Because, assuming Halo 3 does things the same way as Halo 2, it doesn't work like the same old PC FPS server. They threw all that decade-old stale stuff out the window.
When you play a game of Halo 2, you get your friends together in a group, if you desire, then you set it up to search for a game in a specific playlist - such as a 4 player Team Slayer (deathmatch) game. The system matches up your group against a group of other people, and then you play on a playlist-selected map with playlist-selected rules, such as a standard 50-kill deathmatch. After the game is over, you see results, then you go back and do it again. It makes sure you play against a variety of people and different game types. It uses the results to also give you a ranking, and matches you up against other people based on that ranking - you play people of your skill level.
It's about 100 times better than the standard PC server setup.
Well, if that's the case, then something like Last.fm would be a good place to test it - ideally, people should find most of their musical neighbors have very similar views and the like.
I can say that for the most part, I've gotten along well with all my neighbors on the site that I've chatted with.
I think most of the people ragging on the Zune are just repeating the same crap that other people have said, without actually taking the time to double-check any of it or play with a Zune.
I have a 4G iPod and a Zune. Each has it's advantages, but overall, I like the Zune device better than the iPod. The bigger screen is very nice and I find the UI easier to use in general. I have my nitpicks, some that will surely be changed soon (live updating of auto playlists, for example), and some that might have to wait a while longer (better use of the wireless). But my iPod usually sits in the dock for our clock radio all the time, while the Zune comes with me.
(Now, the software for the devices? That's a different topic...)
Last.fm is amazingly good at helping find new music - and it's a lot easier than digging through miscellaneous streams from various sources.
I've bought so many CDs as a result of that website. And the great majority of them are non-RIAA labels, and things that are so much more enjoyable to me than the mass-marketed artists that are often good but not great. My music taste has almost entirely changed as a result of that site, and finding out about genres that I wasn't even aware existed before signing up there.
In comparison to Last.fm, the radio is horrible at pointing me to new music.
The inclusion of a built-in hard drive in the original Xbox put a higher bottom limit on how much they could reduce the price of the console. I think I've seen it stated that they're still losing money on sales of the $149 Xbox at this point, and that part of that is the fact that hard drives don't get cheaper, they get bigger.
By making the HD external, it offers the chance for a HD-less system to hit a low price point that also makes a profit. Thus there could be a time when the 360 core system goes for $150, so that it's affordable by a lot of consumers, and at the same time, doesn't actually cost MS money when it's purchased.
And there are people out there who are just using it as a simple gaming system in the same way as previous ones - a memory card for some save games, and that's it. Why force such people to pay for a HD they don't actually need?
Actually, from what I've read, the game engine is actually based off of a previous Star Trek game - there are apparently a few bugs present in it that are dead-on matches with bugs in the previous game, and they're some strange little rare bugs.
Re:Why is it so hard to make a good Star Trek game
on
Star Trek Legacy Review
·
· Score: 2, Funny
That's what multiplayer mode is for - watching the USS Voyager explode into little bits, knowing Janeway and company are all nice and dead. Too bad Archer commanded one of the early ships, since nobody chooses that one in multiplayer - it deserves destruction even more than Voyager.
There are a few characters in DOA that my friends and I have moves that we've taken to calling the "Kirk" - his trademark double-fisted downward slam that he always did in any fist-fight in Star Trek. Add that to the scantily-clad ladies in that game, and all you're missing is the painful method of dialog delivery that Shatner always managed...
Games have the abilities to award gamerpics through game play. There aren't many taking advantage of this, but there are a few - and I'd really like to see more use of it. It's not the same as what you're talking about - but it could cover some of it.
All Xbox Live Arcade games are required to have 12 achievements worth a total of 200 gamerscore. All retail games are required to have between 5 and 50 achievements, worth a maximum of 1000 gamerscore.
