I'd be more interested to see a similar breakdown for the PS2, XBox, and GC. The true wasteland of creativity is on the big consoles, not the GBA.
The reason I sold my XBox (and never picked up a PS2) is because my personal, subjective analysis is that there is basically no innovation going on there. The original PlayStation pretty much killed it all. Yes, there were great and novel games for every platform, but compare the PS to the Saturn--its original competitor--and later the Dreamcast and N64. Developers took more risks for the DC by far. There are weirder and more original games for the DC that would simply have gotten lost in the shitstorm of Crash Bandicoot clones.
It's undeniable that the vast majority of GBA games are repetitive knockoffs. This is even more true for the big consoles. But so what--I don't buy those titles. There are odder and more creative games available for the GBA, and for the GC. Now that we don't have Sega--the true innovator--doing quite as much, Nintendo stands out as a relative bastion of creativity, compared to the Sony and Microsoft markets. Especially the XBox. It matters nothing if it's sold 15% more units and has half again as many titles out as the GC, if all the games suck. (Does anyone actually play the XBox, or do they just buy them because their buddy told them they'd look cool?)
> This is a tried and true method in the scientific > community: [snip]
There is a tried and true method in the slashdot community: if you aren't educated enough to read the article mentioned, you can always get modded up by posting a cynical and uninformed homily.
Popular is certainly a relative term. The Ruby day at OSCON did have its fanbase, but I went to two talks (including Matz' introductory one), and I'm still not getting it. He seems charming and intelligent, but gave almost zero information.
Python works and has a powerfully simple syntax. Ruby's syntax is hard to stomach once you're used to Python: I don't want to type extra characters again.
Python evolves to be practical. It adds the most-shouted-about features, with Guido tossing out anything that doesn't keep things simple. Perl evolves similarly, but with the new features being determined by some inscrutable process in Larry's head. Ruby evolves based completely on one man's whim, which is why it still has mostly academic appeal.
When you were a kid...NiCd was the only choice, not NiMH. Unless you're far younger than you look.
Depending on usage, most Nickel-Metal-Hydrides seem to last 1.5 - 2.5 times as long as equivalent alkalines. Based on my experience with two digital cameras, an mp3 player, Nintendo GameBoys and WaveBird remote controls. They cost more up front, but save money after 4 or so chargings. No reason to wait.
"Outlook-killer" seems like a self-defeating product category. Not to mention that his super-smart team like to write specs, not code. We'll all be way tired of hearing about how great this is going to be well before we can actually download it--if that ever happens.
(An aside: In his OSCON keynote, Mitch Kapor claimed to be innocently on the sidelines during the whole Lotus "look-and-feel" lawsuit days, while the rabid lawyers ran amok. That's not how I remember it...)
> wireless controllers suck. They could be useful > for games that don't require quick input, but > fighting games, fps games, and even most > platformers and 3rd person games take a hit. > Until latency on wireless is the same as with > wires, this will continue to be a problem for > at least some people.
You've never used the WaveBird. All problems gone. I'll never buy a system with corded controllers again. Thanks, Nintendo.
Wozniak reportedly took Atari's Breakout to the Apple ][. See: http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/WOZNIAK.HTM
"Wozniak said that a lot of reasons that made the Apple II standout where due to a game, Breakout, which he had designed in hardware form for Atari. He had wanted to program Breakout in software. Since Wozniak had written the Basic interpreter, a program that translates the instruction to machine language, he was easily able to. When he got the first stage of Breakout working he had a ball bouncing around on the screen he then decided to add sound so he added speakers. From there he needed paddles so he invented a minimum- chip paddle circuit. Wozniak and Randy Wigginton made a very simple disk operating system that would only load files from fixed locations off the disk in response to one-letter commands. Their rudimentary control program would not be flexible enough for efficient and simple use of the disk drive. Designing a disk operating system, DOS, was a lot of effort because on one side is the RAM memory in the Apple II, waiting patiently for a useful program to be loaded and executed and on the other side of an electronic bridge (interface card and connecting cable) are the floppy disk and disk drive hardware itself. The control program that Woz wrote could be compared to a narrow rope bridgecrossing a chasm; it works, but you can't carry much with you, and it is easy to lose data. Woz's "rope bridge" was a foundation, but after much work Apple came out with DOS 3.1 which completed the ground work (Wyehrich). The Apple II had built in circuitry allowing it to interface directly to a color video monitor or a television set through add-ons. With all this technology built into the Apple II the only thing left to do was to introduce it and see what the world thought."
