While I wasn't alive 100 years ago, the kids of today have exactly zero fear of anything because parents are unwilling (or unable) to punish their kids. I know of a kid who doesn't go to school periodically because he doesn't feel like it. His parents try to punish him? How? They have to work, and so short of taking him to work, they have exactly zero control of what he does during the day. They could theoretically disconnect internet access and disconnect cable at home, but then they're punishing themselves too and I'm pretty sure they don't want to do that. If I did that as a kid, I really don't even want to think what would've happened.
I'm not saying video games are the cause of this (as a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure they're not), but the fact that parents aren't as involved with their kids is involved. First amendment rules don't apply to everything and this isn't as much of a square peg in a round hole as most people are painting it to be. There's a reason why you don't see pornography on broadcast TV and it has nothing to do with the goodwill of the TV stations (the FCC would step in). The real difference this does have is that videogames are purchased for private use, so the parents should be able to tell what their kids are playing.
Of course, some parents are lousy parents and that's where some people think the government should step in, considering unlike the music or movie industry (and I'm not saying they have perfect systems either), the videogame industry doesn't seem interested in regulating themselves.
These Sony number, though they're not dominating, might even be a little higher than they should be. I've been considering a PS3 for a while now and after the $100 price cut on the 60GB PS3 and the 5 free Blu-Ray titles offer they've got going on, I've gotten more and more interested. If you look harder, there are further deals out there on the system. I don't think I've ever seen a competing system forced like this and I'm sure there are some people who are snapping it up with the reasoning that there's finally a chance at getting a decent deal out of it. If those discounts and sales are cut , I think Sony is going to fall off a bit again and we might see where Sony actually is in the console race.
Right now it's being promoted so heavily, it'd be hard to say where it'll all be when the promotions start to slow.
About this time last year, Verizon was sending their reps through the area going door to door trying to advertise FIOS and to get people to switch over. At the time I had DSL and I was very happy with it as it was cheap and provided what I needed (an always on connection that could be used while the phone was being used).
But when the Verizon salespeople came through, they said that they could give us FIOS at no increase in cost. We asked them repeatedly whether this was accurate and they repeated just as many times that this was the case and that our bill would remain the same as part of the upgrade plan (and that we'd get a free month in addition). Fantastic we all thought and while I'm not the person on the phone bill at my home, I was definitely one of the primary contributors to the decision to switch over. Unfortunately, they required a contract and it was signed based on what the reps said and not what they actually planned. A week later, they stripped out my copper and we were sailing with FIOS and we were very happy with it.
2 months later, we got the bill and said, "Gee, our bill's doubled. This must be some mistake." But Verizon maintained that it was not and that there was nothing they could do. So we told them that we wanted our DSL back. They said, "Sorry, we can't do that." After some badgering, they told me I could get on a list to petition to get our copper back and I'd know in a week if it was going to happen. A week passed and I got no word from them so I started going through Verizon calling chains. I'd get transferred up about 3 levels each day before they'd tell me they'd get someone to call me back (and nobody ever would).
Eventually, they called me back while I was at work (though I'm not the name on the account) and told me that they'd decided that they wouldn't be giving back our copper. I asked them to explain why and they told me they didn't think that they needed to. I told them to tell that to the primary account holders and they told me they'd leave a message, but if they weren't home (and I knew they wouldn't be) that would be the end of it.
So here I am a year later looking for a cheap alternative to Verizon as they steadily raise the price on their phone service (as their contract only locks in an internet price). I really don't like Cablevision. I think they're a bunch of crooks, but at this point, I'm about ready to go over to them just to take some business away from Verizon. Every so often a Verizon rep still shows up at my door and I usually rant at them for a little and then tell them to get off my porch.
Moral of the story: Read your contracts. Read them three times over when dealing with Verizon. Oh. And avoid Verizon whenever you can.
Nobody is under the obligation to change the permissions on a folder, but they're also not under the obligation to put copyrighted software out on a share either. If someone put a PC in the middle of the dorm's lounge with a burner on it and some media, they would definitely be held liable. Just because there's less physical media involved, this doesn't make this case any less copyright infringing.
The problem is, winning the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war, even if they win it by a landslide, still isn't a guaranteed success.
DVD took off because it has such huge advantages over VHS (size, chapter skip, bonus features, no rewinding, the ability to search without damaging the media, etc). HD/Blu-Ray brings very little other than better video to the table. Laserdisc is a better picture than DVD. People will continue to believe that HD/Blu-Ray will be critical, but with the price of the discs being much higher than SD-DVD (twice in most cases) and everything competing for shelf space in BestBuy/Circuit City/etc, it could easily just go the way of Laserdisc into a niche market for high-end videophiles only.
