True enough, I wasn't trying to disqualify the parent's suggestion simply because it didn't work out. But let's be rational:
Say a politician wants to ban cars because they can be used to cause so much death and destruction. Someone wants a list of safe, legal applications for cars. Well, there's driving to work, driving to school, fetching groceries, etc.
Considering the abundance and usefulness of all the successful and purpose-built functionality cars have, would makes they make a damned fine counterweight for turning a cherry picker into a trebuchet really carry much weight? Probably not, and neither should the failure of Blizzard's awful BitTorrent implimentation.
Sure, it can be used that way, but it's not particularly well-suited to it, and it sort of caught me off guard that considering what (legal) uses P2P technologies do use, one of the lamest implimentations yet was the first to be mentioned.
THe problem with this is that their BitTorrent distribution system was much-maligned during beta. It fared so poorly that it had to be scrapped for release.
It was a great idea in theory, but in practice, it meant beta testers were still trying to download the 2.5GB client at a piddling 10k/s days or even a week after a new beta client went live, and downloading the client via BitTorrent in the middle of a particular push was next to impossible. Personally, I found it so slow, I wound up pulling the client down off newsgroups, instead, at a much higher speed.
Blizzard's BitTorrent distribution was a cool idea, and I'm sure it saved them a few bucks worth of bandwidth, but it was a far cry from a success.
Have you actually played Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow?
That game has some of the most tense, unique, interesting, genuinely challenging and skill-based (without being a contest of ping and reflexes) multiplayer I've EVER seen in a game.
Granted, Xbox Live is a disaster of an online gaming platform, and the game would've fared infinitely better if it was made for the PC and ported to the console (as opposed to vice versa), but it was hardly a way to make a quick buck.
Well, Metroid comes with 5 control schemes. One is a dual D-Pad sort of setup, where the actual D-pad on the left serves for movement, and the buttons are look direction (feels a lot like the original Goldeneye). The other are all D-Pad and touch screen, both right-handed and left-handed.
The default control scheme lets you use the D-pad (on the left) for movement, the stylus or thumb thing for aiming (using your right hand on the lower touch screen), and all your controls/weapons (morph ball, etc) are also on the touch screen. You fire using either shoulder trigger.
It's a bit odd to get used to holding the unit and using the stylus at the same time. The thumb stylus helps quite a bit. I got used to it pretty quickly, though.
I was originally holding out for a PSP; I think Nintendo's overall game library on the GBA is abhorrent, and since the DS is more or less its big brother, I assumed it'd be more of the same.
That said, while I was digging around for info on Shining Force 3 tonight (yeah, the Saturn game), I somehow wound up at a list of games sleighted for the DS, and saw that Squenix is working on a new Secret of Mana game. Sold!
I glanced at the clock, it was only 7:50, so I ran down to the local EBgames and gave the display model a try. Sales guy was really cool; he even took it off the display stand for me to play so I didn' thave to hold it at an akward angle. And for the record, the thumb strap pointer is infinitely more comfortable than the stylus. At least in Metroid.
What a cool machine. It's a tad large, and it'll take a bit of getting used to, but the control scheme for the Metroid demo was superb - way better than the one used for the GCN Metroid games. The DS felt really solid and well-built, and just has a really polished feel to it, even though there really isn't any one feature that stands out.
So, I plunked down the $150 for it on the spot, and picked up copies of Guardian Heroes and Shining Force: Resurrection of the Darkness (yeah, GBA games, but it'll play 'em). The DS launch list is still a tad anemic (with Mario 64 DS being the only game I was interested in, but it was sold out), but they seem to have some really solid titles coming down the pipe; the line-up is stylisticly more remeniscant of the SNES than, say, the GBA or GCN.
I've got to say, I'm certainly not a Nintendo fan, but I'm very pleasantly suprised by the DS. I'm especially excited about the wireless multiplayer (I spend a lot of time in airports/planes), and the ability to share games, and play multiplayer games when only one person has the cart. AWESOME idea!
It's fairly well-understood that these days, the Athlon 64 is utterly dominant in terms of sheer performance and price/performance. At least in the gaming market, which is the nForce boards' target market. It seems the only reason Intel is even still competetive in the high-end home PC market is due to uneducated users buying from the likes of Dell and Alienware, and their success at branding themselves, which, as of late, seems to be falling by the wayside.
