So why do I bring this all up? The Dreamcast didn't fail because of the hardware. It failed because it didn't have a good library of title at the US launch. It Japan the Dreamcast sold great for years; and I believe a few RPG's and budget games are still being made for the Dreamcast.
If microsoft truley wants to thier HD format they have to have critical mas to do it with. microsoft needs at least 4 solid games the day of the launch and 20 games by Christmas*. Without that volume Xbox 360 will almost certainly fail.
But the Dreamcast had some pretty solid games at launch - with the Sonic game being the best Sonic game Sega ever made. As for the 360, it seems Microsoft will have a solid line-up, but we won't know for sure until the reviews are in.
Well spoken, and this should not have been modded funny, but insightful. I guess it's only the grace of a few slashdotters that you haven't been modded flamebait;)
Lack of basic story duplication review.
There's an open invitation to solutions. As it is, though, a lot of "dupes" are really followups, or revists to old subjects from years past.
Making bold pronouncements about how well the Xbox 360 is going to do because the PS3 "might launch in Europe as late as Spring 2007" is FUD, pure and simple. Spread fear among buyers that if they don't buy a 360, they won't have any new console for more than a year. Spread uncertainty about the launch date of the PS3. Spread doubt that the PS3 will launch next year at all.
That's crap and you know it. You're just trying to squeeze in the keywords and try to make them fit. If anyone is spreading uncertainty about the PS3, it's Sony, not Microsoft. We're two months away from 2006, and we still haven't gotten a word about the release date. And europeans (and the australians) always the get japanese stuff last. The PS2 was relased much later in Europe, the PSP was released six months later, all the Nintendo stuff is at least four to six months delayed. So, it's not unrealistic that the PS3 won't be launched for at least another year in Europe.
UK Xbox boss Neil Thompson has boasted that Microsoft expects to have a even more significant lead on the PlayStation 3 than previously supposed, suggesting that, in his opinion, the PlayStation 3 might launch in Europe as late as spring 2007..." More on this FUD from Next Generation.
I know how Slashdot likes to spread their funny acronyms whenever they have a chance, but this is certainly not fear, nor uncertainty, and certainly not doubt. The PS3 is going to be equal to or slightly better than the Xbox 360 in performance, but it's going to be launched at least a year after the new Xbox. That's pretty much a fact. It's definitely not going to be launched earlier than spring/summer in Japan, and then late summer/fall in the US. Given how Sony treats the European market, it's probably going to launch here about six to nine months later, so I don't think a 2007 release date is off the wall.
Well, I would agree that functional is better than pretty, though I do think the latest incarnation of Fedora and Gnome doesn't look too bad at all. And Doom 3 vs. Solitaire? Pshaw. Doom 3 is a great game, especially when coupled with the expansion pack Ressurection of evil.
I hear you. The PSP was released in Europe on September 1., too.:(
I've seen the prices you're charged for computer gear -- it's really a lot worse than over here. In Norway, the price you pay for computer parts and consoles is not too bad, though still something in the range of 50% above the going rate in the US. I bought a Nintendo DS and a Nintendo SP from the US in june for less than the asking price of the Nintendo DS alone when it was eventually relased in Europe earlier this fall.
I genuinely appreciate Microsofts attitude towards this. As a european gamer, I'm sick of Europe being the last target market (ie. getting the PSP last, Nintendos handhelds last etc). This means that the first adopters in all the markets will get theirs (mine is already preordered and the delivery is confirmed), while the second comers will get theirs after the Christmas period. It makes good business sense, and it certainly makes europeans happy:)
I wonder why they still have ads. Sure, it's the money argument, but wouldn't dropping ads be a huge competetive move for MSN? I use Gmail, and while those ads doesn't annoy me too much, I'd rather have my web mail client free from ads. Eh, maybe I should just make my own:) (but Gmail is so nice to use...).
Its spell checker sucks (sure, it can do english all right, but how about the other languages on the planet?), and you can't save what you've written to the desktop (short of copy/paste, but that's really limited).
And sure, we can do a lot with thin clients, but I sure as h*ll would want to own the server where that stuff was stored.
Eh, as I said, this was almost ten years ago. The situation is the same in the other nordic countries, as I've verified myselves by recent trips this summer...;)
Of course, leaving the region coding off this new format could also be due to the fact that (as I understand it) the majority of DVD players outside of N. America just ignore the region code anyways.
In the beginning, it was pretty expensive to get a dealer to mod your player to skip region encoding ($150). This was in 1997 or thereabouts and this is Norway. It's gotten a lot cheaper, but you still don't get region-free dvd players over the counter today, at least not the inexpensive varieties.
It didn't accept my email adress (j@xxx.com where xxx is a real domain). I had to use joe@xxx.com to actually register. And you might have gotten slashdotted, as all I could get after logging in was a 505...;)
I cannot think of a more successfully branded company than Google. It's even in the dictionary.
