Notepad opens it, at least on XP machines (where Notepad doesn't have the limit on length). Unfortunately, it doesn't look nice when you open it, and not all of it may be readable...
Interestingly enough, the SP2 portion of the patch name you keep quoting refers to Service Pack 2 for Windows 2000. The Windows XP version of the patch doesn't include the SP2 prefix.
Maybe I should try installing Battlefield 1942 and updating it to see if I have the same problem. The only problems I had with that game before were related to the game itself being completely unplayable when it shipped because it couldn't play sounds properly.
(table of contents probably does not look like it was intended, but otherwise the document is ok).
If the table of contents is shit brown and doesn't do anything more than list the contents (down to the multiple questions on each page), then don't worry, that's exactly what it looks like in Word2k3, so it's unlikely that's not what they intended.
I think the numbers speak for themselves: TOP NETWORK GAMES: Half-Life (probably 99,9% Counter-Strike) Battlefield 1942 Jedi Knight 2 Unreal Tournament 2003 Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Diablo II etc.. I guess StarCraft is pretty high too..
I think the numbers speak for themselves, too, but you didn't show any numbers (well, 99,9%, which isn't a number in the US, but instead 2 numbers, and 1942, 2, and 2003, and II I guess). Half-Life sold over 7 million copies in the US. The number of people that play it online is roughly 60,000 (and that's not just in the US). Less than 1%, and HL has been the most played FPS game online for a few years (it may have changed recently, but I haven't heard that).
In Korea they've learned that they have to focus on this.
Which is Korea, and has little bearing on US television. StarCraft sold more copies in Korea than in the US. Think about that for a bit.
-Being a professional gamer is nowadays one of the most popular and respected carrer in high-school (among boys... of course:). -The finals of the Ongamenet tournaments are broadcasted on Cable TV and they break viewership records, almost reaching the records of national TV stations. -A few professional gamers are recognized in the streets by normal people. "
And in the US, being a professional gamer is a completely different thing than being a professional gamer in Korea. How many Koreans ever had to travel 1000-2000 miles out of their own pocket to get to a tournament? I know people that did that just to show up at the launch of TFC, and a handful that have done it for tournaments as well.
I remember him gushing about Ico and Shenmue and other non-traditional games... now he just gets to stand around gibbering about Whatever Game Popular Opinion Has Chosen for the week, usually with insulting fake drooling and other behavior that management has decreed appeals to gamers.
He was gushing about Ico on X-Play with Morgan right there next to him. The game isn't that old, and I remember watching it, and thinking to myself, "wow, that game looks like it absolutely sucks".
1) G4 sucks. Thus, TechTV would begin to suck. Worse than currently, if you can fathom that. More Robot Wars, anyone?
I can't quite figure out why, but that show irritates me to no end. It only makes it worse that it's on at some of the worst hours of television, when there's absolutely nothing on. Then again, that gives me an excuse to turn on one of the consoles.
2) Comcast would more than likely pull the "new" combined channel from DishNetwork and DirectTV.
Cox would more than likely pull TechTV, as well, since they don't seem to carry much of Comcast's content.
Rather than rush to fix it, I spent a week doing nothing but said I "was doing research into how to fix the problem." The 1 week without games was sufficiently traumatic that there's been no problem since.
This is actually what drove me to learn how to do an OS reinstall. As time went on, each time Windows ate itself, my dad would take longer and longer to get around to fixing it. Eventually, I got sick of waiting and did it myself. Within about two months I had him in complete understanding of the beauty of keeping data and OS on seperate drives, and now, many years later, my dad calls me when he wants information on how to do something or advice on new hardware.
Technology limitations likely did play a role in those games. I remember C&C had performance issues early on (I think early beta or something).
Exactly. I think that may also be why the expansion seems so limited at first, because it adds much more to the gameplay than it does to the variety of units, and even when you start playing the various generals which have most of the expansion's new units, you find that you're just as limited as before simply because none of the generals can use another general's specialized units.
WCIII (my brother has this so I know it) doesn't have a good engine. It's Blizzard's first 3D engine and I think they could have done much better. I am pretty sure WCIII limited the number of units for performance reasons. If I'm not mistaken, Blizzard even said that (before the game came out I think--fans were asking for Starcraft like 100+ units per side).
I know they said the number of units would be more limited, but I don't recall whether or not they actually attributed it to the engine. There's another RTS game out there, a bit older, called The Moon Project, that has a very good 3D engine which can handle significant numbers of units (though the units aren't as detailed as C&C:G or WC3). Unfortunately, the game itself isn't good enough to play for months on end (it's not a bad game, just not the best game, either).
I don't know what to say about TA. I was never really into it--probably because my PC didn't run that game well. I used to have a ton of arguments with my roommate at that time who loved TA, whereas I loved Starcraft:) It's just too bad that TA, one of the top RTS games of all time, just died off. Its gameplay sucked IMO but it had features. In fact, many RTS games STILL don't have TA's features.
Dark Reign was another game like that, but it didn't handle increasing CPU speeds very well (whereas TA does just fine today). DR had great line of site for the units and attack bonuses for altitude, not to mention great group behavior and settings for individual unit AI (which can be set on an individual unit or groups of units). Unfortunately, it only plays well on about a 166-200MHz CPU. When you get up to a 400MHz or higher CPU the game moves too fast, even at the slowest setting.
My favourite genre is RTS (I don't play FPS at all). I think one of the problems with RTS is that it is too popular. RTS games because a cash cow and this means that companies are reluctant to try new things. The early days (circa mid 90's, with C&C, Red Alert, TA, WCII, SC, AOE) were more innovative in my eyes. Yes, they improved slowly BUT companies tried new things. Nowadays, they are just rehashing things. You can tell by looking at maps. The maps have not changed AT ALL since that era. Yes, there are terrain bonuses and the like but they still suck...
I think they're trying new things just as often, though much of it comes from simply moving to 3D, it's just a matter of everyone growing accustomed to what an RTS is. Additionally, because we don't have as many companies trying to put out strong RTS games any more, we see less diversity in what people try to do in the games. On one hand you have the flooded RTS market of the 90s and the majority of the games doing very little to move forward, but on the other hand you have today's RTS market, where anything but C&C and WC gets mostly ignored, and the innovations in those titles tend to be rehashed from the other games of the 90s and feel like too little (especially with WC's limited number of units).
It might also be due to Linux Kernel developers not being directly controllable by other areas of development (i.e. projects). For example with the mingling in Win95 of Explorer and the Kernel, for usability and not considering the consequences of such a decision.
Or the fact that the core team for the kernel is quite small and the direction of the kernel is ultimately controlled by this group.
This is likely to be an attempt to minimise the undue influence other departments have over the Windows Kernel development team. This being a good thing as it tries to prevent the projects goals being unduly subverted to make another projects life easier.