So while I don't think this is a bad thing at all, I think the gaming community, specifically the enthusiast builders as a whole (who actually care what chipset their system uses) will have a reaction along the lines of "Meh..."
So, I doubt this'll have much of an effect on anything. Enthusiasts are buying AMD, and the uninformed will keep spending money on Dells and the like regardless of who made the mainboard.
Check out DriveThru Records, for example. I can get a CD, purchased and shipped for what it costs to buy an album off iTMS. I get the liner notes, I get the physical media, and I don't have to deal with DRM. You'll find many small and/or independant labels offer similar deals.
iTMS is only a good deal if you're comparing it to the latest $18 Britney Spears CD from WalMart.
That's part of it, yes. But for another, iTMS doesn't exactly have the greatest selection of music on the planet. If my favorite badn is X, and iTMS doesn't carry them, the whole "it's easy" argument is sort of moot.
What's more, I have an MP3 player in my car. To play AAC files, I have to download them, burn a CD, and then rip it back to MP3. Quite a pain in the butt, I'd say.
Most hardware devices need specialized software to interface with it. You might think that just using it as a disk and managing your files yourself is better, but as someone who once handled their music that way I can say that is not true. But you can't understand until you've tried something better as I have.
I already manage my music in that way on my hard drive, for streaming around the house and listening to on my PC. It's easy. As a matter of fact, when I let iTMS manage my music files, at it did was hose up a bunch of ID3 tags and add artist names onto the beginning of each track when the directory structure is already organized by artist and album. That's hardly a superior management system.
I still buy all of my music on CD. So far nobody has showed up at my house and forced me to buy anything on the iTMS.
For the most part, the justification for the iPod's price is the extra features it supports, like iTMS. If you're not using it, then the price seems all the more absurd.
So what aspects of the design and, more importantly, what aspects of the navigation and UI of the Creative devices do you find to be superior to the iPod? I'll expect very detailed answers since you have obviously used both and are forming your conclusions based on fact. And I'll pretend like I don't already know it all comes down to the fact that it is cheaper.
I think I hit on the rabid Apple fanboy nerve.;) When you're done, frothing at the mouth, take a moment to re-read my original post. Specifically, the part where I said:
"And the physical design and navigation are quite bluntly just flat-out inferior to Apple's."
But the most important part of the design (love it or hate it) is the way it works between all three components of Apple's offering. It may be bloat. It may be expensive. It may be proprietary, but damn if using it isn't as easy as falling out of bed. People are willing to pay for easy.
And how easy is it when you want to listen to it on the MP3 player in your car?
This whole ease of use thing is important, I agree entirely, but the integration with the Apple store doesn't make it easier for people who want to listen to music they already own on another format, or for people who want to listen to music that isn't carried on iTMS. Neither of those instances may be as large as the number of technophobic soccer moms that want to plug something in and get the Newest Britney Spears album, but to consider them a tiny demographic is delusional. To say that price doesn't matter is equally asinine.
And even without this ease of use, Apple now has an overwhelming majority of the mindshare among the kinds of hipsters who can drive trends like this all the way to the stars and back. Call me when the Creative CEO is joined onstage by Bono and The Edge.
I can't argue with you about mindshare, but here's a tip: "hipsters" aren't listening to U2.;) Unless, of course, by hipsters you mean "the sort of people who think Michael Bolton and Rod Stewart are cool.";)
Personally, I want a player that doesn't require proprietary software to use. I don't want its main strength to be that it's tied to an overpriced music store that forces me to burn/crack/transcode to be used on half my audio hardware, or a inferior audio player (I'll stick to eMule, my own CD collection and Foobar, for the time being).
Apple's offering, despite the nice physical design and great navigation, is too much bloat for way too much money in my eyes.
Creative's aiming more for a consumer like me. The problem is, their flash-based players don't require proprietary hardawre. The Zen does. And the physical design and navigation are quite bluntly just flat-out inferior to Apple's. But the lack of ITMs? In my eyes, that's a good thing.
But Sony doesn't need to 'beat' Nintendo, because there's a large segment of gamers that Nintendo is completely ignoring in the mobile gaming market.
