Instead of genre staples such as lobbing grenades or casting spells, the game asked players to get excited about tasks such as personal hygiene and interior design.
Okay, it's got no grenades or spells, but it's not in a war or fantasy genre. Sims is a micromanagement game, and it has all the cliches of a micromanagement game. In fact, it all comes down to maximizing profit and minimizing losses. In this case, maximizing your character's happiness.
It all makes sense now! The "broadband" quote came from Kutaragi, who either (a) doesn't speak English as a first language, or (b) was incorrectly translated, or (c) is an executive and therefore able to use jargon incorrectly as much as he wants. For anyone scratching their heads about grid processing over broadband, substitute "bus" for broadband and you'll probably start to get it, as he was talking about chip-to-chip communications, not system-to-system. Read the register article in the parent post, too. It has a lot of good details.
So basically, by "broadband" they mean "tech-journalism jargon"... I see now. I was mistaken, though. I thought the Cell system was going to be a simple plug-and-play SMP system (early on they did talk about plugging an extra Cell into your PS3 for added speed... though this may very well have been Sony speaking out of its ass).
Sure it could be easily solved. Too many offensive shifts tire out the defense, making them easy to plow through. To ballance it, too many offensive shifts should also tire out the offense, making them put up less of a challenge.
Unfortuately, I don't read Japanese well enough to back that up with a NTT Docomo page, but I got the figure from a friend in a foreign exchange program when he was deciding which cell phone to purchase in Japan. He said that most of the plans there only come with around 20 minutes, and that it was because voice communication was considered a luxury.
As a game programmer, I'm not too keen on the GPL. I find it a little too confining. Sure, I could use some code I got from an example somewhere, but it's GPL, and if I use that as a template, my work becomes a derivative work, so it's all in the GPL. I understand and respect the GPL, but I also don't necessarily want all of my code to be a part of it, so I often am discouraged from using and GLP'd code to learn from because I don't want to have to distribute my code.
And for those of you who would scoff me for not developing open-source, please take note that I respect the GPL and do my best to abide by it at all times. That means that if I don't want to contribute, I be very sure not to draw from GPL'd items. And my interpretation of "using" source and creating a "derivative work" is usually more strict than others. I could say that because I'm only using the algorithm and not the source that I'm safe, but I know that even if it's modified, that's not my code and I feel terrible redistributing it and claiming it as my own.
Furthermore, cell-phones are very different in Japan. Most plans only come with like 20 minutes a month, and voice communication is extremely expensive. On the other hand, you can send text messages for just a few yen, so texting has taken off there big-time. Now imagine if you can introduce a portable device that, as long as you have a network connection, can make free calls and send text messages (probably could be part of the same software). That could really corner the market.
Also just wondering, does anyone else think this is ugly? Now, I normally think Apple does a great job of product design, but this thing looks like a total lapse in judgement. Also, it looks like the screen on this one isn't adjustable like it is on the iLamp, which, though easily ridiculed, was a nice feature.
Would have won unless the "stray mark" votes were counted. They were removed on a technicality (as "Gore" was punctured, and then written in on the write-in area), but under Florida law should have been counted because the intent of the voter was clear and unmistakable. So, if all of the votes were counted by the constraints of the law (as the Republicans demanded when the absentee ballot was raised), Gore would have won Florida. This was the conclusion of the independent media-funded recount.
You may have heard of this document called The Constitution. See, it turns out that it trumps all other laws in the land...
Well, it used to trump all other laws in the land, and then DOMA trumped it with House Resolution 3313. I'm pretty sure this has to go through the Senate still, but the Constitution is pretty irrelevant if nothing can be held up and compared to it.
I didn't RTFA either, but that's because it's been slashdotted into oblivion....... of course, I'm not writing things about it either, just responding to the 3 ring circus.
At Ramapo College several clubs advertise by writing info about events on the sidewalks with regular old sidewalk chalk. It's effective for many, annoying to all who see it, and washes away easily. But even they, a very liberal college, require you to get approval for posting a chalk advertisement in each location you'll put it, and you get fined if you either go outside your bounds or neglect to wash it off after the event. That's a pretty reasonable approach, IMHO.
I don't because as a Senator he voted to give Bush the power to go to war.
Well.... kinda. He voted to give Bush the funding to go to war, but the US never declared war on Iraq. Actually, that's one thing that's been bothering me about this. At least in Vietnam they tried to describe it as a training mission (i.e. to train Vietnamese and French soldiers). I don't like that it now appears the President has the authority to go to all-out war without an official say-so from Congress.