They didn't state that this was a kernel development team, though the name implies that the kernel will be part of their responsibilities. The core OS could include quite a bit more than the kernel. Kernel mode alone, in the diagram of the Longhorn OS, includes the kernel, HAL, device drivers, protocols (TCP, IPSEC, etc), portions of the storage and transaction systems, part of the DirectX graphics and audio drivers, input manager, memory, power, config, and process managers, plug and play, LPC, and so on. The 'Base Operating System Services' which includes the kernel mode portions also includes the window manager, GDI/GDI+, Direct3D, the CLR, and more of the storage and transactions subsystems. On top of all of that is the crap that's gotten the most attention recently, including Avalon, Indigo, WinFS, and the network class library (which might also be part of the Base OS services, it's hard to tell in the diagram).
Another thing that could be an explanation of this would be reaction to the antitrust cases not only at the federal level, but also from many of the states. If the Core OS is being developed by a seperate group, they could try to hold this up as an example of isolating the OS and API development from the application development, even within Microsoft itself. Of course, that also could backfire on them with any future efforts along the lines of IE and WMP, because they'd have to put more planning into integrating the needed features into the core OS before slapping together another product.
I made no mention of whether Blockbuster was fast, or slow, to market in renting DVD's;... All I said was that Blockbuster moved to DVD's which spurned massive growth in the DVD market, and it also helped Blockbuster's bottom line.
In order for Blockbuster to spurn massive growth in the DVD market, they would've had to have been IN the DVD rental market before massive growth occured. Hence my reply, because it's just incorrect. DVD adoption happened extremely quickly, and the massive growth in the market had begun before Blockbuster even had a single DVD in their rental outlets, let alone a comparable selection to that of their competitors.
Moving to DVD helped Blockbuster's bottom line because they tanked shortly before, during, and after DVD took off 2 years ago. Blockbuster also made other significant changes in their pricing that helped them to compete and regain some of their former market share, resulting in their stock prices being roughly twice what they were 5 years ago.
In other words, you've got your cause and effect reversed, which was why I replied in the first place.
Of course, where I live now, if I mention Hollywood Video, I get a blank stare, so I'm not surprised that it wasn't as blatantly obvious in all portions of the country (or even the world) how much Blockbuster was floundering for a couple years.
Do you think it is really that much cheaper per DVD to press 100 million of one disc then 20 million each of 5 different ones?
The reason prices decrease in bulk is because the first one is so much more expensive than duplication. Of course, when you are dealing in quantities of several million of something costing maybe $2-4 per copy at the most, it probably doesn't make much difference
Blockbuster renting DVD's is directly attributable to that format becoming the new "standard" for watching movies. Without them, it would still be VHS first, DVD second. Only this year have DVD's become more popular than VHS, in the US.
Blockbuster only rents DVDs because it became the new standard. Look at Blockbuster's 5 year stock rates. When DVDs hit, Blockbuster tanked, and they were the last major US rental chain to go to DVD in most areas, and they've only risen as they started moving to DVD and improving their rental prices to be more competetive.
Also note that the gross margin has jumped quite nicely since converting to a DVD driven rental business. Better product for the customer, at a slightly higher price, with better profits for the company.
Again, their rental prices (to consumers) have dropped, they moved to DVD after their business started shrinking, and it has shown a huge increase since they moved. Blockbuster was not ahead of the curve here, they just managed to survive.
Adoption of DVD was the fastest new technology adoption in US history. Many businesses were caught off-guard, and many of the movie companies, despite being the driving force behind the move, still haven't gotten a large percentage of their catalog over.
As for DVD region encoding, with several countries already removing it, it's only a matter of time before the US follows, and Blockbuster can only help with that by pointing out what is blatantly obvious to the rest of us. Perhaps Blockbuster sees a chance to regain more of the ground they lost 2-3 years ago (they were losing business before DVDs were released, especially in southern California where Hollywood Video moved in and really started undercutting them with a better selection and longer rentals), but I hope the other big rental outlets follow their lead on this. It may not be good for the movie industry in those places where they inflate prices and use the region code to artificially segment the market, but in the long run it's better for consumers.
I've been sort of unemployed for a couple of years (since I graduated from school:( ) so I haven't really been into gaming (haven't upgraded my PC, haven't bought a game in a long time, etc). So, I'm not sure about C&C Generals. How is that game? I was sort of following it BEFORE it came out. I didn't think it was going to be revolutionary. It just LOOKED like a rehash with better graphics. Is the game play any good?
I'm not sure how the single-player is, because I never really got into it, but the skirmish mode is the best I've seen in a C&C game (that's probably not saying much, but it is good). The expansion dealt with some balance issues quite nicely (and, iirc, some of those things got ported into the base game with a patch), and added the Generals to the game, which gives the name more reason for existence. Each general (3 per side) has a specialty which gives them access to different units, earlier access to certain upgrades and bonuses, and cheaper units within that specialty (ie the Air Force General's planes and helicopters are cheaper, the helicopters have a stealth upgrade, the basic planes carry more missles, and he has earlier access to more air-related bonuses from his rank, on the other hand, he has more limited access to ground troops and vehicles). Each side really needs a different strategy to survive, as, for instance, the GLA (or is it GLF? I keep forgetting, the terrorists) have no air forces, and the Chinese air force is much more limited than the US air force. The terrorists can scavenge upgrades from destroyed vehicles on the battlefield and can hide and distribute their forces better than the other two sides, the Chinese can produce large numbers that work better together, and the US has the most effective single units, but can be overwhelmed quite easily as build times tend to be longer.
Warcraft III? Well, I like STRATEGY over TACTICS. Warcraft III goes towards tactics. I personally prefer strategy. You know, the long term planning, resource management, and stuff like that.
Unfortunately, I think that all of the current RTS games come down more to tactics than strategy. They really try towards strategy with things like resource management, but the effectiveness of an overall strategy is based more on which side you pick (or the game itself in the older games which had pretty much mirrored units) than on actual strategic planning. Once the game stabilizes (ie they don't change anything relating to balance with patches), the strategy doesn't change much over time.
WC3 seems to move more towards tactics because it uses smaller numbers of units and hero units that have to be micro-managed to be effective, but overall it's still not much different from the other games, except that it's on a smaller scale. The hero units and so on have been done in other games with a larger scale, and sometimes I get the feeling that Blizzard went with the smaller scale simply because of their idea of what the limits of their technology might be. Even C&C Generals feels like it has a smaller tech tree and fewer units to build than the more recent 2D (or 2.5D) C&C games, but some of that may simply be perception, and the expansion really did expand on the number of units (though many seem to share a base type that would lead to less overhead for having multiple units on screen). Overall, though, WC3 seems to play a bit smoother (in terms of framerates and such) than C&C:Generals, but I've been much more impressed with the C&C title in terms of actual gameplay.