Think of it this way: Nintendo makes games that are the equivalent to G-rated movies. Some are aimed expressly at children, some are just good games that happen to lack socially objectionable content. But what about those of us that want a cool-looking game, as opposed to cutesy-looking? What about those of us that'd rather be playing a new Metal Gear than a new Mario?
Take Armored Core: Formula Front and Advanced Wars for instance. Both are similar, tactical RPG-styled games. But AC:FF has giant, customizable, mercenary mechs blasting the crap out of each other, while AW looks like the kids from the Pokemon cartoon playing war in a sandbox with third-rate Thomas the Train toys.
That's indicative of the difference between Sony's and Nintendo's platforms. I'm sure I'll get a dozen replies from rabid Nintendo fanboys screeching about how it's the quality of gameplay that matters, or how I'm just some ultra-violent gore monger who wants games full of blood and guts, but that doesn't change this one simple fact:
Nintendo has basically said "You don't exist to us" to the more mature crowd of gamers, and then proceded to deluge the GBA crowd with and endless number of Pokemon sequels, Zelda clones, Mario gimmicks, and RPGs where the main character is 12 years old.
So, you're right: Sony won't dethrone Nintendo in the first generation of the PSP. In their core market, which is younger gamers and their parents, it's unlikely anyone could dethrone Nintendo. But thanks to Nintendo's bull-headedness regarding the direction and content of their games and hardware, Sony doesn't have to dethrone them to still do well in the portable market.
That out of the way, is there some specific reason we don't start feeding this stuff to breeder reactors? That seems to solve two problems at once: what to do with nuclear waste, and possibly weaning us off our reliance on coal.
Similar debates over Planetside's stat tracking have been raging across the boards ever since Planetside implimented stat tracking. There are two main camps:
A) Those for whom stats are the be-all, end-all reason to play the game. They tend to be rather uncooperative (considering it's a team-based game), caustic individuals; the type that view the game less as something to be enjoyed and more a competition that acts as a virtual penis. Almost invariably these players use infantry with heavy assault weapons inside, and Reavers so they can rocket spam infantry outside; why bother taking out the tank that's ripping up your back lines when you could go score 4 or 5 quick kills against infantry that can barely fight back?
B) Those that just want group A to leave the game. Not that they [i]don't[/i] want stats, but believe the absence of stats would cause the group A players to go elsewhere.
Personally, I find myself in group B. I don't care about peoples' stats; if they want to make a name for themselves in-game, let them find a way to do it. So long as the game's based on gross equipment mismatches, though, kill counts don't impress.
One of the most requested features I see is the ability to minimize to the system tray. Have the devs even mentioned this being a consideration?
I use Thunderbird, and I like it, but it drives me nuts having one more thing cluttering my taskbar when all I want it open for is to let me know when mail arrives.
The entire article tries to take on a position of authority on the subject, but provides no concrete proof for any of its assumptions, and it makes many assumptions, and only manages to come across as elitist.
For example, the author describes permadeath:
If characters that died stayed dead, it would open up all kinds of very convenient doors for virtual world design:
* It prevents early-adopter players from gaining an iron grip on positions of power.
* It re-uses content effectively, because players view same-level encounters from different angles using different characters.
* It's the default fiction for real life.
* It promotes role-play, because players aren't stuck with the same, tired old character the whole time.
* It validates players' sense of achievement, because a high-level character means a high-level player is behind it.
Many designers and experienced players would love to see a form of PD in their virtual world, but it's not going to happen. Newbies wouldn't play such a game (under points #2, #3 and #4), therefore eventually neither would anyone else (point #1).
PD is short-term bad, long-term good: rejected.
Nevermind the fact that in a modern, treadmill-driven MMO, adding permadeath would also lead to in-game cowardice (because no one wants to lose the character they spent the past 6 months building up), much grief (because no one wants to die to the lowbie mob that aggroed them while they had a lag spike), and makes the assumption that players need to have their characters forcibly changed so they don't grow board and leave (many people actually like their characters, and grow attached to them over the bazillion hours they spend playing them).
What's even more absurd is the assumption that killing off a player's character and forcing him to play the same content over repeatedly is somehow preferable to one, constantly growing character.
Here's a hint: if people want to replay the same content from a different point of view, they can make a new character without having their old one killed off....and that's, basically, the tone of the entire article - no concrete proof, not even any rationale, just a lot of "my ideas are better than yours beacuse real men play text games"-styled nonsense. It doesn't even discuss newer or more creative ideas (like, instead of perma-death, how about semi-perma-death, wherein a defeated character is disabled for X amount of time, but not deleted?).
