I really wish not having a dryer was an option for me. It's the only way to get all the winkles out of the clothes without investing an hour or two a week into ironing, and during the summer months over here it's often hard to find a day without rain.
Recently I bought a Fisher and Paykel washing machine from an appliance outlet store. It's quite the unique little washing machine. Instead of having a clutch and transmission, it runs off of a brushless electric motor. This thing spins and spins fast! The ending cycle spins the clothing at 1000RPM to sling all the water and soap out of them. Since this purchase, my clothes take about 1/2 the time in the dryer that they used to. Instead of pulling out soaking wet clothes from the washer, my clothes are only a few steps from being dried. I have a dryer with a moisture sensor built in, so they spend no more time than they have to in the drying cycle. I actually prefer them to be slightly damp so that, when they fully dry, they will be wrinkle free. I seem to be saving an average of $10 a month on electricity, and my clothes have never been so soft and clean smelling....
Number one, Nintendo didn't screw up. Seriously, unless you're a pro ball player, you're not going to be able to throw that remote hard enough to get close to snapping the strap. And if you throw it enough to wear it down overtime, apparently you're not learning your lesson.
However, I do agree that Sony should learn a lesson. One thing that Nintendo has ALWAYS excelled at is customer service. Nintendo is replacing the straps as good PR, not because they need replaced. Just as Nintendo was taking trading out DS's with as little as one dead pixel on the screen when they came out. Nintendo realizes that they're in the entertainment industry and as such they need to keep their customers happy...which is nice for a change...
Yes, there's plenty of 2D games on the DS, but I sympathize with the original point. You could do some drop dead gorgeous hand painted games in 1080i. There's so much more detail that could be squeezed into games.
Personally, I'm holing out for a true sequel to Symphony of the Night, fully hand painted, in 2d. 3D effects, sure. Maybe even 3D medusa heads and bats.
When I play games, I play to escape reality...not look at something that tries to mimick it. If I want reality I can go outside. I'd really love to see more abstract 2D games out on the market for consoles. I guess we have the new Paper Mario game on the Wii to look forward too....
I'm glad you got modded insightful instead of funny. It's the blatent truth of the issue. Ken is a crazy, crazy man with little to no business since. Sony is running off the steam of their name at this point. Hopefully the up in commers in the corporation will have a little more sense or there's going to be little cash to run off of in the future. As it sits now, SCE is the company's only real profit (other divisions are taking losses).
Frankly, after my run of faulty Sony products (tally of broken sony equipment: 1 psx, 2 ps2's, 2 discmen, 1 dvd player), they lost a potential PS3 customer until they prove to me that the hardware is solid or the price drops substantially. I know I'm not the only person who feels burnt by their QA either. Despite all the other craziness going on in the company, the first real step would be stepping their hardware quality up to what it used to be in Sony's glory days.
The only one of those products that wasn't successful was the Virtual Boy because it lost money. The N64 and Gamecube both made substantial money for Nintendo. The only way the N64 was a mistake was through poor marketing and not getting the developers the tools they needed in time, thus loosing developer support and marketshare. The CD vs. Cart issue is debatable, though it did loose them Square. The Gamecube was a success from every angle. It made money and maintained/gained market share. Despite what people say, it did/still does have a strong fan base and a fantastic library of games, even outside of 1st/2nd party games and multi-console games.
No more batteries than the Game Gear, Lynx, or the infamous Sega Nomad which got on average an hour and a half life on a set of 4 AA's. At least I think it was 4, could have been 6 or 8. The system was a brick, although I'm still not complaining about having a portable Genesis.
Take into consideration the 30 attach rate probably includes Blue-Ray DVD's too, which Sony is 100% banking on being a success. IF they aren't, Sony's going to be in deep financial doodoo.
The advertising isn't mind boggling at all. What better way to keep hype rolling for a product than to tease consumers with constant advertisements for things they can't have.