As for StarCraft 2, I'll just wait and see. I'm still waiting for at least the spiritual sequel to Total Annihilation, or even just a 3D accelerated, modernized version of the original game, which I still play on occasion (I've been thinking about playing StarCraft again, maybe playing through the expansion missions, but it's never been on my mind long enough for me to actually install it).
The article actually seems quite contradictory. It starts out by pointing to sports games as 'the enemy', but then further in you find that sports games themselves are on a decline in the game industry (which in itself may be due to the age of the platforms, as the article states, or due to the lack of true progress in the games themselves this year). It also takes a single sentence to point out that TV, internet, and other forms of entertainment may also be to blame, but then goes on to point out that TV is the single most important money-maker for sports (with games actually coming in somewhere as revenues for licensing increase, but where we don't know).
They don't even go into much detail on where sports are really losing players. Are kids not playing baseball as much as they used to, or is it down equally in all sports? I know when I was growing up soccer was fairly popular to play as a kid, but very few of us watched it on TV. On the other hand, I watched quite a bit of baseball when I was around 9-11 years old, but ever since have found the game pretty boring. The only time I watch a football game is when it happens to be on wherever I am on a given sunday, and the last time I did that I noticed that there was almost as much time spent on commercials as the game itself. Given my current aversion to commercials, this actually leads me to seek out something to do other than watch the game.
Furthermore, to simply add to the anecdotal points, my gf's youngest brother (he's 10 years old) frequently plays football with his friends, as well as playing Madden 2004 and watching an occasional game (in fact, most sundays they go play football rather than watch it on TV, but then he comes in after he's worn himself out and watches the end of the game). He has only a passing interest in playing basketball, and I've never seen him watch a basketball game or play a basketball video game. Probably the only game he plays as much as Madden would be Tony Hawk.
The last sentence brings up another point: how many kids are getting more involved in less traditional sports? When I was growing up kids rode their bikes and skateboards at least as much as they played football, baseball, and basketball in the street, and they were possibly more for recreation and entertainment than for transportation until we got older. Most of the people currently involved in skateboarding and the less traditional forms of bicycle riding as sports are my age or younger (with the exceptions of those like Tony Hawk that have been doing this since I was in my pre-teen years), and many kids look up to them at least as much as anyone involved in baseball, basketball, or football. Hell, look at the popularity of Tiger Woods, in general I'd say that it points to a decline in interest in team sports, rather than a decline in interest in sports in general. Kids are more interested in individual talent and possibly being recognized for having some individual talent themselves. Teamwork and the associated ideals have to be instilled in children, they don't come naturally (except under extreme circumstances that most children don't have to deal with).
you may need to use much of the same strategy in areas like play-calling in both a football video game and in the NFL.
Yet those strategies and play-calling are almost completely useless to most of the players on the field, because they're not the ones developing the plays and calling them, deciding what the overall strategy is and so on. What the games are preparing people for is to coach football more than to play it.
On the other hand, you could try to play the same position on every play and try to perfect your mental image of how the plays should work, but you still have to be capable of mapping that onto the field itself and into the physical realm. Let's face it, just because you can break every tackle in Madden and run for 75 yards every time your team gets the ball doesn't mean you're going to be able to do that in real life. Plus, frankly, your defense will get a little tired if your offense is only on the field for one or two plays at a time.
Sony is losing massive amounts of money in their biggest business sections, movies and music, while the area they're best known for, home electronics, is barely making a profit, and the area we're discussing relies heavily on maintaining a large 3rd party base that develops games that will sell. In other words, despite the PS2 being a relatively small expenditure for Sony, it's the only thing that's really bringing in serious money for them, and that money is dependant on other companies making games, from which Sony takes a cut.
Microsoft's big expenditures are in software research. They recently cut back severely on their hardware division. The section of the company to which the XBox is attributed is losing massive amounts of cash, and the XBox' game sales may actually make those losses look better than they really are (the other hardware products in the division are losing significant cash, too). The only significant reason to invest in Microsoft is because of their strong hold in the software market, and as an investor the only reason to stay with Microsoft's XBox strategy is if you believe that Microsoft can turn around their position in the worldwide market with the next generation of the console. If MS gets to a 3rd generation product without significant gains on the #1 position, it's hard to see investors wanting them to continue in the market, unless MS can also get the hardware costs down to the point where they're making money on the project.
Nintendo is probably a little too single-market for many investors, though they have a strong foothold in a few niche markets with Pokemon cards and things like that. The GBA is a very strong competitor, even against home consoles, and the company normally makes money. Their recent losses may cause some investors to shy away, but their history of strong profits, even in hard times, may just bring more investors in if the stock price dropped because of the loss. It's also hard to guage whether or not their primary market is a good one to be a primary market, as Sony is the only other company pulling in a strong profit in this market. MS is losing money, Sega bailed out of the market, NEC and SNK have been struggling with the market in Japan for years, with some less inspired efforts in the US, and Sony wasn't even a player in the market 8 years ago, leading to the question of who's next, and what does it take to survive and profit in this market?
I wasn't interested in GTA3 until I saw it and played it for a while. The GTA name just wasn't worth anything to me, even though I had played the first GTA.
On the other hand, when State of Emergency came out, my youngest step-brother bought it, because it was a Rockstar game (in other words, because it was by the makers of GTA3). Next time I talk to him, I'll see if he bought Manhunt, but I somehow doubt it. That being said, much of what Rockstar did in SoE was ported into the GTA3 engine for GTA:VC. Rockstar may be pulling sales of Manhunt based on VC's success, but it's significantly muted by the fact that many of the people that bought SoE based on GTA3's success didn't seem to like the game. Rockstar themselves are fairly well known, but most people seem to be aware that they don't always produce great games. I think the real test will come if they produce another GTA game that isn't really worthwhile, as people will probably buy it based on the success of the last 2 GTA games, but sales will drop when everyone realizes it's not as good (and the used copies start popping up everywhere).
I tried UO, tried EQ, and even tried Planetside. All I have to say is that there will, eventually, be a game out there that I enjoy, and at least that game will have 1 person that EQ does not (and frankly, there are plenty of people out there playing other games, the Koreans aren't playing EQ.
The MMO market isn't at the point of saturation, yet, but it might get there soon if they don't have more differentiation between games. What's the point of a Massively Multiplayer game if it isn't the most Massive? If all the games have similar themes, there isn't much point. The exceptions to the fantasy theme have all seemed to have significant problems that kept people away, especially at launch, leading to a stagnant, and small, player base.
Yet Whitewolf has its own thriving playerbase that grows every day, in large part due to their many innovations (LARP?).
