WBIE will be responsible for creating, managing and monetizing the Studio's long-term interactive gaming goals and business objectives and leveraging its world-class brands across all current and future platforms (including console, MMPOG, PC-based gaming and wireless applications like N-Gage).
One would think that the growing popularity of PalmOS SmartPhones would make this a priority.
What you have to keep in mind here is the kind of people who mostly use smartphones: Business users. Do these people need always-available e-mail? Yes. Do they need always-available Web? Sure, comes in handy now and again. Do they need always-available AIM/ICQ to chat with their buddies? Err... no.
So, what you have to ask yourself is: Who would really love the idea of IM-ing their friends while they're out? Well, the answer to that is casual users--the kind that can't afford, nor see the need for, a smartphone. So, if you were a cell phone manufacturer, it'd be a smart move to have a version of AIM ported to your phone's proprietary OS and have the client pre-installed. And having just switched cell phone carriers, I've noticed this is exactly what manufacturers are doing on their consumer-level phones. Nokia has had AIM pre-loaded on their consumer-levels for a while (ever since the 3390 and now up to the ever-popular 3650), as do Samsung's R225, E105, and X105; and Motorola's C332, T722i, and their brand-spanking new V300.
So, really, what it all comes down to is where the market is. And if I had to harbor a guess, I'd say AOL is making tons more money licensing their AIM client to Nokia than it is hawking its $20 Palm OS client.
I, and I believe the parent poster, was referring to the ApeXtreme, which did have a running product at CES. As for the Phantom, someone else in this discussion has posted links to pictures of it supposedly runnning at a private party.
RTFA. There's no porting involved. This thing is meant to run regular PC games. The only thing that needs to be done is that DISCover (the company that wrote the "insert and play" software) has to write a script that automates game installation and runs the game when the disc is popped in.
Doesn't this seem like one of those things that should fall under Ask Slashdot? It took me a good couple of seconds before I realzed the site wasn't about how to make your own skeeball game.
By compatibility, I would garner a guess and say he's hinting the ability to copy audio, and maybe even video, from the PSX and listen/watch it on the PSP, which would actually be quite cool.
As for no backwards compatbility with PSone and PS2, think about the UMD disc size. They deliberately went with a small optical disc because it keeps the system small, while being able to store wads of data. If it had to hold a full size disc, the portable would be big and cumbersome to use as a portable gaming system. So, really, do you want something reasonably small that might possibly fit in your pocket, or something that would be over 6 inches long and wide, and you'd need to stow in a bag? I think we know the answer here.
Dang you whippersnappers and your Leisure Suit Larry! Why, when I was a kid, I didn't have any fancy-schmancy dirty games, just a version of DOS that'd been hacked so that when you did a "dir/p", you didn't get a "Strike any key when ready..." message on each page, but "Stroke me baby, stroke me..."! And we liked it just fine!:P
</old man voice>
Seriously though, the existence of that "special" message is completely true. It was on an XT my dad rescued from the scrap heap at a university or something. I was just 6 or 7 at the time, and I recall asking him on several occasions what it meant, with him always starting to say something, and then just mumbling off.
Still, I have fond memories of that machine. A few months after its arrival, I cut my programming teeth on it. Small little things that would loop forever unless you gave it the right password, or print ASCII art of rocket ships and such. Good ol' BASIC and BASICA. Ahhh, memories...
But then again knowing that the brothers posted their vid. even though Apple had already had a plan in place shows they are not too smart just spiteful.
Actually, I believe it's been said that the video was actually done a few weeks before Apple's announcement of the replacement plan.
Also, to quote the article (just in case you didn't look):
"Some of the e-mail the Neistat Brothers received from 'iPod's Dirty Secret' came from people who were quick to tell them 'that we're [bleep]ing imbeciles, [because] you can buy a battery online and do it yourself,' Casey says.
"The brothers already tried that.
