I've alerted the authorities, and the Science Police will soon arrest them for breaking the Laws of Thermodynamics.
You hear that, Sony?
on
iPods at War
·
· Score: 4, Funny
"Raised on Nintendo and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies," Cox writes
DiePilot, for one, isn't convinced by the argument. "[...] I don't act in real life like I do in a virtual world, because 1up mushrooms are scarce resources out here."
You hear that, Sony? Our soldiers are trained by Nintendo!
And the Wii will only make them even better shots. The smallest of the consoles, it will be the easiest to pack up and ship out. Using the Wiimote on a low sensitivity will help to better train hand-eye cordination, as well. (It will also server a double purpose with the DVD functionality.)
So you better watch your back, or the console wars may become real wars...
...I would say that Krystal from Star Fox Adventures/Assault would be a good addition.
First, she's from a second-party game, so it doesn't really break the whole "Nintendo characters" thing.
Second, she would use the SFAdventures staff as her weapon, which could work pretty well. It can be her jump boost (using the rocket part), it can shoot some sort of beam, it can shoot fire and ice, it can be used to hit people with. She would make a well rounded character with her own attacks. (Although she'd be quick, she'd would take more damage.)
I wouldn't say so. While they aren't reserving the consoles themselves, they are reserving many games. Not ALL of the launch titles, though; you can't reserve Twilight Princess or Metroid Prime 3 or Super Mario Galaxy, for instance.
They will try to push bundles, no doubt, but I don't think that's their tactic this round. IIRC, Best Buy forced bundles with the 360 launch, but GameStop/EBGames didn't.
I've known about this for about three months, during which time I've been trying to reserve not only a Wii, but change my Twilight Princess reservation to Wii. The only people who don't know this would be those who haven't tried to reserve a system yet, and even then they probably heard someone else complaining about it.
I talked to a GameStop employee about it one day and got some info. I don't think this guy was a manager, but he seemed to know his stuff, so you can take this with a grain of sale if you like.
First, according to the guy I talked to, they will start taking pre-orders, at soonest, after their next "manager meeting", which is taking place around the time of the Leipzig (sp?) thing where Nintendo will announce final pricing and release dates.
Second, they will be raising the reservation price. Instead of just chunking down $25 or $50, you will now put down a good portion of the price. (The guy said "something like $300", and was probably referring to the PS3. Wii will probably be about $100.) This is to discourage people who aren't going to pick up the thing on release to shy away.
One of the GameStops I visit normally had a "Registration Notification" thing you could fill out with your name and phone number, and they would call you once the systems go on reservation. Headquarters apparently put the kabash on that, stating that people might think they are actually reserving the system when they're just signing up for a notice when it's reservable.
While the hardcore market is more willing to shell out extra cash to have the good stuff (enter: Sony), regular gamers (who actually own consoles or play PC games for more than two hours a week (Solitaire doesn't count)) are still a very small percentage of the human population, and that leaves a very large number of people who can be tapped (enter: Nintendo). Even if someone caters to the hardcore crowd (Sony), they would likely be eclipsed by someone who is able to pull in non-gamers (so far, Nintendo is showing a good job of that with Nintendogs and Brain Age).
Microsoft is trying to drive a middle line between the two (and the price reflects it). While they have the shiny graphics and online capability that the hardcore crowd craves, they offer things for the casual gamers (like Geometry Wars and various other things over XBox arcade).
The Wii remote will be a fad - who honestly wants to wave that around, and good luck using it in FPS games.
It's hard to really judge how well the Wiimote will work as an FPS tool without having tried it, but I would bet even money that it works even better than a keyboard does; you have more exact control over where you're aiming, and have the potential to aim in a different direction than you are facing.
As far as waving it around, you won't be doing a whole lot of that unless you want to. Most, if not all, games will have a sensitivty setting, so you could do anything from sitting and moving your wrists around slightly to standing and doing a full swing (which will likely be more fun for various games).
And if the idea behind the Wiimote is just a fad, why did Sony suddenly announce motion-sensors for their controller at E3?
Whether or not you like it, marketing and hype is what sells consoles. I don't see any Wii hype anywhere but on Digg and Slashdot. Sorry.
Then you must read only Digg and Slashdot. Hype has been all over gaming industry sites and magazines for almost a year now, and a lot of mainstream media is talking about it, too. CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times have all had multiple articles on the Wii and what it brings to the table.
