Jesus - you're right! I bet Sony is wasting tons and tons of money on paint testing! Think about how many great games that money could be put into to have even more clip scenes!! Honestly, Sony wants to keep their hardware sales up until the PS3 launches as momentum is a big deal in the video game industry - selling new editions of the case is an easy and cheap way to get some increased sales - especially in Japan where this type of business practice has worked in the past. Good job having no understanding of that tough guy.
I'm currently in 2009 in this year's Madden with my franchise and haven't experienced any problems whatsoever. On the other hand, Sega's World Series Baseball 2K3 gave me complete hardware lockups after 3 or 4 seasons numerous times. Everything was great about WSB 2K3 except for this problem so I've got my fingers crossed for next year.
Here's some news: the next Nintendo console will have some type of mechanism to hook it up to the next Game Boy device. Your argument is that because you don't have money, Nintendo shouldn't sell a add-on to their consoles but instead should only sell games. But you know what, in order to play Gamecube games - you need a...GASP television!!! Perhaps Nintendo is in cahoots with the television manufacturers! It's a plot against you!! Run away!
GC-GBA connectivity is a nice feature that you don't need to play any of the games that support it. For instance, with Metroid Prime, you can get Samus in the Metroid Fusion suit if you have a GBA and a copy of Metroid Fusion. So if you can't afford that extra, big fucking deal - Metroid Prime is still a great game. Whine about companies trying to make innovative uses of their hardware and you'll get what you deserve - nothing but 'Enter the Matrix' clones.
I've got 10 CD Players and 10 CD Recorders and 10 copies of every CD I own safely stored away in my technology cellar gathering dust. If these bastards try to switch to some DRM nonsense, I'll live safely off my reserves.
"A friend of mine bought an Intel webcam a few years back that came with several motion games. (hit the bouncing ball with your hand, scrub the screen clean etc) They were pretty shallow, but from what I hear, Sony's is too."
There is a market out there for games which do not require 5-10 hours to get "into" the game, you know? The "party game" has become a more successful genre by offering simple round-based games that people can swap in and out of playing. They offer enjoyable multiplayer experiences for groups of people who are hanging out for reasons other than having an intense video game session. A game does not have to be deep in order to be a success.
"Why is this such a big deal?"
No one ever said the release of the Eye Toy was going to change the face of video gaming as we know it. It's a neat peripheral that Sony has released. It offers a control scheme that may draw in people who are not accustomed to having a controller in their hands and may get some couch potatoes up off the couch for some time.
"Do they expect us to run out and buy this thing just because Sony tells us we should?"
I think the marketing of the Eye Toy has been a bit more substantial than, 'Hey, look at this thing. It's made by Sony. Go buy it!' In fact, I know it has because I've seen some print advertisements. Granted, the advertisements do note that the product is manufactured by Sony but there is more to it than that. Honestly, your type of uppity consumerism is so annoying - I assume you live in some type of capitalist society. One of the backbones of capitalism is the idea of free choice. You may choose whether you want to buy products or not. If you don't want to buy the Eye Toy, don't.
"going away" is not the same as "already gone". You may wish it were so, but there is a great deal of what you may consider 'legacy' equipment out there."
Which is what I have said all along. Have you forgotten what I originally posted? I said that new equipment coming out is unlikely to include features for technology that will not be here in the future. When you buy new hardware, it is normally on the cutting edge of where technology is. Manufacturers want people to migrate to the newer technologies so they phase out the older technologies by not including them in new products.
Please point to a quote by me where I said land lines were "already gone."
Continuing in that GameInformer paragraph: "But, on the positive, a lot of flicker that was present in the games when they released on the NES and SNES is magically gone."
These people are paid to write about video games and they don't even know what system Zelda 1 and 2 were released for?
But yeah, my personal console priorities are PS2 then Gamecube then XBox. Of course, if I had to buy one console today - I don't know if it would be a PS2 or an XBox. I originally bought the PS2 because of GTA - now that's available for XBox. I do really enjoy Madden online so that gives a nod to the PS2. I haven't checked out Sega's and MS's football offerings so I don't know if that's a critical issue for me.
Has anyone else heard anything about the PS2 price cut? I recall there were rumors of it going to $100. If that happened, and Microsoft followed, I would definitely buy an XBox - maybe two.
I implied "going away" - meaning devices with this kind of functionality are becoming less and less needed. So what do you reply with? "Well I still have devices with this kind of functionality!" Do you see how that type of reply shows you to be a moron? I hope you do. Otherwise, you're more of a moron than I believe.
Actually, I can tell the PS2 games list at EB is not complete...this is a more complete list. Hmm, probably EB doesn't have a complete listing of XBox Live games either...XBox Live Games. Sorry for posting those half-right links before.