Dropping the price isn't a good idea, but not for the reason you site. At $1000 a console, Sony would still sell them out. It would severely hurt the future of the console, though, as they would be priced out of the market. It would clearly work for Sony, because there would be no attach rate to break even (although there would be little chance of actually turning much profit and developers, who care greatly about attach rates, would turn their nose up to sony), but consumers would loose and their wouldn't At $400 a console, Sony would claim a fast and furious victory over MS and Nintendo before the "war" even got started, possibly even if MS countered by dropping the 360 core unit to $200; however, Sony would risk never breaking even on the product at that price point, although the attach rate would certainly be higher (at least at the beginning). At $600 a console, Sony's floating in uncharted territory. They still rely on a (high) attach rate to make profit and even the cheaper version of the console is priced out of "impulse buy" territory. I think that Sony's main problem was providing two different versions of the console at launch. Had sony focused on the Core system, threw in more or less a disc of "tech demo" type mini games (similar to what Nintendo did), and cut the price an extra $50 to $450 ("oh, this is the same price as buying a 360 with a game AND it comes with Blue-Ray out the box...hot damn!"), I believe they would be onto something. As it stands now, even though there is a $500 version of the console available, it still has the stigma of being the $600 console...which hurts.
So you mean all those myspace friends requests I keep getting from scantily clad women are really my friends taking sympathy on me and trying to buy me friends?:(
Please. Building a fast system isn't a huge challenge. Look at the PS3 and 360. They're huge systems. Look at a PS3 dissected. Half of the system is a giant heatsink. Nintendo could have made an uber system, put it in a big box, and sold it for $400-600 like MS and PS3.
Nintendo barely makes their own games? Umm, rethink that one. Sure, they have other companies take on projects for them, but Nintendo is the BIGGEST SOFTWARE company in the game industry. They release more games per year than anyone else, bottom line. Of course they're going to outsource work.
And don't worry about Nintendo selling it to their competitors, Sony and MS will steal it (heck, Sony half way already had with their new controller) like Nintendo's competition always has. You have dreamers and doers and you have followers...
No, they're just corrupt in the fact that they don't care if they're good or not if they're money makers. It's just a little ironic when the "entertainment industry" isn't "entertaining." Thus the string of horrible videogame movies. Instead of finding ways to give the movie mass appeal, they know there's a built in market for them so they're taking the easiest way out and pushing movies out of the gate to exploit this segment of the population. Not that there's anything "wrong" with this, but there's been little motivation to produce anything of quality.
It might not be a bad thing for a company outside of the movie industry to have a hand at a videogame movie. The movie industry is so corrupt...if they have any inkling that an idea will turn profit, they proceed without caring about the quality of a film. Microsoft or any other company outside of the industry would have to invest so much money into such an endevor that they would have to be confident that the product would be great. MS would have more at stake with IP such as Halo, as well. A great movie based on the title would push more copies of the game and more Xbox 360 consoles. So, really, it's in MS's best interest to create a quality product if they do go ahead with this. And MS actually has the money to do this and do it well...
The point you're missing is that some concepts are so simple that people do them and never think to copyright the idea/concept because it doesn't warrent a patent. Then someone, lets call him "Mr. Obvious," comes up and says "well hell, no one's patented this...lets see if it'll go through." Even though it's something obvious that people have been doing for ages, it goes through the patent office and this guy now has receives royalties on the idea for anyone who can't prove that they were doing this all along.
It's true, a lot of things are obvious in hindsight, but a lot of things are also obvious from the getgo. One of the major problems is that patent offices don't always have knowledge required to make a ruling over whether a patent is legitamate or not.
The difference between 480p and 720p/1080i is night and day with broadcast tv, but it doesn't hold true always for videogames. Remember, you're comparing real life to polygons. There's not nearly as much information there to transmit. Granted, it will still look better, but it's not as dramatic as you're making it out to be. The biggest difference between this gen and last gen is in high rez textures, and they're going to look fine in either format.
You do realize that DVD's run at 480p and they look just fine on your HDTV, right? Of course we're talking two completely different things, video verses 3d graphics, but 480p is more than competent. Of course a PS3 will look better, but then there's the arguement do you want to play your games or watch them?
We're not talking thousands. You can get yourself a decent gaming rig for $500. The only reason the PS3 is so expensive is that Sony's forcing new proprietary formats on you, namely BlueRay technology and the Cell processor. If you think that the PS3 is that much more powerful that a PC with a good graphics card, you're buying into Sony's hype bandwagon.