Anand clearly has never touched a Mac, nor wants to. So he's missing out on the simple beauty of iTunes 4 and an iPod. If the article had been titled "iPod for Windows users," it would have made more sense.
And what's with the swapped picture captions: "new unit on right, old on left." Match it to the picture.
And I'll be damned if Arkanoid was the "original arcade version" of Wozniak's Breakout. Children need to research a bit more.
Also, I've used the Afterburner with the original GBA, and it really doesn't compare to the SP lighting. The AB light had several dim spots and washed the colors out somewhat, and I don't notice much of that at all on the SP.
Really? Not to sound like a fanboy, but I've had an original GBA and recently upgraded to the SP. All the cramping I eventually would get from the original GBA has gone, and I put in hours at a time. It certainly looks like the new unit's ergonomics would be worse, but that's not been my experience.
I did prefer the old GBA d-pad (joystick) a bit, however. The SP one still makes a bit of a clicking noise, although the action is just fine.
Agree about the $9.95 headphone jack--it should have been included, and is a bit awkward when plugged in.
Disagree about the backlit screen. I play inside, outside, everywhere, and the SP screen with backlight on or off is even clearer than the standard GBA screen. If it's really hazy for you, perhaps your unit has a problem? I have a silver and a gold SP and they are both crystal clear.
Also got a Japanese GameBoy Player for my GameCube. Sa-weet! I love playing Golden Sun: The Lost Age on my 40" Sony.
You know, I disapproved highly of the DDoS and other attacks that SCO has suffered after beginning this pathetic campaign. They will implode on their own, I thought.
But this is a FUD war. Suing Linus? Does SCO have nothing to offer but litigation?
Every big Linux installation is an advance in the ground campaign. Every cvs commit we make is a step forward. Linux gets faster, better, and stronger every day, while the enemy no longer even tries to keep up, but resorts to the courts (and monopoly advantage) to preserve its fading empire.
Despite appearances, Owens is actually not sentient. This is an anomaly in his otherwise crushingly invasive and oppressive Bush-style "leadership."
And yes, you can bring your guns to Colorado. But if you're going to shoot anyone, we just ask that you stay in South Denver or Colorado Springs. Thanks!
The real hack would be NOT hacking the XBox
on
Hacking the XBox
·
· Score: 1
Let me paint a picture:
The hacker community as a whole retreats from XBox hacking activities, having intelligently decided that it is not worth violating the DMCA and generally stirring up the currently hostile legislative environment for the sake of running Linux on a substandard PC.
Microsoft relaxes and takes comfort in its apparently unbreakable firmware. Indeed, they settle on something very similar for the future Palladium platform implementation. These evil new PCs start flooding the market, forcing Redmond's ideas of DRM onto many users.
Then, those same hackers begin again in earnest on a much more worthwhile hacking project: stopping Microsoft from turning our own computers against us.
Despite appearances, MS is quite happy to have an active hacker community around the XBox. No, not in a Sega Dreamcast "let them have their fun" way. More in a "see Senator, we told you the DMCA was too weak" way. And also in a "ok, we won't use that specific technique in Athena/Palladium" way.
Curiosity is wonderful, agreed. Perhaps XBox hackers should become curious about the bigger political and technical picture around their current activities.