Just a note, but LARP, regardless of whether or not it was official or had a name, was a big part of the reason for the whole D&D scare in the first place. People will do that sort of thing with almost any rpg system, it's simply that Whitewolf's games, for one reason or another, seem to be more popular in this fashion (maybe because it's far more popular to fantasize that you're a vampire than a lvl 1 dwarven fighter).
Rushing is part of RTS games... get used to it man. Not dissing you... just saying it's part of the genre. If you don't get used to it, you'll NEVER really get into RTS games.
I am used to it, I was simply pointing out the simplicity of the strategy in RTS games. What they really come down to is tactics, how you deal with each attack and counterattack. Most RTS games also have some serious flaws in their balance, which means that once you figure out what those flaws are, you either exploit them or find a way to defend against people that exploit them.
As for the rush itself, I have no problem with that, and we did something similar in TFC through most of the time I played that in clan matches. Basically, the whole offense would start as scouts (or maybe 1 player would take a heavy class so he could be there for the 2nd wave) and get to the enemy base as quickly as possible, and, preferably, to the flag itself. In many maps, you could get to the flag at the same time as, or even before, the enemy defense. Early in the game's life a handful of clans/people complained about it, but when it came down to it, most adapted, and it became very rare that the rush actually managed to get a flag out, and therefore the rush itself became more rare (though never died out). RTS games are the same way. You learn to counter the rush and it becomes less effective. In the end, though, once a rush is countered, you go into defensive building and try to get up the tech tree to a particular set of units for the counter-offensive, which will probably come 30-50 minutes later.
Think of it as a high-risk tactic where the enemy is sacrificing everything for an early win (if they lose the rush, you usually have the advantage). The only time I am against rushing is when the game is unbalanced. I haven't played games in a while (no job=no money) but the C&C games have horrible balance. I never really considered rushing in C&C games to be a fair tactic. Rushing in games like AOE (Age of Empires), Warcraft II, Starcraft, etc are perfectly ok in my eyes...
I haven't played C&C Generals online, but I do feel that a rush (even from the Chinese) could probably be countered effectively in that game. WarCraft III I'm still trying to get my head around, because I always feel like I don't have enough units.
I also have problems with triple and quadruple rushes in games like Starcraft (eg. 3 of the enemy vs 1 of you). You can defend 2vs1 rush but anymore more than that is tough (unless you are Terran or something). It totally sucks when this happens but this isn't a game problem (not usually at least). This is mostly because your allies are smoking weed instead of helping you;) One of the things that makes RTS games unjoyable for newbies is that other players don't help each other. Games like Warcraft III try to eliminate these problems but RTS games aren't perfect yet. I think RTS games need a bit more work on the team aspect.
It's also hard for allies to help defend against a rush unless they were building up for a rush themselves. Defensive structures don't tend to move, so the only way they can really help is if they have large numbers of quick units that can get to you fast enough to help out (in other words, a group of units that were built for a rush). In Generals, if one or more of your allies are GLA, they could build a tunnel exit at your base before the rush comes and feed units through that way to help, but that shows significant planning to help against a rush that might be coming after the GLA player him/herself (though in practice it's actually pretty easy since you'd just have to send a single builder over to each ally's base and have them get to work building the tunnels).
It shouldn't affect MS at all, since they licensed the technology from Roxio, more than likely at a specific cost, whether one-time or per-unit. Just because the cost for Roxio of each copy out there might increase (if this suit is lost by Roxio) doesn't mean that it adjusts any previous arrangements made by Roxio for licensing of that technology.
I'm not really sure. All I remember is some really bad Aerosmith arcade shooter game that involved CDs and possibly 'Say No to Drugs'. I've tried to block it from my mind.
A quick google search brought up this: http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/egm10.htm http ://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=R&game_ id=9308
Am I the only person that thinks "music" and "dancing" games are just not entertaining? On top of that, you don't make any real music or do any real dancing. To me they are nothing more than a computer controlled version of Simon Says.
I haven't played most of them, but I have found myself quite obsessed with Amplitude and Frequency. Most of the other 'rhythm' games don't appeal to me. That being said, Amplitude and Frequency are not games that I play with friends, either (though my gf occasionally watches).
Mario Party is an example of a game that everyone loves, even those not playing. I remember I once threw Parappa the Rappa into the PS at one of our parties (it came on a demo disc). Five minutes in everyone was asking, "Is that all you do? Um, something else please". It didn't really seem like a "party" game like Mario, although I didn't mind Parappa for a while by myself. Perhaps it was our 25+ demographic.
I find Mario Party completely boring with any less than 3 people, but once we hit that magic number it's quite fun. Lately, though, we've all been playing Mario Kart:DD!!, which is another example of a game that is very limited in the single player aspect but is very fun with 3 or 4 people (2 players is fun for a while, but if one person is significantly better than the other it gets old quickly). Super Monkey Ball seems a little better in the single player component while still offering a lot of fun as a party game.
Again, though, I don't really see anyone playing the dance and rhythm games with friends, though part of this might be the fact that I don't know anyone that admits to owning these games. My gf joked about getting Karaoke Revolution when she saw an ad for it on TV, but I'm still about 99% sure she thought it was pretty rediculous.
Assuming we want a system that teaches how to play a wide range of instruments, we'll let the user supply the instrument. Then provide a good mic that can be wired up to receive the sounds you're producing. On screen you can be shown notes and fingering positions and then the software can determine if you've produced the correct note or if you're too sharp or too flat. Clearly a possibility but perhaps a somewhat limited market...
It's certainly possible. I have a piece of software on my computer (shareware iirc) for tuning guitars that allows a pretty free reign over what notes you're actually tuning each string to, and has enough range for me to tune both my guitars (one of which is strung with the low 6 from a 7-string set) and both my basses (a 4-string and a 6-string). All you would really need is a 1/4 inch jack and maybe do some co-marketing so people know who supplies the proper mics for their instruments (or, in the case of electric instruments, you just use your existing instrument cables). The only real problem I have with plugging into my computer is that the input on the SBLive Drive doesn't handle the active electronics on most of my instruments very well, so I either have to use extremely low volume or route through an effects processor with a -6 or -7 dB input, which, of course, could also be a problem for any console trying to go this route (then again, not many people get active guitars or basses when first learning the instrument).
Of course, with string instruments (and possibly some others), you're going to have to make sure the instrument is in tune before you start playing, too (so maybe build a tuner into the software as well).
The market may be limited, but there are additional possibilities once the basic framework is there, such as different expansions for specific pieces of music (much like the books for various albums you can pick up at any store that sells instruments), or for teaching different techniques.
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Notepad opens it, at least on XP machines (where Notepad doesn't have the limit on length). Unfortunately, it doesn't look nice when you open it, and not all of it may be readable...