I can't stand everyone who is 'anti-Bush'. Why don't you devote your efforts to being pro-Kerry?
The two aren't mutually exclusive in any way. I'm pro-Kerry and anti-Bush.
I ask you, who do you think should be president, and you say, "Not Bush!". Well, Jerry Falwell is not Bush. Saddam Hussein is not Bush.
That's just to piss off Bush supporters like you. We like pointing out that he never should have been Preisident at all... you know, not having been elected and all.
Hell, I am not Bush, but I'll take the job, and I guarantee if you don't like Bush, you definitely won't like me.
We're anti-Bush because of what he did, what he does, and what he plans to do. It's not like we're saying "not Bush" because we don't like his name.
I'm currently in-house tech support (call center operator) for a higher-learning institution. The people there all have this horror story:
I called up and got voice mail 3 times! Then when he answered the phone, he didn't know what I was talking about!
Well, here's some math. 1 operator for 1000 faculty members and staff. I wonder why you end up on hold? And as far as me not knowing what you're talking about, "I clicked the thing and it didn't go" does not tell me either (a) what you're trying to do nor (b) what some of the problems may be. There are some idiots out there answering the phones, but there are a thousand more placing the calls.
yeah,... that's my mistake. Supposed to be 66 million in the Emotion Engine and 75 million in the Graphics Synthesizer. I was just typing faster than I was thinking.
At any rate, for anyone who didn't see the utter BS in the original 130 M tri's stat, even if the GS could do 75 and the EE could do 66, the GS would have to sacrifice some of those in order to copy the EE's local framebuffer & z-buffer over to the GS's framebuffer and then throw more polys on... which it may or may not have the ability to do at all.
Sony's got a habit of boasting about their products before releasing them at lower specs.
I still have the articles that claim the PS2 is capible of over 130 million polygons/second (66 million in the CPU and 75 million in the emotion engine). In game, it's really closer to 5-10 million polygons/sec depending on the quality and special effects. For those of you not following specs, 5-10 million polys/sec in game is extremely respectable, but 130 million is absolutely unheard-of. X-Box and Gamecube both get around 10-30 million/sec depending (heavily) on quality and effects... faster by virtue of being newer.
Now, given their claim of 35 million polys/sec, and Sony's knack for boasting, you'll probably only see 1-5 million/sec (many developers will take advantage of the power stepping and opt for lower detail for longer battery life). For comparrison's sake, the PS1 was able to do something like 300 thousand polys/sec, so the detail level will be very significant for a portable device.
Odd that they'd boast the fill rate, though. At a resolution that low (compared to PC resolutions), it really shouldn't be an issue at all. The only way that would really matter is if they have a ton of texture combiners and pipelines, which wasn't explicitly stated. Should be neat to see this thing in action.
Technical superiority (which the PSP undoubtedly has) doesn't always win the war, its all about the games.
I'm not sure about undoubtedly. All of you who think this is gonna be a portable PS2, think again. It's not. It may be a similar archetecture and based off the same technology, but it's not gonna be nearly as fast. It would draw too much power and require too much cooling to be that fast. The DS is damned powerful from what I've seen, and I've yet to see a reasonable screenshot of something actually running on the PSP. At any rate, I'm really interested to see what the PSP has to offer, but nothing about it is without doubt right now.
Slashdot Mirror
It all makes sense now! The "broadband" quote came from Kutaragi, who either (a) doesn't speak English as a first language, or (b) was incorrectly translated, or (c) is an executive and therefore able to use jargon incorrectly as much as he wants. For anyone scratching their heads about grid processing over broadband, substitute "bus" for broadband and you'll probably start to get it, as he was talking about chip-to-chip communications, not system-to-system. Read the register article in the parent post, too. It has a lot of good details.
So basically, by "broadband" they mean "tech-journalism jargon" ... I see now. I was mistaken, though. I thought the Cell system was going to be a simple plug-and-play SMP system (early on they did talk about plugging an extra Cell into your PS3 for added speed... though this may very well have been Sony speaking out of its ass).
I seem to imagine it sucking... like this tired old joke.
Sure it could be easily solved. Too many offensive shifts tire out the defense, making them easy to plow through. To ballance it, too many offensive shifts should also tire out the offense, making them put up less of a challenge.
Unfortuately, I don't read Japanese well enough to back that up with a NTT Docomo page, but I got the figure from a friend in a foreign exchange program when he was deciding which cell phone to purchase in Japan. He said that most of the plans there only come with around 20 minutes, and that it was because voice communication was considered a luxury.