And the issue with "easy gamerscore" was more prevalent near launch, as the concept was still new and not all the developers put effort into creating worthy achievements. The 2K sports games, for example, had ridiculously easy achievements in the 2K6 games - NBA 2K6 and College Hoops 2K6 each had only 5 achievements, and they are easy enough that you can get all 1000 gamerscore in a single game, and a lot of people have borrowed/rented those two because they're so easy. But if you look at the 2K7 titles, there are a lot more achievements, and they're not nearly as easy.
If you check one of the websites dedicated to achievements (such as Achieve360Points.com, you'll see that games have really improved their achievements over time, as most games have a few easy ones that you get early on, a good amount that you get when you really spend time in the game, and then a few that are extremely tough - though the ridiculously tough ones such as getting #1 on the leaderboard have also disappeared lately, because they just result in people gaming the leaderboards to get there instead of actually playing.
And I think it's just as impressive to see the websites that have taken advantage of having your gamer profile visible on the web, such as MyGamerCard.net, and created leaderboards and the like based on the gamerscore.
I think I should point out that the Atari Jaguar had at least that many titles in their "under development" list at one point. We see how many of those got released...
Just because there's a list of upcoming games doesn't mean that they're all going to be released.
If the music you want isn't available through the Zune subscription, contact the artist and/or label to get them to allow it. They're the ones with the final say over what can and can't be done through subscription.
If you're thinking that it's the choice of Microsoft/the Zune team over what's on subscription and what's not, you're completely incorrect. Neither iTunes nor the Zune marketplace make any real money off of music sales. It's the hardware that makes the money. There's no incentive for the Zune team to hold certain music off of the subscription service. Now, as to whether or not the labels have incentive to do so... that I have no idea about.
And with an iPod, your music selections are only from the iTunes store. And buying online from non-iTunes non-Zune stores require devices that are more complex to use and sync up.
But the Zune has a subscription service - for a flat monthly rate, you can get most of the music from the Zune store onto your device. (Most - not all, as they're still working on getting more content approved for subscription service) Now, I'm not a fan of buying music online at ALL, since I loathe DRM, and would rather buy the music on CD which lets me play it in many more places and even determine the bitrate of the file myself. But the subscription does seem like a decent deal, especially if there's a lot of music on there you like.
Perhaps you want the full experience with the Zune Home A/V Kit - a dock you can permanently connect up to the stereo and TV, with a charger so that the Zune gets powered when connected, and even a remote control so you don't even have to touch the device.
Of course, you don't need the full kit to connect it up - just the A/V cable.
The iPod clickwheel's importance will vary from person to person. I have a 4G iPod, and a Zune - and I find that using the Zune, I don't miss the clickwheel at all. I fully expected to, and I don't.
In fact, between the two devices, I can't think of one thing that I like more about the iPod than the Zune. Perhaps it would be partially due to the fact that I only have a 4G iPod instead of the latest ones, but I like the Zune more than I expected to. The only things that really disappoint me are that I can't use at as a portable hard drive (easily - I know about the registry changes to kind of enable it), and that I can't upload my played music to Last.fm.
(To be upfront here, I work at MS - as part of the Xbox team, so I even got a free Zune - in pink. But I also use WinAmp instead of WMP, and Firefox instead of IE. I use whatever fits my needs best - and right now, my Zune gets used most of the time, and my iPod is always connected to my iPod-compatible alarm clock.)
Don't forget all the testing that would have to go into a browser on the console, especially security testing.
Now think about all that time spent getting a browser working on the 360, and imagine that time is spent, instead, adding features that will improve your gaming experience.
Which would you want? A browser, or better gaming on your gaming console?
Yep. I post a list of things the 360 does and the PS3 doesn't do, and the response is vitriol and garbage and claims that's I'm the fanboy? (At least it should have been fanGIRL)
Bah, I'm not wasting my time on that AC anymore...