When Nintendo announced the new name, the internet practically imploded as everyone and their mom first reported the name change, then reported industry reactions to the name change, then reported consumer reaction to the name change, then reported consumer reaction to the reporting of consumer reaction to the name change.
Nintendo does need to start doing some regular marketing (commercials, other ads, an ARG would be nice) if their console is coming out in a scant two or three months, but I'm sure we'll start seeing a blitz after they finally tell us when it's going to be released.
He admits that there were a ton of bugs from IE6 that have caused web developers a lot of pain, but says that IE7 will address those and be standards compliant.
By this, he doesn't mean that they're fixing the compatibility- far from it. By this, he means that they're closing up the holes in IE6 rendering that previously allowed developers to "hack" around IE. Since IE6 would or wouldn't recognize something it shouldn't or should, respectively, one could make one style sheet that contained CSS for both IE and FireFox, using various methods (such as inheritance) to hide CSS from IE. (I believe we've already had articles about IE7 Beta breaking websites created for IE6.)
(Granted, the best way to do it is to set up a broswer check and use a different CSS file for each browser. But when you have a tiny website, you don't really care to futz with it.)
This effectively means that when IE7 comes out, all the hacks made for IE6 will break, and many pages created by that "cousin in high school" will suddenly look like rubbish.
Of course, those that were made predominantly for FireFox and Opera will still continue to work unabated.
Out of an abundance of sensitivity [CC], we have elected to drop this particular case
Something doesn't seem right...
[opens his Lawyer Dictionary]
Selective Casing... Settlements, Large Payouts from... Whoops, went to far... Okay, here we go, "Sensitivity":
sensitivity Pronunciation Key (sns-tv-t) n., scapegoat A term used when dealing with a large public backlash against previous actions, usually involving death, abuse, sexual harrassment, or being caught in the Ritualistic Lawyer Act of eating a kitten We are regarding our lawsuit against the 90-year-old grandmother with sensitivity.
This means that when we get games like Super Smash Brothers: Brawl, Pokemon Battle Revolution, and Phantasy Star Universe (should it be ported to the Wii) will be even more of a hit without having to worry about the monthly fee.
I just hope that they set up the games so you can connect to random players in the same skill bracket. I don't have a DS myself, but I imagine having to go and hunt out Friend Codes so you can play online gets obnoxious after a while.
Here's his statement:
It's the same premise. We will offer online-enabled games that the consumers will not have to pay a subscription fee for. They'll be able to enjoy that right out of the box. The Wii console is going to be Wi-Fi enabled, so essentially, you'll be able to plug it in and go. It won't have hidden fees or costs.
It should be noted, however, that when he says "we", he probably means only Nintendo. So, third parties may still be able to charge for their own monthly fees. We'll have to wait until the end of this month/early September to get final clarification on this.
Oh man, I didn't even think about incorporating the microphone. You could get your team to do better by "Shouting" from the sidelines, or you could do the counting before the hike to select a play.
Or, going with your "BOOM" idea, you could shout "TOUGH ACTIN VINACTIN" to open up hidden features.
I don't know if there are any football games out for the DS already, but I've always thought that the touch screen would be a great way to do sports like football.
On the top screen you would see a normal 3D set-up of the football field with the two teams ready for the hike. The game would pause, and you'd have X seconds (or maybe unlimited time) to use the touch pad to draw out a game plan (as if you were drawing on a chalk board planning plays). You would have defaults and could save custom plays for quick recall, as well.
Once the ball is snapped, you would have the option of "getting dirty" and assuming the role of one of the players while the other players act out your strategy, or you could just let the AI handle it all.
For a machine to detect explosives in liquid or solid form, it bombards an object with energy -- such as radio waves or neutrons
What are the chances that, if the machine malfunctions and throws out too much energy, it causes an actual liquid explosive to, you know, explode?
Because each briefcase, purse or other carry-on bag has to be put in a special drawer for analysis, using the detectors could significantly bog down passenger screening.
You could always have two lines- one for those who want to bring in beverages, one for those who don't.
A major problem is that the view is so powerful that an individual's private parts can be seen, which forced the TSA to delay tests while vendors tweaked the machines' programming to distort or mask bodily images. And backscatter systems still leave it up to a human screener to recognize a suspicious item.
But how exact would the masking be? Would a man be able to strap a small vial to the underside of his genitals, or a woman hide something in her cleavage (and, uh, other places)?
