The biggest appeal of the iPod mini is that it is noticeably smaller from a physical standpoint. If you hold a regular iPod and an iPod mini, you will see that the smaller size does make a difference. Now, whether this smaller size is important to you is another question. If you don't care about the smaller physical size of the device, then the sacrifice (less space than can be found in the regular iPods) is not worth it. But if you do care about it, the smaller size is worth it. It's the same general reason that some people are willing to pay a very hefty premium for ultrathin and light laptops and others prefer larger and heavier but more full-featured laptops.
Re: the iPod Shuffle, the appeal lies in a few different things. For one thing, the even smaller size (part of the appeal of any flash player over most hard drive players). For another, I've noticed that a lot of iPod Shuffle owners actually seem to LIKE the ultrasimplified nature of it..... just stick it in your USB port, randomly fill it with songs from your playlist and just play your music on random. It's not that the iPod Shuffle necessarily does anything that the larger iPods (or any other MP3 player) can't do, but it's more just the style and simplicity of it that makes it appealing. I was talking to a friend of mine who already owned an iPod mini, and bought a Shuffle, and I asked him which he found himself using more often, and he said that the Shuffle was what he ended up using the most. Even though the mini is small as it is, he found the Shuffle to be TRULY pocketable so that he took it everywhere, also used it as a storage device, and just loves setting it on shuffle and listening to whatever got loaded onto it the last time he synched it up with his computer.
I think what it comes down to is that there are many aspects to something like a music player beyond just features and price. Size, style, the specific way they function, etc. all are factors.
Fortunately with the iPod line, there are now a pretty wide variety of iPods for different tastes, and of course, if none of those work for someone, there's still tons of other mp3 players out there too.
I was really skeptical of the iPod Shuffle when I first heard the rumors (especially about it not even having a display), but most of the people I've talked to who have bought one just really love the things...... it seems silly, and maybe you can accuse them of "drinking the kool-aid", but it's hard to argue with satisfied customers. Some of the Shuffle reviews I've read have pointed out that the lack of display, which seemed like it would be a big negative, actually turned into a bit of a positive, if for no other reason that many other flash players with displays end up being kind of poor or confusing displays anyway.
Hrmm, wait. I'm not a mathematician or anything, but if you did notice a fairly even distribution in the number of times each song was played, wouldn't THAT be more of an indicator that it wasn't really random? I would think the whole idea of something being random would mean that some songs would just end up getting picked more often than others.
Just in case anyone is going to argue this (i.e. "Duh, Apple bought NeXT.")... The above poster is right. For all intents and purposes, even though Apple did acquire NeXT, the reality was essentially that NeXT BECAME Apple. All of the NeXT people essentially took over the old Apple people.
Re:Offline games require online reporting = BOGUS
on
Steam Users Steamed
·
· Score: 1
Ahh, ok. That makes sense I guess. It does have a certain "id" feel to it. Whatever happened to crackdotcom anyway? Did they just do Abuse and disappear?
Re:Offline games require online reporting = BOGUS
on
Steam Users Steamed
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Abuse was a crackdotcom game.... I don't think id had anything to do with it.
I'm not totally clear on Apple's naming conventions, but it seems like some of the productivity apps, etc. generally forego the i name. Keynote, Calendar, Mail, Address Book, etc..... as well as the pro stuff like Motion, Logic, Soundtrack, Final Cut, etc. So I think Pages fits more into that naming convention (GarageBand I guess is sort of in the middle, since it's part of iLife........ but who knows, Keynote and Pages are now part of iWork, so I don't think there are any hard or fast rules to it.
That's the big thing I've never understood about how the term "vaporware" gets thrown out. It seems like it is being used to refer to products that are late, etc. but I thought vaporware had a more specific definition. That is, that the product didn't actually exist, but the company would talk about it like it did, primarily as a means of keeping consumers from buying some competing product (i.e. back in the DOS days, when MS would talk about an upcoming version of MS-DOS that wasn't actually even in the works, but they would talk about it anyway to try and scare consumers away from buying a copy of, say, DR-DOS).
In case you didn't get the gist of his comment, he was pointing out that he's been able to play the blockbuster GBA games on the DS, which is a valid point. Especially in these early stages, it's actually really nice that the DS has GBA game compatibility (and aside from that, the DS's much improved screen makes GBA games look even better than they did on the GBA SP).
Are we really going to base everything on the sales of launch titles? Last I checked, the GBA's launch was also full of mostly mediocre titles.
