Chances are, you won't be standing near your TV, because it's bad for the eyes anyway. Projectors are bad when it comes to sun light, I have to admit, but if you put your home theater in the basement, like most of the people I know do, I'm sure you can buy nice curtains with the 9000$ you saved on a projector. You don't need to realign the projector if you mount it at the top of your ceiling. The screen does take space, but it does't take more place then a plasma screen. While the light life is low compared to TV (2000 hours on my Sanyo projector), 500CAN$ for a new light is not much when you think about it, compared to the insane prices of plasma TVs. And the room doesn't have to be too deep either. My projector rests about 7 feet from the screen.
I find that the disadvantages of a projector can easily be compensated for by investing a little bit of money on the room you watch your TV from.. And then you're left with another 6000$-7000$ dollars to spend on better audio equipement, better connections and a HDTV receiver. Plus, it's much easier to move a projector than a big ass plasma TV.
You're absolutely right, but is it worth the 9000$ dollar difference? Our home projector is the basement, and there are drapes in front of the window. It's as dark as a cinema.
Anyone that buys a $13,000.00 HD Plasma TV should be insanely pissed Especially when they realize that for a third of the price, they could get a nice home projector that gives a 100" display. What is the deal with big plasma TVs? They cost more, take more place and are heavier.
Unfortunately, even 720p is a stretch for the video memory in the Xbox when high-resolution textures and anti-aliasing are used I only know of one game in 720p for the Xbox, Soul Calibur 2, and the visual are amazing. The texture are crisp and very high-def. I never noticed any slowdown. As I said, my only gripe with the game is that in 720p the fighting screen is still 4:3, and not 16:9. The rest of the game is in between 16:9 and 4:3, depending on the game screen. Very weird. Even in 480p, there is a rendering issue where the left and right part of the screen, plus the lower part are black. In other widescreen games like Halo or Amped, these part of the screens are filled. Any idea why is that so in SC2?
I expect that all the consoles will have NTSC/480p/720p/1080i options built into nearly every game. I'd rather have them all in 16:9, 1080i, and no options. 480p resolutions are fine on a TV, but pixellation becomes evident when you're dealing with home projectors, even in games which have antialiasing.
It's a shame then, I was hoping for 1080i on Xbox. Soul Calibur 2 doesn't look that much better in 720p compared to 480p. I prefer playing games widescreen to playing them at a higher resolution.
What the fudge!?!! I just clicked on the Music Store icon in iTunes and it says that the service is unavailable in my country. What's so hard about getting my credit card info and bill me?
Didn't you cut the grass for your neighbour before being 16 or get a weekly allowance? A kid could easily get 80$ after a few weeks of saving. I bought with my own allowance and chores money around 8 games for my GameBoy between the age of 12 and 15.
The reason why game stores here (I live in Canada too) are selling 16+ games to kids is the same as in the US : because they generally just don't care. Don't believe what a store clerks tells you, he's/she's just trying to look good.
It is suggested that you remove the memory card during play as it is known to freeze the game. What's the point of playing a hacked game if you can't save your progress?
One of the games is a light gun game. Given that there few light gun games and that to play a light gun game you have to buy the game (50$) plus the light gun (if controllers are sold 20$, I suppose light guns sell over 30$), many people (like me) won't be interrested to shell out 80$ for only one game. In that sense, I can understand the decision not to release the game. After all, there are not that many light gun games at all on any consoles these days if I'm not mistaken. (even 10 games in a library of 1000+ games doesn't *count*)
patch turned into a 16+ hour downtime for most players, sparking a huge outrage in the SWG community
Of course they were outraged! I mean, if you've been playing a game like this hours and hours everyday, chances are you don't have friends anymore and your girlfriend/boyfriend dumped you. What are you to do when the server is offline is nobody is talking to you anymore?;)
We bought "Impots Rapide" from Intuit last year to do our taxes for the year (you know, the ones where you give almost half the money you earned this year? I don't know the proper word in english, sorry). It came with an activation code. When you started the software, it gave you another number. You had to call Intuit and give them the number in the manual and the number on your screen. They gave you a third one to unlock the software on the computer. "Great, I though, wait till we buy a new computer..."
Well, what had to happen happened. We bought a new computer, and when we tried to install "Impots Rapide" with the code Intuit gave us, it of course didn't work anymore, because the code that is given on the screen when you start it for the first time is based on some info about your computer, so we had to call them back.