Interestingly enough, the SP2 portion of the patch name you keep quoting refers to Service Pack 2 for Windows 2000. The Windows XP version of the patch doesn't include the SP2 prefix.
Maybe I should try installing Battlefield 1942 and updating it to see if I have the same problem. The only problems I had with that game before were related to the game itself being completely unplayable when it shipped because it couldn't play sounds properly.
(table of contents probably does not look like it was intended, but otherwise the document is ok).
If the table of contents is shit brown and doesn't do anything more than list the contents (down to the multiple questions on each page), then don't worry, that's exactly what it looks like in Word2k3, so it's unlikely that's not what they intended.
I think the numbers speak for themselves:
TOP NETWORK GAMES:
Half-Life (probably 99,9% Counter-Strike) Battlefield 1942 Jedi Knight 2 Unreal Tournament 2003 Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Diablo II etc.. I guess StarCraft is pretty high too..
I think the numbers speak for themselves, too, but you didn't show any numbers (well, 99,9%, which isn't a number in the US, but instead 2 numbers, and 1942, 2, and 2003, and II I guess). Half-Life sold over 7 million copies in the US. The number of people that play it online is roughly 60,000 (and that's not just in the US). Less than 1%, and HL has been the most played FPS game online for a few years (it may have changed recently, but I haven't heard that).
In Korea they've learned that they have to focus on this.
Which is Korea, and has little bearing on US television. StarCraft sold more copies in Korea than in the US. Think about that for a bit.
-Being a professional gamer is nowadays one of the most popular and respected carrer in high-school (among boys... of course:).
-The finals of the Ongamenet tournaments are broadcasted on Cable TV and they break viewership records, almost reaching the records of national TV stations.
-A few professional gamers are recognized in the streets by normal people. "
And in the US, being a professional gamer is a completely different thing than being a professional gamer in Korea. How many Koreans ever had to travel 1000-2000 miles out of their own pocket to get to a tournament? I know people that did that just to show up at the launch of TFC, and a handful that have done it for tournaments as well.
I remember him gushing about Ico and Shenmue and other non-traditional games... now he just gets to stand around gibbering about Whatever Game Popular Opinion Has Chosen for the week, usually with insulting fake drooling and other behavior that management has decreed appeals to gamers.
He was gushing about Ico on X-Play with Morgan right there next to him. The game isn't that old, and I remember watching it, and thinking to myself, "wow, that game looks like it absolutely sucks".
1) G4 sucks. Thus, TechTV would begin to suck. Worse than currently, if you can fathom that. More Robot Wars, anyone?
I can't quite figure out why, but that show irritates me to no end. It only makes it worse that it's on at some of the worst hours of television, when there's absolutely nothing on. Then again, that gives me an excuse to turn on one of the consoles.
2) Comcast would more than likely pull the "new" combined channel from DishNetwork and DirectTV.
Cox would more than likely pull TechTV, as well, since they don't seem to carry much of Comcast's content.
Rather than rush to fix it, I spent a week doing nothing but said I "was doing research into how to fix the problem." The 1 week without games was sufficiently traumatic that there's been no problem since.
This is actually what drove me to learn how to do an OS reinstall. As time went on, each time Windows ate itself, my dad would take longer and longer to get around to fixing it. Eventually, I got sick of waiting and did it myself. Within about two months I had him in complete understanding of the beauty of keeping data and OS on seperate drives, and now, many years later, my dad calls me when he wants information on how to do something or advice on new hardware.
Technology limitations likely did play a role in those games. I remember C&C had performance issues early on (I think early beta or something).
:) It's just too bad that TA, one of the top RTS games of all time, just died off. Its gameplay sucked IMO but it had features. In fact, many RTS games STILL don't have TA's features.
Exactly. I think that may also be why the expansion seems so limited at first, because it adds much more to the gameplay than it does to the variety of units, and even when you start playing the various generals which have most of the expansion's new units, you find that you're just as limited as before simply because none of the generals can use another general's specialized units.
WCIII (my brother has this so I know it) doesn't have a good engine. It's Blizzard's first 3D engine and I think they could have done much better. I am pretty sure WCIII limited the number of units for performance reasons. If I'm not mistaken, Blizzard even said that (before the game came out I think--fans were asking for Starcraft like 100+ units per side).
I know they said the number of units would be more limited, but I don't recall whether or not they actually attributed it to the engine. There's another RTS game out there, a bit older, called The Moon Project, that has a very good 3D engine which can handle significant numbers of units (though the units aren't as detailed as C&C:G or WC3). Unfortunately, the game itself isn't good enough to play for months on end (it's not a bad game, just not the best game, either).
I don't know what to say about TA. I was never really into it--probably because my PC didn't run that game well. I used to have a ton of arguments with my roommate at that time who loved TA, whereas I loved Starcraft
Dark Reign was another game like that, but it didn't handle increasing CPU speeds very well (whereas TA does just fine today). DR had great line of site for the units and attack bonuses for altitude, not to mention great group behavior and settings for individual unit AI (which can be set on an individual unit or groups of units). Unfortunately, it only plays well on about a 166-200MHz CPU. When you get up to a 400MHz or higher CPU the game moves too fast, even at the slowest setting.
My favourite genre is RTS (I don't play FPS at all). I think one of the problems with RTS is that it is too popular. RTS games because a cash cow and this means that companies are reluctant to try new things. The early days (circa mid 90's, with C&C, Red Alert, TA, WCII, SC, AOE) were more innovative in my eyes. Yes, they improved slowly BUT companies tried new things. Nowadays, they are just rehashing things. You can tell by looking at maps. The maps have not changed AT ALL since that era. Yes, there are terrain bonuses and the like but they still suck...
I think they're trying new things just as often, though much of it comes from simply moving to 3D, it's just a matter of everyone growing accustomed to what an RTS is. Additionally, because we don't have as many companies trying to put out strong RTS games any more, we see less diversity in what people try to do in the games. On one hand you have the flooded RTS market of the 90s and the majority of the games doing very little to move forward, but on the other hand you have today's RTS market, where anything but C&C and WC gets mostly ignored, and the innovations in those titles tend to be rehashed from the other games of the 90s and feel like too little (especially with WC's limited number of units).
It might also be due to Linux Kernel developers not being directly controllable by other areas of development (i.e. projects). For example with the mingling in Win95 of Explorer and the Kernel, for usability and not considering the consequences of such a decision.
Or the fact that the core team for the kernel is quite small and the direction of the kernel is ultimately controlled by this group.
This is likely to be an attempt to minimise the undue influence other departments have over the Windows Kernel development team. This being a good thing as it tries to prevent the projects goals being unduly subverted to make another projects life easier.
