...Considering that the handheld has already made one debut, the industry wasn't expecting the same high turnout for these new models. But contrary to conventional wisdom, the machine's second launch drew even more demand than the first...
Why is it a big surprise? There were thousands of people left without one last week, and even lik-sang couldn't get any for export to the US. A big line up for the blue DS Lites is not surprising at all for me. I don't consider myself an insider by any stretch of the imagination, but even I knew this one was coming.
consoles have been such a stable platform. A consistent target for developers with usually not many surprises.
Thanks Microsoft! For bringing in the troubles of the Wintel world into the console world! Updates to fix a system that clearly wasn't ready. That's what I want from a console, incomplete, work in progress! w00T!:)
I am a Nintendo fanboi.. so I thought I'd get that out of the way. That doesn't, however, preclude me from making observations.
I was at Futureshop the other day, just checking out the GCN and DS titles and stuff, and walked by what I tought was a HUGE rack of PSP games. I thought, wow, WTF? I didn't know they had that many games. Then I looked a little closer... "Oh... stupid UMD movies"
I don't think I ever saw any PSP games actually (not that I was looking for them or anything).
So here's the thing, if you don't blame the devs, who else can you blame for the poor showing of PSP games? Sony? Maybe. Perhaps if they weren't pre-occupied with trying to re-sell movies they've already sold to people in a more usuable form (aka DVDs) then they might perhaps be a little more focused on something that might actually sell the system. GAMES! From what I've obvserved, there are 3 kinds of people that have purchased the PSP. 1) The pissed off kind that thought they'd get some games. 2) The people who bought this solely for home brew purposes. 3) The pissed off people who conceded defeat and now only use it for home brew stuff.
There are a lot of nice things about the PSP (admittedly). The device itself is a quite sexy. The screen is pretty nice. My complaints would be that it's a little large, UMDs suck, Memory Sticks suck, analog stick isn't in a good position for long term play, battery life (it's not as bad as some people claim, but I expect a little more from a portable gaming machine. Just look at the past machines that sold well. Hmmm.. all Nintendo machines, all with very good battery life.)
Again, yes, I am a Nintendo whore, but these were just my observations/opinions.
... required to ensure that Nintendo's Revolution doesn't go the way of the GameCube...
ummm what would that be? out selling the xbox 360?:) In japan anyways:)
I'm not even joking or pulling numbers out of my arse or anything, just look here and see for yourself. The GameCube is outselling the xbox360 in Japan.
I've been reading that this is a PR stunt from a little Canadian label. Well, it may be... but what you guys are missing is that they DO seem to "Get it"
I for one, am going to be writing them a letter thanking them for understanding that not all their customers are crooks and that they shouldn't be punishing everyone because of a few bad apples.
of more than one multiplayer online game, I have to say, cheaters playing the same game as you suck. Have you ever played CS with cheaters? Really doesn't make it fun at all. Although I'm not 100% thrilled at HOW they're preventing cheaters, so far, they have proven to be not-that-evil(TM). For now, maybe because I like WoW so much, I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
Then again, another record-industry type, casually speaking to Pearlman after the talk, had perhaps the most succinct counter suggestion. Why not charge 10 cents, instead of 5, and double the revenue?
You wonder why we have so many problems with the RIAA and friends?
these are bonuses. with all the talk about the.com boom and how it didn't work, i say rubbish.
it's a completely different thing.
the.com boom was based on bringing in talent with stock options.
google seems like they're hiring people as normal, but as an internal incentive to excel, they're giving away bonuses in the form of stock (options?). I don't see how this is bad. it's not like you're not getting paid to do your job anyway!
I do agree with the above post above that the bonuses might be a little too much. i think the bonus needs to be spread out a little more perhaps. instead of 1 team hitting the jackpot, and the other teams feel like they've wasted a lot of effort, why not reward based on performance of their product? So every team has a chance at a piece of the pie.
it's quite simple in my mind. say for example you have 10 teams working on different things. They all come up with neat ideas. say 3 of them make it to production. at this point, those 3 teams get a little bonus already. then.. based on the performance of those 3 products, they would get more. wouldn't that be better?
Even a bigger problem sometimes is the hype of the hardware! Look at the PSP. Sounds like it should be better than the current generation home consoles. If that's not hype, I don't know what is!