From the forums I visit it appears that the RFOM online experience is very good and without a doubt Sony is playing catchup to Microsoft, but I am curious why you don't believe they won't catch up. From where I sit it appears that Sony has done a fair job of its online service at this point and it looks like they are working hard on making it even better.There's no doubt the PS3's online experience will improve with time, as they're able to add things. But as to "catching up" to Xbox Live? Remember, the Xbox Live team isn't going to be sitting there watching, but adding more functionality and improving what's already there. So Sony's attempt at catching up means hitting a moving target - and don't forget, there's all sorts of internal work that will undoubtedly have to be done for both systems to for increasing capacity, etc.
By the time that the PS3's online feature set matches what Xbox Live has now, there will be plenty more features on the latter - and the PS3 will have to complete against that feature set and deal with the consequences. Notice that the PS3 is getting dinged for the fact that you can't do background downloads and the 360 can. That wasn't something the 360 did at launch, but it does now, and what can be done NOW is what matters to people.
Also, how much does XBOX live gold/platinum (whatever) cost per year? If it is something like $5 to $10 then this isn't that big of an issue either, but if it is like $50 or $100 then I can see this being a larger issue for Microsoft.Xbox Live gold accounts are $50 a year(or a little more if you pay per month or per 3 months). No, it's not free - but it's only the cost of a single game, less than $5 a month. Honestly, that's not much money at all - skip Starbucks for a day or two, or eat ramen noodles instead of making a trip out for fast food twice a month, and you've more than made up for it.
Pictures in messages also require a gold account - though that's just a minor item.
You're right though - most of the Xbox Live capabilities are available through a free silver account. I don't think it's wrong, however, to include them in a comparison between the PS3's free online play and the Xbox Live $50 a year online play, since you do get them - and if online play is what you're after, a silver account isn't really part of the picture.
The 360 dash now has an option that will allow you to have notifications turned off while watching a movie. Meaning that people can't disturb you anymore if you don't want them to.
So if you want to play with a friend, invite away!
Yeah, Sony really provides the same thing as Microsoft does, and does it for free.
The PS3 has one friends list throughout all of the games right? With detailed presence information about what those friends are doing? How about being able to send text, voice, and images all in a message to a friend? And send and receive those in the middle of a game? What about game invites - can you be playing Resistance, and then get informed that a friend has just invited you to play Motorstorm? And when you get an invite, can you have it take you right into the game with that friend? Can you voice chat with a friend, while playing different games, and then continue the conversation while you change games and your friend starts watching a movie?
And how about your game profile? Can you see what various games your friends have played, and when they last played them? How about being able to see that information from the web?
Oh, that's right, the PS3 does NONE of that. You get a friends list that only works in some games, while other games have their own list. You can only read and send messages while you're not in a game, and you can't even see a game invite unless you're already in the same game - and even then, you still have to find that game.
What the PS3 offers for free now is inferior to what the original Xbox offered years ago in terms of online service. Of course they're giving it away, since there's nothing there worth paying for.
The WiFi could be a killer feature if it didn't suck, but it does, which means no squirting, which means there's really no fucking point to even having it.Yeah, cause of course, they're not going to add any features in future firmware updates that would make more use of the WiFi.
Except it will most definitely happen. Will people still be bashing the WiFi a year down the line when, say, you can wirelessly sync with your PC, have your friends all grabbing your music stream on their Zunes so you're all listening to the same thing at the same time, grab songs from WiFi kiosks at a concert or a music store, etc? The key is getting the WiFi in the Zune and working at launch - and enhancing the functionality in the future.
Is it fair to say that the current limited set of WiFi functionality isn't that impressive, and isn't enough to justify buying one at this point? Yes, it is. Is it fair to say that it wasn't worth putting it in there just because of how it's being used at launch? Hell no.
Slashdot Mirror
Because, assuming Halo 3 does things the same way as Halo 2, it doesn't work like the same old PC FPS server. They threw all that decade-old stale stuff out the window.