Something I've been wondering as we ramp up security to make flying a nightmare for everyone- aren't many of these processes making investigation work harder? We keep instituting new restrictions, and the terrorists would just find a way around them. We're playing a reactionary game, putting systems in place only after something happens (no more small knives after 9/11, check all shoes for bombs after that one guy, no more liquids after this foiled attempt), and all it's doing is slowing down everyone.
Not that we should remove all security checks- heaven forbid someone is able to walk onto the airplane with a kilo of C4. But if we keep making our security tighter, then so will the terrorists, and that means less of a chance messing up, which is usually how detectives/investigators find out about stuff and catch them. If the terrorists have a lax atmosphere, then they will be more lax, and more prone to mistakes.
How does the saying go? "The tighter you squeeze the more they will slip through your fingers"?
While we can be sure who will win the console wars for at least a year, it looks like Nintendo may win the Launch Wars. Not only having a massive number of titles available, but having a lot of "Most wanted" Titles (Madden, Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3) will really boost sales. I doubt we'll see a shortchange in console availability (I'm looking at you, Microsoft), but it may sell out in any case.
Now all we need is to wait for the end of this month when all will finally be revealed.
It's nice to see that the movie industry is wisening up. They see the RIAA attempts at spam-suing and how badly the consumer backlash is, and are trying a different approach.
For the average joe, this is probably exactly what they would like to do- make copies of their expensive discs. People will feel better about taking their DVDs along with them on a bus ride, to a friend's, or on a plane (well, I guess that last one doesn't apply anymore). If it breaks, they can just take it the "master" to a kiosk and make another copy.
There are a few questions, though: 1) Cost of the DVD?
This is the big one: how much will it cost to not only buy the special DVD, but make a copy? If it's anything more than a buck, I doubt there will be much interest. If it's, say, 50 cents, I'm sure you'll get lots of takers.
2) Number of burns allowed?
Will the kiosk(s) track how often a certain copy of a movie is copied and limit the number? Obviously, you don't want to allow someone to make a hundered copies and hand them out to friends, but at the same time you don't want to limit it just one or two copies, because shit happens.
And, granted, this won't allow you to rip the DVD to your hard drive to put on portable media or watch from your PC, but a far smaller percentage of consumers are interested in this than just having a regular copy for normal use or in case the first goes belly-up.
You know, with all of these supposed "iPod Killers" running around, you would think someone would have been charged with Conspiracy to Murder already, and scare the rest off.
I suppose it's fortunate for Mr. iPod that not a single purported killer has been succesfully. Oh, sure, he's taken a few dings, but nothing and no-one has yet to get close to him.
In both this new "CDVD" format and the HD-DVD/Blu-ray wars, companies are trying to get people to pretty much buy the same thing. Oh, sure, you get some extra storage space and quality, but that isn't going to be enough to entice casual consumers to the new format. This isn't VHS vs. DVD or cassette vs. CD, it's DVD vs. DVD+.
We aren't going to get a true format change until one of two things happen: 1) All companies everywhere agree to completely stop producing regular CDs/DVDs (good luck with that!) 2) A format comes along that has the following criteria: -larger storage -smaller size -more durable (doesn't become worthless with a few small scratches) -higher quality -widespread acceptance
Only once those criteria are met will a format shift change. A USB key would probably meet most of that criteria, you'd just have to get companies to use them.
However, I propose that the eventual replacement to DVDs and CDs will not having moving components. It will be flash memory. The casing will be half the size of a 3 1/2" floppy and only a bit thicker.
The next-gen wars really won't start until the end of this year. Right now, there is no "next-gen" war because the 360 is the only "next-gen" console on the market, so we have to wait for the PS3 or Wii (whichever comes first) before we can actually have a war.
In any case, this next round is going to be quite interesting. Whereas the previous generations of hardware have been mainly about graphics and game size, this next one is focusing more on gameplay or graphics, depending on which console you're rooting for.
Nintendo is the obviuos stand out because of their wild divergence from the norm. While they're doing stuff the other guys are doing (wireless remote, internet stuff, DVD playback) they aren't working as much on the graphics, nor are they sticking with the normal controller layout. Hell, the only similariy in their "controller" is that it's called a controller- actually, it's called the Wiimote now, isn't it?
You have Microsoft with what amounts to the XBox 2.0. It does everything the XBox does and better, but doesn't add much else on top of it.
