but I bought my PS3 to play HD games. I really could not care less about Home and I hope to hell that Home doesn't replace the awesome XMB interface.
Obviously, I am not the target audience here, but does a target audience even exist? I honestly do not see what Sony is attempting to achieve with Home other than unnecessarily complicate the on-line experience. I'd rather Sony put the effort into creating some good games, which are in remarkably short supply at the moment.
Don't get me wrong, I love my PS3 (and my 360), but Home has zero appeal to me on machine I bought to play Drake's Fortune and Assassin's Creed.
If you watched any of the DVD extras that came with God of War, you would have heard David Jaffe talk about how much money was spent developing all of the custom tools they used to create the game and how much material didn't make it into God of War because of time constraints or technical hurdles. A lot of that material made it into God of War 2, such as the Icarus wings, and that combined with the mature development tools allowed SCEA to push God of War 2 out just a year after God of War was released. If they had moved the game to the PS3 such a timeline would have been impossible and it is likely the game would still be in development.
I was probably one of the few people that enthusiastically supported Blockbuster's "no late fee" policy. "You can keep a movie for a month and only pay $1.25 restocking fee? Awesome!" And it was awesome, especially for video games, until about a month after they instituted the change and it was damn near impossible to find any new release movie or game. I stopped going to BB after my fourth or fifth attempt to rent the same new release and just hit Rogers Video, a well known Canadian chain, and found the movie right away.
As for the no late fee policy, I honestly think it is killing their business. Their main competitor here in Canada, Rogers Video, has a similar no late fee policy but will charge you for the movie after eight days rather than thirty, so people hustle back the movies fairly quickly and thus Rogers is rarely out of movies. Rogers is really the only competition Blockbuster has in Canada, or at least, here in Alberta. If Blockbuster goes broke Rogers would have the video rental market in Canada pretty much locked up, and lack of competition is never a good thing for the consumer.
I play Resistance: Fall of Man all the time on-line and I never have a problem. Guys at work play WoW on our wireless network without issues (at least, the issues have nothing to do with our wireless network).
I don't have a 360 myself, but I have heard friends with 360s complain that the Xbox brand wireless adapter is not particularly robust, so they moved to a wireless bridge and simply plugged it into the 360s Ethernet port. Voila! Problem solved. You can pick up a wireless bridge for about $29, if I am not mistaken. Beats the hell out of the ridiculous $100 price Microsoft charges for their adapter.
Another challenge for Microsoft is thanks to the high value of the Canadian dollar the 40 GB PS3 will be released in Canada at $399.99, the same price as in the United States (Sony also dropped the price of the 80 GB model here in Canada by an additional $60 above the already $100 price drop to reach parity). With the current price of the 360 Pro package sitting at $399.99 Canadian, the PS3 is finally the value leader between the two systems. With a larger hard drive, included wireless controller battery kit, a Blue-Ray drive and WI-FI functionality built in, the 360 Pro kit -- even with two games -- just doesn't have the value.
As retailers receive new bundles from Microsoft in the ramp up towards Christmas there is no excuse for the $50 price premium to remain in place, especially in light of Sony's move.
I don't disagree with the premise that older music could or should be priced differently from newer music. One would expect that with older music the costs of production and distribution have been largely recouped. Of course, to me that means that older songs should be priced from 25 cents to 75 cents and new music remain at the one dollar level.
I doubt UMG/Vivendi shares my pricing philosophy, however. Differential pricing to them is just a lever they want to use to rationalize higher prices.
Why is it going to take six months (spring 2008) for the Dualshock 3 to hit North America when Japan will start seeing them in November? Unless "spring 2008" to Sony means January or February.
Either way, why the delay? It's just a controller.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
So, as far as the government is concerned, it is a right. Just like the Constitution does not specifically enumerate a right to breathe, or think, or take a shit.
Now as for the relationship between you and the airlines, you do pay for the privilege to fly. I think that is pretty clear.
Commercials will be embedded in the programs and viewers will not be able to skip through them...
Further into the article:
But NBC intends to transform the service into a model similar to iTunes by the middle of 2008 -- that is, consumers will pay NBC directly to download episodes of the shows. "We did this to eliminate the middleman," said Jeff Gaspin, the president of NBC's digital division.