Let's not focus so much on the DS and PSP launch titles, and let's actually wait and try and judge things after, say, the first 6 months to a year of each system's existence.
And I highly doubt all of the DS developers with third party titles in the works are sitting around going "oh my god! A crappy Spider-Man 2 game and a bizarre dating sim game that is basically a collection of minigames didn't sell that well! Cancel all development immediately!".
No, they will look at the launch, see that the poor sales of the launch titles is more because they just weren't all that compelling, at least not for full price (i.e. "Feel the Magic" became known pretty early on as a game with a few minigames, but most gamers had enough sense to realize it wouldn't have that much lasting value).
As a general point, I would hope most people buying the DS didn't buy it thinking the launch titles were all there was to it.
Certainly, I bought the DS based on seeing what is coming out for it over the next few months.
I just don't see how you can make such definitive statements like "Nintendo has failed to broaden its audience beyond children, tweens and aging Nintendo fanboys" when it's WAY too early to tell that.
Toy Story wasn't part of the 5-film agreement. That 5 film agreement was built on the success of Toy Story. So it's been 4 films since then (with Toy Story 2 not counting, being a sequel), and Cars being the fifth and final film in the deal.
I think the terms of the deal with Disney are that Disney has the rights to the sequels to any of the movies that were made as part of the original 5-picture agreement (I think this is actually why Toy Story 2 didn't count against the 5-picture total).
I had always sort of assumed that just meant that if they wanted to make any sequels to any of these movies, they would have to team up again for it. It never occurred to me that Disney would try making their own sequels without Pixar. Although they apparently have the rights to do it, it seems really really misguided.
For what it's worth, the new Authority: The Revolution 12-issue series (the first issue just came out) is written by Ed Brubaker, which should at least mean we can hope for something better, as he seems to definitely appreciate the spirit of the title, and Brubaker has already done some brilliant work on Sleeper.
Just to ask, were you saying that Arabs in America receive treatment that is equatable to how women are treated in Saudi Arabia, Christians are treated in China, sex slaves are treated in Thailand, Iraqi prisoners are (or were) treated in Iraq?
I agree. I also only bought the extended versions, but I can understand some valid reasons for buying the normal releases too. First off, with various coupons and deals, they could be had very cheap. Secondly, for people who wanted to also have the theatrical cut, it's the only way to get it. And I believe that the regular editions had their own unique extras, etc. - so a real completist might want them for that reason. Again, given how cheap it was/is possible to get the regular versions, I don't think it is totally nuts for someone to go that far. I'm personally more than happy with the Extended Editions though.
You might want to check again. The MSRP price of the previous two extended editions was also $39.99. Go and check Amazon.com if you don't believe me. But most retailers seemed to sell the previous two for around $30..... and in fact Amazon.com seems to have it on special for $23.99, which is pretty damn nice.
I'm definitely going to buy a DS, and I'm not decided yet on the PSP.
However, from what I've heard, the PSP's screen is absolutely beautiful, and I can understand the appeal of being able to play a port of a PS2 game like Gran Turismo 4 on the go.
Is a PSP going to be worth $300 or $400 to me though? That's what I'm not so sure of. It sounds cool, but it also sounds like they are going for a different market than just handheld gaming.
I am pretty sure I would not buy movies released on UMD format though. Now, if you could get recordable UMD's that let you convert your DVD's to the format, that would be sort of compelling to me (although I don't know how much I really want to watch a whole movie on the go).
As handheld games go, I generally most like the puzzle games and strategy games like Advance Wars.
Not strange at all......... this guy who does the "one man star wars" parody is performing it himself........ he isn't using the entire video from the movies.
If you're interested, DC is finally re-releasing Morrison's Doom Patrol in Trade Paperback form. The first volume, "Crawling from the Wreckage", was re-released last week. The second volume "The Painting That Ate Paris", is supposed to come out next week. I'm really glad they are coming out since I've been a Morrison fan for a long time, but I missed out on his Doom Patrol (I did read his Animal Man run at the time though, and loved it).
Indeed.......... there have been jokes about whether EVERY part of Mr. Fantastic's body is stretchable for about as long as the Fantastic Four have been around.
Someone already brought up Star Trek MUDs and MUSEs and the like.
Has anyone ever done Star Trek Simming on IRC? I used to be pretty into this a number of years ago (looking back on it, it seemed incredibly goofy, but damn if it wasn't fun). From doing a Google search on the topic, it looks like there are still a number of groups doing this kind of thing.