XBox hackers are wasting everyone's time.
on
Hacking the XBox
·
· Score: 1
Why bother? Redmond is just sitting back and watching how everyone breaks or works around the firmware, then updating it again, waiting and watching, updating. They are gathering data to harden Athena/Palladium, for which the XBox is a prototype, and we are playing right into it.
Not to mention that it makes little financial sense. 8GB HD, cheapo Intel processor, old NVidia chipset: I could buy a better box from several sources for little more, and just install Linux on it.
I respect the "because it's there" mentality of getting Linux to run on anything, but it would be a much studlier hack to boot a kernel on the GameCube, for example.
Yes, yes, yes. Golden Sun. Finally beat it, got Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age, transferred character data, kept going where that left off. Brilliant little RPG.
It's really going to suck when Nintendo finally releases a 3-D capable handheld. There is such genius possible in 2-D, and now that the Dreamcast lives only for underground development--not that there's anything wrong with that--the GBA is the last bastion of a real gaming art.
I think Nintendo has done a great job with the GC-GBA connectivity. I've had a few titles for both: Metroid, Rayman, and of course Animal Crossing. And I never felt "suckered" by the extras, instead it was always a happy bonus when I could beat one and unlock something in the other. Or create new patterns for my lovely umbrellas and shirts on the GBA, then send them to the GC for showing off in Animal Crossing. MS and Sony have nothing similar.
Agreed. I think the port will be pretty straightforward. I was at last year's OSCON where the "SpongeBob Squarepants" developer talked about how easy it was to port Python to the GameCube...drool.
I think the real trick will be burning a distro onto the mini-DVD, reversed spin direction format.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be more interested to see a similar breakdown for the PS2, XBox, and GC. The true wasteland of creativity is on the big consoles, not the GBA.
The reason I sold my XBox (and never picked up a PS2) is because my personal, subjective analysis is that there is basically no innovation going on there. The original PlayStation pretty much killed it all. Yes, there were great and novel games for every platform, but compare the PS to the Saturn--its original competitor--and later the Dreamcast and N64. Developers took more risks for the DC by far. There are weirder and more original games for the DC that would simply have gotten lost in the shitstorm of Crash Bandicoot clones.
It's undeniable that the vast majority of GBA games are repetitive knockoffs. This is even more true for the big consoles. But so what--I don't buy those titles. There are odder and more creative games available for the GBA, and for the GC. Now that we don't have Sega--the true innovator--doing quite as much, Nintendo stands out as a relative bastion of creativity, compared to the Sony and Microsoft markets. Especially the XBox. It matters nothing if it's sold 15% more units and has half again as many titles out as the GC, if all the games suck. (Does anyone actually play the XBox, or do they just buy them because their buddy told them they'd look cool?)
> Don't let the intelligentsia decide whether
> Vorbis is the right codec for you or not...
WTF? I'd rather make an informed decision about anything than just "let the free market decide" for me.
> This is a tried and true method in the scientific
> community: [snip]
There is a tried and true method in the slashdot community: if you aren't educated enough to read the article mentioned, you can always get modded up by posting a cynical and uninformed homily.
Popular is certainly a relative term. The Ruby day at OSCON did have its fanbase, but I went to two talks (including Matz' introductory one), and I'm still not getting it. He seems charming and intelligent, but gave almost zero information.
Python works and has a powerfully simple syntax. Ruby's syntax is hard to stomach once you're used to Python: I don't want to type extra characters again.
Python evolves to be practical. It adds the most-shouted-about features, with Guido tossing out anything that doesn't keep things simple. Perl evolves similarly, but with the new features being determined by some inscrutable process in Larry's head. Ruby evolves based completely on one man's whim, which is why it still has mostly academic appeal.
When you were a kid...NiCd was the only choice, not NiMH. Unless you're far younger than you look.
Depending on usage, most Nickel-Metal-Hydrides seem to last 1.5 - 2.5 times as long as equivalent alkalines. Based on my experience with two digital cameras, an mp3 player, Nintendo GameBoys and WaveBird remote controls. They cost more up front, but save money after 4 or so chargings. No reason to wait.
