The motion sensor technology isn't that expensive.
Bullshit. It has never been done right. There is a lot of R and D in that. Also, those controllers have to be nigh unbreakable. Nintendo spends money on system and controller durability. This time around, along with increasing the graphical power, RAM, and internal memory, they reduced the power consumption of the system and kept all GameCube ports. Add to that the fact you are getting built in wireless and a composite video cable in the box and you can see that there is some value to this machine.
They made it small because they wanted it to fit in tiny spaces with your TV (they stressed that EXTREMELY in the interview)... yet they removed DVD functionality so that you have to put a DVD player beside it to take up more space?
So you were going to throw out your DVD player when you bought a Wii?
Also, have you seen Virtual Console game prices? $5, $8, and $10 for NES, SNES, and N64, respectively. Why so much? All it costs them to sell them to you is the price of their auction software and the bandwidth and servers to get it to you. Way too high for what it is, even if it isn't THAT expensive.
The NES classic games for the GBA have been selling like hotcakes for $20. People who own Oblivion have been buying HORSE ARMOR for $2.50 on XBOX live. Why the hell would they give their shit away if they can make money off it? You also forget that their online gaming system will be free. People who want Tecmo Bowl get Tecmo Bowl for $5 and you get to play Super Smash Brothers online for free. Damn you, Nintendo!
Is it worth $250 for the technology you get? Probably not. I'd suspect the highest bang for the buck is the PS3 even if it is expensive. Xbox 360 isn't a bad deal either. The Wii, for what you get, is a rip off. Overclocked Gamecube with a new controller and (finally) online support.
Same argument was made for the DS vs. the PSP. Problem with the argument is that the PS3 and the Wii are two very different machines. The PS3 is a souped up PS2. The Wii is a kind of video game machine that has never been seen before. So you can pay $600 for $1000 of hardware and get a graphical upgrade, or you could pay $250 for $250 of hardware that you can't find anywhere else. It depends on your priorities. The PS3 may cost $1000 to make, but it's worth about $200 to me. The Wii may cose less than $250 to make, but $250 is less than I would have paid for what they are offering.
However, acting like Nintendo is better than Sony or Microsoft is stupid. If anything, they're just as bad, if not worse.
Every Nintendo console is nearly indestructable. They treat their customers well and fix and problems that do arrive without much hassle. Both Sony and Microsoft settled class action suits in the past generation for faulty componants that they would not replace.
Botched launch date for old technology, the Leizpeg event where they kicked Nintendo loyalists in the balls, dropping DVD to save money, $60 controllers for a system that is supposed to be heavy multiplayer, expensive VC games, overpricing, etc.
The wireless X360 controller is $50. The PS3 controller will likely be that much or more. Again, Nintendo's controller offers things that other controllers do not, and unlike Microsoft and Sony, you can be sure that it will be built like a rock. DVD playback is trivial and therefore unnecessary. I currently have 2 machines that play DVDs that are not DVD players. How many more do I need?
Serously, go buy a PS3 or a X360 if you want, just stop sucking Sony's and Microsoft's respective cocks.
Exactly what does that have to do with the affected consumers?
Sony's stock had seen better days before this recall. Investors are probably more concerned with who has to pay for the recall. Apple has had a few recent quality problems, and people are starting to take notice.
There were some games we played because we had nothing better.
Then there were games we played because they were fucking awesome.
I play Asteroids, Puzzle Bobble, and Galaga regularly. I will fire up an NES for Punch-Out, Duck Hunt, or Mario. I doubt anyone in their right mind would slight Street Fighter II or Metal Slug.
Games like Castlevania, Resident Evil, and even Zelda were more promise than game in their first iteration. They were landmark games for their time, but if you were honest with yourself when you first played them, you knew that those games needed more power. The developers were making do with what they had, but they were coding for future systems. Those type of games don't age well.
Giant stars do not produce type 1a supernovae. Type 1a SN are believed to be caused by a binary system of a giant star and a white dwarf. When the one star becomes a giant, the atmosphere can be so large that it fills its gravity well and spills material onto the white dwarf. The white dwarf, which would never be massive enough to become a supernova on its own, gains the mass from its partner at a trickle until it reaches the mass necessary for it to collapse.