They didn't state that this was a kernel development team, though the name implies that the kernel will be part of their responsibilities. The core OS could include quite a bit more than the kernel. Kernel mode alone, in the diagram of the Longhorn OS, includes the kernel, HAL, device drivers, protocols (TCP, IPSEC, etc), portions of the storage and transaction systems, part of the DirectX graphics and audio drivers, input manager, memory, power, config, and process managers, plug and play, LPC, and so on. The 'Base Operating System Services' which includes the kernel mode portions also includes the window manager, GDI/GDI+, Direct3D, the CLR, and more of the storage and transactions subsystems. On top of all of that is the crap that's gotten the most attention recently, including Avalon, Indigo, WinFS, and the network class library (which might also be part of the Base OS services, it's hard to tell in the diagram).
Another thing that could be an explanation of this would be reaction to the antitrust cases not only at the federal level, but also from many of the states. If the Core OS is being developed by a seperate group, they could try to hold this up as an example of isolating the OS and API development from the application development, even within Microsoft itself. Of course, that also could backfire on them with any future efforts along the lines of IE and WMP, because they'd have to put more planning into integrating the needed features into the core OS before slapping together another product.
I made no mention of whether Blockbuster was fast, or slow, to market in renting DVD's;... All I said was that Blockbuster moved to DVD's which spurned massive growth in the DVD market, and it also helped Blockbuster's bottom line.
In order for Blockbuster to spurn massive growth in the DVD market, they would've had to have been IN the DVD rental market before massive growth occured. Hence my reply, because it's just incorrect. DVD adoption happened extremely quickly, and the massive growth in the market had begun before Blockbuster even had a single DVD in their rental outlets, let alone a comparable selection to that of their competitors.
Moving to DVD helped Blockbuster's bottom line because they tanked shortly before, during, and after DVD took off 2 years ago. Blockbuster also made other significant changes in their pricing that helped them to compete and regain some of their former market share, resulting in their stock prices being roughly twice what they were 5 years ago.
In other words, you've got your cause and effect reversed, which was why I replied in the first place.
Of course, where I live now, if I mention Hollywood Video, I get a blank stare, so I'm not surprised that it wasn't as blatantly obvious in all portions of the country (or even the world) how much Blockbuster was floundering for a couple years.
Do you think it is really that much cheaper per DVD to press 100 million of one disc then 20 million each of 5 different ones?
The reason prices decrease in bulk is because the first one is so much more expensive than duplication. Of course, when you are dealing in quantities of several million of something costing maybe $2-4 per copy at the most, it probably doesn't make much difference
Blockbuster renting DVD's is directly attributable to that format becoming the new "standard" for watching movies. Without them, it would still be VHS first, DVD second. Only this year have DVD's become more popular than VHS, in the US.
Blockbuster only rents DVDs because it became the new standard. Look at Blockbuster's 5 year stock rates. When DVDs hit, Blockbuster tanked, and they were the last major US rental chain to go to DVD in most areas, and they've only risen as they started moving to DVD and improving their rental prices to be more competetive.
Also note that the gross margin has jumped quite nicely since converting to a DVD driven rental business. Better product for the customer, at a slightly higher price, with better profits for the company.
Again, their rental prices (to consumers) have dropped, they moved to DVD after their business started shrinking, and it has shown a huge increase since they moved. Blockbuster was not ahead of the curve here, they just managed to survive.
Adoption of DVD was the fastest new technology adoption in US history. Many businesses were caught off-guard, and many of the movie companies, despite being the driving force behind the move, still haven't gotten a large percentage of their catalog over.
As for DVD region encoding, with several countries already removing it, it's only a matter of time before the US follows, and Blockbuster can only help with that by pointing out what is blatantly obvious to the rest of us. Perhaps Blockbuster sees a chance to regain more of the ground they lost 2-3 years ago (they were losing business before DVDs were released, especially in southern California where Hollywood Video moved in and really started undercutting them with a better selection and longer rentals), but I hope the other big rental outlets follow their lead on this. It may not be good for the movie industry in those places where they inflate prices and use the region code to artificially segment the market, but in the long run it's better for consumers.
I've been sort of unemployed for a couple of years (since I graduated from school :( ) so I haven't really been into gaming (haven't upgraded my PC, haven't bought a game in a long time, etc). So, I'm not sure about C&C Generals. How is that game? I was sort of following it BEFORE it came out. I didn't think it was going to be revolutionary. It just LOOKED like a rehash with better graphics. Is the game play any good?
I'm not sure how the single-player is, because I never really got into it, but the skirmish mode is the best I've seen in a C&C game (that's probably not saying much, but it is good). The expansion dealt with some balance issues quite nicely (and, iirc, some of those things got ported into the base game with a patch), and added the Generals to the game, which gives the name more reason for existence. Each general (3 per side) has a specialty which gives them access to different units, earlier access to certain upgrades and bonuses, and cheaper units within that specialty (ie the Air Force General's planes and helicopters are cheaper, the helicopters have a stealth upgrade, the basic planes carry more missles, and he has earlier access to more air-related bonuses from his rank, on the other hand, he has more limited access to ground troops and vehicles). Each side really needs a different strategy to survive, as, for instance, the GLA (or is it GLF? I keep forgetting, the terrorists) have no air forces, and the Chinese air force is much more limited than the US air force. The terrorists can scavenge upgrades from destroyed vehicles on the battlefield and can hide and distribute their forces better than the other two sides, the Chinese can produce large numbers that work better together, and the US has the most effective single units, but can be overwhelmed quite easily as build times tend to be longer.
Warcraft III? Well, I like STRATEGY over TACTICS. Warcraft III goes towards tactics. I personally prefer strategy. You know, the long term planning, resource management, and stuff like that.
Unfortunately, I think that all of the current RTS games come down more to tactics than strategy. They really try towards strategy with things like resource management, but the effectiveness of an overall strategy is based more on which side you pick (or the game itself in the older games which had pretty much mirrored units) than on actual strategic planning. Once the game stabilizes (ie they don't change anything relating to balance with patches), the strategy doesn't change much over time.
WC3 seems to move more towards tactics because it uses smaller numbers of units and hero units that have to be micro-managed to be effective, but overall it's still not much different from the other games, except that it's on a smaller scale. The hero units and so on have been done in other games with a larger scale, and sometimes I get the feeling that Blizzard went with the smaller scale simply because of their idea of what the limits of their technology might be. Even C&C Generals feels like it has a smaller tech tree and fewer units to build than the more recent 2D (or 2.5D) C&C games, but some of that may simply be perception, and the expansion really did expand on the number of units (though many seem to share a base type that would lead to less overhead for having multiple units on screen). Overall, though, WC3 seems to play a bit smoother (in terms of framerates and such) than C&C:Generals, but I've been much more impressed with the C&C title in terms of actual gameplay.