No doubt, there's some truth to his points, but the way it's presented, the author comes across as a troll.
City of Heroes had a fantastic beta, with much communication with the dev team, and a sense that the game was truly moving forward.
However, almost immediately after release, issues regarding aspects of the game that had been widely known, reported, and even confirmed by developers to be working correctly during beta (i.e. Super Speed, Hasten) were quite savagely nerfed. Along with those nerfs was a change to the con system that drastically slowed the pace of advancement in the game.
One expects MMOGs to be in a state of perpetual change, but the severity of the changes made were practically unprecedented in the genre. What changed between beta and release that made those specific issues such a priority and warranted such a drastic change?
Let me pose this question to those people then - with the recent changes in the industry, who is really paying more? The Mac users or the Windows users? Any high end card nowadays comes in PCI Express, which almost certainly requires you to buy a new motherboard, and possibly a new processor, on top of that $200-$400 card. Gaming definitely knows how to suck that money out of your wallet quicker than any Mac will.
Any high-end card these days can also be had in AGP variants. PCI-E is a technology that's being pushed much earlier than necessary; even the most badass of video cards like the X800 Platinum and 6800 Ultra would barely take a performance hit running on an AGP 4x interface, much less 8x or a 16x PCI-E slot.
Additionally, at least Windows users have the option of building a machine themselves, or using a smaller builder, or bargain hunting because there's actually competition. Hell, I can put together a respectable mid-range gaming PC for the price of a low-end iMac. One can play the latest and greatest games. The other's essentially an internet-enabled typewriter. Which do you think is a better value?
I'm not knocking Macs - I don't use one, but I recommend them to family and friends because there's a lot to be said for the simplicity and functionality of the OS, and I know I won't be getting calls to come over and fix them as often as I do with Windows boxes. But from a performance standpoint, Macs are laughably overpriced, even compared to PC gaming rigs.
It's an MMO space sim. Yes, there is leveling, in which you can get clearance to get new weapons and ships, so it's not like everyone's flying the same thing. And while a light shuttle will be atomized by a heavy fighter in a matter of seconds, a good pilot in a light fighter can take down a mediocre pilot in a heavy fighter. And there are a lot of classes of ships; everything from light shuttles to interceptors to heavily armed transports to fighters to freighters to bombers. Equipment is all handled based on a factional system (3 factions; one emphasizes efficiency, one shields, and one firepower).
Unfortunately, Jumpgate's way past its prime. It's still around, but it rarely peaks at more than 100 players anymore. It's a shame, too, because that game has an awesome community.
Further, the fact that you're asking me to come up with titles only further illustrates how little you know about what's available, outside the narrow range that you think constitutes Nintendo's entire library.
No, I'm asking you because I've looked and found nothing, and you're purporting to be some sort of authority on the subject.
Ikaruga rocked, I'll give you that.
Metroid Prime has about 10 hours of gameplay, and which point it sits and collects dust. Great game, but terrible value. Same deal with Pikmin.
Super Monkey Ball, Wario Ware, and Donkey Conga are more gimmicky crap at best. Especially Donkey Conga.
And then there's Baiten Kaitos - a card game.
Harvest Moon - you'll have to forgive me if playing a game based on a young kid on a farm isn't exciting.
And FF:CC was hands-down the biggest upset I've ever had over a game. I've been waiting for a solid Secret of Mana successor for years. Then, they release that pile of shit... *ugh* There was nothing redeeming about that game.
Look, I never said every game on the systems were bad. I said the library sucks. There are games on the GCN I like, but one or two isn't enough to make having the system worthwhile. The GBA on the other hand... *shudder*
Where's the epic RPG? How about some mech combat, or some turn-based strategy that doesn't look like Pokemon with guns and swords?
Christ, if the GBA had more ports, I'd probably be happier - the SNES had probably the best library of any console ever. But instead of porting excellent games from it like Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy 6, Metal Warriors, Gradius, Ninja Gaiden, Terranigma, Star Ocean, Shadowrun, Soul Blazer, or the Megaman series, they choose to port tired, old SNES games with minor graphic updates (Sword of Mana, River City Ransom), Mario Bros. 3, and turn Megaman into Pokemon.