That's fine and dandy, but will the paid version of the episode come complete with ads or is this just an interim solution until the paid model is in place, because I sure as hell wouldn't want to pay for episodes if they contained unskippable ads.
Why are you directing your call to what I assume are American Slashdotters? You need to contact your carrier in Canada and ask them what the charges are when using your phone in the United States.
You mention that you are on a pay as you go plan. I looked up the various roaming charges while in the United States for you:
Rogers Pay as You Go and Fido pre-paid:
Calls Back to Canada from the U.S. $2.49 per minute Calls within the U.S. while in the U.S. (local and long distance calls) $2.49 per minute Incoming calls while in the U.S. $2.49 per minute Received in the U.S. Free Sent from the U.S. 40 per message
My grandfather was a stevedore (longshoreman) and I actually phoned and asked him. He said smaller coastal ships could go about 2,000 to 2,500 nautical miles, while larger cargo and container ships could go 5,000 NM or more, depending on how much fuel they took on. Obviously, transatlantic container and cargo ships have to hold enough fuel to get themselves across the Atlantic.
I've posted this story before so I won't go into a lot of detail, but my brother (the anal retentive one in the family) against my advice bought one of those too good to be true CD-R spindle deals where the rebate is just about as much as the purchase price of the spindle pack.
Months later and after much friendly teasing from me without even the hint of a rebate, my brother got angry and filed a small claims suit against them that was ultimately successful. After maybe an hour or two of research and an afternoon at the courthouse he received his rebate along with all of the expenses incurred in pursuing his claim. I was actually surprised at how simple the process was and effective the outcome.
My point is, there are ways you can get that rebate without incurring any cost to you.
As successful as the Wii has been, Nintendo still hasn't listened in regards to the on-line experience, which to say is nothing less than pathetic. The fact that Nintendo is steadfastly committed to the ridiculous and unwieldy "friend code" system for multiplayer games while the 360 and PS3 maintain a more workable and sensible system is probably the best example. That and the fact that just about a year after launch there are no compelling on-line games tell me that Nintendo isn't taking the Internet seriously.
"Mii Parade" and weather updates aren't going to cut it as an on-line experience these days.
Home isn't a "game", per se, but a three dimensional environment where one, represented by an avatar, may interact with others, launch games, play movies and music, etc. on their PS3. It's essentially an interactive 3D replacement for the XMB (media cross bar), or rather, it's an adjunct to the XMB. No one is quite sure yet and Sony isn't saying.
Home could be the next great thing from Sony or it could be utter shit. Personally, I think it's shit. Why I would want to cruise around what is essentially a Second Life clone on my PS3 simply to launch a game or view a video? The XMB does that job just fine, thank you.
I am going to say this again: police cannot simply demand someone to identify themselves without an articulable reason. If you are being detained under suspicion of committing a crime, typically as a prelude to either issuing a ticket or arresting you for a crime, you still do not have to identify yourself although it is probably a good idea simply to save a trip to the police station for the purposes of confirming your identity. If a police officer simply walks up to you and demands that you identify yourself, there is no legal reason for you to comply.
I think you are confusing the fact that a lot of incredibly stupid people -- both the guilty and not guilty -- end up charged with obstructing justice because they start yapping and provide police with false names or identification. There is nothing in Canadian law that compels you to produce identification when demanded, except for the production of a driver's license when driving, of course. You not only have the right to remain silent but the duty, unless you want to be arrested for what is essentially idiocy.
There is a long standing Supreme Court of Canada decision that determined that citizens are not required to identify themselves to police simply because it is demanded. Curiously enough, this decision is decades old and from an era before the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Are there any airlines that still issue actual, physical tickets? I haven't touched one of those multi-coupon, red inked tickets since at least 2001 and I fly eight to ten times a year. I should mention that I am in Canada and haven't flown internationally in about five years, but I have friends flying to Japan and Bali and they weren't issued physical tickets either. Everything appears to be either web or electronic kiosk based check-in these days.