Because type 1a SN are believed to occur under nearly identical circumstances, they are considered especially important in astronomy. Astronomers believe that they can be used as what they call "standard candles." A "standard candle" is a light source of known brightness. Standard candles are important, because astronomers can directly determine the distance of these sources. Certain stars already act as standard candles, but stars can only be resolved at a certain distance. A type 1a SN can be seen at such a large distance that astronomers believe they can more accurately determine cosmoloigical properties if they can determine exactly how bright one is, and how it may fluctuate under different circumstances.
Other SN are interesting, but a Type 1a SN in our galaxy might tell us a lot about the entire universe indirectly.
One, only Sony has "promised" not to use the ICT. There are many other studios that are free to do so and have not made such statements.
Two, If you think Sony cares about you or your purchase past the point where you cough up $500, you haven't been paying attention.
Think of it this way. If the ICT will never be implemented, the $600 SKU is a red herring and a rip-off. If the ICT is implemented, the $500 SKU is a red herring and a rip-off. Someone is getting screwed, and that is absolutely consistant with Sony's business model in the past few years. How many broken promises and defective consoles will it take for people to stop bowing before their altar?
Then again, people still buy Firestone tires, and at least Sony won't kill you.
The thing that causes the PS3 to be $500 and not $300 is not completely useable at the $500 price. If you want to watch a Blu-Ray movie and be sure you can actually see it in HD, you need to buy the $600 model. If you only wanted needed to play PS3 games, the cost should be $300 or $400 at absolute maximum.
The problem with the PS3 is not that it is a $600 gaming machine. The problem is that it is a $300 gaming machine that is being sold for $500-600.
Don't give me any shit about the movie companies not using the ICT. It is in there for a reason, and until we hear that they will be removing it from the Blu-Ray standard, it must be assumed studios will use it.
You don't understand. Take me for instance. When I saw what would become Yoshi's Touch and Go at E3 2004 via Gamespot, I understood the DS, and I knew I wanted the machine.
Maybe I have a better imagination than most people, but I knew exactly what I was in for when I bought it. The DS was the first console I ever bought on launch day. After 26 years of gaming, here was something new, something fresh. After all those years of promises, Nintendo was about to deliver, and I was not going to be on the sidelines for a day.
Now we have the Wii. I understand that too. Better, I think, than a lot of developers do. It's something new, something fresh. Nintendo is about to deliver again, and I will not be on the sidelines for a single day.
Nintendo doesn't pay me. They earned my admiration. They make great games and great hardware. I laugh at anyone offering me an extended warranty on a Nintendo product, right in their face. A Nintendo system is the only electronics purchase I don't worry about.
Japan is really crazy. The DS is dominating everything. It is selling at holiday levels every week and beating all other systems combined twice over.
It will make the next console war interesting. I can't see the phenomenal success of the DS not spilling over into the Wii, but other territories will be different. I hope Japanese success will ensure a diverse American game portfolio regardless of how well it sells here.
I'll tell you what, no level of anality is going to keep all dirt and dust off that screen. It's a fact of life. I keep my systems as clean as humanly possible, but small scratches formed. While I was playing metroid I noticed with such a demanding and mostly blind use of the touch screen that my hand would accidentally slide toward the touch screen. Rather than take the risk of more serious fingernail damage, I bought a five dollar procector, licensed by Nintendo.
I bet Ben Rothlisberger wishes he took a similar precautionary step. Hyperbole, I know. I just wanted to laugh at his idiocy.
I was actually starting to get screen scratches, so I bought a protector before it got too bad. You can trust me when I say that I take care of my stuff.
I keep my systems for a long time, and I'm not rich. $5 at the Nintendo World Store is worth the piece of mind as I go to town in Metroid.
the PS2 HDD did not change delivery method. Games that used it were still delivered on DVDs.
On the other hand, differences in CPU, RAM, etc. do not inherently exclude a game from running on a given system, as long as the developers design the game to run on the lowest common denominator hardware. Since there will be financial incentive for developers to do so, it makes sense that they would.
If it were this easy, there would be no point to making these upgrades.
