Yeah well, as far as I'm concerned they can go back to making 2d games with SNES level graphics and sell them for less, seeing that the technology has been perfected.
Oh wait, that's right. That's my GBA.
The thing is, not everyone wants a game for super amazing graphics, cutscenes, etc (the things that are MAKING games cost so much more to produce). Some people are happy with simpler games and non-cutting edge graphics. It's because of the super produced games that are generally flashy but otherwise lackluster that we're forced to pay even more money on games. They augment the cost of the blockbuster titles with the much smaller cost of easier to make titles. We're also seeing a lot of repitition because of the super blockbuster titles. Engines are being reused, companies give games a face lift and resell them with a different title. It's really getting quite bad.
I'm just glad that games that come out of nowhere, like Katamari Damacy, are able to show that great games don't have to cost a fortune to make while being affordable for the consumer as well. Eventually the industry will start to curve more toward the creative games. I'm counting on the Revolution to push this segment...because we know that non-blockbuster games aren't in MS's vision of the industry...and Sony has enough blockbuster titles to push it through without having to really change anything.
I think the point of the OP was that no dvi = no hooking it up to his LCD monitor. I agree, it would be nice to have the option of DVI....but it is a console made for being played in front of a TV. The audience for a VGA/DVI hookup would be so limited it wouldn't be worth it. Also, if someone was going to sit in front of a monitor at a desk to play a game, they might as well play a PC game to begin with. Half of the appeal of console systems is being able to play them in your livingroom.
I agree. Even though I have an HDTV, I could care less about HD support as long as it supports progressive scan and widescreen. I don't see a big enough reason to make the HD jump with current technology. System power would be better spent rendering special effects, lighting, bump mapping, upping poly count, etc. Why spend extra system power to bump up the resolution when you can still count the poly's in the majority of games on the market?
Again, it depends on your uses. I'm a professional tech writer/editor, so the extra width is imperitive when I'm scrolling through multiple markups of a document and implementing them into the master. It's also great when scrolling between actual documents and specs looking for changes in diagrams, tables, etc.
One of the greatest advantages for me is the ability to look at 11x17 engineering drawings using the full screen.
Oh, you're one of those who haven't had the good fortune of actually trying a widescreen. The great thing about widescreens is the fact that you can open more documents, web browser screens, etc. side by side. It's a godsend for multitaskers and people using their laptops for work. And, with the higher resolution widescreens, you don't even need to worry about vertical height...the resolution is high enough to display whatever you need.
I too thought the wide screen laptops were stupid until I tried one out. Now I could never give up being able to have 3 documents open side by side at work. Think of it as dual screens on one screen...
XML can be used as hypertext; however, that's a very limited view of what it can do.
Although, I consider articles that debate information technology and use HTML and XML as their two examples of markup languages misinformed from the getgo. Both are irrelevant without the mention of SGML, which is the parent to both subsets. SGML truely is a flexible, versitle tool. The only real drawback of SGML is the complexity of the DTD you use to render it. Eventually it'll all be scrapped for something more intellegent...something designed now that people know what the applications for the language are going to be.
My question is, seeing how much industry has invested in SGML and it's subsets, how long will it take for the world to move over to a better system once established? We'll have a great new markup language, only to use it to emulate old SGML/XML/HTML documents.
The reality of it is, when you're working with a massive scale project, you need a spec. Linus complains that specs are based on theory and not real world? Well, duh...the specs not supposed to hand you your code on a plate. It's supposed to describe how, in theory, this beast is supposed to work. So, you know, at any given time someone working on the project can reference it and, even if they don't know how to read code, read through the processing enough to get some idea of what's going on.
What some people loose sight of is that the spec isn't only for engineerings use. Project managers, proposal writers, technical writers, etc all have to use this to perform their daily job and, not to get nasty, but engineers usually aren't the easiest to talk to get information...and it's near impossible to write a manual or do an analysis on something that somebody in the "know" thought. Engineers are busy...we're all busy...but the spec in the one unifying thing between everyone working on a project. If you take this away, we start to crumble.