"They Googled around and ordered the battery from a different vendor that came with complicated instructions and 'these two plastic gigantic toothpicks,' Casey says. It took a while to pry the back cover off the iPod's impenetrable design. Beneath that was 'a gummy adhesive' which covered the mini hard drive, 'and there were these two very tiny connectors with three prongs,' in a work space 'about the diameter of a needle.'"
Well, I think the solution for you is pretty obvious: Go to a costume shop, find a get-up for the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, and wear it day-in, day-out. The ladies will be all over you in no time!:P
Yes, this was meant completely in jest. It's actually a lift from a quite humorous D&D skit by a group called the Dead Alewives. You can give it a listen at the Funny Stuff section of their site.
(Mental Note: When you're trying to be funny, don't forget to put the obligatory smiley.:P)
Seriously, D&D really is Satan's game. I fear my children will be attracted to this game in their weaker years, and then be drawn deeper and deeper into the bowels of El Diablo.
It was modded up for the fact that he made a somewhat insightful point that Hollywood tends to recycle the same ideas over and over, not because of his opinion on the movie.
But seriously, should you mod someone down because their opinion doesn't agree with yours? By that logic, if I had the mod points, I should mod you down, too, because I wasn't all that hot about the first movie either.:P Tastes differ from person to person, people like different things. Remember that.
Yes, but is the Netscape name even that "well-known" anymore? As thousands upon thousands of new people join the ranks of the Internet each day, do they even encounter the Netscape name at all? If I were your average casual user, first signing onto the Net, I would almost certainly be using Internet Explorer. And it works well enough, so why would I even think about changing it (remember, we are talking about the casual user here)?
The only people the Netscape name would draw, IMO, are those of us who are old enough to remember when Netscape was GOOD. And even then, the strategy doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because A.) We're most likely using Mozilla already, and B.) We've already got an Internet service that we trust. I suppose you could argue that the name "Netscape" kind of does have the snazzy factor going for it in terms of using it for an ISP, but that's about it.
Or, you can play the game that FIRST implemented "sanity effects" (AFAIK, anyway), the action/adventure/RPG hybrid Eternal Darkness for Gamecube.
Each time you get into an enemy encounter, your sanity level goes down. With only a little bit of your sanity gone, you'll start to hear voices. As your sanity dwindles, your perspective will tilt, your character will start mumbling to himself, and you'll see insects crawling on the screen. At fully bonkers, the game will try to trick you out of your gourd, making you think you enter a room and do something in it, only to find yourself back at the entrance, making your appear to die after taking a restorative potion, having your limbs fall off during a battle, and even a few "real world" plays, such as telling you your controller has lost connection with the console, and making the game go to a solid black with "VIDEO" in green letters at the top of the screen.
Slap onto that the fact that it has an involving story, the presentation is very moody and atmospheric, the voice acting is actually quite good, AND the gameplay is tight, and you have quite the winner on your hands.
Having played a lot with video encoding in my spare time (which isn't hard to do when you've been unemployed for seven months), I will bestow on you some tips on the world of encoded video, so that you won't have to go through as much teeth gnashing, hair pulling, and head slapping that I have.:) (Note: I work primarily on a Win32 machine, so if you want to do this on another platform, just kindly ignore all the words below.:P)
The most likely problem you are facing is that you don't have the right codecs installed to play the files you want. As someone mentioned before, Nimo
is your best friend in this case, as it's a file pack that contains a multitude of codecs and filters to play almost everything under the sun.
But say you install Nimo, and things still don't work. What then? Well, assuming you still don't have the right codec, then it's time to meet your other new best friend, AVIcodec. Don't let the name fool you. This little program will identify the codec you need for AVI's, MPEG's, WMV's, ASF's, and probably a few others I'm forgetting. I also hear good things about GSPot, but AVIcodec works too well for me to change.:)
Now, say you run into a file that uses MPEG2 for video or has an AC3 audio stream. Well, you won't find any codecs for those on the web, because the Motion Picture Experts Group likes to rake in those licensing fees. (Well, you MAY find a codec or two out there, but keep in mind if you download them and don't have to pay a fee, it's almost certainly illegal.) What you then need to do is to install a software DVD player like PowerDVD or WinDVD, and that'll straighten things out for you.