As for StarCraft 2, I'll just wait and see. I'm still waiting for at least the spiritual sequel to Total Annihilation, or even just a 3D accelerated, modernized version of the original game, which I still play on occasion (I've been thinking about playing StarCraft again, maybe playing through the expansion missions, but it's never been on my mind long enough for me to actually install it).
The article actually seems quite contradictory. It starts out by pointing to sports games as 'the enemy', but then further in you find that sports games themselves are on a decline in the game industry (which in itself may be due to the age of the platforms, as the article states, or due to the lack of true progress in the games themselves this year). It also takes a single sentence to point out that TV, internet, and other forms of entertainment may also be to blame, but then goes on to point out that TV is the single most important money-maker for sports (with games actually coming in somewhere as revenues for licensing increase, but where we don't know).
They don't even go into much detail on where sports are really losing players. Are kids not playing baseball as much as they used to, or is it down equally in all sports? I know when I was growing up soccer was fairly popular to play as a kid, but very few of us watched it on TV. On the other hand, I watched quite a bit of baseball when I was around 9-11 years old, but ever since have found the game pretty boring. The only time I watch a football game is when it happens to be on wherever I am on a given sunday, and the last time I did that I noticed that there was almost as much time spent on commercials as the game itself. Given my current aversion to commercials, this actually leads me to seek out something to do other than watch the game.
Furthermore, to simply add to the anecdotal points, my gf's youngest brother (he's 10 years old) frequently plays football with his friends, as well as playing Madden 2004 and watching an occasional game (in fact, most sundays they go play football rather than watch it on TV, but then he comes in after he's worn himself out and watches the end of the game). He has only a passing interest in playing basketball, and I've never seen him watch a basketball game or play a basketball video game. Probably the only game he plays as much as Madden would be Tony Hawk.
The last sentence brings up another point: how many kids are getting more involved in less traditional sports? When I was growing up kids rode their bikes and skateboards at least as much as they played football, baseball, and basketball in the street, and they were possibly more for recreation and entertainment than for transportation until we got older. Most of the people currently involved in skateboarding and the less traditional forms of bicycle riding as sports are my age or younger (with the exceptions of those like Tony Hawk that have been doing this since I was in my pre-teen years), and many kids look up to them at least as much as anyone involved in baseball, basketball, or football. Hell, look at the popularity of Tiger Woods, in general I'd say that it points to a decline in interest in team sports, rather than a decline in interest in sports in general. Kids are more interested in individual talent and possibly being recognized for having some individual talent themselves. Teamwork and the associated ideals have to be instilled in children, they don't come naturally (except under extreme circumstances that most children don't have to deal with).
you may need to use much of the same strategy in areas like play-calling in both a football video game and in the NFL.
Yet those strategies and play-calling are almost completely useless to most of the players on the field, because they're not the ones developing the plays and calling them, deciding what the overall strategy is and so on. What the games are preparing people for is to coach football more than to play it.
On the other hand, you could try to play the same position on every play and try to perfect your mental image of how the plays should work, but you still have to be capable of mapping that onto the field itself and into the physical realm. Let's face it, just because you can break every tackle in Madden and run for 75 yards every time your team gets the ball doesn't mean you're going to be able to do that in real life. Plus, frankly, your defense will get a little tired if your offense is only on the field for one or two plays at a time.
Think about it from the investor's point of view.
Sony is losing massive amounts of money in their biggest business sections, movies and music, while the area they're best known for, home electronics, is barely making a profit, and the area we're discussing relies heavily on maintaining a large 3rd party base that develops games that will sell. In other words, despite the PS2 being a relatively small expenditure for Sony, it's the only thing that's really bringing in serious money for them, and that money is dependant on other companies making games, from which Sony takes a cut.
Microsoft's big expenditures are in software research. They recently cut back severely on their hardware division. The section of the company to which the XBox is attributed is losing massive amounts of cash, and the XBox' game sales may actually make those losses look better than they really are (the other hardware products in the division are losing significant cash, too). The only significant reason to invest in Microsoft is because of their strong hold in the software market, and as an investor the only reason to stay with Microsoft's XBox strategy is if you believe that Microsoft can turn around their position in the worldwide market with the next generation of the console. If MS gets to a 3rd generation product without significant gains on the #1 position, it's hard to see investors wanting them to continue in the market, unless MS can also get the hardware costs down to the point where they're making money on the project.
Nintendo is probably a little too single-market for many investors, though they have a strong foothold in a few niche markets with Pokemon cards and things like that. The GBA is a very strong competitor, even against home consoles, and the company normally makes money. Their recent losses may cause some investors to shy away, but their history of strong profits, even in hard times, may just bring more investors in if the stock price dropped because of the loss. It's also hard to guage whether or not their primary market is a good one to be a primary market, as Sony is the only other company pulling in a strong profit in this market. MS is losing money, Sega bailed out of the market, NEC and SNK have been struggling with the market in Japan for years, with some less inspired efforts in the US, and Sony wasn't even a player in the market 8 years ago, leading to the question of who's next, and what does it take to survive and profit in this market?
I wasn't interested in GTA3 until I saw it and played it for a while. The GTA name just wasn't worth anything to me, even though I had played the first GTA.
On the other hand, when State of Emergency came out, my youngest step-brother bought it, because it was a Rockstar game (in other words, because it was by the makers of GTA3). Next time I talk to him, I'll see if he bought Manhunt, but I somehow doubt it. That being said, much of what Rockstar did in SoE was ported into the GTA3 engine for GTA:VC. Rockstar may be pulling sales of Manhunt based on VC's success, but it's significantly muted by the fact that many of the people that bought SoE based on GTA3's success didn't seem to like the game. Rockstar themselves are fairly well known, but most people seem to be aware that they don't always produce great games. I think the real test will come if they produce another GTA game that isn't really worthwhile, as people will probably buy it based on the success of the last 2 GTA games, but sales will drop when everyone realizes it's not as good (and the used copies start popping up everywhere).
I tried UO, tried EQ, and even tried Planetside. All I have to say is that there will, eventually, be a game out there that I enjoy, and at least that game will have 1 person that EQ does not (and frankly, there are plenty of people out there playing other games, the Koreans aren't playing EQ.
The MMO market isn't at the point of saturation, yet, but it might get there soon if they don't have more differentiation between games. What's the point of a Massively Multiplayer game if it isn't the most Massive? If all the games have similar themes, there isn't much point. The exceptions to the fantasy theme have all seemed to have significant problems that kept people away, especially at launch, leading to a stagnant, and small, player base.
Yet Whitewolf has its own thriving playerbase that grows every day, in large part due to their many innovations (LARP?).