Though we were only a phone call away from reactivating the software, I still had to wait 15 minutes to get in touch with a representative, and I don't like to have to phone the company I bought the product from to reactivate it because I did something as simple as buying a new computer.
And it's not like I really have any other choice. It's either that or doing my taxes with a pencil and an eraser. I've been doing my taxes with the computer for 6 years now, and it only takes an hour each time. I'm not sure I want to go back to the old fashionned way and waste two or three evenings. And I can send my taxes report electronically, so I can get back my tax refunds two weeks after sending them, instead of waiting a few months.
I agree with this. I stopped using the normal IE a few months ago and now I only use Avant Browser. What I really missed from IE was tabbed browsing and popup blocking, and Avant offer these two. It's really great. I've used tabbed browsing in Mozilla, and I think I've read somewhere that there is now a popup-killer built in the browser, but Mozilla never really did it for me. I always found it slow to start, huge memory hug (IE is too, but it's already loaded whether I use it or not, while Mozilla just adds to the total memory used) and most importantly, doesn't always render web pages correctly. I rarely if never see a rendering bug with IE, though I've read some people have problem with CSS style sheets. I'm not sure exactly what these are, but anyway, the pages always look just fine, so it must be a pretty rare bug.
Anyway, the point I was trying to get across here, but lost track of, is that Avant is really shell around IE. I'm even considering making a donation to the author, since it's a really great product. I've done the same in the past with Reget, and never regretted it either.
Thanks great then! That's like 12.50CAN$ for an album. So now the only reason to buy the CD is if you really want the CD case and lyrics. Some albums are not worth it, since the art on the cover sucks and there's no lyrics. In that case, if the CD costs around 16CAN$, I'd be willing to sacrifice prettyness for more money in my pockets, though I'd still miss my CD case. I mean, I like to see my CD rack full of CDs.:)
But I can definitely see a market now. Especially for albums with more than 13-14 songs, even though they're pretty rare. I guess the only real obstacle is DRM now and the apparent impossibility to sell back songs, as we saw a few weeks ago on the eBay story.
I might be offtopic because it doesn't seem to apply to this particular service, but this problem applies especially to stores like the Apple online music store. Songs are sold at 1$ a song. That seems pretty reasonable in the US, where an 12-13 songs album is sold 15-16US$.
(Of course you might want to say the price in kinda inflated compared to the price the music industry sells their CDs to the store. Especially if they sell it for 8$ and the middle man adds 9$ for shipping, paying it's workers, etc. But that's another debate. And if someone has numbers on this, I'd really be interrested.)
The catch is : these prices are good only in the United States as far as I'm concerned. Here in Canada, I usually pay 16 CANADIAN dollars for an album, including taxes (yeah, CD prices are THAT good in Canada, and at this price, they're not only Britney Spears CD. For example, I bought the "3 Days Grace" CD two weeks ago for 13CAN$, tax included. Excellent CD, worth every penny ). That's like 12US$. Now you see, for 12$ dollars, on Apples IMusic store, I can either buy 12 MP3 or whatever the format is of my favorite album (assuming I'm buying a whole album, and frankly, I've had the chance to buy excellent albums in the past where every song is worth the purchase), or for the same price, get the real CD with the lyrics booklet and the CD case. Which one do you think I'm going to buy, especially in the case of the 3 Days Grace CD I bought which cost me 13CAN$. I mean, if I bought it on the Apple music store, it would have cost me 12US$ (16CAN$) and I wouldn't even have the lyrics and CD case. Plus I'd be stuck with songs only playable by me.
Unless there's a Canadian version of these stores where songs are sold 75US cents (current exchange rate) or 1CAN$, I don't see how these companies are going to be really popular outside the US, or at least in Canada. I'm wondering at what price CD sells on other continents.
Bug-Filled Demos Are Game Anti-Marketing? Well, duh! I don't need an article to point that out. Why do people even take the time to write such non-sense?
or would you prefer controlling someone more... handsome? More handsome? Come on, in the dictionnary, at the word handsome, they give my name in example and there's a picture of me. I don't need some modeler at EA do a less handsome character. I want me!:p
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Chances are, you won't be standing near your TV, because it's bad for the eyes anyway. Projectors are bad when it comes to sun light, I have to admit, but if you put your home theater in the basement, like most of the people I know do, I'm sure you can buy nice curtains with the 9000$ you saved on a projector. You don't need to realign the projector if you mount it at the top of your ceiling. The screen does take space, but it does't take more place then a plasma screen. While the light life is low compared to TV (2000 hours on my Sanyo projector), 500CAN$ for a new light is not much when you think about it, compared to the insane prices of plasma TVs. And the room doesn't have to be too deep either. My projector rests about 7 feet from the screen.