Complexity has very little to do with things. If I recall correctly, when Doshin the Giant was ported to the Gamecube, it was done by one guy. The GCN was very easy to program for (compared to the average complexity of the Xbox and the extreme one of the PS2).
Still, it came in last place. Most of the time, the system has very little to do with how the system sells.
Off-hand, I can't think of any small independent developers and certainly none that are making anything innovative. Occasionally, you could say that about certain teams that are parts of major companies, but what small developers are making anything of major value?
Street Fighter 2 also wasn't your average unaccepted launch title. It had people constantly pouring quarters into the arcade machines, so a home version would've sold at almost any sane price.
Actually, I believe the reason R.O.B. was created was because after the Atari disaster caused by E.T., the videogame market entirely crashed. North American chain stores had no interest in carrying a videogame system. Nintendo created ROB (which is actually a bizarre piece of technology revolving around flashes of light generated by the game screen) to say "No, you've got it all wrong. This isn't a video game console. This is robots and etc, etc."
ROB was smoke and mirrors, but did his job well enough to get Nintendo through the front doors of the local Toys R Us, which is all he was ever meant to do. That they actually sold some copies of Gyromite is just icing.
.... but this really isn't anything new. Essentially what he's looking for is to take a system that's already in place (the videogame ratings system) and giving it some useful purpose.
This isn't censorship. This is just limiting the audience. This has happened with nearly every other medium that children could be interested in (books being the exception for several reasons). This is nothing new and while people like to be outraged over a perceived loss of freedom, this loss of freedom is being directed specifically at minors who do not enjoy the same rules as their parents are supposed to be responsible for them. Since parents are supposed to be responsible for their children, it makes sense that it requires parental involvement to get access to some titles.
Sometimes, I wonder if people just complain just for the sake of complaining.
[quote]You also miss another point, the gaming industry is being singled out here, there is no similar government regulation of the movie and TV industry,[/quote]
Are you kidding? The TV industry is heavily regulated so the stations [b]can't[/b] show whatever they want on broadcast stations. If it's a premium channel, then it goes to the parents who are supposed to be handling what the children are allowed to see. This law wasn't about fining parents who are idiots. It's about fining vendors.
Same with movie industry situations. It's very illegal to sell pornographic movies to minors. Violence not as much, but theaters are required to turn children "under-the-age" away at the doors. Whether they always do is irrelevant as the same could be said for videogame stores with these new requirments.
Basically what this law is supposed to do is to give the rating system a purpose. There's currently no use for the rating system as parents don't look at it and there's nothing stopping kids from just grabbing anything they want right now.
In MMOs, the game is based around you being a character in this alternate world. It's something you probably aren't in reality for lack of monsters or foes you can legally slay.
Sports games revolve around one person controlling an entire team. In an MMO, assuming your character finds a team, they have to:
1) be online at the same time as the team 2) the designers need to come up with an entirely new way of playing sports games online from a 1 player=1 player perspective 3) the new way of playing has to be fun
This is not remotely easy and might not be possible at all. Otherwise, if you're just looking for seasons, doesn't X-Box Live have support for that?
I strongly dispute your assertion that an individual seeking political office should not at least have a certain amount of age behind them.
Georgy is in her early twenties, yes? Someone just out of school going into a business is generally going to be taken less seriously than a dinosaur in the same field simply because they're younger. Most people have a tendency to respect advice and decisions of their peers and their elders. The average politician is in general older than Georgy and politics work the same way. The advisors situation is very similar.
Unless she's absolutely groundbreakingly ingenious (nothing so far has indicated such a thing), she's not going to be effective. The fact that she's cute is just going to work against her when dealing with a bunch of middle-aged politicians.
I'm sure she'd work hard as governor, but I'm sure she'd be equally ineffective.
It's great to be able to be so noble as to turn the other cheek when someone wrongs you, but by the same token, there's also some satisfaction in punching an enemy in the face.
This isn't about hurting SCO's users. It's about causing trouble for SCO. If you hamstring GCC for SCO, what you end up with is a lot of two things: 1) awareness of the problems (SCO's tactics in particular when GCC isn't compiling anything) and 2) tech support calls (tech support is one of those things that nobody wants to spend money on, yet is absolutely necessary, what happens when the answer is "we're not supported because we're not exactly liked by the writers").