That's why I've NEVER believed ANY of the hype that surrounds these new systems/games that come out unless they're from Nintendo. For example. When they announced the wavebird, every GameCube owner peed their pants in anticipation. What does Nintendo do? Give out CONSERVATIVE numbers. They said it should last 100hrs and have a range of about 20 feet. What happens in reviews?, well, turns out that 90 feet wasn't a problem and (the testers couldn't test battery life) but let me tell you from experience, I've only had to replace the batteries twice since I purchased mine.
So, when Nintendo says the DS has a battery life of 8-10 hours like the SP, I have 100% faith that it will. When Nintendo says the range of the wireless on the DS is 30 feet, I can expect at least that, and a 95% chance it'll be over 50 feet. When Sony says the PSP should be able to play current PS2 games, I say, can you even fit a game of FIFA in before you need to plug it in?!?
Have fun waiting for the overhyped PSP, I'll be with my buddies (and apparently total strangers!) playing wicked ass DS games.
Sorry, that turned out to be more of a rant. Well I guess it is. I guess I'm ranting on all those game devs. that like to tell me one thing, and then deliver me crap.:)
Although I agree with you in general, I would have been more specific. You should always be checking your GET/POST vars.
From the article, it looks like it's simply switching a '/' to a '\' or the unicode equivalent in the URL to an asp page. It seems like you (the developer) would never get a chance to doublecheck this url as this would seem like it's parsed by IIS and has nothing to do with your script at all.
Again, I'm NOT a ASP.NET dev. but I do do web programming, and it seems that checking your GET/POST vars wouldn't do it.
"At 450 dollars you can get a Radeon x800 Pro VIVO, which has a 100% chance of flashing to a full x800XT with all 16 pixel pipelines."
Last time I checked my physics, you couldn't "flash" physical transisters to give you the 16 pixel rendering pipelines of the x800 XT from the 12 the x800 PROs have. The differences in the card is not just clocking. RTFA.
The home (x86) PC market is as big as it is now because of the exact opposite situation! Being able to freely swap whatever you want in and out is what makes the PC market so big. (Apple's starting to catch on too!)
If people are allowed to swap whatever components they want, then how would they rate the computer as a whole from a hardware manufacturer's level? It would have to be done in software, for example, as Windows boots up, runs some quick diags. and flags your computer as level 5 (or whatever) and that's what your computer would say is your level. Anything else would probably not work, or be too complicated to work well.
iTMS does sell it's lossy AAC by default, but you can CHOSE to download the lossless version if you like. Although, admittedly, I haven't done so myself, cuz in Canada, we're not allowed to buy music.:)
Ummm... no offense, but I think you need to be a little more careful with your wording. Compression does not necessarily mean lower quality. It's the "type" of compression you need to worry about. In particular, for music, most of the compression schemes are called "lossy". As in you lose some of the details of the song. So to say you'd rather buy uncompressed music is quite dumb. Why would anyone want to download a 50MB wav. file when you can download (for example) a 10MB flac file which has the EXACT SAME output of the wave after decompression. And to up you one more, apple DOES selling lossless AAC! It's right on their page!
[from the website: High Fidelity. iPod supports the most popular audio formats -- including MP3 (up to 320 kbps), MP3 Variable Bit Rate (VBR), WAV, AAC and the new Apple Lossless format.]
A valid complaint would be that they don't offer different kinds of lossless types (like flac). That would be fair to say, in which case, most people would tell you to go shop somewhere else anyways!:)
Seriously, even if it's just 25GB or 50GB of textures and movies, doesn't this mean we'll be waiting even LONGER in between game cycles now. Sheesh, as if 2-4 years a game wasn't long enough!:)
Slashdot Mirror
...Considering that the handheld has already made one debut, the industry wasn't expecting the same high turnout for these new models. But contrary to conventional wisdom, the machine's second launch drew even more demand than the first...
Why is it a big surprise? There were thousands of people left without one last week, and even lik-sang couldn't get any for export to the US. A big line up for the blue DS Lites is not surprising at all for me. I don't consider myself an insider by any stretch of the imagination, but even I knew this one was coming.
consoles have been such a stable platform. A consistent target for developers with usually not many surprises.
