and the Nuon platform with lightsynths and trippy effects, it's safe to say that the visualizations on the 360 will be nothing like the poor things on the Xbox. They're sure to be amazing displays, and I'm really looking forward to them!
I think I used my JagCD more for the visualizations than for gaming...
OK, this isn't really a reply to the parent, but getting something at the top of the thread.
NO, THERE WILL BE NO NEED TO RECOMPILE XBOX GAMES.
So this article is completely and totally garbage.
Thank you. That is all.
Hey, I'm not saying that the Xbox 360 isn't hyped - there's a lot of hype coming out for both consoles.
Just that Sony has a track record of promising a ton of features, and even showing them on early versions of the console, then having a lot of those things just "disappear" in the final console.
I don't remember the first Xbox coming anywhere near that level of over-promising/under-delivering.
Microsoft cares not for the gaming community, only how to make money off of them. Why let you play Halo and Halo 2 on the 360 for free, when you can pay to buy those games again?
:)
Yeah, cause of course this has been confirmed by Microsoft, right?
I'd make some comment about how unfair it is to take a rumor that's being passed around - one that's been more or less contradicted by a recent interview in Engadget - and use it to attack a company. But this is Slashdot, and people have found a lot flimsier reasons to attack MS. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Look - a large part of the Xbox crew are serious gamers - of COURSE they care about the gaming community. And I fully expect that the Xbox 360 is going to play my copies of Halo and Halo 2 just fine without having to spend another dime on those games.
And I'll probably still be playing tons of Halo 2 when the 360 comes out.
With the new gen of consoles, I think I'm most interested in seeing the online experience the various consoles offer. I have broadband, and about 2 1/2 months ago I discovered Xbox Live - which has so been worthwhile overall for me. Sure, I get the obnoxious teenagers spewing garbage, but I also have plenty of friends to play with and talk to, and now an entire clan (w00t! Go PMS!) of people to team up with. So I'm getting plenty more good experiences than bad.
Which is why I want to see how things work with the next gen systems. I want online not to feel like some tacked-on thing, but integral to my gaming on the console. Live for the 360 looks like it's going to be really nice, and Nintendo's may turn out really well also, with all the downloadable games. What about the PS3's version? All that's come from them has more or less been "like Xbox Live but better" - which is meaningless and doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
I know there's not enough broadband out there for it to be the biggest deciding factor, but I bet it's going to make a sigificant impact on console sales, and even more so in the future generations.
The information I have seen comes directly from someone involved on the base software for one of the consoles, who has had the opportunties to analyze what games are actually DOING while they're running.
From the data that's been gathered, games spend 10-20% of their time doing floating point - unless explicitly written otherwise). This is from profiling actual running game code.
Well, remember how overstated the Xbox and PS2 were in regards to processing power when compared to the GameCube? When it came to reality, the GC was right alongside the other two consoles, even though they weren't claiming the same numbers.
Right now, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are being touted with these insane numbers that have no basis to actual GAMES - who cares how many FLOPS the PS3 can do, a very small part of the processing a game has to do is floating point.
Let's wait and see - in regards to the reality of what's created, the Revolution may not be far off the others.
Shhh... quiet!
This is a Slashdot article on a Microsoft product - there's no room for reality here! You have to bash MS for things that they're not doing, and explain why they now are responsible for everything wrong in your life!
You start mentioning truth here, people are going to start assuming that MS is paying you and come harass you personally for being evil, since only evil paid MS supporters have anything less than a raving hatred for the company.
Well, if I've brought only a couple people down to earth with my posting, then it was worth the time to do it. It's not the people that would believe a claim from Sony that the PS3 could handle them uploading their brains into it that I care about - they're already long gone.
Besides, the sane people know that hardware specs are mostly meaningless - it's the games, and possibly this generation, also about the online services.
It also doesn't matter how powerful it is if you can't write good games that can easily take advantage of that power - look at the Jaguar. Lots of power at the time, yet too hard to code for, so very little made use of what it could do.
In case you don't read this old article.
You know, one from when people were so excited about all the USB ports and the Firewire port and the PCMCIA port on the PS2, how it could render Toy Story in real-time and movie studios were looking at using them for render farms. Where it would be easy to edit home movies on the PS2. And how it was HD compatible so you could play all your games in HD.
Or how Sony stated that the PS2 would be a viable entertainment platform for 10 years.
Does anyone actually expect the PS3 to ship with the 255 different ports on the thing that the E3 demo one had? I sure as hell don't. I expect the PS3 that is sold to be a substantially different machine. The Xbox 360, however, will be little changed.
You know what I spend all my console time playing? Halo 2 on Xbox Live.
I've had years of experience with PC online gaming - I remember looking up Quake server lists on Stomped.com in the pre-Quakespy (later Gamespy) era. I've seen the changes over time. But I find Xbox Live to be the best online service I've used to date, because it's so well integrated with the console and at least games like Halo 2.
You're right - online play wasn't a big thing with this generation, though it's a much bigger thing to Xbox owners than to the other two because of the ease of use. However, I think it's going to be a LOT more important to the next generation. And I have to say that I'd give the Xbox 360 the clear advantage here because they've already done it for a generation, learned what works and what doesn't, and plan on making it a very integral part of the 360 experience for those that have broadband.
I can say right now that I sure as hell will be getting a Xbox 360 (especially with the backwards compat news), and my Xbox Live subscription won't be lapsing anytime soon.
I hope Nintendo has been paying close attention to Xbox Live and knows how to pick out the good stuff - especially with the downloading of older games, the online experience will be VITAL for the console.
I keep seeing people talking about "Revolution vs. other console" - but something tells me this may not exactly be their main goal. They don't have to be the console that everyone goes after first.