So is Microsoft http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=microsoft , according to this dictionary of yours. I wouldn't put too much stock in a half assed dictionary like this. This is what it has to say about Microsoft:
microsoft
The new Evil Empire (the old one was IBM). The
basic complaints are, as formerly with IBM, that (a) their system
designs are horrible botches, (b) we can't get source to fix them,
and (c) they throw their weight around a lot. See also Halloween
Documents.
Remember that RIAA public service anouncement where zombie warriors would kill an entire family if you downloaded music from the internet? Is that really how far the RIAA would go in their avarice?
Yeah, it's a huge leap from analog stick to analog thumb stick. Those Nintendo guys are really clever.;)
I don't know if they were first, but Ataris 5200 controller had an anlog stick, and that was back in 1982. It might not have been very thumb friendly, but the idea was there. I've also seen several devices, not quite controllers and not quite joysticks, for a lot of the micros from the 80s to sticks to 16-bits and the PCs in the nineties - most were used in conjunction with pseudo 3D games, such as flight sims. Suffice to say I wasn't awestruck when Nintendo put an analog stick on their controller - it was a natural evolution when transitioning to 3D games.
The new Word looks like a nightmare. I'm glad I use it on a Mac. Native PDF support's been in the OS for a while so that's never been an issue. Hell, under MacOS 7.5+ I could print to PDF from Word using third-party extensions.
If you're talking third-party extensions, Word has had the ability to print to PDF since the format was launched.;)
OMFG, I'm so bloody sick of the comparison to BETA/VHS whenever there's a battle for two competetive standards. Holy f**king crap, stop with the BETA/VHS comparisons.
You *can't* predict the future by looking at the past. Whatever happened in the BETA/VHS debacle is of no consequence to what happens with Blu-Ray/HD-DVD. You can look back and see the reasons for this and that, but that doesn't mean the reasoning will apply today.
Ok, so VHS had larger capacity than Beta and came along a bit later. Evidently, since Blu-Ray will have larger capacity and comes a bit later than HD-DVD, it will win, right? Right?
Wait, wasn't VHS cheaper than Beta? Oh, and wasn't it easier to copy stuff onto VHS than Beta? Both of these are important reasons VHS prevailed, and both of these apply to HD-DVD. Folks. We have a tie. Neither format will win.
Slashdot Mirror
So why do I bring this all up? The Dreamcast didn't fail because of the hardware. It failed because it didn't have a good library of title at the US launch. It Japan the Dreamcast sold great for years; and I believe a few RPG's and budget games are still being made for the Dreamcast.
If microsoft truley wants to thier HD format they have to have critical mas to do it with. microsoft needs at least 4 solid games the day of the launch and 20 games by Christmas*. Without that volume Xbox 360 will almost certainly fail.
But the Dreamcast had some pretty solid games at launch - with the Sonic game being the best Sonic game Sega ever made. As for the 360, it seems Microsoft will have a solid line-up, but we won't know for sure until the reviews are in.
Well spoken, and this should not have been modded funny, but insightful. I guess it's only the grace of a few slashdotters that you haven't been modded flamebait ;)
Yeah, but it's still the same old console, as good or bad as it was two years ago. Not so with the PC :)
A new build is released every week to subscribers. There are no secret builds, so there are no bona fida leaks.
That sounds like a nice and evil plan.
Making bold pronouncements about how well the Xbox 360 is going to do because the PS3 "might launch in Europe as late as Spring 2007" is FUD, pure and simple. Spread fear among buyers that if they don't buy a 360, they won't have any new console for more than a year. Spread uncertainty about the launch date of the PS3. Spread doubt that the PS3 will launch next year at all. That's crap and you know it. You're just trying to squeeze in the keywords and try to make them fit. If anyone is spreading uncertainty about the PS3, it's Sony, not Microsoft. We're two months away from 2006, and we still haven't gotten a word about the release date. And europeans (and the australians) always the get japanese stuff last. The PS2 was relased much later in Europe, the PSP was released six months later, all the Nintendo stuff is at least four to six months delayed. So, it's not unrealistic that the PS3 won't be launched for at least another year in Europe.
I know how Slashdot likes to spread their funny acronyms whenever they have a chance, but this is certainly not fear, nor uncertainty, and certainly not doubt. The PS3 is going to be equal to or slightly better than the Xbox 360 in performance, but it's going to be launched at least a year after the new Xbox. That's pretty much a fact. It's definitely not going to be launched earlier than spring/summer in Japan, and then late summer/fall in the US. Given how Sony treats the European market, it's probably going to launch here about six to nine months later, so I don't think a 2007 release date is off the wall.
Heh, when was there ever a Windows beta that ran even remotely fast? :)
Well, I would agree that functional is better than pretty, though I do think the latest incarnation of Fedora and Gnome doesn't look too bad at all. And Doom 3 vs. Solitaire? Pshaw. Doom 3 is a great game, especially when coupled with the expansion pack Ressurection of evil.