We just need to ensure that we teach our children critical thinking skills. Never mind movies, in a world with Fox News and entertainment and lifestyle stories that cloak themselves as "news", this is more important than ever if future generations are going to enjoy a standard of living that even approaches what we have now.
I once had a little Corolla like the shuttle. Every time I took the car out for any sort of drive I had to re-inflate one of the tires, so eventually I just bought one of those lighter powered air compressors. Eventually I got the money and replaced the tires and soon after the car.
You would think that with billions of dollars and thousands of talented engineers they could come up with a way of launching the shuttle without having to resort to repairing the damn thing before they can return home again.
Beautiful graphics, but I have some complaints...
on
Heavenly Sword Demo Out
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The game looks very, very good. The frame rate at the very start of the demo is a bit inconsistent with noticeable tearing, but through the rest of the demo the frame rate seemed rock solid. The combat has elements of button mashing, but I guess that happens with games of this nature until you get the combos down. My only other criticism is that I just couldn't get the motion controls down at all, so I turned them off. Again, that probably has more to do with my lack of mastery of the controls than anything else, but I would be curious to know if anyone else had the same problem.
The game feels very much like a ninja version of God of War, as they share many of the same elements: context sensitive mini games, vicious combat, finishing moves, swarming enemies and stunning locations. I wasn't all that excited for this game before the demo, but I am now. A definite release day purchase.
The oft quoted reason for the increase in prices between last generation console games and this generation of console games is "rising development costs". While I am sure that development costs have risen and $10 isn't all that much more to pay considering the improvements that the next generation of consoles can offer in terms of graphics, on-line experience, etc, I have to wonder just how much of that $10 difference is related to "development costs" when PC versions of console games remain at the $50 mark, if not cheaper. Shadowrun immediately comes to mind and the $10 premium to simply be able to play the game on my television (something you can do with any suitably equipped HDTV) just doesn't wash, especially given the fact that several heavy hitting PC games have been released at the $50 price tag.
Really, the $10 increase in game prices isn't going to effect me anyway because I've only ever bought a handful of games at full price. It just seems to make a lot more sense for me to dig through the $20 game bin at my local video store when eventually the games I want will reach that price level.
1) Two major players: Rogers (a.k.a Robbers) and Bell (a.k.a Dull)
Except out west where Telus is a major player, but yes, Rogers and Bell are the only truly national carriers.
2) Other smaller players with even worse service (Virgin, Fido, Telus etc.)
Fido and Telus aren't so bad. It really depends on which service package and phone you choose, ultimately.
3) Cannot get a phone without a contract (pay as you go is 15 cents-25 cents per call for the first minute and then a little lower for the next used time)
You absolutely, positively can get a phone without a contract, but you will have to pay full price for the phone. Why would any carrier just give you a phone for free without a contract?
4) Extra charges for receiving and sending SMS, as well as for having 911 and voice mail
Well, of course. There are plenty of service plans that include voice mail and unlimited incoming and outgoing SMS. The 50 cent 911 fee was mandated by the federal government a few years ago to recoup the costs associated with municipalities providing 911 service. Actually, if all you want is 911 service, any deactivated or inactive phone on any network will dial 911 for free, so long as you are within their service area.
5) Incoming call charges (I Wish I could find a Bell or Rogers executive, put him on a plane, and take him Pakistan where even the worst Telco does not charge for incoming calls, and then shoot him!)
It's always been this way in North America, but Fido and Rogers (and probably the others, I haven't looked) do offer particular service plans that do not charge airtime on incoming calls.
I really don't find any of these complaints all that genuine, especially considering that there are two truly egregious money grabs you haven't mentioned: Long distance and the notorious "system access fee". Long distance rates for all the wireless carriers in Canada are ridiculously over priced compared to wire line rates and those of wireless carriers in the United States, and the "system access fee" all of the carriers (except perhaps Bell) charge is nothing less than a blatant cash grab.
Slashdot Mirror
but I bought my PS3 to play HD games. I really could not care less about Home and I hope to hell that Home doesn't replace the awesome XMB interface.