Now let's say you're SURE you have the right codecs installed, and the video STILL won't play. Well, that just blows, because your file is probably damaged, or in the case of an AVI, it's incomplete. If you've got an AVI, run over and grab AVIPreview, which is a nice program that'll let you preview incomplete AVI's (see? "AVIPreview"?:P). If it plays in there, and you don't feel like downloading a complete version of the file (which you sometimes can't find when you're using P2P services), AVIPreview will let you save the file with a complete container so most media players won't complain.
Now... (*takes a breath*), if it isn't an AVI, then the likelyhood you'll be able to fix the problem goes down considerably. Free ASF and WMV editing programs are few and far between (and we all know who owns those file formats), and almost all MPEG issues will continue to niggle you unless you do a full-blown re-encode of the file. You can definitely try downloading VCDGear and checking the "Fix MPEG Errors" checkbox, but this almost NEVER works (i.e., times it worked for me: none).
And keep in mind these are the EASY solutions. If you're actually interested in using video editing/encoding programs, then take a visit to Doom9 or DVDRhelp.com. The forums and guides on these sites are a boon to the video encoding enthusiast, and the forum regulars tend to be pretty friendly, too.:)
Slashdot Mirror
From the Yahoo! article:
:P
WBIE will be responsible for creating, managing and monetizing the Studio's long-term interactive gaming goals and business objectives and leveraging its world-class brands across all current and future platforms (including console, MMPOG, PC-based gaming and wireless applications like N-Gage ).
Need I say more?
One would think that the growing popularity of PalmOS SmartPhones would make this a priority.
What you have to keep in mind here is the kind of people who mostly use smartphones: Business users. Do these people need always-available e-mail? Yes. Do they need always-available Web? Sure, comes in handy now and again. Do they need always-available AIM/ICQ to chat with their buddies? Err... no.
So, what you have to ask yourself is: Who would really love the idea of IM-ing their friends while they're out? Well, the answer to that is casual users--the kind that can't afford, nor see the need for, a smartphone. So, if you were a cell phone manufacturer, it'd be a smart move to have a version of AIM ported to your phone's proprietary OS and have the client pre-installed. And having just switched cell phone carriers, I've noticed this is exactly what manufacturers are doing on their consumer-level phones. Nokia has had AIM pre-loaded on their consumer-levels for a while (ever since the 3390 and now up to the ever-popular 3650), as do Samsung's R225, E105, and X105; and Motorola's C332, T722i, and their brand-spanking new V300.
So, really, what it all comes down to is where the market is. And if I had to harbor a guess, I'd say AOL is making tons more money licensing their AIM client to Nokia than it is hawking its $20 Palm OS client.
Good, because you're NOT supposed to shake one while it's developing anyway! :P
I, and I believe the parent poster, was referring to the ApeXtreme, which did have a running product at CES. As for the Phantom, someone else in this discussion has posted links to pictures of it supposedly runnning at a private party.
RTFA. There's no porting involved. This thing is meant to run regular PC games. The only thing that needs to be done is that DISCover (the company that wrote the "insert and play" software) has to write a script that automates game installation and runs the game when the disc is popped in.
Nice wink to Family Guy there, Last. :D
Not to mention the fact that Microsoft doesn't make gaming peripherals anymore.
Damn right. Porn and gaming... right in your pocket!
Ahhh, I see a question mark has been added to the title, and the link has been moved to a different sentence. Better. Thank you, Slashdot! :)
Doesn't this seem like one of those things that should fall under Ask Slashdot? It took me a good couple of seconds before I realzed the site wasn't about how to make your own skeeball game.