Look at the case of the N64 Expansion Pak. What did Nintendo do? Made exclusive games completely dependant on it. That is what Sony will do, because there will not be any incentive for any other company to make games that even support it if most people don't have it. They may even require it in future developer agreements.
However the balance that is missing is to note that Sony has also been smart enough to ship all models of a console with everything it needs to be a good gaming rig.
Seriously, do you forget what happens when Sony makes a promise? Sony wanted to make the HDD a required upgrade to the PS2. How did that turn out? Console history is littered with failed required peripherals.
It didn't work with the 32X or the Sega CD. It didn't work with the N64 RAM upgrade or the 64DD. It sure as hell didn't work with the PS2 HDD. I have no idea why Sony thinks it can pull this upgrade crap off.
It's getting so bad that the more times Kutaragi shoots off his mouth, the more I think that he is purposely sabotaging the PS3 out of anger that he was not named CEO. I thought Nintendo requiring a $50 (?) upgrade to their $200 N64 was crazy. This is just ridiculous.
Come on, Ken. You are selling this idea to people who pay some goon at Best Buy to install their new sound card.
Watch, in two years $600 will get you a PS3 with BD-ROM with a decent speed, a HD big enough to actually give you some advantage loading your games, and enough RAM to actually play the new games.
There is absolutely no reason to buy a PS3 before Sony makes their plans perfectly clear in this regard. Fuzzy quotes about what you might need in the future to make your $600 paperweight playable again is an insult to any potential customers.
Slashdot Mirror
So does every Microsoft Windows release, however from a consumer point of view I still would call it a failure.
Your license to judge the relative success of anything has been revoked.
The motion sensor technology isn't that expensive.
Bullshit. It has never been done right. There is a lot of R and D in that. Also, those controllers have to be nigh unbreakable. Nintendo spends money on system and controller durability. This time around, along with increasing the graphical power, RAM, and internal memory, they reduced the power consumption of the system and kept all GameCube ports. Add to that the fact you are getting built in wireless and a composite video cable in the box and you can see that there is some value to this machine.
They made it small because they wanted it to fit in tiny spaces with your TV (they stressed that EXTREMELY in the interview)... yet they removed DVD functionality so that you have to put a DVD player beside it to take up more space?
So you were going to throw out your DVD player when you bought a Wii?
Also, have you seen Virtual Console game prices? $5, $8, and $10 for NES, SNES, and N64, respectively. Why so much? All it costs them to sell them to you is the price of their auction software and the bandwidth and servers to get it to you. Way too high for what it is, even if it isn't THAT expensive.
The NES classic games for the GBA have been selling like hotcakes for $20. People who own Oblivion have been buying HORSE ARMOR for $2.50 on XBOX live. Why the hell would they give their shit away if they can make money off it? You also forget that their online gaming system will be free. People who want Tecmo Bowl get Tecmo Bowl for $5 and you get to play Super Smash Brothers online for free. Damn you, Nintendo!
Is it worth $250 for the technology you get? Probably not. I'd suspect the highest bang for the buck is the PS3 even if it is expensive. Xbox 360 isn't a bad deal either. The Wii, for what you get, is a rip off. Overclocked Gamecube with a new controller and (finally) online support.
Same argument was made for the DS vs. the PSP. Problem with the argument is that the PS3 and the Wii are two very different machines. The PS3 is a souped up PS2. The Wii is a kind of video game machine that has never been seen before. So you can pay $600 for $1000 of hardware and get a graphical upgrade, or you could pay $250 for $250 of hardware that you can't find anywhere else. It depends on your priorities. The PS3 may cost $1000 to make, but it's worth about $200 to me. The Wii may cose less than $250 to make, but $250 is less than I would have paid for what they are offering.
However, acting like Nintendo is better than Sony or Microsoft is stupid. If anything, they're just as bad, if not worse.
Every Nintendo console is nearly indestructable. They treat their customers well and fix and problems that do arrive without much hassle. Both Sony and Microsoft settled class action suits in the past generation for faulty componants that they would not replace.
Botched launch date for old technology, the Leizpeg event where they kicked Nintendo loyalists in the balls, dropping DVD to save money, $60 controllers for a system that is supposed to be heavy multiplayer, expensive VC games, overpricing, etc.