It was basically just pure role-playing, with people taking on the roles of different members of a crew on a starship (creating new characters though..... I don't know if there are any sim groups that acted out the roles of existing star trek characters).
I haven't done it in years, but it was an awful lot of fun at the time just role-playing being a character on a starship and all of that. If this Star Trek MMOG could somehow capture some of that fun, I could definitely be into it.
I don't get it, are you making some sort of assumption that a PC version of San Andreas isn't coming out? Because I'm almost positive that Rockstar already said it will be (I believe something like May 2005, with the Xbox version do in March 2005). The only reason I can possibly understand your post would be if there was some reason to believe that a PC version was NEVER coming out.
Slashdot Mirror
Re: the iPod Shuffle, the appeal lies in a few different things. For one thing, the even smaller size (part of the appeal of any flash player over most hard drive players). For another, I've noticed that a lot of iPod Shuffle owners actually seem to LIKE the ultrasimplified nature of it..... just stick it in your USB port, randomly fill it with songs from your playlist and just play your music on random. It's not that the iPod Shuffle necessarily does anything that the larger iPods (or any other MP3 player) can't do, but it's more just the style and simplicity of it that makes it appealing. I was talking to a friend of mine who already owned an iPod mini, and bought a Shuffle, and I asked him which he found himself using more often, and he said that the Shuffle was what he ended up using the most. Even though the mini is small as it is, he found the Shuffle to be TRULY pocketable so that he took it everywhere, also used it as a storage device, and just loves setting it on shuffle and listening to whatever got loaded onto it the last time he synched it up with his computer.
I think what it comes down to is that there are many aspects to something like a music player beyond just features and price. Size, style, the specific way they function, etc. all are factors.
Fortunately with the iPod line, there are now a pretty wide variety of iPods for different tastes, and of course, if none of those work for someone, there's still tons of other mp3 players out there too.
I was really skeptical of the iPod Shuffle when I first heard the rumors (especially about it not even having a display), but most of the people I've talked to who have bought one just really love the things...... it seems silly, and maybe you can accuse them of "drinking the kool-aid", but it's hard to argue with satisfied customers. Some of the Shuffle reviews I've read have pointed out that the lack of display, which seemed like it would be a big negative, actually turned into a bit of a positive, if for no other reason that many other flash players with displays end up being kind of poor or confusing displays anyway.
-Tom
Hrmm, wait. I'm not a mathematician or anything, but if you did notice a fairly even distribution in the number of times each song was played, wouldn't THAT be more of an indicator that it wasn't really random? I would think the whole idea of something being random would mean that some songs would just end up getting picked more often than others.
Just in case anyone is going to argue this (i.e. "Duh, Apple bought NeXT.")... The above poster is right. For all intents and purposes, even though Apple did acquire NeXT, the reality was essentially that NeXT BECAME Apple. All of the NeXT people essentially took over the old Apple people.
Ahh, ok. That makes sense I guess. It does have a certain "id" feel to it. Whatever happened to crackdotcom anyway? Did they just do Abuse and disappear?
Abuse was a crackdotcom game.... I don't think id had anything to do with it.
Wait a minute............. that's not funny at all!
-Tom
That's the big thing I've never understood about how the term "vaporware" gets thrown out. It seems like it is being used to refer to products that are late, etc. but I thought vaporware had a more specific definition. That is, that the product didn't actually exist, but the company would talk about it like it did, primarily as a means of keeping consumers from buying some competing product (i.e. back in the DOS days, when MS would talk about an upcoming version of MS-DOS that wasn't actually even in the works, but they would talk about it anyway to try and scare consumers away from buying a copy of, say, DR-DOS).
In case you didn't get the gist of his comment, he was pointing out that he's been able to play the blockbuster GBA games on the DS, which is a valid point. Especially in these early stages, it's actually really nice that the DS has GBA game compatibility (and aside from that, the DS's much improved screen makes GBA games look even better than they did on the GBA SP).
Let's not focus so much on the DS and PSP launch titles, and let's actually wait and try and judge things after, say, the first 6 months to a year of each system's existence.
And I highly doubt all of the DS developers with third party titles in the works are sitting around going "oh my god! A crappy Spider-Man 2 game and a bizarre dating sim game that is basically a collection of minigames didn't sell that well! Cancel all development immediately!".
No, they will look at the launch, see that the poor sales of the launch titles is more because they just weren't all that compelling, at least not for full price (i.e. "Feel the Magic" became known pretty early on as a game with a few minigames, but most gamers had enough sense to realize it wouldn't have that much lasting value).
