Sony and Nintendo started their research on a next-gen console a few months after the launch of their current-gen console. It's a normal thing in the industry. Microsoft is not guilty of doing this. Heck, they are maybe even starting too late, even though the console might not come out before 2005/2006.
to file a patent on Earth, Fire, and Water. Yeah, that's right, you can't patent Air, because I've already patented it along with breathing so you people better start coughing up that money now!
You are totally right. But games are so pricey now that people don't always want to pay extra for being able to play online. XLive is a bit like Evercrack, except at least you get to play all the games you want.
But you're right about the WANTING part. I'd like to play online with my xbox, but I can't afford it. Or more exactly, I don't think it's worth 10$ a month.
More than 5% in fact. 500,000 people have XLive and 10,000,000 have Xboxes. Still, it's not a lot, so it means not a lot of people play online anyway. I'm wondering how high is that percentage with computer games though.
... head of 3DRealms. Beside the Evil dead movies, I wonder what were his inspiration for Duke Nukem, though about any old movies with the governator comes to mind.
There wasn't really a winner when you know that they're trying to get Bruce Campbell to star in a Ash vs Freddy and Jason where Ash would kick their ass once and for all. At least, that's what Bruce said : If I do it, Ash has to kick their ass once and for all. Robert Englund likes the idea a lot. It could bring some sort of closure to the Jason and Freddy sagas, and the man to destroy them would be the coolest of the demon slayers, Ash.
bandwidth. A digital standard definition (480i) signal would probably be about a quarter of that. Scientific Atlanta's PVR boxes does just that IIRC. It's got 50 hours of video on a 50 gig hard rive (or is it 80?) But considering the prices of 80 gig hard drives, multiply the size by 4 to get the same time capacity (well, the ads says that HDTV is 4 times better than the normal digital box at 480i), so files could be around 4 times bigger.
Anyway, that would become waaaaaaaay too pricey for a console. Just stick with the games, and sell DVD capability as an add-on (like the Xbox does) and you've got yourself a pretty sweet deal. If afterwards they want to release a TV-tuner add-on which connects to the USB drive of the console and software to do recording and time-shifting, good for them. But I don't want one of those on my consoles by default. Chances are the dedicated hardware of my own PVR is better than the one in the console.
Pesonally, I couldn't care less if it recorded TV for me. Considering that such units normally cost around 450CAN$ (300$ in the US I guess) and record only DVD quality pictures (if you have digital cable), I don't see how they could make it cheap in a console. Also, with HDTV signal becoming more and more mainstream, there's no way you'll be able to write all that data on the hard drive. If it doesn't do HD, it's just not worth it, considering these consoles will be out in 2005/2006 and that's when broadcasters have to switch over to HDTV.
It's a bit like asking "how fast would my car go if I doubled the gas tank size?" Especially since if you think about it, a car which has a tank twice as big would be slower because it has more gas to carry around.:)
Yeah!:) This remebers me an old joke : "You know, they've installed audio equipment in some new cars now to know what's happening in cars moments before an accident. Here's what was recorded in a car accident in Saguenay Lac-St-Jean (rural place in Quebec, a couple hours from Montreal) : "Okay Roger, hold this beer tight for me and watch me take this curve!"
Not really. From what I heard at the news when the accident took place months ago, these devices have a circular buffer that records only the last 5 or 10 seconds before an impact, so it would be probably be useless for a speed ticket since by the time you pull over the data is already gone.
I've heard about the case a few months ago, since I live in Montreal. They said that these little devices recorded only speeds and such. No audio is involved of course. What is interresting is that it doesn't record for a long time. It essentially has a buffer of about 5 or 10 seconds. When the car body registers a hit, it stops registering speeds, so it doesn't overwrite the speed before the impact. This way, police officers can't use these as a way to prove someone was going over the limit when they were chasing someone, but it's still usefull in car crashes.
I wonder what happens though if I have an accident once with my car, and then have it repaired. Is the box reset by the car repairman?
I never said all of english canadian hated canada (or maybe I did, but it was 5 AM so don't be too hard on me, there's a lot of nice english-canadian people that either don't care, understand, but most importantly, don't hate us). But there's a certain part that hates us, just like imbeciles here that hate english candians because well, they're english. It's just stupid. You might not LIKE us, but HATE? That's a pretty strong word.
The only thing I HATE about Canada is the federal government and it's ineptitude to resolve problems without shovelling them back in the provinces backyard. That, and their constant obsession to have their noses in provincial affairs that don't concern them. That's why we are supposed to have two level of governments : because the federal is supposed to take care of certain things that are too big for a sole province. Get your noses out of our education system. Get your nose out of our turf.