Wait. It's sold out everywhere. Maybe friends with someone at a store and have them let you know when they get more in. Go to the store everyday asking "is it here yet?" Go on a backorder list for an online vendor.
Rumors are that more are coming this week, although no word on more Zelda discs yet...
Wow, I've never seen so little said in so many words.
The Wii is fun. It supports 480p, so your HDTV is okay. The Gamecube looked worlds better than the PS2 to begin with, so double the GC power and you get the Wii. Games will look plenty good after the initial onslaught of games that were programed to Gamecube specs.
The world's far from adopting HD. Congrats, you have an HD. Sony's forcing the other 95% of the population to adopt technology they don't have the means to use if they want to play their games.
From skimming your post, it sounds like you just want a PC. Why don't you build a PC gaming rig and get it over with? You can hook it up to your fancy HDTV and it'll have better graphics to boot.
Heh, glad to see someone shares in my enthusiasm. When Tetris Attack came out back in high school, we couldn't sleep half of the time...we'd close our eyes and see blocks. Damn you blocks, get out of my head.
I'd really like to see Tetris Attack or Puzzle League on the DS with online play. That would be killer.
Seriously guys, if you want a fast passed puzzler, pick one of these two titles up. Added bonus, if you get Pokemon Puzzle League instead of Tetris Attack proper, all the people who aren't playing and sit back and giggle and the bad voices.
Other than that, it's all about Mario Kart, Bomberman, and Power Stone 2.
Asking why you would play guitar hero when you could play a regular guitar instead is kinda stupid.
That's like asking "why masturbate when you can have sex?" Masturbation is easier, cheaper, less time consuming, and addictive. Plus, this is slashdot. Having sex would require effort, something very few of us around here care for.
Slashdot Mirror
I really wish not having a dryer was an option for me. It's the only way to get all the winkles out of the clothes without investing an hour or two a week into ironing, and during the summer months over here it's often hard to find a day without rain.
Recently I bought a Fisher and Paykel washing machine from an appliance outlet store. It's quite the unique little washing machine. Instead of having a clutch and transmission, it runs off of a brushless electric motor. This thing spins and spins fast! The ending cycle spins the clothing at 1000RPM to sling all the water and soap out of them. Since this purchase, my clothes take about 1/2 the time in the dryer that they used to. Instead of pulling out soaking wet clothes from the washer, my clothes are only a few steps from being dried. I have a dryer with a moisture sensor built in, so they spend no more time than they have to in the drying cycle. I actually prefer them to be slightly damp so that, when they fully dry, they will be wrinkle free. I seem to be saving an average of $10 a month on electricity, and my clothes have never been so soft and clean smelling....
Number one, Nintendo didn't screw up. Seriously, unless you're a pro ball player, you're not going to be able to throw that remote hard enough to get close to snapping the strap. And if you throw it enough to wear it down overtime, apparently you're not learning your lesson.
However, I do agree that Sony should learn a lesson. One thing that Nintendo has ALWAYS excelled at is customer service. Nintendo is replacing the straps as good PR, not because they need replaced. Just as Nintendo was taking trading out DS's with as little as one dead pixel on the screen when they came out. Nintendo realizes that they're in the entertainment industry and as such they need to keep their customers happy...which is nice for a change...
Yes, there's plenty of 2D games on the DS, but I sympathize with the original point. You could do some drop dead gorgeous hand painted games in 1080i. There's so much more detail that could be squeezed into games.
Personally, I'm holing out for a true sequel to Symphony of the Night, fully hand painted, in 2d. 3D effects, sure. Maybe even 3D medusa heads and bats.
When I play games, I play to escape reality...not look at something that tries to mimick it. If I want reality I can go outside. I'd really love to see more abstract 2D games out on the market for consoles. I guess we have the new Paper Mario game on the Wii to look forward too....
I'm glad you got modded insightful instead of funny. It's the blatent truth of the issue. Ken is a crazy, crazy man with little to no business since. Sony is running off the steam of their name at this point. Hopefully the up in commers in the corporation will have a little more sense or there's going to be little cash to run off of in the future. As it sits now, SCE is the company's only real profit (other divisions are taking losses).