When you play a game of Halo 2, you get your friends together in a group, if you desire, then you set it up to search for a game in a specific playlist - such as a 4 player Team Slayer (deathmatch) game. The system matches up your group against a group of other people, and then you play on a playlist-selected map with playlist-selected rules, such as a standard 50-kill deathmatch. After the game is over, you see results, then you go back and do it again. It makes sure you play against a variety of people and different game types. It uses the results to also give you a ranking, and matches you up against other people based on that ranking - you play people of your skill level.
It's about 100 times better than the standard PC server setup.
Well, if that's the case, then something like Last.fm would be a good place to test it - ideally, people should find most of their musical neighbors have very similar views and the like.
I can say that for the most part, I've gotten along well with all my neighbors on the site that I've chatted with.
Pandora's not bad, especially since it can make some strange jumps that help with finding new things.
However, it's just a little toy compared to everything that Last.fm does at this point.
I think most of the people ragging on the Zune are just repeating the same crap that other people have said, without actually taking the time to double-check any of it or play with a Zune.
I have a 4G iPod and a Zune. Each has it's advantages, but overall, I like the Zune device better than the iPod. The bigger screen is very nice and I find the UI easier to use in general. I have my nitpicks, some that will surely be changed soon (live updating of auto playlists, for example), and some that might have to wait a while longer (better use of the wireless). But my iPod usually sits in the dock for our clock radio all the time, while the Zune comes with me.
(Now, the software for the devices? That's a different topic...)
Last.fm is amazingly good at helping find new music - and it's a lot easier than digging through miscellaneous streams from various sources.
I've bought so many CDs as a result of that website. And the great majority of them are non-RIAA labels, and things that are so much more enjoyable to me than the mass-marketed artists that are often good but not great. My music taste has almost entirely changed as a result of that site, and finding out about genres that I wasn't even aware existed before signing up there.
In comparison to Last.fm, the radio is horrible at pointing me to new music.
The inclusion of a built-in hard drive in the original Xbox put a higher bottom limit on how much they could reduce the price of the console. I think I've seen it stated that they're still losing money on sales of the $149 Xbox at this point, and that part of that is the fact that hard drives don't get cheaper, they get bigger.
By making the HD external, it offers the chance for a HD-less system to hit a low price point that also makes a profit. Thus there could be a time when the 360 core system goes for $150, so that it's affordable by a lot of consumers, and at the same time, doesn't actually cost MS money when it's purchased.
And there are people out there who are just using it as a simple gaming system in the same way as previous ones - a memory card for some save games, and that's it. Why force such people to pay for a HD they don't actually need?
Actually, from what I've read, the game engine is actually based off of a previous Star Trek game - there are apparently a few bugs present in it that are dead-on matches with bugs in the previous game, and they're some strange little rare bugs.
That's what multiplayer mode is for - watching the USS Voyager explode into little bits, knowing Janeway and company are all nice and dead. Too bad Archer commanded one of the early ships, since nobody chooses that one in multiplayer - it deserves destruction even more than Voyager.
There are a few characters in DOA that my friends and I have moves that we've taken to calling the "Kirk" - his trademark double-fisted downward slam that he always did in any fist-fight in Star Trek. Add that to the scantily-clad ladies in that game, and all you're missing is the painful method of dialog delivery that Shatner always managed...
Games have the abilities to award gamerpics through game play. There aren't many taking advantage of this, but there are a few - and I'd really like to see more use of it. It's not the same as what you're talking about - but it could cover some of it.
Outpost Kaloki X has an update available that takes care of the bugged achievements - all 200 gamerscore is achieveable now.
All Xbox Live Arcade games are required to have 12 achievements worth a total of 200 gamerscore. All retail games are required to have between 5 and 50 achievements, worth a maximum of 1000 gamerscore.