> Only in the minds of regulators can a company
> monopolize an entire market.
What a load of horseshit. Don't they teach economics at your military academy?
It's not an editorial, just simple facts. Let us know how this regime supports the little guy, and we'll all listen, K?
If you voted for him the first time, you're the idiot. Suck it down.
"Outlook-killer" seems like a self-defeating product category. Not to mention that his super-smart team like to write specs, not code. We'll all be way tired of hearing about how great this is going to be well before we can actually download it--if that ever happens.
(An aside: In his OSCON keynote, Mitch Kapor claimed to be innocently on the sidelines during the whole Lotus "look-and-feel" lawsuit days, while the rabid lawyers ran amok. That's not how I remember it...)
Charity is a good thing. Maybe it could buy some of the OSCON perl "luminaries" some proper clothes. Or an ego massage.
I had a great time at OSCON, but some of these perl presenters seem to think they're gods. life => get;
$179 is still way too much. It's as if they don't want to sell them.
Some good games would help, too.
> wireless controllers suck. They could be useful
> for games that don't require quick input, but
> fighting games, fps games, and even most
> platformers and 3rd person games take a hit.
> Until latency on wireless is the same as with
> wires, this will continue to be a problem for
> at least some people.
You've never used the WaveBird. All problems gone. I'll never buy a system with corded controllers again. Thanks, Nintendo.
> Don't you mean Job's Breakout?
No, unless I miss your joke.
Wozniak reportedly took Atari's Breakout to the Apple ][. See:
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/WOZNIAK.HTM
"Wozniak said that a lot of reasons that made the Apple II standout where due to a game, Breakout, which he had designed in hardware form for Atari. He had wanted to program Breakout in software. Since Wozniak had written the Basic interpreter, a program that translates the instruction to machine language, he was easily able to. When he got the first stage of Breakout working he had a ball bouncing around on the screen he then decided to add sound so he added speakers. From there he needed paddles so he invented a minimum- chip paddle circuit. Wozniak and Randy Wigginton made a very simple disk operating system that would only load files from fixed locations off the disk in response to one-letter commands. Their rudimentary control program would not be flexible enough for efficient and simple use of the disk drive. Designing a disk operating system, DOS, was a lot of effort because on one side is the RAM memory in the Apple II, waiting patiently for a useful program to be loaded and executed and on the other side of an electronic bridge (interface card and connecting cable) are the floppy disk and disk drive hardware itself. The control program that Woz wrote could be compared to a narrow rope bridgecrossing a chasm; it works, but you can't carry much with you, and it is easy to lose data. Woz's "rope bridge" was a foundation, but after much work Apple came out with DOS 3.1 which completed the ground work (Wyehrich). The Apple II had built in circuitry allowing it to interface directly to a color video monitor or a television set through add-ons. With all this technology built into the Apple II the only thing left to do was to introduce it and see what the world thought."
Anand clearly has never touched a Mac, nor wants to. So he's missing out on the simple beauty of iTunes 4 and an iPod. If the article had been titled "iPod for Windows users," it would have made more sense.
And what's with the swapped picture captions: "new unit on right, old on left." Match it to the picture.
And I'll be damned if Arkanoid was the "original arcade version" of Wozniak's Breakout. Children need to research a bit more.
Also, I've used the Afterburner with the original GBA, and it really doesn't compare to the SP lighting. The AB light had several dim spots and washed the colors out somewhat, and I don't notice much of that at all on the SP.
Really? Not to sound like a fanboy, but I've had an original GBA and recently upgraded to the SP. All the cramping I eventually would get from the original GBA has gone, and I put in hours at a time. It certainly looks like the new unit's ergonomics would be worse, but that's not been my experience.
I did prefer the old GBA d-pad (joystick) a bit, however. The SP one still makes a bit of a clicking noise, although the action is just fine.