Frankly, after my run of faulty Sony products (tally of broken sony equipment: 1 psx, 2 ps2's, 2 discmen, 1 dvd player), they lost a potential PS3 customer until they prove to me that the hardware is solid or the price drops substantially. I know I'm not the only person who feels burnt by their QA either. Despite all the other craziness going on in the company, the first real step would be stepping their hardware quality up to what it used to be in Sony's glory days.
The only one of those products that wasn't successful was the Virtual Boy because it lost money. The N64 and Gamecube both made substantial money for Nintendo. The only way the N64 was a mistake was through poor marketing and not getting the developers the tools they needed in time, thus loosing developer support and marketshare. The CD vs. Cart issue is debatable, though it did loose them Square. The Gamecube was a success from every angle. It made money and maintained/gained market share. Despite what people say, it did/still does have a strong fan base and a fantastic library of games, even outside of 1st/2nd party games and multi-console games.
No more batteries than the Game Gear, Lynx, or the infamous Sega Nomad which got on average an hour and a half life on a set of 4 AA's. At least I think it was 4, could have been 6 or 8. The system was a brick, although I'm still not complaining about having a portable Genesis.
Take into consideration the 30 attach rate probably includes Blue-Ray DVD's too, which Sony is 100% banking on being a success. IF they aren't, Sony's going to be in deep financial doodoo.
The advertising isn't mind boggling at all. What better way to keep hype rolling for a product than to tease consumers with constant advertisements for things they can't have.
Dropping the price isn't a good idea, but not for the reason you site. At $1000 a console, Sony would still sell them out. It would severely hurt the future of the console, though, as they would be priced out of the market. It would clearly work for Sony, because there would be no attach rate to break even (although there would be little chance of actually turning much profit and developers, who care greatly about attach rates, would turn their nose up to sony), but consumers would loose and their wouldn't At $400 a console, Sony would claim a fast and furious victory over MS and Nintendo before the "war" even got started, possibly even if MS countered by dropping the 360 core unit to $200; however, Sony would risk never breaking even on the product at that price point, although the attach rate would certainly be higher (at least at the beginning). At $600 a console, Sony's floating in uncharted territory. They still rely on a (high) attach rate to make profit and even the cheaper version of the console is priced out of "impulse buy" territory. I think that Sony's main problem was providing two different versions of the console at launch. Had sony focused on the Core system, threw in more or less a disc of "tech demo" type mini games (similar to what Nintendo did), and cut the price an extra $50 to $450 ("oh, this is the same price as buying a 360 with a game AND it comes with Blue-Ray out the box...hot damn!"), I believe they would be onto something. As it stands now, even though there is a $500 version of the console available, it still has the stigma of being the $600 console...which hurts.
Sorry man, but that band sucks...
So you mean all those myspace friends requests I keep getting from scantily clad women are really my friends taking sympathy on me and trying to buy me friends? :(
Please. Building a fast system isn't a huge challenge. Look at the PS3 and 360. They're huge systems. Look at a PS3 dissected. Half of the system is a giant heatsink. Nintendo could have made an uber system, put it in a big box, and sold it for $400-600 like MS and PS3.
Nintendo barely makes their own games? Umm, rethink that one. Sure, they have other companies take on projects for them, but Nintendo is the BIGGEST SOFTWARE company in the game industry. They release more games per year than anyone else, bottom line. Of course they're going to outsource work.
And don't worry about Nintendo selling it to their competitors, Sony and MS will steal it (heck, Sony half way already had with their new controller) like Nintendo's competition always has. You have dreamers and doers and you have followers...
No, they're just corrupt in the fact that they don't care if they're good or not if they're money makers. It's just a little ironic when the "entertainment industry" isn't "entertaining." Thus the string of horrible videogame movies. Instead of finding ways to give the movie mass appeal, they know there's a built in market for them so they're taking the easiest way out and pushing movies out of the gate to exploit this segment of the population. Not that there's anything "wrong" with this, but there's been little motivation to produce anything of quality.