It looks like a cross between an N64 controller and a Dreamcast controller. Of course, the Dreamcast controller had the boxy shape (although reduced in scope) that Atari introduced with the Jaguar controller.
The number was obviously 7 million - which is correct - the poster left off the "million" but I think anyone who reads Slashdot games regularly knows this number, kid.
Oh, so you can provide nationwide statistics based on numbers you derive from counting done in your dorm? That's great. Although...
if we had used your method back when I was a wee undergraduate and I got placed in an all-male dorm for my freshman year (what a sausage party!), we could have safely concluded that everyone in teh United States was male.
You see how sampling the people around you is not an accurate means to measure how many XBoxes have been sold in the U.S.?
I think the PA quote is overstating the situation quite a bit. Yeah, you get on Live by pushing A. That's super. To log in to play Madden, I simply select Play Online and then my user name and password are loaded from my memory card. I push X a few times and I'm online. Boy, that's tough. I mean, if the folks at Penny Arcade are dismayed by having to log in to online games using a PS2, I can only imagine the trouble they've had with using a PC to play games online.
I also don't understand this sentence: "There is an ethernet port. That's not so you can put a jelly bean in there in case you need it..." What does that have to do with comparing XBox Live to PS2 online gaming? I honestly don't get it.
Here's something I am wondering - what happens if I am living in a house with multiple people who play on XBox Live? Can we have multiple accounts without having too pay two times the online price? I don't have an XBox and am curious how this works. (I'm not really an XBox hater, I just haven't been convinced to buy one based on the selection available.) I do like the idea of having a friend's list but, and this may be just be, normally if I want to play someone online with my PS2 and I already know them, I contact them through some internet messaging service using my computer. I don't see how useful it would be for me to have a friend's list with my PS2. I wouldn't turn my PS2 on, connect to a server, just to see if anyone I know was around. Now, the XBox Live friend's list is accessible via the web but again, how useful is this? If I'm already at my computer, I can just check my PS2 Online Friends category in my instant messaging buddy list. To me, this seems like unneccescary overhead.
But besides Madden and THPS 4, I don't play online games with my PS2. My PC will always be my first and foremost online game playing machine. (please feel free to reply and enlighten me about XBox Live - I'm sure I've got some things wrong since I don't have an XBox. Maybe you can convince me to buy one - although...Zelda Gamecube bundle is calling to me quite loudly these days)
How often do you think that this type of situation arises? Your desire to have a cell phone placing "normal" calls to solve this problem for you is understandable but if you believe hardware manufacturers are going to care about such a problem, you're confused about how consumerism works. Older cell phones had this feature because landline technology was still a focal point of many technologies - including consumer electronic devices. Now that broadband is making more and more inroads, the types of situations that arise where the ability to make a "normal" call are becoming slimmer and slimmer.
Hopefully I have made it clear to you why the feature does not exist today. And it is a good thing that it does not exist - giving people too many features (many of which are only designed for special situations that most people don't encounter) is stupid and hardware manufacturers should avoid doing this. It's not a matter of if it can be done but whether there is a need for it and if that need is so great that it warrants including it. This situation does not warrant it.
Finally, and as related to my first paragraph, the next TiVo to come out should have less of a reliance on phone lines and more of a reliance on broadband Internet connections. Have you seen the PS2 network adapter? There's a reason it's got both a phone line and Ethernet port - there's a general trend in these devices and it ain't from broadband to narrowband, pal.
A 3 year old may remain perfectly well-behaved for long periods of time. That is not an unreasonable expectation. But if you were to consult some notable books on child psychology (which you obviously have not) you would realize that I was not talking about a child's ability to behave on long trips but rather the psychological and developmental impacts of long trips on a very young child. Go do some research and stop trying to brag about something you did over 20 years ago.
Well, a simple Google search finds this product, (blurb from site: "The TurboNETTM Ethernet Adapter Card allows you to hook your TiVo up to your network. This allows daily updates over broadband instead of the telephone, easier hacking, TiVoWEB, etc.") although I'm sure there are other ways to accomplish the task of avoiding the need for a phone line.
First of all, you should not be taking a 3 year old on an eight hour car drive. They are not built for that much sitting at a time. You should plan your trips with plenty of stops where they can get out and have fun. I'm not talking about stopping at a rest area and letting them walk around for ten minutes. I'm talking about finding attractions and museums along the way where they can spend an hour or two out of the car. Yes, if you've got a long distance to travel - this trip will take a much greater amount of time but that's a sacrifice you should make for your kids - or take a plane. And obviously when talking to your children, you cater the topic of conversation to the age of the child. Honestly, this is so typical of Slashdot. Make a good point that, when used with common sense, is a perfectly suitable system and then you get some Slashbot replying with an example where it doesn't work. Yes, there are times where things don't work! Nothing is absolute so you should work within the framework and bend it when needed.