:)
Thanks Microsoft! For bringing in the troubles of the Wintel world into the console world! Updates to fix a system that clearly wasn't ready. That's what I want from a console, incomplete, work in progress! w00T!
I am a Nintendo fanboi .. so I thought I'd get that out of the way. That doesn't, however, preclude me from making observations.
... "Oh ... stupid UMD movies"
.. all Nintendo machines, all with very good battery life.)
I was at Futureshop the other day, just checking out the GCN and DS titles and stuff, and walked by what I tought was a HUGE rack of PSP games. I thought, wow, WTF? I didn't know they had that many games. Then I looked a little closer
I don't think I ever saw any PSP games actually (not that I was looking for them or anything).
So here's the thing, if you don't blame the devs, who else can you blame for the poor showing of PSP games? Sony? Maybe. Perhaps if they weren't pre-occupied with trying to re-sell movies they've already sold to people in a more usuable form (aka DVDs) then they might perhaps be a little more focused on something that might actually sell the system. GAMES! From what I've obvserved, there are 3 kinds of people that have purchased the PSP. 1) The pissed off kind that thought they'd get some games. 2) The people who bought this solely for home brew purposes. 3) The pissed off people who conceded defeat and now only use it for home brew stuff.
There are a lot of nice things about the PSP (admittedly). The device itself is a quite sexy. The screen is pretty nice. My complaints would be that it's a little large, UMDs suck, Memory Sticks suck, analog stick isn't in a good position for long term play, battery life (it's not as bad as some people claim, but I expect a little more from a portable gaming machine. Just look at the past machines that sold well. Hmmm
Again, yes, I am a Nintendo whore, but these were just my observations/opinions.
ummm what would that be? out selling the xbox 360?
I'm not even joking or pulling numbers out of my arse or anything, just look here and see for yourself. The GameCube is outselling the xbox360 in Japan.
I remember that .. in fact .. I mirrored it for my friends .. it's an AWESOME read .. even if it is fake :) Here's the article!
http://kinezo.com/bign.phtml
Enjoy!
I've been reading that this is a PR stunt from a little Canadian label. Well, it may be ... but what you guys are missing is that they DO seem to "Get it"
Visit their site: http://www.nettwerk.com/
Guess what they sell. MP3s!
I for one, am going to be writing them a letter thanking them for understanding that not all their customers are crooks and that they shouldn't be punishing everyone because of a few bad apples.
Nettwerk++
I would have to concur.
Whoever modded this troll needs to lighten up, it's an obvious joke...
:)
Thank you.
Perhaps next time, I'll use the W3C approved <joke> tag to make myself a little more clear?
Another large external attachment
:)
Also, what was up with ditching WAP functionality? Why do I need to unsecure my access point to play?
why would you do that? it supports WEP fine.
Pikman. (Awesome game by the way)
of more than one multiplayer online game, I have to say, cheaters playing the same game as you suck. Have you ever played CS with cheaters? Really doesn't make it fun at all. Although I'm not 100% thrilled at HOW they're preventing cheaters, so far, they have proven to be not-that-evil(TM). For now, maybe because I like WoW so much, I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
I sweet talk my computer all the time, but not because of a crash ... oh wait .. was that out loud?
From the article ...
Then again, another record-industry type, casually speaking to Pearlman after the talk, had perhaps the most succinct counter suggestion. Why not charge 10 cents, instead of 5, and double the revenue?
You wonder why we have so many problems with the RIAA and friends?
these are bonuses. with all the talk about the .com boom and how it didn't work, i say rubbish.
.com boom was based on bringing in talent with stock options.
.. based on the performance of those 3 products, they would get more. wouldn't that be better?
it's a completely different thing.
the
google seems like they're hiring people as normal, but as an internal incentive to excel, they're giving away bonuses in the form of stock (options?). I don't see how this is bad. it's not like you're not getting paid to do your job anyway!
I do agree with the above post above that the bonuses might be a little too much. i think the bonus needs to be spread out a little more perhaps. instead of 1 team hitting the jackpot, and the other teams feel like they've wasted a lot of effort, why not reward based on performance of their product? So every team has a chance at a piece of the pie.
it's quite simple in my mind. say for example you have 10 teams working on different things. They all come up with neat ideas. say 3 of them make it to production. at this point, those 3 teams get a little bonus already. then
I so wished I *DIDN'T* RTFA. :(
I need to go home and shower now.