The door swings both ways. Yes, SCO can claim copyright infringement, who knows, what if they even have a claim to it. But to claim that they then can charge for licenses after downloads isn't making them any friends. When you rely on someone else's product that you're directly going against, you should expect to have the rug pulled out from beneath you.
This is hard to make invasion of privacy out of. It's completely voluntary and that's what makes it non-evil.
The initial thoughts from most people is for watching their children and I think it's amazing how many people think that's wrong. I know way too many parents who's burnout kids are their burnout kids because their parents weren't paying enough attention. Kids are stupid and unpredictable. When a friend's brother ran away from home with his underage girlfriend, I'm sure his parents would've loved one of these things. Or the other brother who was a druggie and would disappear for days on end, skipping school... you don't think this would have big advantages?
This isn't the evil government watching us. It's on too small a scale and most importantly, it's voluntary. How would anyone organize the tracking into useful data? What if I switch around what I mark, so one week my keys are one tag and the next it's my bike... and then my cat.
If it becomes government mandated, then yes, it becomes evil. But for now? What's the problem with it?
Actually, I used the term "up to" in both of my examples which was slightly inaccurate. In English that term means "less than or equal to" and when I go to Ati's site to get a card and on the front page I see the Ati 9800 which is $500. The inaccurate part was that none of the consoles cost $200 right now.
There's nothing wrong with the G-Force 4600 I'm sure. But in a few weeks when I want to play Half Life 2, how is it going to handle it? I want a card that can handle the best games for the given system for the life of the system. For a console, I'm/guaranteed/ that. If I go out and get top of the line video card, I'll be able to play the top games, but maybe not a year from now when my PS2/Gamecube/Xbox is still doing fine with all of their games. If I get the lesser card, I probably won't be able to handle those brand new games at all well.
If you want games that are in better resolution than that of a television, that's perfectly fine. Of course unless your monitor is the size of a TV, you don't have a luxurious amount of space to play on. Personal preference I suppose.
Right now, all that PCs have are the online capabilities. Why do you think all the games being released are MMORPG, RTS or FPS? It's because they lend themselves best to online play. That's why the Xbox hasn't been completely blown out here. They're taking the online market of the people who don't want to play with configurations. It's a small market but it's enough for 2nd place in the US.
PC's will always be around for gaming, but they've been shrinking in comparison to how consoles have grown in popularity.
"We're rapidly approaching the point where consoles are pointless. Commodity hardware is cheaper,"
A gaming machine costs up to $200. A video card can run you up to $500 and is on non-standard hardware, so may not work with any particular game.
"computers offer a far superior gaming experience"
Maybe to you. Most PC games can't compete with the above average console game in my mind. Too many MMORPG, FPS, RTS games coming out. Not enough "Animal Crossing", RPGs, or just generally different stuff coming out for PCs. The feel is just different on a console and the PCs have very little for me.
"and the current leader in the field got its legs dominating the PC market."
Sony? The Vaio is pretty to look at but nothing substantial. Unless you're referring to Microsoft which is currently big bad #3 in the world out of 3.
Computer game sales are waaaaay behind console game sales. Saying consoles are becoming pointless is like saying communism is on the rise because it hasn't been completely eradicated yet.
It wasn't long ago that a physical store that mostly sold computer games could exist. Now, you see a small rack of computer games at your local EB. I think we're watching the rise of consoles as/videogames/ are becoming more and more accepted.
The problem with that view is that violence has always been present in our entertainment. Historically, our culture is a lot tamer now than it was several decades ago. But we still read about a lot of occurences like this where someone snaps and the culprits are looked for.
Yes, the Matrix depicts violence as cool. Many videogames do the same thing. So when someone goes looking for the explanation from the obvious source, the source of the violence, the usually psychotic and often very stupid person is questioned. Look at the quote from his letter where he calls himself "the One, the Neo, and the Anti-Christ". He basically took the "Matrix was cool" image and mixed it with the "evil is cool" image. And why not? If I go gun down a bunch of people, I'm going to try to make myself look cool in my 15 minutes of fame rather than trying to look like a loner (loser) who's had a lot of problems lately.
This has more to do with the fact that people aren't required to grow up to a certain level anymore... it just so happens that cool movies and cool videogames are cheap enough for people who are essentially burnouts to afford. You can go all the way through high school drugged up most of the time and graduate to a life of living at your parent's home playing video games jobless.
What ever happened to the good old days when everything was just blamed on drugs? It was so much more accurate than the anti-video game argument (not perfect mind you, but better).
Still hasn't been profitable. 3rd in the world out of 3. Piracy is higher than PS2 as far as I've seen (because the modchips are more efficient and more beneficial, more people I know have modchips in their Xboxen than their PS2s).