And who is so stupid that they can't figure out that discussing Nietzsche with a 3 year old is not something I was suggesting in my original post? Oh, it's that AC.
Naive? I'm naive? I haven't seen recent numbers from Microsoft in regards to the XBox but as of February of this year Microsoft was losing over 300 million on the XBox. And if you had actually read my comment, I made the point that MS didn't take these losses "just because" they could but rather because they had simply been unable to get the market penetration they had expected. Read an interview or two with someone from the XBox division and they'll talk about how they didn't expect to win this generation of consoles - which I find suspect. Honestly, who's naive?
Excuse me but when I've got my kids confined in the car for long periods of time, I'd rather we discuss current events, history, science, and literature than have them zonked out in front of a passive entertainment device. Long car trips is a great time to talk to your kids - they can't get away. Try it out.
The market strategy you are describing is indeed Microsoft's strategy but it's also important to note that no console manufacturer has ever used this model before. Mainly because no company has been willing to operate at a loss the likes of which Microsoft is currently seeing. When Sony jumped into the market with the PSOne, they didn't have a long term plan to slowly take market share away from Nintendo and Sega - they aimed to corner the market for that generation and move on from there. I think that you're overstating the future for the XBox - it certainly could go down the way you describe but it's not as likely as it seems you believe.
I don't think Microsoft is going to be a company that gets a devoted following (like Nintendo) since they have not really been a great first person game developer (outside of the third party companies that they've bought) so they're not going to have a guaranteed base they can work from.
And my final point is that you didn't hear all this talk of Microsoft planning not to win this generation of hardware with the XBox until after the XBox had lost. There was a program on G4TV regarding the making of the XBox and at the time of the launch, Bill and company seemed quite excited about the prospects. It's easy to say now that MS had planned all along that they wouldn't be able to win but I am sure there was quite a bit of disappointment in the sales department. The first console generation Sony entered, Sony won.
Slashdot Mirror
Jesus - you're right! I bet Sony is wasting tons and tons of money on paint testing! Think about how many great games that money could be put into to have even more clip scenes!! Honestly, Sony wants to keep their hardware sales up until the PS3 launches as momentum is a big deal in the video game industry - selling new editions of the case is an easy and cheap way to get some increased sales - especially in Japan where this type of business practice has worked in the past. Good job having no understanding of that tough guy.
I'm currently in 2009 in this year's Madden with my franchise and haven't experienced any problems whatsoever. On the other hand, Sega's World Series Baseball 2K3 gave me complete hardware lockups after 3 or 4 seasons numerous times. Everything was great about WSB 2K3 except for this problem so I've got my fingers crossed for next year.
Here's some news: the next Nintendo console will have some type of mechanism to hook it up to the next Game Boy device. Your argument is that because you don't have money, Nintendo shouldn't sell a add-on to their consoles but instead should only sell games. But you know what, in order to play Gamecube games - you need a...GASP television!!! Perhaps Nintendo is in cahoots with the television manufacturers! It's a plot against you!! Run away!
GC-GBA connectivity is a nice feature that you don't need to play any of the games that support it. For instance, with Metroid Prime, you can get Samus in the Metroid Fusion suit if you have a GBA and a copy of Metroid Fusion. So if you can't afford that extra, big fucking deal - Metroid Prime is still a great game. Whine about companies trying to make innovative uses of their hardware and you'll get what you deserve - nothing but 'Enter the Matrix' clones.
Which is what I have said all along. Have you forgotten what I originally posted? I said that new equipment coming out is unlikely to include features for technology that will not be here in the future. When you buy new hardware, it is normally on the cutting edge of where technology is. Manufacturers want people to migrate to the newer technologies so they phase out the older technologies by not including them in new products.
Please point to a quote by me where I said land lines were "already gone."
These people are paid to write about video games and they don't even know what system Zelda 1 and 2 were released for?
But yeah, my personal console priorities are PS2 then Gamecube then XBox. Of course, if I had to buy one console today - I don't know if it would be a PS2 or an XBox. I originally bought the PS2 because of GTA - now that's available for XBox. I do really enjoy Madden online so that gives a nod to the PS2. I haven't checked out Sega's and MS's football offerings so I don't know if that's a critical issue for me.
All of this is moot since I already have a PS2.
Has anyone else heard anything about the PS2 price cut? I recall there were rumors of it going to $100. If that happened, and Microsoft followed, I would definitely buy an XBox - maybe two.
I implied "going away" - meaning devices with this kind of functionality are becoming less and less needed. So what do you reply with? "Well I still have devices with this kind of functionality!" Do you see how that type of reply shows you to be a moron? I hope you do. Otherwise, you're more of a moron than I believe.
Actually, I can tell the PS2 games list at EB is not complete...this is a more complete list. Hmm, probably EB doesn't have a complete listing of XBox Live games either...XBox Live Games. Sorry for posting those half-right links before.