By compatibility, I would garner a guess and say he's hinting the ability to copy audio, and maybe even video, from the PSX and listen/watch it on the PSP, which would actually be quite cool.
As for no backwards compatbility with PSone and PS2, think about the UMD disc size. They deliberately went with a small optical disc because it keeps the system small, while being able to store wads of data. If it had to hold a full size disc, the portable would be big and cumbersome to use as a portable gaming system. So, really, do you want something reasonably small that might possibly fit in your pocket, or something that would be over 6 inches long and wide, and you'd need to stow in a bag? I think we know the answer here.
Tux Gets Lit Up For Xmas
Oh, poor Tux. I mean, I know Linux hasn't won over the desktop front yet, but alcohol is NOT the answer, dear penguin!
<starts planning intervention>
Dang you whippersnappers and your Leisure Suit Larry! Why, when I was a kid, I didn't have any fancy-schmancy dirty games, just a version of DOS that'd been hacked so that when you did a "dir /p", you didn't get a "Strike any key when ready..." message on each page, but "Stroke me baby, stroke me..."! And we liked it just fine! :P
</old man voice>
Seriously though, the existence of that "special" message is completely true. It was on an XT my dad rescued from the scrap heap at a university or something. I was just 6 or 7 at the time, and I recall asking him on several occasions what it meant, with him always starting to say something, and then just mumbling off.
Still, I have fond memories of that machine. A few months after its arrival, I cut my programming teeth on it. Small little things that would loop forever unless you gave it the right password, or print ASCII art of rocket ships and such. Good ol' BASIC and BASICA. Ahhh, memories...
Actually, I believe it's been said that the video was actually done a few weeks before Apple's announcement of the replacement plan.
Also, to quote the article (just in case you didn't look):
"Some of the e-mail the Neistat Brothers received from 'iPod's Dirty Secret' came from people who were quick to tell them 'that we're [bleep]ing imbeciles, [because] you can buy a battery online and do it yourself,' Casey says.
"The brothers already tried that.
"They Googled around and ordered the battery from a different vendor that came with complicated instructions and 'these two plastic gigantic toothpicks,' Casey says. It took a while to pry the back cover off the iPod's impenetrable design. Beneath that was 'a gummy adhesive' which covered the mini hard drive, 'and there were these two very tiny connectors with three prongs,' in a work space 'about the diameter of a needle.'"
Pie, eh? That's funny, because the Neistat brothers said it was more like amateur neurosurgery.
Well, I think the solution for you is pretty obvious: Go to a costume shop, find a get-up for the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, and wear it day-in, day-out. The ladies will be all over you in no time! :P
It's April Fools' Day in the Netherlands, right? :P
Yes, this was meant completely in jest. It's actually a lift from a quite humorous D&D skit by a group called the Dead Alewives. You can give it a listen at the Funny Stuff section of their site.
(Mental Note: When you're trying to be funny, don't forget to put the obligatory smiley. :P)
Seriously, D&D really is Satan's game. I fear my children will be attracted to this game in their weaker years, and then be drawn deeper and deeper into the bowels of El Diablo.
Actually, Fight Club did pretty mediocre at the box office. It only gained a cult following after its video release.
It was modded up for the fact that he made a somewhat insightful point that Hollywood tends to recycle the same ideas over and over, not because of his opinion on the movie.
:P Tastes differ from person to person, people like different things. Remember that.
But seriously, should you mod someone down because their opinion doesn't agree with yours? By that logic, if I had the mod points, I should mod you down, too, because I wasn't all that hot about the first movie either.
Yes, but is the Netscape name even that "well-known" anymore? As thousands upon thousands of new people join the ranks of the Internet each day, do they even encounter the Netscape name at all? If I were your average casual user, first signing onto the Net, I would almost certainly be using Internet Explorer. And it works well enough, so why would I even think about changing it (remember, we are talking about the casual user here)?