You pointed out more people pirated the systems where it was profitable to pirate them. Not that pirating makes something profitable.
Now why would someone pirate the systems where it's worth their while?
While I think there's been a lot of sarcasm so far in this topic, this poll is truly an amazing thing. It brings out the most rabid fan support anyone has ever seen.
In particular, last year, there was one poll between Mario and Cloud Stryfe (from Final Fantasy 7) and Cloud had the initial lead. Then planetgamecube.com put up a news item about the character battle and things started to balance out. Suddenly there was an outcry of how unfair that was for the Cloud supporters and votes started to surge on other sides. Rumors of people going into IRC channels just to say "Vote Cloud" or "Vote Mario" ran rampant.
It was as if these things truly mattered.
In the end, Mario won that particular poll. A few days later, Mario was up again, but this time against another Square character, Crono from Crono Cross (Trigger? I've never played either. I'm not a big RPGer).
From the start, the two were neck and neck with Crono having a slight lead most of the day. Then votes swung back and forth wildly up until almost midnight EST, not because it was over, but because CJayC had noticed some cheating on the Crono side and penalized Crono 300 votes (there were so many votes on both sides that it's hard to believe cheating wasn't rampant on both sides, but a serious bulk of votes were caught from one source and removed).
Outrage ensued from many and Mario finished again with a win.
2 days later, Link went on to beat Mario soundly and win the contest altogether in the finals. Link never even had a close match. Hopefully this year, the ending will be just a little more exciting.
Overall, it's a great big flame inducing mess most of the time, but that's always good too. It's nice to see people getting excited as fans, even if they take it a little far.
1) If you're going to use a ROM on your PC, you're not gaining them any money
2) If you're going to use a ROM on your Xbox, you're not gaining them any money.
3) If you're going to use a ROM on your Xbox, you've got a modchip in your Xbox. I've never actually seen or heard of anyone who's used their Xbox with modchip for legal backups of games and I'm going to go out on a limb and make the statement that/most/ (not all) people with Xbox modchips are using their chip for some piracy (maybe in addition to other reasons, but definitely for the piracy).
Since Nintendo doesn't make games for the Xbox and Microsoft doesn't make games for them, they have no stake in seeing Microsoft make valid sales and I'm sure they'd prefer their competitors to be pirated.
"Gurudata has acquired 29 systems of similar vintage: The Atari 1200, 2600, 5200 and Jaguar. Colecovision. And he's got plenty of company"
Since when was the Jaguar the same vintage as any other Atari machine? Pedigree perhaps.
Yet another article by someone who hasn't got a clue. Why would Enter the Matrix have sold well? It's the first game they're releasing under the Atari name. Of course! Or maybe it's just that it was scripted by the Wachowski's and has additional footage from the blockbuster movie that was released the same day./sarcasm
Really. As for the resurgence of classic gaming, I'm not even sure I buy things up until that point. The point is that gaming is gradually becoming more acceptable. It's not that all Atari games are fun. Many (most?) are fairly sucktacular. The good ones were great because they were fun and simple. My mom will never sit down for Final Fantasy *. She'll never even sit down and play Super Mario Bros, a game that's extremely simple in comparison.
Most non-gamers don't have a lot of disposable time to spend on games. How long is a good modern game? Several hours. How long will the average person play most games? 10-15 minutes. Have you ever played Pac-Man for 15 minutes? It feels like a lifetime because the game is very simple and fast-paced.
The other part is that the old games don't have endings and that is very enticing to the casual gamer. No storyline. No sense of time. That's good for them because they don't have to remember anything from time to time. Try a few hours of any Zelda and come back a month later and see how lost you are. Now try to do the same thing with Tetris or Q-Bert.
It's not that classic games were so great. It's that the constraints on them made it hard to build complexity into them so by default they were simple. There are a lot more casual gamers out there than hard-core ones and they like their simple Pac Men, Solitaires, and Tetrises.
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You're serious?
While I wasn't alive 100 years ago, the kids of today have exactly zero fear of anything because parents are unwilling (or unable) to punish their kids. I know of a kid who doesn't go to school periodically because he doesn't feel like it. His parents try to punish him? How? They have to work, and so short of taking him to work, they have exactly zero control of what he does during the day. They could theoretically disconnect internet access and disconnect cable at home, but then they're punishing themselves too and I'm pretty sure they don't want to do that. If I did that as a kid, I really don't even want to think what would've happened.
