Really? Well that's stupid. I wasn't aware of that. I agree with the DRM point the above poster made in that case. Anyway, I got a Sansa, so who cares right?:)
Aside from the technical concerns (DRM, extremely limited wi-fi, sideways viewing)
Point me to a version of iTunes without DRM from Apple please. While the Zune has limited Wi-Fi, iPod has NONE. Sideways viewing : That's a design decision, not a technical concern. I think they were right in assuming that video is viewed better on it's side, as the screen is wider this way. Judging from the DS and the PSP and the somewhat popularity of portable DVD players, I think it's actually Apple who's got it wrong.
I can't point to a source but I remember reading that the games were written off as marketing, not a product they expect to make a profit on, but I think they will nonetheless. I have the 3 games at home, I bought all of them with my lunch (hadn't been to BK for a couple of months) the day they came out but I haven't unwrapped them yet, I'm still stuck on Gears Of War on the 360 and Final Fantasy 3 and Elite Beat Agents on the DS.
But I hear that they are great value. Can't wait to unlock those achievements.:)
On the other hand, you have the SRC, the french counterpart of CBC. I've been watching HD shows for a year a half now, original programming, no dubbed stuff from the United States. And quality programming. It may not rank as high as TVA 's offerings (I view TVA as Quebec's FOX), but the quality of the content and the HD picture (with 5.1 surround, something a lot of HD shows in the States seem to lack, or maybe my provider is dropping the 5.1 on Prison Break and Heroes) make SRC the best offering for a TV viewer in Quebec. I noticed recently that there are a lot of ads in HD on SRC these days. And not just promos from the network. I'm talking about car ads, bank ads, etc.
I don't know about CBC because I never watch it, but the french branch of the government owned station certainly seems to embrace HD.
Well, it's called a "copyright exemption", and the DMCA is a "copyright law", so maybe that's why they would allow DeCSS for such use. You are exempted from the DMCA if you are doing it for educational purpose.
Come to think of it, maybe they mean lossy extraction of DVD content for educational purpose. This means no DeCSS necessary.
You said : Why would they care if somebody figures out their network protocol? The summary said : More advanced connections including binary and virtual console downloads are currently in the works.
I suppose this means that there could be a way to get Virtual Console games for free or to leach them from someone else downloading them. Not good for Nintendo's business. Too bad it wasn't encrypted.
Sigh. Read the SUMMARY. These laws allows certain people to break a law that you otherwise can't/shouldn't break. Basically it's saying : we allow this for the greater good. See it as the license to kill for James Bond. He can kill, but you can't.
In other words, if you are not a teacher, and you are not going to be showing this in a school, this law does NOTHING for you.
Or should we say current gen now? Anyway, see the tally so far here. I would love to have the sources on these, but I am ready to believe the numbers. And considering at what I have personally been in stores on PS3 launch day, Microsoft sold a LOT of 360's that day. For dissapointed PS3 buyers, Microsoft proposed in Canada a bundle which contained a premium system, with Ridge Racer 6, Ghost Recon : Advanced Warfigher, Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged (6 games from the XBL Marketplace) and last but not least Gears of War (standard edition). Everything for 450CAN$. That was a one day sale (now the price is around 600CAN$). That was 50CAN$ less than what we pay for a premimum system normally and a couple hundred less than what you would have paid if you bought everything separately. They were flying off the shelves. So MS probably outsold the PS3 on that day. Well, in Futureshop's across Canada at least. And they GARANTEED (and still do) the console to be available, or they throw in a 30 dollar rebate off your next purchase. The store I was in in downtown Montreal had run out of copies of Gears of War so they still sold the bundle and indicated on the receipt that the customer didn't get the game and could come and get it any day now.