Agree about the $9.95 headphone jack--it should have been included, and is a bit awkward when plugged in.
Disagree about the backlit screen. I play inside, outside, everywhere, and the SP screen with backlight on or off is even clearer than the standard GBA screen. If it's really hazy for you, perhaps your unit has a problem? I have a silver and a gold SP and they are both crystal clear.
Also got a Japanese GameBoy Player for my GameCube. Sa-weet! I love playing Golden Sun: The Lost Age on my 40" Sony.
Ah crap. My uncaffeinated morning eyes read this as "SCO Files for Bankruptcy." I guess that will have to wait a month.
You know, I disapproved highly of the DDoS and other attacks that SCO has suffered after beginning this pathetic campaign. They will implode on their own, I thought.
But this is a FUD war. Suing Linus? Does SCO have nothing to offer but litigation?
Every big Linux installation is an advance in the ground campaign. Every cvs commit we make is a step forward. Linux gets faster, better, and stronger every day, while the enemy no longer even tries to keep up, but resorts to the courts (and monopoly advantage) to preserve its fading empire.
Programming is political. And this is war.
If only.
Despite appearances, Owens is actually not sentient. This is an anomaly in his otherwise crushingly invasive and oppressive Bush-style "leadership."
And yes, you can bring your guns to Colorado. But if you're going to shoot anyone, we just ask that you stay in South Denver or Colorado Springs. Thanks!
Let me paint a picture:
The hacker community as a whole retreats from XBox hacking activities, having intelligently decided that it is not worth violating the DMCA and generally stirring up the currently hostile legislative environment for the sake of running Linux on a substandard PC.
Microsoft relaxes and takes comfort in its apparently unbreakable firmware. Indeed, they settle on something very similar for the future Palladium platform implementation. These evil new PCs start flooding the market, forcing Redmond's ideas of DRM onto many users.
Then, those same hackers begin again in earnest on a much more worthwhile hacking project: stopping Microsoft from turning our own computers against us.
I have a dream.
Despite appearances, MS is quite happy to have an active hacker community around the XBox. No, not in a Sega Dreamcast "let them have their fun" way. More in a "see Senator, we told you the DMCA was too weak" way. And also in a "ok, we won't use that specific technique in Athena/Palladium" way.
Curiosity is wonderful, agreed. Perhaps XBox hackers should become curious about the bigger political and technical picture around their current activities.
Why bother? Redmond is just sitting back and watching how everyone breaks or works around the firmware, then updating it again, waiting and watching, updating. They are gathering data to harden Athena/Palladium, for which the XBox is a prototype, and we are playing right into it.
Not to mention that it makes little financial sense. 8GB HD, cheapo Intel processor, old NVidia chipset: I could buy a better box from several sources for little more, and just install Linux on it.
I respect the "because it's there" mentality of getting Linux to run on anything, but it would be a much studlier hack to boot a kernel on the GameCube, for example.
Yes, yes, yes. Golden Sun. Finally beat it, got Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age, transferred character data, kept going where that left off. Brilliant little RPG.
It's really going to suck when Nintendo finally releases a 3-D capable handheld. There is such genius possible in 2-D, and now that the Dreamcast lives only for underground development--not that there's anything wrong with that--the GBA is the last bastion of a real gaming art.
I think Nintendo has done a great job with the GC-GBA connectivity. I've had a few titles for both: Metroid, Rayman, and of course Animal Crossing. And I never felt "suckered" by the extras, instead it was always a happy bonus when I could beat one and unlock something in the other. Or create new patterns for my lovely umbrellas and shirts on the GBA, then send them to the GC for showing off in Animal Crossing. MS and Sony have nothing similar.
Agreed. I think the port will be pretty straightforward. I was at last year's OSCON where the "SpongeBob Squarepants" developer talked about how easy it was to port Python to the GameCube...drool.
I think the real trick will be burning a distro onto the mini-DVD, reversed spin direction format.