In my mind, this just shows the nievity of Torvald and why Linux will probably never get it's act together enough to become a dominant force in the desktop workplace.. Designed for nerds, by nerds...orchistrated by one of the biggest nerds who doesn't want to smell the reality of why the rest of the world forces "specs" and other organization tools on engineers. They're too busy to keep organized without an extra push.
When the Mac Mini's came out, tons of people complained about dim displays with analog connections. This was due to a fault in the onboard gaphics card (the frequency of the video outputted by the card was under the VESA standard). After a few months of people complaining, Apple finally made a statement which basically told people to adjust the gamma of the system (which helps the problem to a degree, but still makes the output look like garbage). Not only that, but people using the DVI plug were also having problems....green artifacts randomly appearing on their screen.
Sounded like a pretty major problem to me. One things for sure, I'll never buy another Apple product until the second gen version hits and they work the kinks out...
I haven't seen it, it may or may not be a great movie. However, for the love of god...make a decent trailer for the thing. I don't watch Firefly...I don't get around to much tv these days. But the trailer makes it look like one of the worst movies of the year. If I hadn't heard second hand how good it supposidly is, I'd throw it aside as typical sci-fi garbage. Blah blah...in space...blah blah...hot chick...blah blah...kung fu grip.
Nintendo never said it wouldn't be able to run in HD, they just said that they wouldn't. They don't want to alienate users and force widescreen gaming on people before widescreen HDTV's are fully adopted. You're gonna end up with a lot of kids with 13"-20" gaming tv's in their bedrooms squinting to try to figure out what's going on if you start designing all your games around being widescreen. I'm sure Nintendo will make it 480p capable...the GameCube is, Nintendo just never decided to push the cable for it.
First off, why is Google a media company and not a tech company? Their main product, a web search engine, is a very technologically driven system. Ads are google's way of supporting their free services. You can't expect to get something for free. Google's ads are the most unobtrusive I've ever seen as well, so kudos to Google for making money and not being obnoxious in the process.
How does Google not have a plan? Google has stated many times that their goal is to innovate the way we access all sorts of information. They've already changed the way I search the web, read my email, view maps, etc. They're smart enough to realize that you're better off making 100 small applications and seeing which ones work than you are focusing all your energy into one project that may or may not flop. Diversification is key to innovation and success.
Also, Google's successful because they're innovating where other people follow suit.
GMail: Sure, there's tons of other free e-mail services, but this one actually does things right. Not only that, it also has a user friendly interface and looks nice. Visit hotmail, yahoo mail, etc. then go back to GMail. There's a reason it's so incredibly popular.
Google Maps: Sure, we have Map Quest et. al....but their maps suck. And by suck, I mean they're horrendous. Google's the first company to offer a compelling map service for free.
Also, Google is a trendy name. People love Google labs. Even if they don't use all the services, people check back regularly to see what kind of neat things they're working on. As long as Google holds the public's interest (and with gmail being as popular as it is, I don't see how they won't), they'll be around and be doing well for a long time to come...
The point of what I was saying was that group projects reflect real world projects because you have to deal with unreliable people and people who have big ideas, yet have no idea how anything actually works. Too many college students think that when they leave college and get a real job that they'll be working with other "professionals." They won't...it's the same irresponsible people you had to work with in college, amplified.
100% agreed. Going into the job force with a masters degree does not mean you start higher on the latter, it just means that there's more headroom for sallary negotiations.
Trust me, being able to efficiently work in an office/large corporation environment is a more valuable skill and harder to obtain than your programming experience. There's a reason all your professors gave you those group assignments that you hated so much...the real world reflects those assignments pretty accurately. You have one person who has huge ideas with no idea how to implement them, one person who never shows up to group meetings, and you...the one who usually does the brunt of the work. It takes experience to be able to work with this and make yourself look good.