I'm not saying video games are the cause of this (as a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure they're not), but the fact that parents aren't as involved with their kids is involved. First amendment rules don't apply to everything and this isn't as much of a square peg in a round hole as most people are painting it to be. There's a reason why you don't see pornography on broadcast TV and it has nothing to do with the goodwill of the TV stations (the FCC would step in). The real difference this does have is that videogames are purchased for private use, so the parents should be able to tell what their kids are playing.
Of course, some parents are lousy parents and that's where some people think the government should step in, considering unlike the music or movie industry (and I'm not saying they have perfect systems either), the videogame industry doesn't seem interested in regulating themselves.
Somebody should be watching the kids though.
These Sony number, though they're not dominating, might even be a little higher than they should be. I've been considering a PS3 for a while now and after the $100 price cut on the 60GB PS3 and the 5 free Blu-Ray titles offer they've got going on, I've gotten more and more interested. If you look harder, there are further deals out there on the system. I don't think I've ever seen a competing system forced like this and I'm sure there are some people who are snapping it up with the reasoning that there's finally a chance at getting a decent deal out of it. If those discounts and sales are cut , I think Sony is going to fall off a bit again and we might see where Sony actually is in the console race.
Right now it's being promoted so heavily, it'd be hard to say where it'll all be when the promotions start to slow.
About this time last year, Verizon was sending their reps through the area going door to door trying to advertise FIOS and to get people to switch over. At the time I had DSL and I was very happy with it as it was cheap and provided what I needed (an always on connection that could be used while the phone was being used).
But when the Verizon salespeople came through, they said that they could give us FIOS at no increase in cost. We asked them repeatedly whether this was accurate and they repeated just as many times that this was the case and that our bill would remain the same as part of the upgrade plan (and that we'd get a free month in addition). Fantastic we all thought and while I'm not the person on the phone bill at my home, I was definitely one of the primary contributors to the decision to switch over. Unfortunately, they required a contract and it was signed based on what the reps said and not what they actually planned. A week later, they stripped out my copper and we were sailing with FIOS and we were very happy with it.
2 months later, we got the bill and said, "Gee, our bill's doubled. This must be some mistake." But Verizon maintained that it was not and that there was nothing they could do. So we told them that we wanted our DSL back. They said, "Sorry, we can't do that." After some badgering, they told me I could get on a list to petition to get our copper back and I'd know in a week if it was going to happen. A week passed and I got no word from them so I started going through Verizon calling chains. I'd get transferred up about 3 levels each day before they'd tell me they'd get someone to call me back (and nobody ever would).
Eventually, they called me back while I was at work (though I'm not the name on the account) and told me that they'd decided that they wouldn't be giving back our copper. I asked them to explain why and they told me they didn't think that they needed to. I told them to tell that to the primary account holders and they told me they'd leave a message, but if they weren't home (and I knew they wouldn't be) that would be the end of it.
So here I am a year later looking for a cheap alternative to Verizon as they steadily raise the price on their phone service (as their contract only locks in an internet price). I really don't like Cablevision. I think they're a bunch of crooks, but at this point, I'm about ready to go over to them just to take some business away from Verizon. Every so often a Verizon rep still shows up at my door and I usually rant at them for a little and then tell them to get off my porch.
Moral of the story: Read your contracts. Read them three times over when dealing with Verizon. Oh. And avoid Verizon whenever you can.
Nobody is under the obligation to change the permissions on a folder, but they're also not under the obligation to put copyrighted software out on a share either. If someone put a PC in the middle of the dorm's lounge with a burner on it and some media, they would definitely be held liable. Just because there's less physical media involved, this doesn't make this case any less copyright infringing.
The problem is, winning the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war, even if they win it by a landslide, still isn't a guaranteed success.
DVD took off because it has such huge advantages over VHS (size, chapter skip, bonus features, no rewinding, the ability to search without damaging the media, etc). HD/Blu-Ray brings very little other than better video to the table. Laserdisc is a better picture than DVD. People will continue to believe that HD/Blu-Ray will be critical, but with the price of the discs being much higher than SD-DVD (twice in most cases) and everything competing for shelf space in BestBuy/Circuit City/etc, it could easily just go the way of Laserdisc into a niche market for high-end videophiles only.
Complexity has very little to do with things. If I recall correctly, when Doshin the Giant was ported to the Gamecube, it was done by one guy. The GCN was very easy to program for (compared to the average complexity of the Xbox and the extreme one of the PS2).
Still, it came in last place. Most of the time, the system has very little to do with how the system sells.
What small independent developers?