The wireless X360 controller is $50. The PS3 controller will likely be that much or more. Again, Nintendo's controller offers things that other controllers do not, and unlike Microsoft and Sony, you can be sure that it will be built like a rock. DVD playback is trivial and therefore unnecessary. I currently have 2 machines that play DVDs that are not DVD players. How many more do I need?
Serously, go buy a PS3 or a X360 if you want, just stop sucking Sony's and Microsoft's respective cocks.
Exactly what does that have to do with the affected consumers?
Sony's stock had seen better days before this recall. Investors are probably more concerned with who has to pay for the recall. Apple has had a few recent quality problems, and people are starting to take notice.
Also, hard to see a downside for Apple in this. Sony's going to be eating most of the cost, and as we see, taking all the blame.
Uhhh. I see Apple taking blame. Not on Slashdot, of course, but elsewhere.
I have a dream: a dream of a space program with vision. Sadly, it's only a dream.
As NASA continues to spin its wheels and waste money, Americans see less and less reason for its existance.
There were some games we played because we had nothing better.
Then there were games we played because they were fucking awesome.
I play Asteroids, Puzzle Bobble, and Galaga regularly. I will fire up an NES for Punch-Out, Duck Hunt, or Mario. I doubt anyone in their right mind would slight Street Fighter II or Metal Slug.
Games like Castlevania, Resident Evil, and even Zelda were more promise than game in their first iteration. They were landmark games for their time, but if you were honest with yourself when you first played them, you knew that those games needed more power. The developers were making do with what they had, but they were coding for future systems. Those type of games don't age well.
The Onion stinks.
Giant stars do not produce type 1a supernovae. Type 1a SN are believed to be caused by a binary system of a giant star and a white dwarf. When the one star becomes a giant, the atmosphere can be so large that it fills its gravity well and spills material onto the white dwarf. The white dwarf, which would never be massive enough to become a supernova on its own, gains the mass from its partner at a trickle until it reaches the mass necessary for it to collapse.
Because type 1a SN are believed to occur under nearly identical circumstances, they are considered especially important in astronomy. Astronomers believe that they can be used as what they call "standard candles." A "standard candle" is a light source of known brightness. Standard candles are important, because astronomers can directly determine the distance of these sources. Certain stars already act as standard candles, but stars can only be resolved at a certain distance. A type 1a SN can be seen at such a large distance that astronomers believe they can more accurately determine cosmoloigical properties if they can determine exactly how bright one is, and how it may fluctuate under different circumstances.
Other SN are interesting, but a Type 1a SN in our galaxy might tell us a lot about the entire universe indirectly.
One, only Sony has "promised" not to use the ICT. There are many other studios that are free to do so and have not made such statements.
Two, If you think Sony cares about you or your purchase past the point where you cough up $500, you haven't been paying attention.
Think of it this way. If the ICT will never be implemented, the $600 SKU is a red herring and a rip-off. If the ICT is implemented, the $500 SKU is a red herring and a rip-off. Someone is getting screwed, and that is absolutely consistant with Sony's business model in the past few years. How many broken promises and defective consoles will it take for people to stop bowing before their altar?
Then again, people still buy Firestone tires, and at least Sony won't kill you.
The thing that causes the PS3 to be $500 and not $300 is not completely useable at the $500 price. If you want to watch a Blu-Ray movie and be sure you can actually see it in HD, you need to buy the $600 model. If you only wanted needed to play PS3 games, the cost should be $300 or $400 at absolute maximum.
The problem with the PS3 is not that it is a $600 gaming machine. The problem is that it is a $300 gaming machine that is being sold for $500-600.
Don't give me any shit about the movie companies not using the ICT. It is in there for a reason, and until we hear that they will be removing it from the Blu-Ray standard, it must be assumed studios will use it.
Well I'd sometimes like a "-1 Hack," but we can't always get what we want.
And, of course, Osama still lurks in the shadows untouched, the perfect foil to our "strong" leader.
Or how about that Bananarama cassette without a case? We really scored big on that one!
You don't understand. Take me for instance. When I saw what would become Yoshi's Touch and Go at E3 2004 via Gamespot, I understood the DS, and I knew I wanted the machine.