It might not be a bad thing for a company outside of the movie industry to have a hand at a videogame movie. The movie industry is so corrupt...if they have any inkling that an idea will turn profit, they proceed without caring about the quality of a film. Microsoft or any other company outside of the industry would have to invest so much money into such an endevor that they would have to be confident that the product would be great. MS would have more at stake with IP such as Halo, as well. A great movie based on the title would push more copies of the game and more Xbox 360 consoles. So, really, it's in MS's best interest to create a quality product if they do go ahead with this. And MS actually has the money to do this and do it well...
The point you're missing is that some concepts are so simple that people do them and never think to copyright the idea/concept because it doesn't warrent a patent. Then someone, lets call him "Mr. Obvious," comes up and says "well hell, no one's patented this...lets see if it'll go through." Even though it's something obvious that people have been doing for ages, it goes through the patent office and this guy now has receives royalties on the idea for anyone who can't prove that they were doing this all along.
It's true, a lot of things are obvious in hindsight, but a lot of things are also obvious from the getgo. One of the major problems is that patent offices don't always have knowledge required to make a ruling over whether a patent is legitamate or not.
They'll come at you like a whirling dervish, all fists and elbows.
I appreciate your input, Wilfred Brimley, but what the heck does this have to do with the article?
The difference between 480p and 720p/1080i is night and day with broadcast tv, but it doesn't hold true always for videogames. Remember, you're comparing real life to polygons. There's not nearly as much information there to transmit. Granted, it will still look better, but it's not as dramatic as you're making it out to be. The biggest difference between this gen and last gen is in high rez textures, and they're going to look fine in either format.
You do realize that DVD's run at 480p and they look just fine on your HDTV, right? Of course we're talking two completely different things, video verses 3d graphics, but 480p is more than competent. Of course a PS3 will look better, but then there's the arguement do you want to play your games or watch them?
We're not talking thousands. You can get yourself a decent gaming rig for $500. The only reason the PS3 is so expensive is that Sony's forcing new proprietary formats on you, namely BlueRay technology and the Cell processor. If you think that the PS3 is that much more powerful that a PC with a good graphics card, you're buying into Sony's hype bandwagon.
Wait. It's sold out everywhere. Maybe friends with someone at a store and have them let you know when they get more in. Go to the store everyday asking "is it here yet?" Go on a backorder list for an online vendor.
Rumors are that more are coming this week, although no word on more Zelda discs yet...
Ugh, and then there was THPS2 and Power Stone 2...a whole new world of addiction...
Wow, I've never seen so little said in so many words.
The Wii is fun. It supports 480p, so your HDTV is okay. The Gamecube looked worlds better than the PS2 to begin with, so double the GC power and you get the Wii. Games will look plenty good after the initial onslaught of games that were programed to Gamecube specs.
The world's far from adopting HD. Congrats, you have an HD. Sony's forcing the other 95% of the population to adopt technology they don't have the means to use if they want to play their games.
From skimming your post, it sounds like you just want a PC. Why don't you build a PC gaming rig and get it over with? You can hook it up to your fancy HDTV and it'll have better graphics to boot.
To answer your question, Fox News.
Heh, glad to see someone shares in my enthusiasm. When Tetris Attack came out back in high school, we couldn't sleep half of the time...we'd close our eyes and see blocks. Damn you blocks, get out of my head.
I'd really like to see Tetris Attack or Puzzle League on the DS with online play. That would be killer.
Seriously guys, if you want a fast passed puzzler, pick one of these two titles up. Added bonus, if you get Pokemon Puzzle League instead of Tetris Attack proper, all the people who aren't playing and sit back and giggle and the bad voices.
Other than that, it's all about Mario Kart, Bomberman, and Power Stone 2.
You'll get 1080p on games just fine. Your BluRay DVD's are a different story, though. Those are DRM'd through the HDMI cable.
Asking why you would play guitar hero when you could play a regular guitar instead is kinda stupid.
That's like asking "why masturbate when you can have sex?" Masturbation is easier, cheaper, less time consuming, and addictive. Plus, this is slashdot. Having sex would require effort, something very few of us around here care for.