I find that the disadvantages of a projector can easily be compensated for by investing a little bit of money on the room you watch your TV from.. And then you're left with another 6000$-7000$ dollars to spend on better audio equipement, better connections and a HDTV receiver. Plus, it's much easier to move a projector than a big ass plasma TV.
You're absolutely right, but is it worth the 9000$ dollar difference? Our home projector is the basement, and there are drapes in front of the window. It's as dark as a cinema.
Anyone that buys a $13,000.00 HD Plasma TV should be insanely pissed
Especially when they realize that for a third of the price, they could get a nice home projector that gives a 100" display. What is the deal with big plasma TVs? They cost more, take more place and are heavier.
Unfortunately, even 720p is a stretch for the video memory in the Xbox when high-resolution textures and anti-aliasing are used
I only know of one game in 720p for the Xbox, Soul Calibur 2, and the visual are amazing. The texture are crisp and very high-def. I never noticed any slowdown. As I said, my only gripe with the game is that in 720p the fighting screen is still 4:3, and not 16:9. The rest of the game is in between 16:9 and 4:3, depending on the game screen. Very weird. Even in 480p, there is a rendering issue where the left and right part of the screen, plus the lower part are black. In other widescreen games like Halo or Amped, these part of the screens are filled. Any idea why is that so in SC2?
I expect that all the consoles will have NTSC/480p/720p/1080i options built into nearly every game.
I'd rather have them all in 16:9, 1080i, and no options. 480p resolutions are fine on a TV, but pixellation becomes evident when you're dealing with home projectors, even in games which have antialiasing.
It's a shame then, I was hoping for 1080i on Xbox. Soul Calibur 2 doesn't look that much better in 720p compared to 480p. I prefer playing games widescreen to playing them at a higher resolution.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for the guy. ;)
What the fudge!?!! I just clicked on the Music Store icon in iTunes and it says that the service is unavailable in my country. What's so hard about getting my credit card info and bill me?
Why don't you give someting everyone can relate to, like all of Jenna Jameson's movies in HDTV?
with a straight face that it isn't just pirates using it
Arrrrr..... matey! I'm sick people stereotyping us to common theives. Arrrrr!
Didn't you cut the grass for your neighbour before being 16 or get a weekly allowance? A kid could easily get 80$ after a few weeks of saving. I bought with my own allowance and chores money around 8 games for my GameBoy between the age of 12 and 15.
The reason why game stores here (I live in Canada too) are selling 16+ games to kids is the same as in the US : because they generally just don't care. Don't believe what a store clerks tells you, he's/she's just trying to look good.
It is suggested that you remove the memory card during play as it is known to freeze the game.
What's the point of playing a hacked game if you can't save your progress?
One of the games is a light gun game. Given that there few light gun games and that to play a light gun game you have to buy the game (50$) plus the light gun (if controllers are sold 20$, I suppose light guns sell over 30$), many people (like me) won't be interrested to shell out 80$ for only one game. In that sense, I can understand the decision not to release the game. After all, there are not that many light gun games at all on any consoles these days if I'm not mistaken. (even 10 games in a library of 1000+ games doesn't *count*)
patch turned into a 16+ hour downtime for most players, sparking a huge outrage in the SWG community
;)
Of course they were outraged! I mean, if you've been playing a game like this hours and hours everyday, chances are you don't have friends anymore and your girlfriend/boyfriend dumped you. What are you to do when the server is offline is nobody is talking to you anymore?
We bought "Impots Rapide" from Intuit last year to do our taxes for the year (you know, the ones where you give almost half the money you earned this year? I don't know the proper word in english, sorry). It came with an activation code. When you started the software, it gave you another number. You had to call Intuit and give them the number in the manual and the number on your screen. They gave you a third one to unlock the software on the computer. "Great, I though, wait till we buy a new computer..."
Well, what had to happen happened. We bought a new computer, and when we tried to install "Impots Rapide" with the code Intuit gave us, it of course didn't work anymore, because the code that is given on the screen when you start it for the first time is based on some info about your computer, so we had to call them back.
Though we were only a phone call away from reactivating the software, I still had to wait 15 minutes to get in touch with a representative, and I don't like to have to phone the company I bought the product from to reactivate it because I did something as simple as buying a new computer.