Obviously, I am not the target audience here, but does a target audience even exist? I honestly do not see what Sony is attempting to achieve with Home other than unnecessarily complicate the on-line experience. I'd rather Sony put the effort into creating some good games, which are in remarkably short supply at the moment.
Don't get me wrong, I love my PS3 (and my 360), but Home has zero appeal to me on machine I bought to play Drake's Fortune and Assassin's Creed.
If you watched any of the DVD extras that came with God of War, you would have heard David Jaffe talk about how much money was spent developing all of the custom tools they used to create the game and how much material didn't make it into God of War because of time constraints or technical hurdles. A lot of that material made it into God of War 2, such as the Icarus wings, and that combined with the mature development tools allowed SCEA to push God of War 2 out just a year after God of War was released. If they had moved the game to the PS3 such a timeline would have been impossible and it is likely the game would still be in development.
I was probably one of the few people that enthusiastically supported Blockbuster's "no late fee" policy. "You can keep a movie for a month and only pay $1.25 restocking fee? Awesome!" And it was awesome, especially for video games, until about a month after they instituted the change and it was damn near impossible to find any new release movie or game. I stopped going to BB after my fourth or fifth attempt to rent the same new release and just hit Rogers Video, a well known Canadian chain, and found the movie right away.
As for the no late fee policy, I honestly think it is killing their business. Their main competitor here in Canada, Rogers Video, has a similar no late fee policy but will charge you for the movie after eight days rather than thirty, so people hustle back the movies fairly quickly and thus Rogers is rarely out of movies. Rogers is really the only competition Blockbuster has in Canada, or at least, here in Alberta. If Blockbuster goes broke Rogers would have the video rental market in Canada pretty much locked up, and lack of competition is never a good thing for the consumer.
I play Resistance: Fall of Man all the time on-line and I never have a problem. Guys at work play WoW on our wireless network without issues (at least, the issues have nothing to do with our wireless network).
I don't have a 360 myself, but I have heard friends with 360s complain that the Xbox brand wireless adapter is not particularly robust, so they moved to a wireless bridge and simply plugged it into the 360s Ethernet port. Voila! Problem solved. You can pick up a wireless bridge for about $29, if I am not mistaken. Beats the hell out of the ridiculous $100 price Microsoft charges for their adapter.
Another challenge for Microsoft is thanks to the high value of the Canadian dollar the 40 GB PS3 will be released in Canada at $399.99, the same price as in the United States (Sony also dropped the price of the 80 GB model here in Canada by an additional $60 above the already $100 price drop to reach parity). With the current price of the 360 Pro package sitting at $399.99 Canadian, the PS3 is finally the value leader between the two systems. With a larger hard drive, included wireless controller battery kit, a Blue-Ray drive and WI-FI functionality built in, the 360 Pro kit -- even with two games -- just doesn't have the value.
As retailers receive new bundles from Microsoft in the ramp up towards Christmas there is no excuse for the $50 price premium to remain in place, especially in light of Sony's move.
Ballmer was good-natured about the critique as he defended the operating system.
Of course he was. All the chairs were occupied so he had to be on his best behavior.
Yeah, that's a great reason not to include Halo in the package. No offense, but do you realize how silly that sounds?
The real reason is obvious: You can't charge $60 for the game if you bundle it with the system, can you?
I don't disagree with the premise that older music could or should be priced differently from newer music. One would expect that with older music the costs of production and distribution have been largely recouped. Of course, to me that means that older songs should be priced from 25 cents to 75 cents and new music remain at the one dollar level.
I doubt UMG/Vivendi shares my pricing philosophy, however. Differential pricing to them is just a lever they want to use to rationalize higher prices.
Why is it going to take six months (spring 2008) for the Dualshock 3 to hit North America when Japan will start seeing them in November? Unless "spring 2008" to Sony means January or February.
Either way, why the delay? It's just a controller.
"Amendment IX:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
So, as far as the government is concerned, it is a right. Just like the Constitution does not specifically enumerate a right to breathe, or think, or take a shit.
Now as for the relationship between you and the airlines, you do pay for the privilege to fly. I think that is pretty clear.
From TFA:
Commercials will be embedded in the programs and viewers will not be able to skip through them...