Maybe I have a better imagination than most people, but I knew exactly what I was in for when I bought it. The DS was the first console I ever bought on launch day. After 26 years of gaming, here was something new, something fresh. After all those years of promises, Nintendo was about to deliver, and I was not going to be on the sidelines for a day.
Now we have the Wii. I understand that too. Better, I think, than a lot of developers do. It's something new, something fresh. Nintendo is about to deliver again, and I will not be on the sidelines for a single day.
Nintendo doesn't pay me. They earned my admiration. They make great games and great hardware. I laugh at anyone offering me an extended warranty on a Nintendo product, right in their face. A Nintendo system is the only electronics purchase I don't worry about.
Exactly.
Japan is really crazy. The DS is dominating everything. It is selling at holiday levels every week and beating all other systems combined twice over.
It will make the next console war interesting. I can't see the phenomenal success of the DS not spilling over into the Wii, but other territories will be different. I hope Japanese success will ensure a diverse American game portfolio regardless of how well it sells here.
Anyone who believes that the PSP and DS sales are "roughly equal" doesn't know enough about the situation to write an article about it.
I'll tell you what, no level of anality is going to keep all dirt and dust off that screen. It's a fact of life. I keep my systems as clean as humanly possible, but small scratches formed. While I was playing metroid I noticed with such a demanding and mostly blind use of the touch screen that my hand would accidentally slide toward the touch screen. Rather than take the risk of more serious fingernail damage, I bought a five dollar procector, licensed by Nintendo.
I bet Ben Rothlisberger wishes he took a similar precautionary step. Hyperbole, I know. I just wanted to laugh at his idiocy.
I was actually starting to get screen scratches, so I bought a protector before it got too bad. You can trust me when I say that I take care of my stuff.
I keep my systems for a long time, and I'm not rich. $5 at the Nintendo World Store is worth the piece of mind as I go to town in Metroid.
the PS2 HDD did not change delivery method. Games that used it were still delivered on DVDs.
On the other hand, differences in CPU, RAM, etc. do not inherently exclude a game from running on a given system, as long as the developers design the game to run on the lowest common denominator hardware. Since there will be financial incentive for developers to do so, it makes sense that they would.
If it were this easy, there would be no point to making these upgrades.
Look at the case of the N64 Expansion Pak. What did Nintendo do? Made exclusive games completely dependant on it. That is what Sony will do, because there will not be any incentive for any other company to make games that even support it if most people don't have it. They may even require it in future developer agreements.
Please post the link to any Blu-Ray movie to be sold that makes use of the ICT.
Please post link of any Blu-Ray movie sold.
However the balance that is missing is to note that Sony has also been smart enough to ship all models of a console with everything it needs to be a good gaming rig.
Seriously, do you forget what happens when Sony makes a promise? Sony wanted to make the HDD a required upgrade to the PS2. How did that turn out? Console history is littered with failed required peripherals.
You'll be able to buy Blu-Ray movies and play them at 1080i at least until 2012.
Please post the link that has the Blu-Ray group's written binding agreement that they will not use the Image Constraint Token.
It didn't work with the 32X or the Sega CD. It didn't work with the N64 RAM upgrade or the 64DD. It sure as hell didn't work with the PS2 HDD. I have no idea why Sony thinks it can pull this upgrade crap off.
It's getting so bad that the more times Kutaragi shoots off his mouth, the more I think that he is purposely sabotaging the PS3 out of anger that he was not named CEO. I thought Nintendo requiring a $50 (?) upgrade to their $200 N64 was crazy. This is just ridiculous.
Come on, Ken. You are selling this idea to people who pay some goon at Best Buy to install their new sound card.
Watch, in two years $600 will get you a PS3 with BD-ROM with a decent speed, a HD big enough to actually give you some advantage loading your games, and enough RAM to actually play the new games.
There is absolutely no reason to buy a PS3 before Sony makes their plans perfectly clear in this regard. Fuzzy quotes about what you might need in the future to make your $600 paperweight playable again is an insult to any potential customers.
Well... YOU'RE a bad idea!
I guess I won that argument!
For reference, classic retro games for the Nintendo GameBoy sold for upwards of US$35 for some titles, US$19.99 for others.
If you all would have bought the fucking E-Reader, we would have had more NES games for $4.