Just a note, but LARP, regardless of whether or not it was official or had a name, was a big part of the reason for the whole D&D scare in the first place. People will do that sort of thing with almost any rpg system, it's simply that Whitewolf's games, for one reason or another, seem to be more popular in this fashion (maybe because it's far more popular to fantasize that you're a vampire than a lvl 1 dwarven fighter).
Rushing is part of RTS games... get used to it man. Not dissing you... just saying it's part of the genre. If you don't get used to it, you'll NEVER really get into RTS games.
;) One of the things that makes RTS games unjoyable for newbies is that other players don't help each other. Games like Warcraft III try to eliminate these problems but RTS games aren't perfect yet. I think RTS games need a bit more work on the team aspect.
I am used to it, I was simply pointing out the simplicity of the strategy in RTS games. What they really come down to is tactics, how you deal with each attack and counterattack. Most RTS games also have some serious flaws in their balance, which means that once you figure out what those flaws are, you either exploit them or find a way to defend against people that exploit them.
As for the rush itself, I have no problem with that, and we did something similar in TFC through most of the time I played that in clan matches. Basically, the whole offense would start as scouts (or maybe 1 player would take a heavy class so he could be there for the 2nd wave) and get to the enemy base as quickly as possible, and, preferably, to the flag itself. In many maps, you could get to the flag at the same time as, or even before, the enemy defense. Early in the game's life a handful of clans/people complained about it, but when it came down to it, most adapted, and it became very rare that the rush actually managed to get a flag out, and therefore the rush itself became more rare (though never died out). RTS games are the same way. You learn to counter the rush and it becomes less effective. In the end, though, once a rush is countered, you go into defensive building and try to get up the tech tree to a particular set of units for the counter-offensive, which will probably come 30-50 minutes later.
Think of it as a high-risk tactic where the enemy is sacrificing everything for an early win (if they lose the rush, you usually have the advantage). The only time I am against rushing is when the game is unbalanced. I haven't played games in a while (no job=no money) but the C&C games have horrible balance. I never really considered rushing in C&C games to be a fair tactic. Rushing in games like AOE (Age of Empires), Warcraft II, Starcraft, etc are perfectly ok in my eyes...
I haven't played C&C Generals online, but I do feel that a rush (even from the Chinese) could probably be countered effectively in that game. WarCraft III I'm still trying to get my head around, because I always feel like I don't have enough units.
I also have problems with triple and quadruple rushes in games like Starcraft (eg. 3 of the enemy vs 1 of you). You can defend 2vs1 rush but anymore more than that is tough (unless you are Terran or something). It totally sucks when this happens but this isn't a game problem (not usually at least). This is mostly because your allies are smoking weed instead of helping you
It's also hard for allies to help defend against a rush unless they were building up for a rush themselves. Defensive structures don't tend to move, so the only way they can really help is if they have large numbers of quick units that can get to you fast enough to help out (in other words, a group of units that were built for a rush). In Generals, if one or more of your allies are GLA, they could build a tunnel exit at your base before the rush comes and feed units through that way to help, but that shows significant planning to help against a rush that might be coming after the GLA player him/herself (though in practice it's actually pretty easy since you'd just have to send a single builder over to each ally's base and have them get to work building the tunnels).
It shouldn't affect MS at all, since they licensed the technology from Roxio, more than likely at a specific cost, whether one-time or per-unit. Just because the cost for Roxio of each copy out there might increase (if this suit is lost by Roxio) doesn't mean that it adjusts any previous arrangements made by Roxio for licensing of that technology.
I'm not really sure. All I remember is some really bad Aerosmith arcade shooter game that involved CDs and possibly 'Say No to Drugs'. I've tried to block it from my mind.
p ://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=R&game_ id=9308
A quick google search brought up this:
http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/egm10.htm
htt
and a boatload of cheap flash games.
Considering that Neil Peart also has one of ;)
these next to his kit, I think we'll need more buttons
Am I the only person that thinks "music" and "dancing" games are just not entertaining? On top of that, you don't make any real music or do any real dancing. To me they are nothing more than a computer controlled version of Simon Says.
I haven't played most of them, but I have found myself quite obsessed with Amplitude and Frequency. Most of the other 'rhythm' games don't appeal to me. That being said, Amplitude and Frequency are not games that I play with friends, either (though my gf occasionally watches).
Mario Party is an example of a game that everyone loves, even those not playing. I remember I once threw Parappa the Rappa into the PS at one of our parties (it came on a demo disc). Five minutes in everyone was asking, "Is that all you do? Um, something else please". It didn't really seem like a "party" game like Mario, although I didn't mind Parappa for a while by myself. Perhaps it was our 25+ demographic.
I find Mario Party completely boring with any less than 3 people, but once we hit that magic number it's quite fun. Lately, though, we've all been playing Mario Kart:DD!!, which is another example of a game that is very limited in the single player aspect but is very fun with 3 or 4 people (2 players is fun for a while, but if one person is significantly better than the other it gets old quickly). Super Monkey Ball seems a little better in the single player component while still offering a lot of fun as a party game.
Again, though, I don't really see anyone playing the dance and rhythm games with friends, though part of this might be the fact that I don't know anyone that admits to owning these games. My gf joked about getting Karaoke Revolution when she saw an ad for it on TV, but I'm still about 99% sure she thought it was pretty rediculous.
Assuming we want a system that teaches how to play a wide range of instruments, we'll let the user supply the instrument. Then provide a good mic that can be wired up to receive the sounds you're producing. On screen you can be shown notes and fingering positions and then the software can determine if you've produced the correct note or if you're too sharp or too flat. Clearly a possibility but perhaps a somewhat limited market...
It's certainly possible. I have a piece of software on my computer (shareware iirc) for tuning guitars that allows a pretty free reign over what notes you're actually tuning each string to, and has enough range for me to tune both my guitars (one of which is strung with the low 6 from a 7-string set) and both my basses (a 4-string and a 6-string). All you would really need is a 1/4 inch jack and maybe do some co-marketing so people know who supplies the proper mics for their instruments (or, in the case of electric instruments, you just use your existing instrument cables). The only real problem I have with plugging into my computer is that the input on the SBLive Drive doesn't handle the active electronics on most of my instruments very well, so I either have to use extremely low volume or route through an effects processor with a -6 or -7 dB input, which, of course, could also be a problem for any console trying to go this route (then again, not many people get active guitars or basses when first learning the instrument).
Of course, with string instruments (and possibly some others), you're going to have to make sure the instrument is in tune before you start playing, too (so maybe build a tuner into the software as well).
The market may be limited, but there are additional possibilities once the basic framework is there, such as different expansions for specific pieces of music (much like the books for various albums you can pick up at any store that sells instruments), or for teaching different techniques.