Further into the article:
But NBC intends to transform the service into a model similar to iTunes by the middle of 2008 -- that is, consumers will pay NBC directly to download episodes of the shows. "We did this to eliminate the middleman," said Jeff Gaspin, the president of NBC's digital division.
That's fine and dandy, but will the paid version of the episode come complete with ads or is this just an interim solution until the paid model is in place, because I sure as hell wouldn't want to pay for episodes if they contained unskippable ads.
Why are you directing your call to what I assume are American Slashdotters? You need to contact your carrier in Canada and ask them what the charges are when using your phone in the United States.
You mention that you are on a pay as you go plan. I looked up the various roaming charges while in the United States for you:
Rogers Pay as You Go and Fido pre-paid:
Calls Back to Canada from the U.S. $2.49 per minute
Calls within the U.S. while in the U.S. (local and long distance calls) $2.49 per minute
Incoming calls while in the U.S. $2.49 per minute
Received in the U.S. Free
Sent from the U.S. 40 per message
Telus Pay and Talk:
U.S. roaming not available.
Bell prepaid wireless:
$0.99/min long distance + $1.80 local call charge
So, in a word, it's not worth it.
My grandfather was a stevedore (longshoreman) and I actually phoned and asked him. He said smaller coastal ships could go about 2,000 to 2,500 nautical miles, while larger cargo and container ships could go 5,000 NM or more, depending on how much fuel they took on. Obviously, transatlantic container and cargo ships have to hold enough fuel to get themselves across the Atlantic.
I've posted this story before so I won't go into a lot of detail, but my brother (the anal retentive one in the family) against my advice bought one of those too good to be true CD-R spindle deals where the rebate is just about as much as the purchase price of the spindle pack.
Months later and after much friendly teasing from me without even the hint of a rebate, my brother got angry and filed a small claims suit against them that was ultimately successful. After maybe an hour or two of research and an afternoon at the courthouse he received his rebate along with all of the expenses incurred in pursuing his claim. I was actually surprised at how simple the process was and effective the outcome.
My point is, there are ways you can get that rebate without incurring any cost to you.
As successful as the Wii has been, Nintendo still hasn't listened in regards to the on-line experience, which to say is nothing less than pathetic. The fact that Nintendo is steadfastly committed to the ridiculous and unwieldy "friend code" system for multiplayer games while the 360 and PS3 maintain a more workable and sensible system is probably the best example. That and the fact that just about a year after launch there are no compelling on-line games tell me that Nintendo isn't taking the Internet seriously.
"Mii Parade" and weather updates aren't going to cut it as an on-line experience these days.
Home isn't a "game", per se, but a three dimensional environment where one, represented by an avatar, may interact with others, launch games, play movies and music, etc. on their PS3. It's essentially an interactive 3D replacement for the XMB (media cross bar), or rather, it's an adjunct to the XMB. No one is quite sure yet and Sony isn't saying.
Home could be the next great thing from Sony or it could be utter shit. Personally, I think it's shit. Why I would want to cruise around what is essentially a Second Life clone on my PS3 simply to launch a game or view a video? The XMB does that job just fine, thank you.
I am going to say this again: police cannot simply demand someone to identify themselves without an articulable reason. If you are being detained under suspicion of committing a crime, typically as a prelude to either issuing a ticket or arresting you for a crime, you still do not have to identify yourself although it is probably a good idea simply to save a trip to the police station for the purposes of confirming your identity. If a police officer simply walks up to you and demands that you identify yourself, there is no legal reason for you to comply.
I think you are confusing the fact that a lot of incredibly stupid people -- both the guilty and not guilty -- end up charged with obstructing justice because they start yapping and provide police with false names or identification. There is nothing in Canadian law that compels you to produce identification when demanded, except for the production of a driver's license when driving, of course. You not only have the right to remain silent but the duty, unless you want to be arrested for what is essentially idiocy.
There is a long standing Supreme Court of Canada decision that determined that citizens are not required to identify themselves to police simply because it is demanded. Curiously enough, this decision is decades old and from an era before the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Are there any airlines that still issue actual, physical tickets? I haven't touched one of those multi-coupon, red inked tickets since at least 2001 and I fly eight to ten times a year. I should mention that I am in Canada and haven't flown internationally in about five years, but I have friends flying to Japan and Bali and they weren't issued physical tickets either. Everything appears to be either web or electronic kiosk based check-in these days.