Look at the numbers in the second link of the article. The Xbox Magazine actually enjoyed a raise in subscription numbers, even tough the Xbox is for all purpose dead and the 360 has downloadable demos. Also, it's interresting that the magazine has more subscribers than the Playstation Magazine even tough it has a marketshare a quarter of the Playstation's. Maybe it has to do with the fact that there's not a lot of Xbox magazines. That might be why it works so well. Or maybe the quality of the printed magazine is actually better than what's out there for the Playstation. (I haven't read it, so this is just speculation on my part)
Besides Zelda there's pretty much nothing worth getting a Wii for...and even that will be available for Gamecube.
Actually, the one really cool game on the Wii at launch is Rayman. It's not really a sequel because it's a party game and not a platformer at all. And it's easily the best Wii game I have played so far (I was lucky and went to Arcadia last evening, a game expo in Montreal.) Zelda was meh (tough I'm not a reference, I haven't liked Zelda since A Link to the Past. I don't like the fighting in Zelda games since they went 3d), Excite Truck too. Wario Ware's cheap graphics were fun for a while but now it's boring and Wii Tennis should be ok. I didn't have a great time playing it because the representative didn't really explain how to move around so it wasn't fun. Oh well. I'll know next Sunday when I go with my friend to buy his Wii and play it at his place.
I agree with you. I played the Wii last night at the Arcadia festival in Montreal (if you live in the area, it's only 10$ for a day or 20$ for a weekend pass) and Nintendo is there and Excite Truck is nothing to write home about (oh... wait...) I've seen people play Zelda and was totally underwhelmed. Nintendo was showing the game on giant HDTVs and the aliasing and low res textures (compared to 360 games anyway) was really making the game look sub-par.
I had a lot of fun playing the Rayman game tough : flyings cows and shooting toilet pumps at rabbits was really cool. WarioWare was OK, but if I had to pick a party game, I'd definitely go for Rayman. As for Wii Tennis, the Nintendo employee was really being a dick and didn't explain much how the game played so people just couldn't hit the ball. Also, at the Ubisoft both, they had their own Rayman setup (where you could actually choose your game instead of Nintendo's booth where you could only play-the-shoot-the-rabbits-in-a-far-west-setting-à -la-time-crisis game) and the Wiimote behaved really eratically there. It was very difficult to aim the wiimote there compared to Nintendo's booth. I noticed they put the sensor bar on top of the monitor, which happened to be right about the top of my head's height while Nintendo's booth had sensors under the TV which was about at mid-torso's height (considering people were standing up). Which brings me to think that the sensor bar has to be put under your TV and not on top considering you'll be playing sitting in your couch.
But the highlight of the evening was Guitar Heroes 2 for me tough. Can't wait for the 360 version, since I don't own a PS2.
Oh, and Sony wasn't there. My friend joked that it was probably because Sony couldn't manufacture enough units for the event.:)
Seriously, I've heard Microsoft talk about procedural texture synthesis for a while when designing the 360 and how they made certain stuff in the CPU to facilitate that kind of texture generation. Who needs Blu-ray to store high res textures when a mathematical equation will do? As for FMV, who really needs them? DVD9 might be ok for a long while after all.
I don't know, but if the TV media broadcast their faces on national TV, then I bet they are going to stay that way a lot longer. Unless they happen to meet a crazy sex craved PS3 enthusiast.
And when youve just gone through a summer in northern europe when the tempreture never went below 30c for 8 weeks who needs scientists. That argument is useless because one hot summer does not equate global warning. This could be a statistical anomaly. It's not because the average temperature for the season is higher this year than last that you are victim of global warming. Global warming, as any temperature trend, can only be observable over a long period of time (read DECADES) not on a year to year basis. That being said, it is hotter than 30 years ago.
While I love that my 360 plays games in 720P, it's not a must have feature for a game console. I'd rather have 480P with prettier pixels then 720P with less pretty pixels. I wonder if a 480P Wii can produce an image with pixels as "detailed" as a 720P 360. I mean, could you have a game as beautiful as Gears of Wars on the Wii if it played in 480P? That's a question I'd really like to be answered. If that's the case, Nintendo could make a game as cool looking as Gears of War AND have a unique control scheme. Most people are not going to notice the difference anyway because they'll be playing the game in SD, not HD, at least, not for a few years.