Oh man, if I would have known that my job would have been so filled with politics, I would have majored in public relations instead....
I concur as well. From what I've experienced, most FFVII extreme fans where the people who were either two young for 8-16bit RPG's or those who didn't have any interest in RPG's until Sony spent booku bucks hyping up FFVII. When all was said and done, FFVII was a decent game, but it was lead astray in too many ways and lost many of the core values and themes that the series had held since its early days. The only true FF game after VI was IX.
FFVI, along with Panzer Dragoon Saga, represent the pinacle of RPG design and story telling. They nailed the fighting system, the story, presented highly stylized graphics unique to that game. They made a pretty believable new world. Although FFIV will always remain my favorite:)
You say the future of computing is the Cell Architecture, yet you also say that the future is Apple shaped. Dont' you think if Apple decided to migrate OSX to the cell processor that they'd be talking to Sony/Toshiba for their new platform instead of Intel? For all you know MS might be compiling Longhorn to run on Cell chips.
Nintendo's generally always undercuts the competition pricewise. It's also not throwing in all the extras the other systems are. It's also not as powerful. The GameCube came out at $199. I see no reason why they would charge any more for the Revolution. Nintendo even clearly stated that it would be an affordable system that even people who weren't hardcore gamers would want to add to their homes. Please, besides the SNES/Genesis war era, name me a time when Nintendo wasn't the lowest priced, competitive system on the market in the US?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah well, as far as I'm concerned they can go back to making 2d games with SNES level graphics and sell them for less, seeing that the technology has been perfected.
Oh wait, that's right. That's my GBA.
The thing is, not everyone wants a game for super amazing graphics, cutscenes, etc (the things that are MAKING games cost so much more to produce). Some people are happy with simpler games and non-cutting edge graphics. It's because of the super produced games that are generally flashy but otherwise lackluster that we're forced to pay even more money on games. They augment the cost of the blockbuster titles with the much smaller cost of easier to make titles. We're also seeing a lot of repitition because of the super blockbuster titles. Engines are being reused, companies give games a face lift and resell them with a different title. It's really getting quite bad.
I'm just glad that games that come out of nowhere, like Katamari Damacy, are able to show that great games don't have to cost a fortune to make while being affordable for the consumer as well. Eventually the industry will start to curve more toward the creative games. I'm counting on the Revolution to push this segment...because we know that non-blockbuster games aren't in MS's vision of the industry...and Sony has enough blockbuster titles to push it through without having to really change anything.
I least I know I'm looking forward to a robotically enhanced "end stroke."
The question is, how high are they overclocking these puppies?!?
I think the point of the OP was that no dvi = no hooking it up to his LCD monitor. I agree, it would be nice to have the option of DVI....but it is a console made for being played in front of a TV. The audience for a VGA/DVI hookup would be so limited it wouldn't be worth it. Also, if someone was going to sit in front of a monitor at a desk to play a game, they might as well play a PC game to begin with. Half of the appeal of console systems is being able to play them in your livingroom.
I agree. Even though I have an HDTV, I could care less about HD support as long as it supports progressive scan and widescreen. I don't see a big enough reason to make the HD jump with current technology. System power would be better spent rendering special effects, lighting, bump mapping, upping poly count, etc. Why spend extra system power to bump up the resolution when you can still count the poly's in the majority of games on the market?
Again, it depends on your uses. I'm a professional tech writer/editor, so the extra width is imperitive when I'm scrolling through multiple markups of a document and implementing them into the master. It's also great when scrolling between actual documents and specs looking for changes in diagrams, tables, etc.
One of the greatest advantages for me is the ability to look at 11x17 engineering drawings using the full screen.
Oh, you're one of those who haven't had the good fortune of actually trying a widescreen. The great thing about widescreens is the fact that you can open more documents, web browser screens, etc. side by side. It's a godsend for multitaskers and people using their laptops for work. And, with the higher resolution widescreens, you don't even need to worry about vertical height...the resolution is high enough to display whatever you need.