Off-hand, I can't think of any small independent developers and certainly none that are making anything innovative. Occasionally, you could say that about certain teams that are parts of major companies, but what small developers are making anything of major value?
Street Fighter 2 also wasn't your average unaccepted launch title. It had people constantly pouring quarters into the arcade machines, so a home version would've sold at almost any sane price.
If there was a voting component, there's something wrong.
King Kong won awards for "Best Movie-based Game" and "Best Male Voice Actor".
I'd claim the results were fixed, but that would make it sound as if I didn't they were fixed from the start.
Gamecube released in Japan with three games (Luigi Mansion, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Super Monkeyball DX).
In the U.S., it released with 12 (adding Rogue Squadron, Crazy Taxi, Batman: Vengeance, and I believe a few sports games).
Actually, I believe the reason R.O.B. was created was because after the Atari disaster caused by E.T., the videogame market entirely crashed. North American chain stores had no interest in carrying a videogame system. Nintendo created ROB (which is actually a bizarre piece of technology revolving around flashes of light generated by the game screen) to say "No, you've got it all wrong. This isn't a video game console. This is robots and etc, etc."
ROB was smoke and mirrors, but did his job well enough to get Nintendo through the front doors of the local Toys R Us, which is all he was ever meant to do. That they actually sold some copies of Gyromite is just icing.
.... but this really isn't anything new. Essentially what he's looking for is to take a system that's already in place (the videogame ratings system) and giving it some useful purpose.
This isn't censorship. This is just limiting the audience. This has happened with nearly every other medium that children could be interested in (books being the exception for several reasons). This is nothing new and while people like to be outraged over a perceived loss of freedom, this loss of freedom is being directed specifically at minors who do not enjoy the same rules as their parents are supposed to be responsible for them. Since parents are supposed to be responsible for their children, it makes sense that it requires parental involvement to get access to some titles.
Sometimes, I wonder if people just complain just for the sake of complaining.
[quote]You also miss another point, the gaming industry is being singled out here, there is no similar government regulation of the movie and TV industry,[/quote] Are you kidding? The TV industry is heavily regulated so the stations [b]can't[/b] show whatever they want on broadcast stations. If it's a premium channel, then it goes to the parents who are supposed to be handling what the children are allowed to see. This law wasn't about fining parents who are idiots. It's about fining vendors. Same with movie industry situations. It's very illegal to sell pornographic movies to minors. Violence not as much, but theaters are required to turn children "under-the-age" away at the doors. Whether they always do is irrelevant as the same could be said for videogame stores with these new requirments. Basically what this law is supposed to do is to give the rating system a purpose. There's currently no use for the rating system as parents don't look at it and there's nothing stopping kids from just grabbing anything they want right now.
In MMOs, the game is based around you being a character in this alternate world. It's something you probably aren't in reality for lack of monsters or foes you can legally slay.
Sports games revolve around one person controlling an entire team. In an MMO, assuming your character finds a team, they have to:
1) be online at the same time as the team
2) the designers need to come up with an entirely new way of playing sports games online from a 1 player=1 player perspective
3) the new way of playing has to be fun
This is not remotely easy and might not be possible at all. Otherwise, if you're just looking for seasons, doesn't X-Box Live have support for that?
Actually, a lot of them exist on current systems. Specifically the more popular ones.
Examples would be:
Sonic Adventure 1&2(GC)
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (XB, PS2)
Resident Evil - Code: Veronica (GC, PS2)
Skies of Arcadia (GC)
Crazy Taxi (GC, PS2)
Shenemue 1&2 (XB)
Space Channel 5 (PS2)
Just because the DC isn't getting new games, doesn't mean that the games that were on the system aren't still around.
I strongly dispute your assertion that an individual seeking political office should not at least have a certain amount of age behind them.
Georgy is in her early twenties, yes? Someone just out of school going into a business is generally going to be taken less seriously than a dinosaur in the same field simply because they're younger. Most people have a tendency to respect advice and decisions of their peers and their elders. The average politician is in general older than Georgy and politics work the same way. The advisors situation is very similar.
Unless she's absolutely groundbreakingly ingenious (nothing so far has indicated such a thing), she's not going to be effective. The fact that she's cute is just going to work against her when dealing with a bunch of middle-aged politicians.
I'm sure she'd work hard as governor, but I'm sure she'd be equally ineffective.
It's great to be able to be so noble as to turn the other cheek when someone wrongs you, but by the same token, there's also some satisfaction in punching an enemy in the face.