That's why I'm so bitter about the system and think the DS will suck. Because Nintendo's style of games don't appeal to me, and they don't have the sense to get any decent 3rd party support.
So, do me a favor then - name one RPG title on the GBA or GCN that doesn't play like the ones I've mentioned, isn't cross-platform, and isn't a card game.
Believe me, I've looked. I love may Gamecube and GBA for the hardware, but the exclusive game lineup on both systems is complete and utter shit for anyone that doesn't like Mario, Pokemon, or Link to the Past clones.
Nintendo adds a second screen with some gimmicky features that've already been done before, and it's called innovative.
Sony releases the Eye Toy. Where are all the cries about how 'innovative' it is on Slashdot?
Your post is typical Nintendo Fanboyism on this site: it's a veiled attack on anyone competing with Nintendo. Nintendo has more 3rd-rate spinoff games using its main stable of characters than virtually anyone except maybe Sega, and they're "innovative" for it. They have a ton of ports. Sony announces a bunch of ports, and they're "exploiting".
I really hate the way "mature" in video games has become equivalent to either "violent" or "raunchy."
Hold up a minute. This is Slashdot, and I fully expected to get trolled and mod-bombed over a post critical of anything Nintendo does, but I'm really getting sick of the argument you and a billion other Nintendo fanboys keep spouting off about.
I didn't say anything about violence in games. I sure as hell didn't say anything about GTA3 - that has to be the single most overrated franchise next to, perhaps, Mario and Final Fantasy. No one said anything about death matching (and for the record, Metroid Prime: Hunters multiplayer is deathmatch). I said more mature. Perhaps you need an explanation:
Nintendo's portable systems are dominated by games like, say, Golden Sun, Megaman: Battle Network, and Pokemon. In each instance, the main character is extremely young, the dialogue is insultingly simple and/or convoluted (see: Fire Emblem on the GBA), and Nintendo pulls all sorts of crap like this.
I've said it a dozen times on Slashdot: when I want a more mature game, I want a game that isn't insultingly simple to play, or where the main character doesn't act like a little kid, not blood and guts. I'm not looking to strangle some guy to death with his own intestines.
So, even the staunchest of Sony fanboys have to concede that when it comes to creativity and battery life, Nintendo's going to win this round. But I still don't think it's going to be a repeat of Game Gear vs. Gameboy.
For starters, look at the launch titles for the DS:
Super Mario 64 DS Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt (demo) Pictochat (built-in) Feel the Magic: XY/XX Mr. Driller: Drill Spirits Ridge Racer DS Madden NFL 2005 Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf The Urbz: Sims in the City Asphalt Urban GT Rayman DS Spider-Man 2 Ping Pals
It's nothing but a couple sports games, a couple platformers, two racers and a bunch of gimicky nonsense. If this is in any way indicative of the DS' overall lineup, Sony will still win this round.
I think this is going to be more like GCN vs. PS2. Why? Because Sony's game lineup appears stronger. Not only will it have many of the same third-party games (i.e. Spiderman 2, Madden, Tiger Woods), but it will have many more, such as Tony Hawk's Underground 2, Tales of Eternia, FIFA, and Need For Speed Underground.
What's more, the PSP is suppsoedly going to come packaged with Tiger Woods and Need for Speed Underground. What's the DS have? The gimmicky made-for-gradeschoolers Pictochat, and a demo of the first level of Metroid Prime: Hunters.
Look, I'm not proclaiming early victory for the PSP, but let's not relegate this to some failure of a system like the nGage before it even hits the market. This is Sony we're talking about. They have a more mature and diverse lineup of games with a much better stable of 3rd-party developers, and anyone who says the PSP's screen isn't just plain sexy is a liar.
Personally, I'm itnrigued by the DS, but much lke the GBA, I think the game lineup is horrid. But I hope they both do well. More choice is never a bad thing.
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True enough, I wasn't trying to disqualify the parent's suggestion simply because it didn't work out. But let's be rational:
Say a politician wants to ban cars because they can be used to cause so much death and destruction. Someone wants a list of safe, legal applications for cars. Well, there's driving to work, driving to school, fetching groceries, etc.