As a game programmer, I'm not too keen on the GPL. I find it a little too confining. Sure, I could use some code I got from an example somewhere, but it's GPL, and if I use that as a template, my work becomes a derivative work, so it's all in the GPL. I understand and respect the GPL, but I also don't necessarily want all of my code to be a part of it, so I often am discouraged from using and GLP'd code to learn from because I don't want to have to distribute my code.
And for those of you who would scoff me for not developing open-source, please take note that I respect the GPL and do my best to abide by it at all times. That means that if I don't want to contribute, I be very sure not to draw from GPL'd items. And my interpretation of "using" source and creating a "derivative work" is usually more strict than others. I could say that because I'm only using the algorithm and not the source that I'm safe, but I know that even if it's modified, that's not my code and I feel terrible redistributing it and claiming it as my own.
Furthermore, cell-phones are very different in Japan. Most plans only come with like 20 minutes a month, and voice communication is extremely expensive. On the other hand, you can send text messages for just a few yen, so texting has taken off there big-time. Now imagine if you can introduce a portable device that, as long as you have a network connection, can make free calls and send text messages (probably could be part of the same software). That could really corner the market.
Also just wondering, does anyone else think this is ugly? Now, I normally think Apple does a great job of product design, but this thing looks like a total lapse in judgement. Also, it looks like the screen on this one isn't adjustable like it is on the iLamp, which, though easily ridiculed, was a nice feature.
Would have won unless the "stray mark" votes were counted. They were removed on a technicality (as "Gore" was punctured, and then written in on the write-in area), but under Florida law should have been counted because the intent of the voter was clear and unmistakable. So, if all of the votes were counted by the constraints of the law (as the Republicans demanded when the absentee ballot was raised), Gore would have won Florida. This was the conclusion of the independent media-funded recount.
I didn't RTFA either, but that's because it's been slashdotted into oblivion....... of course, I'm not writing things about it either, just responding to the 3 ring circus.
At Ramapo College several clubs advertise by writing info about events on the sidewalks with regular old sidewalk chalk. It's effective for many, annoying to all who see it, and washes away easily. But even they, a very liberal college, require you to get approval for posting a chalk advertisement in each location you'll put it, and you get fined if you either go outside your bounds or neglect to wash it off after the event. That's a pretty reasonable approach, IMHO.
Well, if it gets that bad, you can move to an actual Banana Republic and try to get some khakis there.
I'm currently in-house tech support (call center operator) for a higher-learning institution. The people there all have this horror story:
I called up and got voice mail 3 times! Then when he answered the phone, he didn't know what I was talking about!
Well, here's some math. 1 operator for 1000 faculty members and staff. I wonder why you end up on hold? And as far as me not knowing what you're talking about, "I clicked the thing and it didn't go" does not tell me either (a) what you're trying to do nor (b) what some of the problems may be. There are some idiots out there answering the phones, but there are a thousand more placing the calls.
yeah,... that's my mistake. Supposed to be 66 million in the Emotion Engine and 75 million in the Graphics Synthesizer. I was just typing faster than I was thinking.
At any rate, for anyone who didn't see the utter BS in the original 130 M tri's stat, even if the GS could do 75 and the EE could do 66, the GS would have to sacrifice some of those in order to copy the EE's local framebuffer & z-buffer over to the GS's framebuffer and then throw more polys on... which it may or may not have the ability to do at all.
Now, given their claim of 35 million polys/sec, and Sony's knack for boasting, you'll probably only see 1-5 million/sec (many developers will take advantage of the power stepping and opt for lower detail for longer battery life). For comparrison's sake, the PS1 was able to do something like 300 thousand polys/sec, so the detail level will be very significant for a portable device.
Odd that they'd boast the fill rate, though. At a resolution that low (compared to PC resolutions), it really shouldn't be an issue at all. The only way that would really matter is if they have a ton of texture combiners and pipelines, which wasn't explicitly stated. Should be neat to see this thing in action.
So maybe you'd know where I can find an equivalent daytime photo? I think it would be neat to make an OpenGL screensaver with both images. :)
You might wanna pick up GTA3 again. It gets really really slow in the middle, but the plot picks back up in the final few missions... good payoff too.
But it will be the iPod of gaming. Sleek, pricey, and technologically, nothing special. And it'll never go down in price, 'cause it's a status symbol.
That's a pretty sizeable list of games not worth pirating in the first place.