This isn't about hurting SCO's users. It's about causing trouble for SCO. If you hamstring GCC for SCO, what you end up with is a lot of two things: 1) awareness of the problems (SCO's tactics in particular when GCC isn't compiling anything) and 2) tech support calls (tech support is one of those things that nobody wants to spend money on, yet is absolutely necessary, what happens when the answer is "we're not supported because we're not exactly liked by the writers").
The door swings both ways. Yes, SCO can claim copyright infringement, who knows, what if they even have a claim to it. But to claim that they then can charge for licenses after downloads isn't making them any friends. When you rely on someone else's product that you're directly going against, you should expect to have the rug pulled out from beneath you.
This is hard to make invasion of privacy out of. It's completely voluntary and that's what makes it non-evil.
The initial thoughts from most people is for watching their children and I think it's amazing how many people think that's wrong. I know way too many parents who's burnout kids are their burnout kids because their parents weren't paying enough attention. Kids are stupid and unpredictable. When a friend's brother ran away from home with his underage girlfriend, I'm sure his parents would've loved one of these things. Or the other brother who was a druggie and would disappear for days on end, skipping school... you don't think this would have big advantages?
This isn't the evil government watching us. It's on too small a scale and most importantly, it's voluntary. How would anyone organize the tracking into useful data? What if I switch around what I mark, so one week my keys are one tag and the next it's my bike... and then my cat.
If it becomes government mandated, then yes, it becomes evil. But for now? What's the problem with it?
Actually, I used the term "up to" in both of my examples which was slightly inaccurate. In English that term means "less than or equal to" and when I go to Ati's site to get a card and on the front page I see the Ati 9800 which is $500. The inaccurate part was that none of the consoles cost $200 right now.
/guaranteed/ that. If I go out and get top of the line video card, I'll be able to play the top games, but maybe not a year from now when my PS2/Gamecube/Xbox is still doing fine with all of their games. If I get the lesser card, I probably won't be able to handle those brand new games at all well.
There's nothing wrong with the G-Force 4600 I'm sure. But in a few weeks when I want to play Half Life 2, how is it going to handle it? I want a card that can handle the best games for the given system for the life of the system. For a console, I'm
If you want games that are in better resolution than that of a television, that's perfectly fine. Of course unless your monitor is the size of a TV, you don't have a luxurious amount of space to play on. Personal preference I suppose.
Right now, all that PCs have are the online capabilities. Why do you think all the games being released are MMORPG, RTS or FPS? It's because they lend themselves best to online play. That's why the Xbox hasn't been completely blown out here. They're taking the online market of the people who don't want to play with configurations. It's a small market but it's enough for 2nd place in the US.
PC's will always be around for gaming, but they've been shrinking in comparison to how consoles have grown in popularity.
Wow. Where to start.
/videogames/ are becoming more and more accepted.
"We're rapidly approaching the point where consoles are pointless. Commodity hardware is cheaper,"
A gaming machine costs up to $200. A video card can run you up to $500 and is on non-standard hardware, so may not work with any particular game.
"computers offer a far superior gaming experience"
Maybe to you. Most PC games can't compete with the above average console game in my mind. Too many MMORPG, FPS, RTS games coming out. Not enough "Animal Crossing", RPGs, or just generally different stuff coming out for PCs. The feel is just different on a console and the PCs have very little for me.
"and the current leader in the field got its legs dominating the PC market."
Sony? The Vaio is pretty to look at but nothing substantial. Unless you're referring to Microsoft which is currently big bad #3 in the world out of 3.
Computer game sales are waaaaay behind console game sales. Saying consoles are becoming pointless is like saying communism is on the rise because it hasn't been completely eradicated yet.
It wasn't long ago that a physical store that mostly sold computer games could exist. Now, you see a small rack of computer games at your local EB. I think we're watching the rise of consoles as
The problem with that view is that violence has always been present in our entertainment. Historically, our culture is a lot tamer now than it was several decades ago. But we still read about a lot of occurences like this where someone snaps and the culprits are looked for.
Yes, the Matrix depicts violence as cool. Many videogames do the same thing. So when someone goes looking for the explanation from the obvious source, the source of the violence, the usually psychotic and often very stupid person is questioned. Look at the quote from his letter where he calls himself "the One, the Neo, and the Anti-Christ". He basically took the "Matrix was cool" image and mixed it with the "evil is cool" image. And why not? If I go gun down a bunch of people, I'm going to try to make myself look cool in my 15 minutes of fame rather than trying to look like a loner (loser) who's had a lot of problems lately.