And it's not like I really have any other choice. It's either that or doing my taxes with a pencil and an eraser. I've been doing my taxes with the computer for 6 years now, and it only takes an hour each time. I'm not sure I want to go back to the old fashionned way and waste two or three evenings. And I can send my taxes report electronically, so I can get back my tax refunds two weeks after sending them, instead of waiting a few months.
I agree with this. I stopped using the normal IE a few months ago and now I only use Avant Browser. What I really missed from IE was tabbed browsing and popup blocking, and Avant offer these two. It's really great. I've used tabbed browsing in Mozilla, and I think I've read somewhere that there is now a popup-killer built in the browser, but Mozilla never really did it for me. I always found it slow to start, huge memory hug (IE is too, but it's already loaded whether I use it or not, while Mozilla just adds to the total memory used) and most importantly, doesn't always render web pages correctly. I rarely if never see a rendering bug with IE, though I've read some people have problem with CSS style sheets. I'm not sure exactly what these are, but anyway, the pages always look just fine, so it must be a pretty rare bug.
Anyway, the point I was trying to get across here, but lost track of, is that Avant is really shell around IE. I'm even considering making a donation to the author, since it's a really great product. I've done the same in the past with Reget, and never regretted it either.
Thanks great then! That's like 12.50CAN$ for an album. So now the only reason to buy the CD is if you really want the CD case and lyrics. Some albums are not worth it, since the art on the cover sucks and there's no lyrics. In that case, if the CD costs around 16CAN$, I'd be willing to sacrifice prettyness for more money in my pockets, though I'd still miss my CD case. I mean, I like to see my CD rack full of CDs. :)
But I can definitely see a market now. Especially for albums with more than 13-14 songs, even though they're pretty rare. I guess the only real obstacle is DRM now and the apparent impossibility to sell back songs, as we saw a few weeks ago on the eBay story.
Thanks for the info!
I might be offtopic because it doesn't seem to apply to this particular service, but this problem applies especially to stores like the Apple online music store. Songs are sold at 1$ a song. That seems pretty reasonable in the US, where an 12-13 songs album is sold 15-16US$.
(Of course you might want to say the price in kinda inflated compared to the price the music industry sells their CDs to the store. Especially if they sell it for 8$ and the middle man adds 9$ for shipping, paying it's workers, etc. But that's another debate. And if someone has numbers on this, I'd really be interrested.)
The catch is : these prices are good only in the United States as far as I'm concerned. Here in Canada, I usually pay 16 CANADIAN dollars for an album, including taxes (yeah, CD prices are THAT good in Canada, and at this price, they're not only Britney Spears CD. For example, I bought the "3 Days Grace" CD two weeks ago for 13CAN$, tax included. Excellent CD, worth every penny ). That's like 12US$. Now you see, for 12$ dollars, on Apples IMusic store, I can either buy 12 MP3 or whatever the format is of my favorite album (assuming I'm buying a whole album, and frankly, I've had the chance to buy excellent albums in the past where every song is worth the purchase), or for the same price, get the real CD with the lyrics booklet and the CD case. Which one do you think I'm going to buy, especially in the case of the 3 Days Grace CD I bought which cost me 13CAN$. I mean, if I bought it on the Apple music store, it would have cost me 12US$ (16CAN$) and I wouldn't even have the lyrics and CD case. Plus I'd be stuck with songs only playable by me.
Unless there's a Canadian version of these stores where songs are sold 75US cents (current exchange rate) or 1CAN$, I don't see how these companies are going to be really popular outside the US, or at least in Canada. I'm wondering at what price CD sells on other continents.
... and crashes seconds after lift off.
Bug-Filled Demos Are Game Anti-Marketing?
Well, duh! I don't need an article to point that out. Why do people even take the time to write such non-sense?
Come to think about it, after a post like this one, there's probably my name and photo next to "dork". :(
or would you prefer controlling someone more... handsome? :p
More handsome? Come on, in the dictionnary, at the word handsome, they give my name in example and there's a picture of me. I don't need some modeler at EA do a less handsome character. I want me!
And I did even worse... I was trying to do it all from a gamepad!
:)
God bless dual analog sticks or keyboard+mouse
I'd really like to see someone try a REAL rocket jump after practicing for so long on his or her computer.
I'd say GTA3 is a piece of trash, not art
To be more precise, gameplay wise, it is revolutionnary, but artistically I'd say it's a piece of trash.
... a game like GTA3 will always have trouble to be seen as a work of art.
And if you'd ask me, I'd say GTA3 is a piece of trash, not art. So there.