I was just going to post something along this line. I believe the process is termed endosymbiotic theory.
We just need to ensure that we teach our children critical thinking skills. Never mind movies, in a world with Fox News and entertainment and lifestyle stories that cloak themselves as "news", this is more important than ever if future generations are going to enjoy a standard of living that even approaches what we have now.
I once had a little Corolla like the shuttle. Every time I took the car out for any sort of drive I had to re-inflate one of the tires, so eventually I just bought one of those lighter powered air compressors. Eventually I got the money and replaced the tires and soon after the car.
You would think that with billions of dollars and thousands of talented engineers they could come up with a way of launching the shuttle without having to resort to repairing the damn thing before they can return home again.
The game looks very, very good. The frame rate at the very start of the demo is a bit inconsistent with noticeable tearing, but through the rest of the demo the frame rate seemed rock solid. The combat has elements of button mashing, but I guess that happens with games of this nature until you get the combos down. My only other criticism is that I just couldn't get the motion controls down at all, so I turned them off. Again, that probably has more to do with my lack of mastery of the controls than anything else, but I would be curious to know if anyone else had the same problem.
The game feels very much like a ninja version of God of War, as they share many of the same elements: context sensitive mini games, vicious combat, finishing moves, swarming enemies and stunning locations. I wasn't all that excited for this game before the demo, but I am now. A definite release day purchase.
The oft quoted reason for the increase in prices between last generation console games and this generation of console games is "rising development costs". While I am sure that development costs have risen and $10 isn't all that much more to pay considering the improvements that the next generation of consoles can offer in terms of graphics, on-line experience, etc, I have to wonder just how much of that $10 difference is related to "development costs" when PC versions of console games remain at the $50 mark, if not cheaper. Shadowrun immediately comes to mind and the $10 premium to simply be able to play the game on my television (something you can do with any suitably equipped HDTV) just doesn't wash, especially given the fact that several heavy hitting PC games have been released at the $50 price tag.
Really, the $10 increase in game prices isn't going to effect me anyway because I've only ever bought a handful of games at full price. It just seems to make a lot more sense for me to dig through the $20 game bin at my local video store when eventually the games I want will reach that price level.
1) Two major players: Rogers (a.k.a Robbers) and Bell (a.k.a Dull)
Except out west where Telus is a major player, but yes, Rogers and Bell are the only truly national carriers.
2) Other smaller players with even worse service (Virgin, Fido, Telus etc.)
Fido and Telus aren't so bad. It really depends on which service package and phone you choose, ultimately.
3) Cannot get a phone without a contract (pay as you go is 15 cents-25 cents per call for the first minute and then a little lower for the next used time)
You absolutely, positively can get a phone without a contract, but you will have to pay full price for the phone. Why would any carrier just give you a phone for free without a contract?
4) Extra charges for receiving and sending SMS, as well as for having 911 and voice mail
Well, of course. There are plenty of service plans that include voice mail and unlimited incoming and outgoing SMS. The 50 cent 911 fee was mandated by the federal government a few years ago to recoup the costs associated with municipalities providing 911 service. Actually, if all you want is 911 service, any deactivated or inactive phone on any network will dial 911 for free, so long as you are within their service area.
5) Incoming call charges (I Wish I could find a Bell or Rogers executive, put him on a plane, and take him Pakistan where even the worst Telco does not charge for incoming calls, and then shoot him!)
It's always been this way in North America, but Fido and Rogers (and probably the others, I haven't looked) do offer particular service plans that do not charge airtime on incoming calls.
I really don't find any of these complaints all that genuine, especially considering that there are two truly egregious money grabs you haven't mentioned: Long distance and the notorious "system access fee". Long distance rates for all the wireless carriers in Canada are ridiculously over priced compared to wire line rates and those of wireless carriers in the United States, and the "system access fee" all of the carriers (except perhaps Bell) charge is nothing less than a blatant cash grab.