And about hating separatists : I recall a few years ago hearing that people in BC are becoming more and more pissed, like Quebec, about Ottawa, albeit for different reasons. There's also discontent in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In fact, almost all provinces in Canada now have people more or less for separating from Canada. They're finally realising that Canada is not ruled adequately. And they want to leave too. I'm wondering if you hate them too.
Maybe, but they're shovelling the debt back to the provinces, the provinces to the cities and the cities to the citizen. Way to go Paul Martin. I for won't be voting for the PLC next spring. Though the alternatives pretty much suck. At least in Quebec there's an alternative to the PQ (or PLQ, depending on which side of the fence you are), and there will probably be a third alternative coming next elections.
The federal level of government in Canada pretty much sucks and is in a dire need of a change. That's part why a lot of people in Quebec want to leave Canada.
Yeah, there's even a new version of the Risk board game Where Canada is pretty much non existant, United States are blown up in a few countries and there is a Republique du Quebec.
I don't remember the name of the book series (though I think it's a cyberpunk one), but there is one where Quebec is not a country and are xenophobes and killing english speakers on sight. Like that would happen! (The killing part)
Canadians aren't dismayed. Militant Quebecois who love to take offence are dismayed
Heck, my father has been a separatist from day one, and he doesn't even take offence at the game. In fact, we only have an Xbox at home and he was kinda bummed because the game is only for the PS2 and I won't be able to rent it.
Hi. Fellow quebecois and separatist here, just like you. Have you seen all the hate we get from english canadian on this story? It's amazing how many people hate quebecers so much.
Personnally, I don't hate them or anything, it's the stupid assholes the rest of the country wants as the government that pisses me off and makes me want to leave.
And they've got that idea that because we think we're different, we're implying better. Didn't someone say that all tastes were part of nature? It's not because we love different things than them that we consider ourselves better.
You could argue that at least we don't suck up to the americans and british like a big part of Canada does (see Paul Martin), and that does make us more enlightened in that regard.
Anyway, we're our own people and own culture. Sure we borrow from other cultures, as all cultures do, but we mostly stay true to ourselves, instead of watching american TV show all week long.)
To go back on topic, at first I was kinda pissed about it and after a while I was kinda looking forward to hearing how the french terrorist spoke. Finally I could have heard "Calice de tabarnaque!" in a game.:) Anyway, it's just a game, and as someone else pointed out, if it's okay to shoot muslim terrorists in a game, why is it not ok to shoot french canadian terrorists? Maybe it's because we're a long way off a terrorist group that promote Quebec's independence and maybe that's why people are pissed.
I'm sure if there was a game Russian game where the US invaded Russia and you as Russia had to fight back, americans would be the first one to cry and moan about it. But did you see someone say something about Freedom Fighter released a couple days ago? (I think that's the name of the game where, in an alternate reality where Russia has won the cold war, Russia invades the US) Nope. Not this side of the atlantic anyway. I wonder what they're saying over there. Probably something like "Typical american propaganda. Eh, what can we do about it. Anybody wants more vodka?"
Or more recently, the N-Gage. It's a nice idea after all : a lot of people use cell phones these days and a lot of people love games, why not try to make them work together.
Nokia decided to fsck it up and not listen to gamers. That seems to be what Phantom is doing so far.
players will become bored... playing the same maps over and over and over again
This is bullshit. Some poeple have been playing Starcraft, Quake3, Half-Life in SINGLE PLAYER for years, on the SAME MAPS! Why should multiplayer be any different?
I never was much of a Warcraft fan. This seem like a nice game though. I think I can put Starcraft on my wish list for a board game adaptation now. The Starcraft universe and story ir sooooo much richer than Warcraft. Maybe adapt the 3.5 edition rules and make an RPG out of it? I dunno how they'd pull it off, but hey, maybe it could happen, and be good!
Even thought the environments seem really nice in DooM3, I have to disagree with the good art direction claim in regards to the monsters. Some of them are really bad. Come on, spiders with upside down heads? Demons with rocket launchers mounted on their backs? Gabe says it better than me on Penny-Arcade.
If you live in Quebec, you can still jump to "Desjardins". They're not as obsessed with profits as the others banks are, being a cooperative. And their "AccesD" website fulfills all my online transaction needs.
Slashdot Mirror
Sony and Nintendo started their research on a next-gen console a few months after the launch of their current-gen console. It's a normal thing in the industry. Microsoft is not guilty of doing this. Heck, they are maybe even starting too late, even though the console might not come out before 2005/2006.