And the issue with "easy gamerscore" was more prevalent near launch, as the concept was still new and not all the developers put effort into creating worthy achievements. The 2K sports games, for example, had ridiculously easy achievements in the 2K6 games - NBA 2K6 and College Hoops 2K6 each had only 5 achievements, and they are easy enough that you can get all 1000 gamerscore in a single game, and a lot of people have borrowed/rented those two because they're so easy. But if you look at the 2K7 titles, there are a lot more achievements, and they're not nearly as easy.
If you check one of the websites dedicated to achievements (such as Achieve360Points.com, you'll see that games have really improved their achievements over time, as most games have a few easy ones that you get early on, a good amount that you get when you really spend time in the game, and then a few that are extremely tough - though the ridiculously tough ones such as getting #1 on the leaderboard have also disappeared lately, because they just result in people gaming the leaderboards to get there instead of actually playing.
And I think it's just as impressive to see the websites that have taken advantage of having your gamer profile visible on the web, such as MyGamerCard.net, and created leaderboards and the like based on the gamerscore.
Oh, and BTW, Virtual Fighter 5?
NOT a PS3 exclusive.
Wow, Sony's losing their promised "exclusive" games left and right. Not a good sign, is it?
I think I should point out that the Atari Jaguar had at least that many titles in their "under development" list at one point. We see how many of those got released...
Just because there's a list of upcoming games doesn't mean that they're all going to be released.
If the music you want isn't available through the Zune subscription, contact the artist and/or label to get them to allow it. They're the ones with the final say over what can and can't be done through subscription.
If you're thinking that it's the choice of Microsoft/the Zune team over what's on subscription and what's not, you're completely incorrect. Neither iTunes nor the Zune marketplace make any real money off of music sales. It's the hardware that makes the money. There's no incentive for the Zune team to hold certain music off of the subscription service. Now, as to whether or not the labels have incentive to do so... that I have no idea about.
And with an iPod, your music selections are only from the iTunes store. And buying online from non-iTunes non-Zune stores require devices that are more complex to use and sync up.
But the Zune has a subscription service - for a flat monthly rate, you can get most of the music from the Zune store onto your device. (Most - not all, as they're still working on getting more content approved for subscription service) Now, I'm not a fan of buying music online at ALL, since I loathe DRM, and would rather buy the music on CD which lets me play it in many more places and even determine the bitrate of the file myself. But the subscription does seem like a decent deal, especially if there's a lot of music on there you like.
Completely and totally doable.
Perhaps you want the full experience with the Zune Home A/V Kit - a dock you can permanently connect up to the stereo and TV, with a charger so that the Zune gets powered when connected, and even a remote control so you don't even have to touch the device.
Of course, you don't need the full kit to connect it up - just the A/V cable.
So no, this is not an advantage of the iPod.
The iPod clickwheel's importance will vary from person to person. I have a 4G iPod, and a Zune - and I find that using the Zune, I don't miss the clickwheel at all. I fully expected to, and I don't.
In fact, between the two devices, I can't think of one thing that I like more about the iPod than the Zune. Perhaps it would be partially due to the fact that I only have a 4G iPod instead of the latest ones, but I like the Zune more than I expected to. The only things that really disappoint me are that I can't use at as a portable hard drive (easily - I know about the registry changes to kind of enable it), and that I can't upload my played music to Last.fm.
(To be upfront here, I work at MS - as part of the Xbox team, so I even got a free Zune - in pink. But I also use WinAmp instead of WMP, and Firefox instead of IE. I use whatever fits my needs best - and right now, my Zune gets used most of the time, and my iPod is always connected to my iPod-compatible alarm clock.)
Don't forget all the testing that would have to go into a browser on the console, especially security testing.
Now think about all that time spent getting a browser working on the 360, and imagine that time is spent, instead, adding features that will improve your gaming experience.
Which would you want? A browser, or better gaming on your gaming console?
Leave the browser on the computer.
Yep. I post a list of things the 360 does and the PS3 doesn't do, and the response is vitriol and garbage and claims that's I'm the fanboy? (At least it should have been fanGIRL)
Bah, I'm not wasting my time on that AC anymore...