Even a bigger problem sometimes is the hype of the hardware! Look at the PSP. Sounds like it should be better than the current generation home consoles. If that's not hype, I don't know what is!
:)
That's why I've NEVER believed ANY of the hype that surrounds these new systems/games that come out unless they're from Nintendo. For example. When they announced the wavebird, every GameCube owner peed their pants in anticipation. What does Nintendo do? Give out CONSERVATIVE numbers. They said it should last 100hrs and have a range of about 20 feet. What happens in reviews?, well, turns out that 90 feet wasn't a problem and (the testers couldn't test battery life) but let me tell you from experience, I've only had to replace the batteries twice since I purchased mine.
So, when Nintendo says the DS has a battery life of 8-10 hours like the SP, I have 100% faith that it will. When Nintendo says the range of the wireless on the DS is 30 feet, I can expect at least that, and a 95% chance it'll be over 50 feet. When Sony says the PSP should be able to play current PS2 games, I say, can you even fit a game of FIFA in before you need to plug it in?!?
Have fun waiting for the overhyped PSP, I'll be with my buddies (and apparently total strangers!) playing wicked ass DS games.
Sorry, that turned out to be more of a rant. Well I guess it is. I guess I'm ranting on all those game devs. that like to tell me one thing, and then deliver me crap.
Although I agree with you in general, I would have been more specific. You should always be checking your GET/POST vars.
From the article, it looks like it's simply switching a '/' to a '\' or the unicode equivalent in the URL to an asp page. It seems like you (the developer) would never get a chance to doublecheck this url as this would seem like it's parsed by IIS and has nothing to do with your script at all.
Again, I'm NOT a ASP.NET dev. but I do do web programming, and it seems that checking your GET/POST vars wouldn't do it.
Can anyone clarifying this further?
"At 450 dollars you can get a Radeon x800 Pro VIVO, which has a 100% chance of flashing to a full x800XT with all 16 pixel pipelines."
Last time I checked my physics, you couldn't "flash" physical transisters to give you the 16 pixel rendering pipelines of the x800 XT from the 12 the x800 PROs have. The differences in the card is not just clocking. RTFA.
The home (x86) PC market is as big as it is now because of the exact opposite situation! Being able to freely swap whatever you want in and out is what makes the PC market so big. (Apple's starting to catch on too!)
If people are allowed to swap whatever components they want, then how would they rate the computer as a whole from a hardware manufacturer's level? It would have to be done in software, for example, as Windows boots up, runs some quick diags. and flags your computer as level 5 (or whatever) and that's what your computer would say is your level. Anything else would probably not work, or be too complicated to work well.
iTMS does sell it's lossy AAC by default, but you can CHOSE to download the lossless version if you like. Although, admittedly, I haven't done so myself, cuz in Canada, we're not allowed to buy music. :)
Ummm ... no offense, but I think you need to be a little more careful with your wording. Compression does not necessarily mean lower quality. It's the "type" of compression you need to worry about. In particular, for music, most of the compression schemes are called "lossy". As in you lose some of the details of the song. So to say you'd rather buy uncompressed music is quite dumb. Why would anyone want to download a 50MB wav. file when you can download (for example) a 10MB flac file which has the EXACT SAME output of the wave after decompression. And to up you one more, apple DOES selling lossless AAC! It's right on their page!
:)
[from the website:
High Fidelity. iPod supports the most popular audio formats -- including MP3 (up to 320 kbps), MP3 Variable Bit Rate (VBR), WAV, AAC and the new Apple Lossless format.]
A valid complaint would be that they don't offer different kinds of lossless types (like flac). That would be fair to say, in which case, most people would tell you to go shop somewhere else anyways!
"I'm still happy with DVD quality movies, thanks."
Then do yourself a favour and don't buy a new high res. TV
Seriously, even if it's just 25GB or 50GB of textures and movies, doesn't this mean we'll be waiting even LONGER in between game cycles now. Sheesh, as if 2-4 years a game wasn't long enough! :)
are from mistyped URLs in IE that go to msn search?
"...and MSN's at 31.8%..."
I hate that they count those at "searches".