The only people the Netscape name would draw, IMO, are those of us who are old enough to remember when Netscape was GOOD. And even then, the strategy doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because A.) We're most likely using Mozilla already, and B.) We've already got an Internet service that we trust. I suppose you could argue that the name "Netscape" kind of does have the snazzy factor going for it in terms of using it for an ISP, but that's about it.
Am I the only one picturing that this will be just like AOL, except uglier? :P
Oh, relax, kids. This is meant to be a joke.
Or, you can play the game that FIRST implemented "sanity effects" (AFAIK, anyway), the action/adventure/RPG hybrid Eternal Darkness for Gamecube.
Each time you get into an enemy encounter, your sanity level goes down. With only a little bit of your sanity gone, you'll start to hear voices. As your sanity dwindles, your perspective will tilt, your character will start mumbling to himself, and you'll see insects crawling on the screen. At fully bonkers, the game will try to trick you out of your gourd, making you think you enter a room and do something in it, only to find yourself back at the entrance, making your appear to die after taking a restorative potion, having your limbs fall off during a battle, and even a few "real world" plays, such as telling you your controller has lost connection with the console, and making the game go to a solid black with "VIDEO" in green letters at the top of the screen.
Slap onto that the fact that it has an involving story, the presentation is very moody and atmospheric, the voice acting is actually quite good, AND the gameplay is tight, and you have quite the winner on your hands.
Having played a lot with video encoding in my spare time (which isn't hard to do when you've been unemployed for seven months), I will bestow on you some tips on the world of encoded video, so that you won't have to go through as much teeth gnashing, hair pulling, and head slapping that I have. :) (Note: I work primarily on a Win32 machine, so if you want to do this on another platform, just kindly ignore all the words below. :P)
The most likely problem you are facing is that you don't have the right codecs installed to play the files you want. As someone mentioned before, Nimo is your best friend in this case, as it's a file pack that contains a multitude of codecs and filters to play almost everything under the sun.
But say you install Nimo, and things still don't work. What then? Well, assuming you still don't have the right codec, then it's time to meet your other new best friend, AVIcodec. Don't let the name fool you. This little program will identify the codec you need for AVI's, MPEG's, WMV's, ASF's, and probably a few others I'm forgetting. I also hear good things about GSPot, but AVIcodec works too well for me to change. :)
Now, say you run into a file that uses MPEG2 for video or has an AC3 audio stream. Well, you won't find any codecs for those on the web, because the Motion Picture Experts Group likes to rake in those licensing fees. (Well, you MAY find a codec or two out there, but keep in mind if you download them and don't have to pay a fee, it's almost certainly illegal.) What you then need to do is to install a software DVD player like PowerDVD or WinDVD, and that'll straighten things out for you.
Now let's say you're SURE you have the right codecs installed, and the video STILL won't play. Well, that just blows, because your file is probably damaged, or in the case of an AVI, it's incomplete. If you've got an AVI, run over and grab AVIPreview, which is a nice program that'll let you preview incomplete AVI's (see? "AVIPreview"? :P). If it plays in there, and you don't feel like downloading a complete version of the file (which you sometimes can't find when you're using P2P services), AVIPreview will let you save the file with a complete container so most media players won't complain.
Now... (*takes a breath*), if it isn't an AVI, then the likelyhood you'll be able to fix the problem goes down considerably. Free ASF and WMV editing programs are few and far between (and we all know who owns those file formats), and almost all MPEG issues will continue to niggle you unless you do a full-blown re-encode of the file. You can definitely try downloading VCDGear and checking the "Fix MPEG Errors" checkbox, but this almost NEVER works (i.e., times it worked for me: none).
And keep in mind these are the EASY solutions. If you're actually interested in using video editing/encoding programs, then take a visit to Doom9 or DVDRhelp.com. The forums and guides on these sites are a boon to the video encoding enthusiast, and the forum regulars tend to be pretty friendly, too. :)
Best of luck and well wishes...