The PS3 is trying out a new storage format, and including an "innovative" tilt sensor in their controller.
Diversity is going to be a big thing for sure, and it is one of the reasons that the PS2 reigns as king, but things are going to change pretty quick now; what console you buy is decided not only by graphics and games, but also by how active you want to be while playing games.
Wish I could find the link, but I saw stats from Japanese sales for a week or two ago. The DS Lite had approx 250K in sales, where the second place seller, the PSP, had approx. 35K in sales.
The DS "Phat" (as the chart called it) came in fourth place or so with about 20K units.
The Xbox had 0 in sales.
The fact that the DS is not only able to sell out the PSP, but at such a large rate shows that Nintendo has figured out what's going on. I wouldn't be surprised if we see similar charts come December for the Wii and PS3, substituting for the DS and PSP.
Slashdot Mirror
I've alerted the authorities, and the Science Police will soon arrest them for breaking the Laws of Thermodynamics.
And the Wii will only make them even better shots. The smallest of the consoles, it will be the easiest to pack up and ship out. Using the Wiimote on a low sensitivity will help to better train hand-eye cordination, as well. (It will also server a double purpose with the DVD functionality.)
So you better watch your back, or the console wars may become real wars...
I laughed harder at that than I really should have.
Desu.
...I would say that Krystal from Star Fox Adventures/Assault would be a good addition.
First, she's from a second-party game, so it doesn't really break the whole "Nintendo characters" thing.
Second, she would use the SFAdventures staff as her weapon, which could work pretty well. It can be her jump boost (using the rocket part), it can shoot some sort of beam, it can shoot fire and ice, it can be used to hit people with. She would make a well rounded character with her own attacks. (Although she'd be quick, she'd would take more damage.)
I wouldn't say so. While they aren't reserving the consoles themselves, they are reserving many games. Not ALL of the launch titles, though; you can't reserve Twilight Princess or Metroid Prime 3 or Super Mario Galaxy, for instance.
They will try to push bundles, no doubt, but I don't think that's their tactic this round. IIRC, Best Buy forced bundles with the 360 launch, but GameStop/EBGames didn't.
I've known about this for about three months, during which time I've been trying to reserve not only a Wii, but change my Twilight Princess reservation to Wii. The only people who don't know this would be those who haven't tried to reserve a system yet, and even then they probably heard someone else complaining about it.
I talked to a GameStop employee about it one day and got some info. I don't think this guy was a manager, but he seemed to know his stuff, so you can take this with a grain of sale if you like.
First, according to the guy I talked to, they will start taking pre-orders, at soonest, after their next "manager meeting", which is taking place around the time of the Leipzig (sp?) thing where Nintendo will announce final pricing and release dates.
Second, they will be raising the reservation price. Instead of just chunking down $25 or $50, you will now put down a good portion of the price. (The guy said "something like $300", and was probably referring to the PS3. Wii will probably be about $100.) This is to discourage people who aren't going to pick up the thing on release to shy away.
One of the GameStops I visit normally had a "Registration Notification" thing you could fill out with your name and phone number, and they would call you once the systems go on reservation. Headquarters apparently put the kabash on that, stating that people might think they are actually reserving the system when they're just signing up for a notice when it's reservable.
Microsoft is trying to drive a middle line between the two (and the price reflects it). While they have the shiny graphics and online capability that the hardcore crowd craves, they offer things for the casual gamers (like Geometry Wars and various other things over XBox arcade).
It's hard to really judge how well the Wiimote will work as an FPS tool without having tried it, but I would bet even money that it works even better than a keyboard does; you have more exact control over where you're aiming, and have the potential to aim in a different direction than you are facing.
As far as waving it around, you won't be doing a whole lot of that unless you want to. Most, if not all, games will have a sensitivty setting, so you could do anything from sitting and moving your wrists around slightly to standing and doing a full swing (which will likely be more fun for various games).
And if the idea behind the Wiimote is just a fad, why did Sony suddenly announce motion-sensors for their controller at E3?
Then you must read only Digg and Slashdot. Hype has been all over gaming industry sites and magazines for almost a year now, and a lot of mainstream media is talking about it, too. CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times have all had multiple articles on the Wii and what it brings to the table.
When Nintendo announced the new name, the internet practically imploded as everyone and their mom first reported the name change, then reported industry reactions to the name change, then reported consumer reaction to the name change, then reported consumer reaction to the reporting of consumer reaction to the name change.