What will be interresting to see is what happens with the Wii if two years from now market penetration of HDTVs is much higher than what it is right now. Are people are still going to care? Is the Wiimote still going to be a popular thing and not just a fad. Nobody can tell.
More often than not, these constituent parts are Open Source software systems and typically not designed to be used as components. These parts are then made to interoperate through wrappers and glue code. We think this trend is a harbinger of things to come. What do you think?
Okay. Looks then. I mean. The control scheme is pretty much straighforward, except that you wiggle your arm (or wrist) to slash in ONE direction and there is the quite cool arrow shooting with the nunchuck and remote motion. As for anything else in the game, it's pretty standard fare.
Actually, people have been having fun playing 3rd person shooter with two joysticks for a while now. The same game could arguable handle better on the Wii, but don't say the current controllers are crap. Just say that the Wiimote is better at certain things. I have yet to see how a game like Mortal Kombat or Tekken would work on the Wii. How do you kick, jump and punch in sequence?
I don't agree. This is supposed to be Nintendo's flagship title that shows up the inventiveness of the Wii. And so far I've seen nothing in Zelda Wii that would want me to buy the Wii version over the Gamecube version. The Wiimote feels tacked onto this game and not made for it. That's what happens when you retool your game for something it wasn't clearly designed for. Apart from Wii Sports, I haven't seen anything that is really an inventive use of the Wiimote. I mean, we don't know how swordplay will be handled either in Red Steel and FPSes are going to be interresting to see, but apart from that, is there something good that is NOT a party game coming on the Wii that has an interresting take on the Wiimote?
Slashdot Mirror
Really? Well that's stupid. I wasn't aware of that. I agree with the DRM point the above poster made in that case. Anyway, I got a Sansa, so who cares right? :)
Apple fanboy are we?
Aside from the technical concerns (DRM, extremely limited wi-fi, sideways viewing)
Point me to a version of iTunes without DRM from Apple please.
While the Zune has limited Wi-Fi, iPod has NONE.
Sideways viewing : That's a design decision, not a technical concern. I think they were right in assuming that video is viewed better on it's side, as the screen is wider this way. Judging from the DS and the PSP and the somewhat popularity of portable DVD players, I think it's actually Apple who's got it wrong.
I can't point to a source but I remember reading that the games were written off as marketing, not a product they expect to make a profit on, but I think they will nonetheless. I have the 3 games at home, I bought all of them with my lunch (hadn't been to BK for a couple of months) the day they came out but I haven't unwrapped them yet, I'm still stuck on Gears Of War on the 360 and Final Fantasy 3 and Elite Beat Agents on the DS.
:)
But I hear that they are great value. Can't wait to unlock those achievements.
On the other hand, you have the SRC, the french counterpart of CBC. I've been watching HD shows for a year a half now, original programming, no dubbed stuff from the United States. And quality programming. It may not rank as high as TVA 's offerings (I view TVA as Quebec's FOX), but the quality of the content and the HD picture (with 5.1 surround, something a lot of HD shows in the States seem to lack, or maybe my provider is dropping the 5.1 on Prison Break and Heroes) make SRC the best offering for a TV viewer in Quebec. I noticed recently that there are a lot of ads in HD on SRC these days. And not just promos from the network. I'm talking about car ads, bank ads, etc.
I don't know about CBC because I never watch it, but the french branch of the government owned station certainly seems to embrace HD.
Well, it's called a "copyright exemption", and the DMCA is a "copyright law", so maybe that's why they would allow DeCSS for such use. You are exempted from the DMCA if you are doing it for educational purpose.
Come to think of it, maybe they mean lossy extraction of DVD content for educational purpose. This means no DeCSS necessary.
You said : Why would they care if somebody figures out their network protocol?
The summary said : More advanced connections including binary and virtual console downloads are currently in the works.