PS2 Online Capable Games
It looks like a cross between an N64 controller and a Dreamcast controller. Of course, the Dreamcast controller had the boxy shape (although reduced in scope) that Atari introduced with the Jaguar controller.
The number was obviously 7 million - which is correct - the poster left off the "million" but I think anyone who reads Slashdot games regularly knows this number, kid.
if we had used your method back when I was a wee undergraduate and I got placed in an all-male dorm for my freshman year (what a sausage party!), we could have safely concluded that everyone in teh United States was male.
You see how sampling the people around you is not an accurate means to measure how many XBoxes have been sold in the U.S.?
I also don't understand this sentence: "There is an ethernet port. That's not so you can put a jelly bean in there in case you need it..." What does that have to do with comparing XBox Live to PS2 online gaming? I honestly don't get it.
Here's something I am wondering - what happens if I am living in a house with multiple people who play on XBox Live? Can we have multiple accounts without having too pay two times the online price? I don't have an XBox and am curious how this works. (I'm not really an XBox hater, I just haven't been convinced to buy one based on the selection available.) I do like the idea of having a friend's list but, and this may be just be, normally if I want to play someone online with my PS2 and I already know them, I contact them through some internet messaging service using my computer. I don't see how useful it would be for me to have a friend's list with my PS2. I wouldn't turn my PS2 on, connect to a server, just to see if anyone I know was around. Now, the XBox Live friend's list is accessible via the web but again, how useful is this? If I'm already at my computer, I can just check my PS2 Online Friends category in my instant messaging buddy list. To me, this seems like unneccescary overhead.
But besides Madden and THPS 4, I don't play online games with my PS2. My PC will always be my first and foremost online game playing machine. (please feel free to reply and enlighten me about XBox Live - I'm sure I've got some things wrong since I don't have an XBox. Maybe you can convince me to buy one - although...Zelda Gamecube bundle is calling to me quite loudly these days)
those aren't people! :P
Hopefully I have made it clear to you why the feature does not exist today. And it is a good thing that it does not exist - giving people too many features (many of which are only designed for special situations that most people don't encounter) is stupid and hardware manufacturers should avoid doing this. It's not a matter of if it can be done but whether there is a need for it and if that need is so great that it warrants including it. This situation does not warrant it.
Finally, and as related to my first paragraph, the next TiVo to come out should have less of a reliance on phone lines and more of a reliance on broadband Internet connections. Have you seen the PS2 network adapter? There's a reason it's got both a phone line and Ethernet port - there's a general trend in these devices and it ain't from broadband to narrowband, pal.
A 3 year old may remain perfectly well-behaved for long periods of time. That is not an unreasonable expectation. But if you were to consult some notable books on child psychology (which you obviously have not) you would realize that I was not talking about a child's ability to behave on long trips but rather the psychological and developmental impacts of long trips on a very young child. Go do some research and stop trying to brag about something you did over 20 years ago.
So you can't come up with a way of getting a single phone call placed once in the history of a piece of hardware? Don't know anyone with a phone line?
Well, a simple Google search finds this product, (blurb from site: "The TurboNETTM Ethernet Adapter Card allows you to hook your TiVo up to your network. This allows daily updates over broadband instead of the telephone, easier hacking, TiVoWEB, etc.") although I'm sure there are other ways to accomplish the task of avoiding the need for a phone line.
And who is so stupid that they can't figure out that discussing Nietzsche with a 3 year old is not something I was suggesting in my original post? Oh, it's that AC.
Naive? I'm naive? I haven't seen recent numbers from Microsoft in regards to the XBox but as of February of this year Microsoft was losing over 300 million on the XBox. And if you had actually read my comment, I made the point that MS didn't take these losses "just because" they could but rather because they had simply been unable to get the market penetration they had expected. Read an interview or two with someone from the XBox division and they'll talk about how they didn't expect to win this generation of consoles - which I find suspect. Honestly, who's naive?
Excuse me but when I've got my kids confined in the car for long periods of time, I'd rather we discuss current events, history, science, and literature than have them zonked out in front of a passive entertainment device. Long car trips is a great time to talk to your kids - they can't get away. Try it out.
I don't think Microsoft is going to be a company that gets a devoted following (like Nintendo) since they have not really been a great first person game developer (outside of the third party companies that they've bought) so they're not going to have a guaranteed base they can work from.
And my final point is that you didn't hear all this talk of Microsoft planning not to win this generation of hardware with the XBox until after the XBox had lost. There was a program on G4TV regarding the making of the XBox and at the time of the launch, Bill and company seemed quite excited about the prospects. It's easy to say now that MS had planned all along that they wouldn't be able to win but I am sure there was quite a bit of disappointment in the sales department. The first console generation Sony entered, Sony won.