Nintendo does need to start doing some regular marketing (commercials, other ads, an ARG would be nice) if their console is coming out in a scant two or three months, but I'm sure we'll start seeing a blitz after they finally tell us when it's going to be released.
They came up with the numbers by using the Analyst Industry's regular method of calculating potential market share five years in advance: PFA.
(Pulled From Ass)
So, basically, Phantom just became a Gametap competitor?
(Granted, the best way to do it is to set up a broswer check and use a different CSS file for each browser. But when you have a tiny website, you don't really care to futz with it.)
This effectively means that when IE7 comes out, all the hacks made for IE6 will break, and many pages created by that "cousin in high school" will suddenly look like rubbish.
Of course, those that were made predominantly for FireFox and Opera will still continue to work unabated.
[opens his Lawyer Dictionary]
Selective Casing... Settlements, Large Payouts from... Whoops, went to far... Okay, here we go, "Sensitivity":
sensitivity Pronunciation Key (sns-tv-t) n., scapegoat
A term used when dealing with a large public backlash against previous actions, usually involving death, abuse, sexual harrassment, or being caught in the Ritualistic Lawyer Act of eating a kitten
We are regarding our lawsuit against the 90-year-old grandmother with sensitivity.
If you don't want to hook up Wii-reless (sorry, couldn't resist), the Wii will support a USB-to-network attachment so you can go the wired route.
I just hope that they set up the games so you can connect to random players in the same skill bracket. I don't have a DS myself, but I imagine having to go and hunt out Friend Codes so you can play online gets obnoxious after a while.
Here's his statement:
It should be noted, however, that when he says "we", he probably means only Nintendo. So, third parties may still be able to charge for their own monthly fees. We'll have to wait until the end of this month/early September to get final clarification on this.
Oh man, I didn't even think about incorporating the microphone. You could get your team to do better by "Shouting" from the sidelines, or you could do the counting before the hike to select a play.
Or, going with your "BOOM" idea, you could shout "TOUGH ACTIN VINACTIN" to open up hidden features.
I don't know if there are any football games out for the DS already, but I've always thought that the touch screen would be a great way to do sports like football.
On the top screen you would see a normal 3D set-up of the football field with the two teams ready for the hike. The game would pause, and you'd have X seconds (or maybe unlimited time) to use the touch pad to draw out a game plan (as if you were drawing on a chalk board planning plays). You would have defaults and could save custom plays for quick recall, as well.
Once the ball is snapped, you would have the option of "getting dirty" and assuming the role of one of the players while the other players act out your strategy, or you could just let the AI handle it all.
You could always have two lines- one for those who want to bring in beverages, one for those who don't.
But how exact would the masking be? Would a man be able to strap a small vial to the underside of his genitals, or a woman hide something in her cleavage (and, uh, other places)?
Something I've been wondering as we ramp up security to make flying a nightmare for everyone- aren't many of these processes making investigation work harder? We keep instituting new restrictions, and the terrorists would just find a way around them. We're playing a reactionary game, putting systems in place only after something happens (no more small knives after 9/11, check all shoes for bombs after that one guy, no more liquids after this foiled attempt), and all it's doing is slowing down everyone.
Not that we should remove all security checks- heaven forbid someone is able to walk onto the airplane with a kilo of C4. But if we keep making our security tighter, then so will the terrorists, and that means less of a chance messing up, which is usually how detectives/investigators find out about stuff and catch them. If the terrorists have a lax atmosphere, then they will be more lax, and more prone to mistakes.
How does the saying go? "The tighter you squeeze the more they will slip through your fingers"?
Wow, that server went down hard.
Here, you can see the list of titles at Wikipedia.
While we can be sure who will win the console wars for at least a year, it looks like Nintendo may win the Launch Wars. Not only having a massive number of titles available, but having a lot of "Most wanted" Titles (Madden, Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3) will really boost sales. I doubt we'll see a shortchange in console availability (I'm looking at you, Microsoft), but it may sell out in any case.
Now all we need is to wait for the end of this month when all will finally be revealed.
It's nice to see that the movie industry is wisening up. They see the RIAA attempts at spam-suing and how badly the consumer backlash is, and are trying a different approach.
For the average joe, this is probably exactly what they would like to do- make copies of their expensive discs. People will feel better about taking their DVDs along with them on a bus ride, to a friend's, or on a plane (well, I guess that last one doesn't apply anymore). If it breaks, they can just take it the "master" to a kiosk and make another copy.