I suppose this means that there could be a way to get Virtual Console games for free or to leach them from someone else downloading them. Not good for Nintendo's business. Too bad it wasn't encrypted.
or...
This is what happens when you spend more time playing with your wii than thinking about how to make it safe.
Sigh. Read the SUMMARY. These laws allows certain people to break a law that you otherwise can't/shouldn't break. Basically it's saying : we allow this for the greater good. See it as the license to kill for James Bond. He can kill, but you can't.
In other words, if you are not a teacher, and you are not going to be showing this in a school, this law does NOTHING for you.
Population rising, yet methane levels have stabilized. The cause is actually more people falling in love. I predict a lot of explosions soon.
I wonder if I should explain this one...
Or should we say current gen now? Anyway, see the tally so far here. I would love to have the sources on these, but I am ready to believe the numbers. And considering at what I have personally been in stores on PS3 launch day, Microsoft sold a LOT of 360's that day. For dissapointed PS3 buyers, Microsoft proposed in Canada a bundle which contained a premium system, with Ridge Racer 6, Ghost Recon : Advanced Warfigher, Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged (6 games from the XBL Marketplace) and last but not least Gears of War (standard edition). Everything for 450CAN$. That was a one day sale (now the price is around 600CAN$). That was 50CAN$ less than what we pay for a premimum system normally and a couple hundred less than what you would have paid if you bought everything separately. They were flying off the shelves. So MS probably outsold the PS3 on that day. Well, in Futureshop's across Canada at least. And they GARANTEED (and still do) the console to be available, or they throw in a 30 dollar rebate off your next purchase. The store I was in in downtown Montreal had run out of copies of Gears of War so they still sold the bundle and indicated on the receipt that the customer didn't get the game and could come and get it any day now.
Look at the numbers in the second link of the article. The Xbox Magazine actually enjoyed a raise in subscription numbers, even tough the Xbox is for all purpose dead and the 360 has downloadable demos. Also, it's interresting that the magazine has more subscribers than the Playstation Magazine even tough it has a marketshare a quarter of the Playstation's. Maybe it has to do with the fact that there's not a lot of Xbox magazines. That might be why it works so well. Or maybe the quality of the printed magazine is actually better than what's out there for the Playstation. (I haven't read it, so this is just speculation on my part)
Besides Zelda there's pretty much nothing worth getting a Wii for...and even that will be available for Gamecube.
Actually, the one really cool game on the Wii at launch is Rayman. It's not really a sequel because it's a party game and not a platformer at all. And it's easily the best Wii game I have played so far (I was lucky and went to Arcadia last evening, a game expo in Montreal.) Zelda was meh (tough I'm not a reference, I haven't liked Zelda since A Link to the Past. I don't like the fighting in Zelda games since they went 3d), Excite Truck too. Wario Ware's cheap graphics were fun for a while but now it's boring and Wii Tennis should be ok. I didn't have a great time playing it because the representative didn't really explain how to move around so it wasn't fun. Oh well. I'll know next Sunday when I go with my friend to buy his Wii and play it at his place.
I agree with you. I played the Wii last night at the Arcadia festival in Montreal (if you live in the area, it's only 10$ for a day or 20$ for a weekend pass) and Nintendo is there and Excite Truck is nothing to write home about (oh... wait...)
à -la-time-crisis game) and the Wiimote behaved really eratically there. It was very difficult to aim the wiimote there compared to Nintendo's booth. I noticed they put the sensor bar on top of the monitor, which happened to be right about the top of my head's height while Nintendo's booth had sensors under the TV which was about at mid-torso's height (considering people were standing up). Which brings me to think that the sensor bar has to be put under your TV and not on top considering you'll be playing sitting in your couch.
:)
I've seen people play Zelda and was totally underwhelmed. Nintendo was showing the game on giant HDTVs and the aliasing and low res textures (compared to 360 games anyway) was really making the game look sub-par.