I too thought the wide screen laptops were stupid until I tried one out. Now I could never give up being able to have 3 documents open side by side at work. Think of it as dual screens on one screen...
XML can be used as hypertext; however, that's a very limited view of what it can do. Although, I consider articles that debate information technology and use HTML and XML as their two examples of markup languages misinformed from the getgo. Both are irrelevant without the mention of SGML, which is the parent to both subsets. SGML truely is a flexible, versitle tool. The only real drawback of SGML is the complexity of the DTD you use to render it. Eventually it'll all be scrapped for something more intellegent...something designed now that people know what the applications for the language are going to be. My question is, seeing how much industry has invested in SGML and it's subsets, how long will it take for the world to move over to a better system once established? We'll have a great new markup language, only to use it to emulate old SGML/XML/HTML documents.
1) IGN is assuming that everybody in the game industry is working in CA because they're clueless like that.
2) $60k isn't much in CA.
Seriously, I know the entry level folks over here at EA Tiburon in Orlando aren't starting out at that.
The reality of it is, when you're working with a massive scale project, you need a spec. Linus complains that specs are based on theory and not real world? Well, duh...the specs not supposed to hand you your code on a plate. It's supposed to describe how, in theory, this beast is supposed to work. So, you know, at any given time someone working on the project can reference it and, even if they don't know how to read code, read through the processing enough to get some idea of what's going on. What some people loose sight of is that the spec isn't only for engineerings use. Project managers, proposal writers, technical writers, etc all have to use this to perform their daily job and, not to get nasty, but engineers usually aren't the easiest to talk to get information...and it's near impossible to write a manual or do an analysis on something that somebody in the "know" thought. Engineers are busy...we're all busy...but the spec in the one unifying thing between everyone working on a project. If you take this away, we start to crumble. In my mind, this just shows the nievity of Torvald and why Linux will probably never get it's act together enough to become a dominant force in the desktop workplace.. Designed for nerds, by nerds...orchistrated by one of the biggest nerds who doesn't want to smell the reality of why the rest of the world forces "specs" and other organization tools on engineers. They're too busy to keep organized without an extra push.
(1) 1x10^6:1 LCD screen + (1) monkey holding a magnifying glass = "Tartar Word Domination!!!"
You could frickin' blow up the moon with that laser.
When the Mac Mini's came out, tons of people complained about dim displays with analog connections. This was due to a fault in the onboard gaphics card (the frequency of the video outputted by the card was under the VESA standard). After a few months of people complaining, Apple finally made a statement which basically told people to adjust the gamma of the system (which helps the problem to a degree, but still makes the output look like garbage). Not only that, but people using the DVI plug were also having problems....green artifacts randomly appearing on their screen.
Sounded like a pretty major problem to me. One things for sure, I'll never buy another Apple product until the second gen version hits and they work the kinks out...
I can believe that. Honestly, that's why I never watched the series either. If I see one more sci fi boob fest, I'm gonna puke.
I haven't seen it, it may or may not be a great movie. However, for the love of god...make a decent trailer for the thing. I don't watch Firefly...I don't get around to much tv these days. But the trailer makes it look like one of the worst movies of the year. If I hadn't heard second hand how good it supposidly is, I'd throw it aside as typical sci-fi garbage. Blah blah...in space...blah blah...hot chick...blah blah...kung fu grip.
Why would you ever need PayPal when we have GREAT services like MSN Wallet avalible???
Nintendo never said it wouldn't be able to run in HD, they just said that they wouldn't. They don't want to alienate users and force widescreen gaming on people before widescreen HDTV's are fully adopted. You're gonna end up with a lot of kids with 13"-20" gaming tv's in their bedrooms squinting to try to figure out what's going on if you start designing all your games around being widescreen. I'm sure Nintendo will make it 480p capable...the GameCube is, Nintendo just never decided to push the cable for it.