There are a few questions, though:
1) Cost of the DVD?
This is the big one: how much will it cost to not only buy the special DVD, but make a copy? If it's anything more than a buck, I doubt there will be much interest. If it's, say, 50 cents, I'm sure you'll get lots of takers.
2) Number of burns allowed?
Will the kiosk(s) track how often a certain copy of a movie is copied and limit the number? Obviously, you don't want to allow someone to make a hundered copies and hand them out to friends, but at the same time you don't want to limit it just one or two copies, because shit happens.
And, granted, this won't allow you to rip the DVD to your hard drive to put on portable media or watch from your PC, but a far smaller percentage of consumers are interested in this than just having a regular copy for normal use or in case the first goes belly-up.
You know, with all of these supposed "iPod Killers" running around, you would think someone would have been charged with Conspiracy to Murder already, and scare the rest off.
I suppose it's fortunate for Mr. iPod that not a single purported killer has been succesfully. Oh, sure, he's taken a few dings, but nothing and no-one has yet to get close to him.
In both this new "CDVD" format and the HD-DVD/Blu-ray wars, companies are trying to get people to pretty much buy the same thing. Oh, sure, you get some extra storage space and quality, but that isn't going to be enough to entice casual consumers to the new format. This isn't VHS vs. DVD or cassette vs. CD, it's DVD vs. DVD+.
We aren't going to get a true format change until one of two things happen:
1) All companies everywhere agree to completely stop producing regular CDs/DVDs (good luck with that!)
2) A format comes along that has the following criteria:
-larger storage
-smaller size
-more durable (doesn't become worthless with a few small scratches)
-higher quality
-widespread acceptance
Only once those criteria are met will a format shift change. A USB key would probably meet most of that criteria, you'd just have to get companies to use them.
However, I propose that the eventual replacement to DVDs and CDs will not having moving components. It will be flash memory. The casing will be half the size of a 3 1/2" floppy and only a bit thicker.
The PS3's tagline is the "Lean Mean Social Reducing Ultimate Gaming Machine"
Also: Mmmm, bacon.
The next-gen wars really won't start until the end of this year. Right now, there is no "next-gen" war because the 360 is the only "next-gen" console on the market, so we have to wait for the PS3 or Wii (whichever comes first) before we can actually have a war.
In any case, this next round is going to be quite interesting. Whereas the previous generations of hardware have been mainly about graphics and game size, this next one is focusing more on gameplay or graphics, depending on which console you're rooting for.
Nintendo is the obviuos stand out because of their wild divergence from the norm. While they're doing stuff the other guys are doing (wireless remote, internet stuff, DVD playback) they aren't working as much on the graphics, nor are they sticking with the normal controller layout. Hell, the only similariy in their "controller" is that it's called a controller- actually, it's called the Wiimote now, isn't it?
You have Microsoft with what amounts to the XBox 2.0. It does everything the XBox does and better, but doesn't add much else on top of it.
The PS3 is trying out a new storage format, and including an "innovative" tilt sensor in their controller.
Diversity is going to be a big thing for sure, and it is one of the reasons that the PS2 reigns as king, but things are going to change pretty quick now; what console you buy is decided not only by graphics and games, but also by how active you want to be while playing games.
I was about to post a rant about how stupid this move is, until I saw that it was RealNetworks distributing FireFox, not the other way around.
As long as Mozilla doesn't distribute RealPlayer (or related products) with FireFox I have no problems.
Never again will that spawn be on my PC.
Since Monopoly recently started using the Visa swipe cards instead, they can just put it on their credit until the whole thing blows over.
They probably hope they don't land on the Policeman. It's very hard to roll the dice just right so you can land on the "Just Visiting" space.
Besides, a lot of people throw out the rules or just make up new ones as they go.
(I recommend playing as the Top Hat)
Wish I could find the link, but I saw stats from Japanese sales for a week or two ago. The DS Lite had approx 250K in sales, where the second place seller, the PSP, had approx. 35K in sales. The DS "Phat" (as the chart called it) came in fourth place or so with about 20K units. The Xbox had 0 in sales. The fact that the DS is not only able to sell out the PSP, but at such a large rate shows that Nintendo has figured out what's going on. I wouldn't be surprised if we see similar charts come December for the Wii and PS3, substituting for the DS and PSP.