From the forums I visit it appears that the RFOM online experience is very good and without a doubt Sony is playing catchup to Microsoft, but I am curious why you don't believe they won't catch up. From where I sit it appears that Sony has done a fair job of its online service at this point and it looks like they are working hard on making it even better.There's no doubt the PS3's online experience will improve with time, as they're able to add things. But as to "catching up" to Xbox Live? Remember, the Xbox Live team isn't going to be sitting there watching, but adding more functionality and improving what's already there. So Sony's attempt at catching up means hitting a moving target - and don't forget, there's all sorts of internal work that will undoubtedly have to be done for both systems to for increasing capacity, etc.
By the time that the PS3's online feature set matches what Xbox Live has now, there will be plenty more features on the latter - and the PS3 will have to complete against that feature set and deal with the consequences. Notice that the PS3 is getting dinged for the fact that you can't do background downloads and the 360 can. That wasn't something the 360 did at launch, but it does now, and what can be done NOW is what matters to people. Also, how much does XBOX live gold/platinum (whatever) cost per year? If it is something like $5 to $10 then this isn't that big of an issue either, but if it is like $50 or $100 then I can see this being a larger issue for Microsoft.Xbox Live gold accounts are $50 a year(or a little more if you pay per month or per 3 months). No, it's not free - but it's only the cost of a single game, less than $5 a month. Honestly, that's not much money at all - skip Starbucks for a day or two, or eat ramen noodles instead of making a trip out for fast food twice a month, and you've more than made up for it.
Pictures in messages also require a gold account - though that's just a minor item.
You're right though - most of the Xbox Live capabilities are available through a free silver account. I don't think it's wrong, however, to include them in a comparison between the PS3's free online play and the Xbox Live $50 a year online play, since you do get them - and if online play is what you're after, a silver account isn't really part of the picture.
The 360 dash now has an option that will allow you to have notifications turned off while watching a movie. Meaning that people can't disturb you anymore if you don't want them to.
So if you want to play with a friend, invite away!
Yeah, Sony really provides the same thing as Microsoft does, and does it for free.
The PS3 has one friends list throughout all of the games right? With detailed presence information about what those friends are doing? How about being able to send text, voice, and images all in a message to a friend? And send and receive those in the middle of a game? What about game invites - can you be playing Resistance, and then get informed that a friend has just invited you to play Motorstorm? And when you get an invite, can you have it take you right into the game with that friend? Can you voice chat with a friend, while playing different games, and then continue the conversation while you change games and your friend starts watching a movie?
And how about your game profile? Can you see what various games your friends have played, and when they last played them? How about being able to see that information from the web?
Oh, that's right, the PS3 does NONE of that. You get a friends list that only works in some games, while other games have their own list. You can only read and send messages while you're not in a game, and you can't even see a game invite unless you're already in the same game - and even then, you still have to find that game.
What the PS3 offers for free now is inferior to what the original Xbox offered years ago in terms of online service. Of course they're giving it away, since there's nothing there worth paying for.
The WiFi could be a killer feature if it didn't suck, but it does, which means no squirting, which means there's really no fucking point to even having it.Yeah, cause of course, they're not going to add any features in future firmware updates that would make more use of the WiFi.
Except it will most definitely happen. Will people still be bashing the WiFi a year down the line when, say, you can wirelessly sync with your PC, have your friends all grabbing your music stream on their Zunes so you're all listening to the same thing at the same time, grab songs from WiFi kiosks at a concert or a music store, etc? The key is getting the WiFi in the Zune and working at launch - and enhancing the functionality in the future.
Is it fair to say that the current limited set of WiFi functionality isn't that impressive, and isn't enough to justify buying one at this point? Yes, it is. Is it fair to say that it wasn't worth putting it in there just because of how it's being used at launch? Hell no.