Depending on how the situation is with being able to play the old games, it may be enough of a draw to anyone who has ever owned or played a Nintendo console to be THE 2nd console that everyone goes after - to the point that it could quite possibly outsell the other two if it reaches such a status.
Give people enough free game downloads with the console, and it may well attract people for just that purpose - I know it's already got me thinking about getting one (depending on more information, of course).
I wonder if that's their intenion - not trying to be the console that everyone goes nuts for with the big-name games, but being the affordable one with 5 different generation's worth of titles available easily and cheaply. The one that is such a good deal that nobody can pass it up.
For a while, the only current-gen console I had was the GC - and it got a LOT of use. Metroid Prime. MK:DD. SC2. Animal Crossing. Super Monkey Ball 1/2. Eternal Darkness. SSB:M.
:)
After I bought my Xbox, the use went down - then stopped once I became addicted to Halo 2 on Xbox Live. It's not that I don't want to continue to play on it, just that I don't have enough time for all the Halo 2 I want to play, let alone play on the GC also.
They're planning on having multiple "zones" on Live, for different types of players. One for casual gamers, one for those who see themselves as pros, and "underground" zone (WTF does this mean?), and a family one. I assume that the rules for what goes on each zone is different - swearing and screaming in the family zone is likely to get you banned QUICKLY, while perhaps anything goes in the "underground" zone.
And yes, there's the reputation thing also, and when you leave negative feedback for others, the system will remember that and decrease the chances that it'll match you up with such people again - and perhaps try and match you up more often with people you leave good feedback for.
And friends lists go a LONG way toward making Live much more enjoyable - I spend most of my Halo 2 time playing with friends, coworkers, and clan-mates (PMS, baby!).
You do realize that the video from OurColony.net contained footage of people playing Halo 2 on the Xbox 360, along with pics of the Xbox Live Dashboard in the "Xbox 1" zone, and the Fable icon present?
Of course, the latter could be explained by them testing out the new Live Dashboard on the Xbox, if they've done that. Footage of Halo 2 (and another game) on the Xbox 360, though, is a slightly different story.
I've said it elsewhere, but I'll say it again.
This does directly impact Microsoft.
Microsoft values diversity in its hiring practices for various reasons. They WANT a variety of people working here. This helps to attract great talent.
However, the people that work at Microsoft also have to live in the surrounding communities. And while employees won't have to face discrimination at work, if they have to deal with it when going about the rest of their lives, it will negatively impact their desire to work in such a place. It doesn't matter if you can work at MS if you're getting denied for housing, or your partner is unable to find a job.
So from a perspective of finding the best employees, this is related to business.
It's not just a "feel good campaign". It does affect the company - MS has lost employees over this, and had possible employees turn down offers and even change their minds on previously accepted offers. And that doesn't even take into account business lost because of the decision.
Attracting and retaining talent is very important - which is one of the reasons for the pro-diversity attitide inside the company. They've realized that supporting things inside isn't enough when people also have to live in areas where they may not find the same attitude toward diversity. No matter how accepting MS may be of gay employees, if that employee can't find housing because of being discriminated against, they're not going to work at MS. This helps support that goal.
I submitted the story myself (and was rejected) right before they posted it - because I waited until I saw that Microsoft had actually made the letter available outside the company, as I figured it was very important to have that formal statement to really show it's happening.
It's been a great morning, and a lot of people who were very upset earlier this morning are feeling much happier now. It shows that the company truly is committed to diversity and supporting ALL their employees.
And yeah, I know some employees are going to feel like this is NOT supporting them, but to be fair, supporting us doesn't mean supporting discrimination for those who disagree with us - which is what it would have been if they supported the other side. The company knows they'll have trouble attracting the best employees if some of them have to face discrimination in housing and such.
In case anyone wants full confirmation, the email is also located on Microsoft's web site.
It's a good day for some of us Microsofties that were really upset at what happened.
Wierd - I must have been seeing a cached version when I was looking, because nothing had changed.
I'm not worried about the lvl 1 range. The change in the experience levels out to get people up and out of there quickly enough that there shouldn't be too much of a skill difference for those that do hang around there long term - and the ones that are better get out of there quickly anyway.
I'm quite interested in seeing how thing settle out now with the changes. I should be able to get back up to 12 in no time at all. I'm quite curious to see where I start to stabilize though - especially since I hadn't stabilized before, having only played 2 months and still improving significantly.
I didn't see any evidence of such a change on the stats overview page. Can you point me to where they have that information?
Besides, now that the levels should be a lot more even in skill level, the games should actually be MORE interesting and closer than they were before. At least once people start drifting to the proper levels.
For random matchmaking play, the audio chat is rarely of any value whatsoever - other than the idiots opening their mouth to spew crap so you can find the people to leave negative feedback for.
However, playing with friends - especially when you're all on a team - shows that there is a lot of value to the chat. Keeping teammates informed about what's happening leads to better team play - get told where the sniper is so you can avoid/kill them, know where they're taking the flag/bomb, call a teammate over to get them the weapon they're best with - all very useful when done.
And a little trash talk (done right) is a FUN thing.
(GT: GibGirl for anyone caring - include a voice msg if you FR me)
Well, the rumours have been going around that the Xbox 2 would use wireless controllers only - the supposed leaked pics of the control don't have a wire, which would support that theory.
I don't take the article seriously, however, since "unnamed" sources are confirming things. This we can't confirm that their sources are of any value. In fact, I have an "unnamed" source that will confirm that it will be called the "Xtreme Xbox", feature 6 controller ports, have 10 7.8 Ghz processors and a 2Tb hard drive, and retail for $2499. My source is just as trustworthy.