This has more to do with the fact that people aren't required to grow up to a certain level anymore... it just so happens that cool movies and cool videogames are cheap enough for people who are essentially burnouts to afford. You can go all the way through high school drugged up most of the time and graduate to a life of living at your parent's home playing video games jobless.
What ever happened to the good old days when everything was just blamed on drugs? It was so much more accurate than the anti-video game argument (not perfect mind you, but better).
How do you figure?
Still hasn't been profitable.
3rd in the world out of 3.
Piracy is higher than PS2 as far as I've seen (because the modchips are more efficient and more beneficial, more people I know have modchips in their Xboxen than their PS2s).
You pointed out more people pirated the systems where it was profitable to pirate them. Not that pirating makes something profitable.
Now why would someone pirate the systems where it's worth their while?
While I think there's been a lot of sarcasm so far in this topic, this poll is truly an amazing thing. It brings out the most rabid fan support anyone has ever seen.
In particular, last year, there was one poll between Mario and Cloud Stryfe (from Final Fantasy 7) and Cloud had the initial lead. Then planetgamecube.com put up a news item about the character battle and things started to balance out. Suddenly there was an outcry of how unfair that was for the Cloud supporters and votes started to surge on other sides. Rumors of people going into IRC channels just to say "Vote Cloud" or "Vote Mario" ran rampant.
It was as if these things truly mattered.
In the end, Mario won that particular poll. A few days later, Mario was up again, but this time against another Square character, Crono from Crono Cross (Trigger? I've never played either. I'm not a big RPGer).
From the start, the two were neck and neck with Crono having a slight lead most of the day. Then votes swung back and forth wildly up until almost midnight EST, not because it was over, but because CJayC had noticed some cheating on the Crono side and penalized Crono 300 votes (there were so many votes on both sides that it's hard to believe cheating wasn't rampant on both sides, but a serious bulk of votes were caught from one source and removed).
Outrage ensued from many and Mario finished again with a win.
2 days later, Link went on to beat Mario soundly and win the contest altogether in the finals. Link never even had a close match. Hopefully this year, the ending will be just a little more exciting.
Overall, it's a great big flame inducing mess most of the time, but that's always good too. It's nice to see people getting excited as fans, even if they take it a little far.
I'd think they'd prefer it on an Xbox.
/most/ (not all) people with Xbox modchips are using their chip for some piracy (maybe in addition to other reasons, but definitely for the piracy).
1) If you're going to use a ROM on your PC, you're not gaining them any money
2) If you're going to use a ROM on your Xbox, you're not gaining them any money.
3) If you're going to use a ROM on your Xbox, you've got a modchip in your Xbox. I've never actually seen or heard of anyone who's used their Xbox with modchip for legal backups of games and I'm going to go out on a limb and make the statement that
Since Nintendo doesn't make games for the Xbox and Microsoft doesn't make games for them, they have no stake in seeing Microsoft make valid sales and I'm sure they'd prefer their competitors to be pirated.
"Gurudata has acquired 29 systems of similar vintage: The Atari 1200, 2600, 5200 and Jaguar. Colecovision. And he's got plenty of company"
/sarcasm
Since when was the Jaguar the same vintage as any other Atari machine? Pedigree perhaps.
Yet another article by someone who hasn't got a clue. Why would Enter the Matrix have sold well? It's the first game they're releasing under the Atari name. Of course! Or maybe it's just that it was scripted by the Wachowski's and has additional footage from the blockbuster movie that was released the same day.
Really. As for the resurgence of classic gaming, I'm not even sure I buy things up until that point. The point is that gaming is gradually becoming more acceptable. It's not that all Atari games are fun. Many (most?) are fairly sucktacular. The good ones were great because they were fun and simple. My mom will never sit down for Final Fantasy *. She'll never even sit down and play Super Mario Bros, a game that's extremely simple in comparison.
Most non-gamers don't have a lot of disposable time to spend on games. How long is a good modern game? Several hours. How long will the average person play most games? 10-15 minutes. Have you ever played Pac-Man for 15 minutes? It feels like a lifetime because the game is very simple and fast-paced.
The other part is that the old games don't have endings and that is very enticing to the casual gamer. No storyline. No sense of time. That's good for them because they don't have to remember anything from time to time. Try a few hours of any Zelda and come back a month later and see how lost you are. Now try to do the same thing with Tetris or Q-Bert.
It's not that classic games were so great. It's that the constraints on them made it hard to build complexity into them so by default they were simple. There are a lot more casual gamers out there than hard-core ones and they like their simple Pac Men, Solitaires, and Tetrises.
Nothing to see here. Move along.