I had a lot of fun playing the Rayman game tough : flyings cows and shooting toilet pumps at rabbits was really cool. WarioWare was OK, but if I had to pick a party game, I'd definitely go for Rayman. As for Wii Tennis, the Nintendo employee was really being a dick and didn't explain much how the game played so people just couldn't hit the ball. Also, at the Ubisoft both, they had their own Rayman setup (where you could actually choose your game instead of Nintendo's booth where you could only play-the-shoot-the-rabbits-in-a-far-west-setting-
But the highlight of the evening was Guitar Heroes 2 for me tough. Can't wait for the 360 version, since I don't own a PS2.
Oh, and Sony wasn't there. My friend joked that it was probably because Sony couldn't manufacture enough units for the event.
But there are many things that also conduct fairly well at room temperature, such as doped silicon (an insulator).
Or how about a person?
You mean like really really small Internets?
will be used to make games 90% smaller than
Seriously, I've heard Microsoft talk about procedural texture synthesis for a while when designing the 360 and how they made certain stuff in the CPU to facilitate that kind of texture generation. Who needs Blu-ray to store high res textures when a mathematical equation will do? As for FMV, who really needs them? DVD9 might be ok for a long while after all.
Sony Firm on PS3 Pricing
Great, cause I'm firm on not buying a PS3. This is a match made in heaven.
I don't know, but if the TV media broadcast their faces on national TV, then I bet they are going to stay that way a lot longer. Unless they happen to meet a crazy sex craved PS3 enthusiast.
And when youve just gone through a summer in northern europe when the tempreture never went below 30c for 8 weeks who needs scientists.
That argument is useless because one hot summer does not equate global warning. This could be a statistical anomaly. It's not because the average temperature for the season is higher this year than last that you are victim of global warming. Global warming, as any temperature trend, can only be observable over a long period of time (read DECADES) not on a year to year basis. That being said, it is hotter than 30 years ago.
While I love that my 360 plays games in 720P, it's not a must have feature for a game console. I'd rather have 480P with prettier pixels then 720P with less pretty pixels. I wonder if a 480P Wii can produce an image with pixels as "detailed" as a 720P 360. I mean, could you have a game as beautiful as Gears of Wars on the Wii if it played in 480P? That's a question I'd really like to be answered. If that's the case, Nintendo could make a game as cool looking as Gears of War AND have a unique control scheme. Most people are not going to notice the difference anyway because they'll be playing the game in SD, not HD, at least, not for a few years.
What will be interresting to see is what happens with the Wii if two years from now market penetration of HDTVs is much higher than what it is right now. Are people are still going to care? Is the Wiimote still going to be a popular thing and not just a fad. Nobody can tell.
We need a "+1 sarcasm"
More often than not, these constituent parts are Open Source software systems and typically not designed to be used as components. These parts are then made to interoperate through wrappers and glue code. We think this trend is a harbinger of things to come. What do you think?
Three words : Not gonna scale.
Okay. Looks then. I mean. The control scheme is pretty much straighforward, except that you wiggle your arm (or wrist) to slash in ONE direction and there is the quite cool arrow shooting with the nunchuck and remote motion. As for anything else in the game, it's pretty standard fare.
Actually, people have been having fun playing 3rd person shooter with two joysticks for a while now. The same game could arguable handle better on the Wii, but don't say the current controllers are crap. Just say that the Wiimote is better at certain things. I have yet to see how a game like Mortal Kombat or Tekken would work on the Wii. How do you kick, jump and punch in sequence?
I don't agree. This is supposed to be Nintendo's flagship title that shows up the inventiveness of the Wii. And so far I've seen nothing in Zelda Wii that would want me to buy the Wii version over the Gamecube version. The Wiimote feels tacked onto this game and not made for it. That's what happens when you retool your game for something it wasn't clearly designed for. Apart from Wii Sports, I haven't seen anything that is really an inventive use of the Wiimote. I mean, we don't know how swordplay will be handled either in Red Steel and FPSes are going to be interresting to see, but apart from that, is there something good that is NOT a party game coming on the Wii that has an interresting take on the Wiimote?