Sorry then, I apologize.
to file a patent on Earth, Fire, and Water.
Yeah, that's right, you can't patent Air, because I've already patented it along with breathing so you people better start coughing up that money now!
I should have added CAN$ after the 10. I'm in Canada. With the taxes, it's almost 10 candian dollars a month.
You are totally right. But games are so pricey now that people don't always want to pay extra for being able to play online. XLive is a bit like Evercrack, except at least you get to play all the games you want.
But you're right about the WANTING part. I'd like to play online with my xbox, but I can't afford it. Or more exactly, I don't think it's worth 10$ a month.
More than 5% in fact. 500,000 people have XLive and 10,000,000 have Xboxes. Still, it's not a lot, so it means not a lot of people play online anyway. I'm wondering how high is that percentage with computer games though.
... head of 3DRealms. Beside the Evil dead movies, I wonder what were his inspiration for Duke Nukem, though about any old movies with the governator comes to mind.
There wasn't really a winner when you know that they're trying to get Bruce Campbell to star in a Ash vs Freddy and Jason where Ash would kick their ass once and for all. At least, that's what Bruce said : If I do it, Ash has to kick their ass once and for all. Robert Englund likes the idea a lot. It could bring some sort of closure to the Jason and Freddy sagas, and the man to destroy them would be the coolest of the demon slayers, Ash.
bandwidth. A digital standard definition (480i) signal would probably be about a quarter of that.
Scientific Atlanta's PVR boxes does just that IIRC. It's got 50 hours of video on a 50 gig hard rive (or is it 80?) But considering the prices of 80 gig hard drives, multiply the size by 4 to get the same time capacity (well, the ads says that HDTV is 4 times better than the normal digital box at 480i), so files could be around 4 times bigger.
Anyway, that would become waaaaaaaay too pricey for a console. Just stick with the games, and sell DVD capability as an add-on (like the Xbox does) and you've got yourself a pretty sweet deal. If afterwards they want to release a TV-tuner add-on which connects to the USB drive of the console and software to do recording and time-shifting, good for them. But I don't want one of those on my consoles by default. Chances are the dedicated hardware of my own PVR is better than the one in the console.
Pesonally, I couldn't care less if it recorded TV for me. Considering that such units normally cost around 450CAN$ (300$ in the US I guess) and record only DVD quality pictures (if you have digital cable), I don't see how they could make it cheap in a console. Also, with HDTV signal becoming more and more mainstream, there's no way you'll be able to write all that data on the hard drive. If it doesn't do HD, it's just not worth it, considering these consoles will be out in 2005/2006 and that's when broadcasters have to switch over to HDTV.
It's a bit like asking "how fast would my car go if I doubled the gas tank size?" :)
Especially since if you think about it, a car which has a tank twice as big would be slower because it has more gas to carry around.
Yeah! :)
This remebers me an old joke : "You know, they've installed audio equipment in some new cars now to know what's happening in cars moments before an accident. Here's what was recorded in a car accident in Saguenay Lac-St-Jean (rural place in Quebec, a couple hours from Montreal) : "Okay Roger, hold this beer tight for me and watch me take this curve!"
Not really. From what I heard at the news when the accident took place months ago, these devices have a circular buffer that records only the last 5 or 10 seconds before an impact, so it would be probably be useless for a speed ticket since by the time you pull over the data is already gone.
I've heard about the case a few months ago, since I live in Montreal. They said that these little devices recorded only speeds and such. No audio is involved of course. What is interresting is that it doesn't record for a long time. It essentially has a buffer of about 5 or 10 seconds. When the car body registers a hit, it stops registering speeds, so it doesn't overwrite the speed before the impact. This way, police officers can't use these as a way to prove someone was going over the limit when they were chasing someone, but it's still usefull in car crashes.
I wonder what happens though if I have an accident once with my car, and then have it repaired. Is the box reset by the car repairman?
I never said all of english canadian hated canada (or maybe I did, but it was 5 AM so don't be too hard on me, there's a lot of nice english-canadian people that either don't care, understand, but most importantly, don't hate us). But there's a certain part that hates us, just like imbeciles here that hate english candians because well, they're english. It's just stupid. You might not LIKE us, but HATE? That's a pretty strong word.
The only thing I HATE about Canada is the federal government and it's ineptitude to resolve problems without shovelling them back in the provinces backyard. That, and their constant obsession to have their noses in provincial affairs that don't concern them. That's why we are supposed to have two level of governments : because the federal is supposed to take care of certain things that are too big for a sole province. Get your noses out of our education system. Get your nose out of our turf.