As a general point, I would hope most people buying the DS didn't buy it thinking the launch titles were all there was to it.
Certainly, I bought the DS based on seeing what is coming out for it over the next few months.
I just don't see how you can make such definitive statements like "Nintendo has failed to broaden its audience beyond children, tweens and aging Nintendo fanboys" when it's WAY too early to tell that.
-Tom
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 69SIX6/qid=/sr=/ref=cm_lm_asin/102-9556664-6856959 ?v=glance
-Tom
Toy Story wasn't part of the 5-film agreement. That 5 film agreement was built on the success of Toy Story. So it's been 4 films since then (with Toy Story 2 not counting, being a sequel), and Cars being the fifth and final film in the deal.
I had always sort of assumed that just meant that if they wanted to make any sequels to any of these movies, they would have to team up again for it. It never occurred to me that Disney would try making their own sequels without Pixar. Although they apparently have the rights to do it, it seems really really misguided.
-Tom
For what it's worth, the new Authority: The Revolution 12-issue series (the first issue just came out) is written by Ed Brubaker, which should at least mean we can hope for something better, as he seems to definitely appreciate the spirit of the title, and Brubaker has already done some brilliant work on Sleeper.
Just to ask, were you saying that Arabs in America receive treatment that is equatable to how women are treated in Saudi Arabia, Christians are treated in China, sex slaves are treated in Thailand, Iraqi prisoners are (or were) treated in Iraq?
I agree. I also only bought the extended versions, but I can understand some valid reasons for buying the normal releases too. First off, with various coupons and deals, they could be had very cheap. Secondly, for people who wanted to also have the theatrical cut, it's the only way to get it. And I believe that the regular editions had their own unique extras, etc. - so a real completist might want them for that reason. Again, given how cheap it was/is possible to get the regular versions, I don't think it is totally nuts for someone to go that far. I'm personally more than happy with the Extended Editions though.
You might want to check again. The MSRP price of the previous two extended editions was also $39.99. Go and check Amazon.com if you don't believe me. But most retailers seemed to sell the previous two for around $30..... and in fact Amazon.com seems to have it on special for $23.99, which is pretty damn nice.
Heh. Man, I love this one. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22940&cid=2473 005
- trying to say that those miniCD mp3 players (which could hold 3 hours of music per miniCD) would be much better than the iPod.
However, from what I've heard, the PSP's screen is absolutely beautiful, and I can understand the appeal of being able to play a port of a PS2 game like Gran Turismo 4 on the go.
Is a PSP going to be worth $300 or $400 to me though? That's what I'm not so sure of. It sounds cool, but it also sounds like they are going for a different market than just handheld gaming.
I am pretty sure I would not buy movies released on UMD format though. Now, if you could get recordable UMD's that let you convert your DVD's to the format, that would be sort of compelling to me (although I don't know how much I really want to watch a whole movie on the go).
As handheld games go, I generally most like the puzzle games and strategy games like Advance Wars.
Not strange at all......... this guy who does the "one man star wars" parody is performing it himself........ he isn't using the entire video from the movies.
If you're interested, DC is finally re-releasing Morrison's Doom Patrol in Trade Paperback form. The first volume, "Crawling from the Wreckage", was re-released last week. The second volume "The Painting That Ate Paris", is supposed to come out next week. I'm really glad they are coming out since I've been a Morrison fan for a long time, but I missed out on his Doom Patrol (I did read his Animal Man run at the time though, and loved it).
Indeed.......... there have been jokes about whether EVERY part of Mr. Fantastic's body is stretchable for about as long as the Fantastic Four have been around.
Has anyone ever done Star Trek Simming on IRC? I used to be pretty into this a number of years ago (looking back on it, it seemed incredibly goofy, but damn if it wasn't fun). From doing a Google search on the topic, it looks like there are still a number of groups doing this kind of thing.
It was basically just pure role-playing, with people taking on the roles of different members of a crew on a starship (creating new characters though..... I don't know if there are any sim groups that acted out the roles of existing star trek characters).
I haven't done it in years, but it was an awful lot of fun at the time just role-playing being a character on a starship and all of that. If this Star Trek MMOG could somehow capture some of that fun, I could definitely be into it.
-Tom
-Tom
I don't get it, are you making some sort of assumption that a PC version of San Andreas isn't coming out? Because I'm almost positive that Rockstar already said it will be (I believe something like May 2005, with the Xbox version do in March 2005). The only reason I can possibly understand your post would be if there was some reason to believe that a PC version was NEVER coming out.