First off, why is Google a media company and not a tech company? Their main product, a web search engine, is a very technologically driven system. Ads are google's way of supporting their free services. You can't expect to get something for free. Google's ads are the most unobtrusive I've ever seen as well, so kudos to Google for making money and not being obnoxious in the process.
How does Google not have a plan? Google has stated many times that their goal is to innovate the way we access all sorts of information. They've already changed the way I search the web, read my email, view maps, etc. They're smart enough to realize that you're better off making 100 small applications and seeing which ones work than you are focusing all your energy into one project that may or may not flop. Diversification is key to innovation and success.
Also, Google's successful because they're innovating where other people follow suit.
GMail: Sure, there's tons of other free e-mail services, but this one actually does things right. Not only that, it also has a user friendly interface and looks nice. Visit hotmail, yahoo mail, etc. then go back to GMail. There's a reason it's so incredibly popular.
Google Maps: Sure, we have Map Quest et. al....but their maps suck. And by suck, I mean they're horrendous. Google's the first company to offer a compelling map service for free.
Also, Google is a trendy name. People love Google labs. Even if they don't use all the services, people check back regularly to see what kind of neat things they're working on. As long as Google holds the public's interest (and with gmail being as popular as it is, I don't see how they won't), they'll be around and be doing well for a long time to come...
The point of what I was saying was that group projects reflect real world projects because you have to deal with unreliable people and people who have big ideas, yet have no idea how anything actually works. Too many college students think that when they leave college and get a real job that they'll be working with other "professionals." They won't...it's the same irresponsible people you had to work with in college, amplified.
100% agreed. Going into the job force with a masters degree does not mean you start higher on the latter, it just means that there's more headroom for sallary negotiations.
Trust me, being able to efficiently work in an office/large corporation environment is a more valuable skill and harder to obtain than your programming experience. There's a reason all your professors gave you those group assignments that you hated so much...the real world reflects those assignments pretty accurately. You have one person who has huge ideas with no idea how to implement them, one person who never shows up to group meetings, and you...the one who usually does the brunt of the work. It takes experience to be able to work with this and make yourself look good.
Oh man, if I would have known that my job would have been so filled with politics, I would have majored in public relations instead....
Master Chief realizes that Master Chief isn't a rank in the marines. The end.
How many employees does it take to write a memo? . .. ...
One to write it, one to analyze it, one to read the keystroke log....
Ooh, so hold on to my graphics station monitors for a couple more years and I'll be able to trade them in for 20" LCD's? I'm in!
I concur as well. From what I've experienced, most FFVII extreme fans where the people who were either two young for 8-16bit RPG's or those who didn't have any interest in RPG's until Sony spent booku bucks hyping up FFVII. When all was said and done, FFVII was a decent game, but it was lead astray in too many ways and lost many of the core values and themes that the series had held since its early days. The only true FF game after VI was IX.
:)
FFVI, along with Panzer Dragoon Saga, represent the pinacle of RPG design and story telling. They nailed the fighting system, the story, presented highly stylized graphics unique to that game. They made a pretty believable new world. Although FFIV will always remain my favorite
You say the future of computing is the Cell Architecture, yet you also say that the future is Apple shaped. Dont' you think if Apple decided to migrate OSX to the cell processor that they'd be talking to Sony/Toshiba for their new platform instead of Intel? For all you know MS might be compiling Longhorn to run on Cell chips.
Good try, thanks playing, come again.
Nintendo's generally always undercuts the competition pricewise. It's also not throwing in all the extras the other systems are. It's also not as powerful. The GameCube came out at $199. I see no reason why they would charge any more for the Revolution. Nintendo even clearly stated that it would be an affordable system that even people who weren't hardcore gamers would want to add to their homes. Please, besides the SNES/Genesis war era, name me a time when Nintendo wasn't the lowest priced, competitive system on the market in the US?