And about hating separatists : I recall a few years ago hearing that people in BC are becoming more and more pissed, like Quebec, about Ottawa, albeit for different reasons. There's also discontent in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In fact, almost all provinces in Canada now have people more or less for separating from Canada. They're finally realising that Canada is not ruled adequately. And they want to leave too. I'm wondering if you hate them too.
We would start shooting anglophones here before of moving to Toronto's subway...
;) Personnally I dispise all terrorist groups, whatever the cause.
Just fscking with you guys.
Maybe, but they're shovelling the debt back to the provinces, the provinces to the cities and the cities to the citizen. Way to go Paul Martin. I for won't be voting for the PLC next spring. Though the alternatives pretty much suck. At least in Quebec there's an alternative to the PQ (or PLQ, depending on which side of the fence you are), and there will probably be a third alternative coming next elections.
The federal level of government in Canada pretty much sucks and is in a dire need of a change. That's part why a lot of people in Quebec want to leave Canada.
Yeah, there's even a new version of the Risk board game Where Canada is pretty much non existant, United States are blown up in a few countries and there is a Republique du Quebec.
I don't remember the name of the book series (though I think it's a cyberpunk one), but there is one where Quebec is not a country and are xenophobes and killing english speakers on sight. Like that would happen! (The killing part)
Canadians aren't dismayed. Militant Quebecois who love to take offence are dismayed
Heck, my father has been a separatist from day one, and he doesn't even take offence at the game. In fact, we only have an Xbox at home and he was kinda bummed because the game is only for the PS2 and I won't be able to rent it.
Hi. Fellow quebecois and separatist here, just like you. Have you seen all the hate we get from english canadian on this story? It's amazing how many people hate quebecers so much.
:) Anyway, it's just a game, and as someone else pointed out, if it's okay to shoot muslim terrorists in a game, why is it not ok to shoot french canadian terrorists? Maybe it's because we're a long way off a terrorist group that promote Quebec's independence and maybe that's why people are pissed.
Personnally, I don't hate them or anything, it's the stupid assholes the rest of the country wants as the government that pisses me off and makes me want to leave.
And they've got that idea that because we think we're different, we're implying better. Didn't someone say that all tastes were part of nature? It's not because we love different things than them that we consider ourselves better.
You could argue that at least we don't suck up to the americans and british like a big part of Canada does (see Paul Martin), and that does make us more enlightened in that regard.
Anyway, we're our own people and own culture. Sure we borrow from other cultures, as all cultures do, but we mostly stay true to ourselves, instead of watching american TV show all week long.)
To go back on topic, at first I was kinda pissed about it and after a while I was kinda looking forward to hearing how the french terrorist spoke. Finally I could have heard "Calice de tabarnaque!" in a game.
I'm sure if there was a game Russian game where the US invaded Russia and you as Russia had to fight back, americans would be the first one to cry and moan about it. But did you see someone say something about Freedom Fighter released a couple days ago? (I think that's the name of the game where, in an alternate reality where Russia has won the cold war, Russia invades the US) Nope. Not this side of the atlantic anyway. I wonder what they're saying over there. Probably something like "Typical american propaganda. Eh, what can we do about it. Anybody wants more vodka?"
Or more recently, the N-Gage. It's a nice idea after all : a lot of people use cell phones these days and a lot of people love games, why not try to make them work together.
Nokia decided to fsck it up and not listen to gamers. That seems to be what Phantom is doing so far.
I heard about the Warhammer brand before, but never knew what it was about. I'll check into it. Thanks.
players will become bored... playing the same maps over and over and over again
This is bullshit. Some poeple have been playing Starcraft, Quake3, Half-Life in SINGLE PLAYER for years, on the SAME MAPS! Why should multiplayer be any different?
I never was much of a Warcraft fan. This seem like a nice game though. I think I can put Starcraft on my wish list for a board game adaptation now. The Starcraft universe and story ir sooooo much richer than Warcraft. Maybe adapt the 3.5 edition rules and make an RPG out of it? I dunno how they'd pull it off, but hey, maybe it could happen, and be good!
Even thought the environments seem really nice in DooM3, I have to disagree with the good art direction claim in regards to the monsters. Some of them are really bad. Come on, spiders with upside down heads? Demons with rocket launchers mounted on their backs? Gabe says it better than me on Penny-Arcade.
If you live in Quebec, you can still jump to "Desjardins". They're not as obsessed with profits as the others banks are, being a cooperative. And their "AccesD" website fulfills all my online transaction needs.