I've seen the prices you're charged for computer gear -- it's really a lot worse than over here. In Norway, the price you pay for computer parts and consoles is not too bad, though still something in the range of 50% above the going rate in the US. I bought a Nintendo DS and a Nintendo SP from the US in june for less than the asking price of the Nintendo DS alone when it was eventually relased in Europe earlier this fall.
I genuinely appreciate Microsofts attitude towards this. As a european gamer, I'm sick of Europe being the last target market (ie. getting the PSP last, Nintendos handhelds last etc). This means that the first adopters in all the markets will get theirs (mine is already preordered and the delivery is confirmed), while the second comers will get theirs after the Christmas period. It makes good business sense, and it certainly makes europeans happy :)
I wonder why they still have ads. Sure, it's the money argument, but wouldn't dropping ads be a huge competetive move for MSN? I use Gmail, and while those ads doesn't annoy me too much, I'd rather have my web mail client free from ads. Eh, maybe I should just make my own :) (but Gmail is so nice to use...).
Its spell checker sucks (sure, it can do english all right, but how about the other languages on the planet?), and you can't save what you've written to the desktop (short of copy/paste, but that's really limited).
And sure, we can do a lot with thin clients, but I sure as h*ll would want to own the server where that stuff was stored.
I've seen several DVD players offered by Elkjøp, Expert etc. that aren't region free. Take a look at any of these: http://www.elkjop.no/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS /store-elkjop-Site/no_NO/-/NOK/El_ViewStandardCata log-ProductPaging;pgid=bVZsy0IMnt0000E4VzBJQEe_000 0LZCSK4EP?CatalogCategoryID=SvDD4QFW.aAAAAEDlOGtBD Zr&filename=productpage_text&windowtitle=DVD%20spi llere
None are region free (but I'm sure it's easy to make them region free by some secret key/menu selection). Of course, you get better stuff at Hifi-klubben :). I would also recommend Asono http://www.asono.no/, which sells a DVD player that does divx and xvid as well as all dvd regions.
Eh, as I said, this was almost ten years ago. The situation is the same in the other nordic countries, as I've verified myselves by recent trips this summer... ;)
Of course, leaving the region coding off this new format could also be due to the fact that (as I understand it) the majority of DVD players outside of N. America just ignore the region code anyways.
In the beginning, it was pretty expensive to get a dealer to mod your player to skip region encoding ($150). This was in 1997 or thereabouts and this is Norway. It's gotten a lot cheaper, but you still don't get region-free dvd players over the counter today, at least not the inexpensive varieties.
It didn't accept my email adress (j@xxx.com where xxx is a real domain). I had to use joe@xxx.com to actually register. And you might have gotten slashdotted, as all I could get after logging in was a 505... ;)
microsoft
The new Evil Empire (the old one was IBM). The basic complaints are, as formerly with IBM, that (a) their system designs are horrible botches, (b) we can't get source to fix them, and (c) they throw their weight around a lot. See also Halloween Documents.
Zombie lawyers!
I don't know if they were first, but Ataris 5200 controller had an anlog stick, and that was back in 1982. It might not have been very thumb friendly, but the idea was there. I've also seen several devices, not quite controllers and not quite joysticks, for a lot of the micros from the 80s to sticks to 16-bits and the PCs in the nineties - most were used in conjunction with pseudo 3D games, such as flight sims. Suffice to say I wasn't awestruck when Nintendo put an analog stick on their controller - it was a natural evolution when transitioning to 3D games.
Bull. Analog joysticks was invented several years before the Nintendo put them onto a controller.
The new Word looks like a nightmare. I'm glad I use it on a Mac. Native PDF support's been in the OS for a while so that's never been an issue. Hell, under MacOS 7.5+ I could print to PDF from Word using third-party extensions.
;)
If you're talking third-party extensions, Word has had the ability to print to PDF since the format was launched.
OMFG, I'm so bloody sick of the comparison to BETA/VHS whenever there's a battle for two competetive standards. Holy f**king crap, stop with the BETA/VHS comparisons.
You *can't* predict the future by looking at the past. Whatever happened in the BETA/VHS debacle is of no consequence to what happens with Blu-Ray/HD-DVD. You can look back and see the reasons for this and that, but that doesn't mean the reasoning will apply today.
Ok, so VHS had larger capacity than Beta and came along a bit later. Evidently, since Blu-Ray will have larger capacity and comes a bit later than HD-DVD, it will win, right? Right?
Wait, wasn't VHS cheaper than Beta? Oh, and wasn't it easier to copy stuff onto VHS than Beta? Both of these are important reasons VHS prevailed, and both of these apply to HD-DVD. Folks. We have a tie. Neither format will win.
And let's dick over all American fans even though the site is a .com we'll make sure it's Europe only...
.com does not equal US, and furthermore, there is no .eu domain (yet).
FYI,