Considering the abundance and usefulness of all the successful and purpose-built functionality cars have, would makes they make a damned fine counterweight for turning a cherry picker into a trebuchet really carry much weight? Probably not, and neither should the failure of Blizzard's awful BitTorrent implimentation.
Sure, it can be used that way, but it's not particularly well-suited to it, and it sort of caught me off guard that considering what (legal) uses P2P technologies do use, one of the lamest implimentations yet was the first to be mentioned.
THe problem with this is that their BitTorrent distribution system was much-maligned during beta. It fared so poorly that it had to be scrapped for release.
It was a great idea in theory, but in practice, it meant beta testers were still trying to download the 2.5GB client at a piddling 10k/s days or even a week after a new beta client went live, and downloading the client via BitTorrent in the middle of a particular push was next to impossible. Personally, I found it so slow, I wound up pulling the client down off newsgroups, instead, at a much higher speed.
Blizzard's BitTorrent distribution was a cool idea, and I'm sure it saved them a few bucks worth of bandwidth, but it was a far cry from a success.
Have you actually played Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow?
That game has some of the most tense, unique, interesting, genuinely challenging and skill-based (without being a contest of ping and reflexes) multiplayer I've EVER seen in a game.
Granted, Xbox Live is a disaster of an online gaming platform, and the game would've fared infinitely better if it was made for the PC and ported to the console (as opposed to vice versa), but it was hardly a way to make a quick buck.
Well, Metroid comes with 5 control schemes. One is a dual D-Pad sort of setup, where the actual D-pad on the left serves for movement, and the buttons are look direction (feels a lot like the original Goldeneye). The other are all D-Pad and touch screen, both right-handed and left-handed.
The default control scheme lets you use the D-pad (on the left) for movement, the stylus or thumb thing for aiming (using your right hand on the lower touch screen), and all your controls/weapons (morph ball, etc) are also on the touch screen. You fire using either shoulder trigger.
It's a bit odd to get used to holding the unit and using the stylus at the same time. The thumb stylus helps quite a bit. I got used to it pretty quickly, though.
I was originally holding out for a PSP; I think Nintendo's overall game library on the GBA is abhorrent, and since the DS is more or less its big brother, I assumed it'd be more of the same.
That said, while I was digging around for info on Shining Force 3 tonight (yeah, the Saturn game), I somehow wound up at a list of games sleighted for the DS, and saw that Squenix is working on a new Secret of Mana game. Sold!
I glanced at the clock, it was only 7:50, so I ran down to the local EBgames and gave the display model a try. Sales guy was really cool; he even took it off the display stand for me to play so I didn' thave to hold it at an akward angle. And for the record, the thumb strap pointer is infinitely more comfortable than the stylus. At least in Metroid.
What a cool machine. It's a tad large, and it'll take a bit of getting used to, but the control scheme for the Metroid demo was superb - way better than the one used for the GCN Metroid games. The DS felt really solid and well-built, and just has a really polished feel to it, even though there really isn't any one feature that stands out.
So, I plunked down the $150 for it on the spot, and picked up copies of Guardian Heroes and Shining Force: Resurrection of the Darkness (yeah, GBA games, but it'll play 'em). The DS launch list is still a tad anemic (with Mario 64 DS being the only game I was interested in, but it was sold out), but they seem to have some really solid titles coming down the pipe; the line-up is stylisticly more remeniscant of the SNES than, say, the GBA or GCN.
I've got to say, I'm certainly not a Nintendo fan, but I'm very pleasantly suprised by the DS. I'm especially excited about the wireless multiplayer (I spend a lot of time in airports/planes), and the ability to share games, and play multiplayer games when only one person has the cart. AWESOME idea!
It's fairly well-understood that these days, the Athlon 64 is utterly dominant in terms of sheer performance and price/performance. At least in the gaming market, which is the nForce boards' target market. It seems the only reason Intel is even still competetive in the high-end home PC market is due to uneducated users buying from the likes of Dell and Alienware, and their success at branding themselves, which, as of late, seems to be falling by the wayside.
So while I don't think this is a bad thing at all, I think the gaming community, specifically the enthusiast builders as a whole (who actually care what chipset their system uses) will have a reaction along the lines of "Meh..."
So, I doubt this'll have much of an effect on anything. Enthusiasts are buying AMD, and the uninformed will keep spending money on Dells and the like regardless of who made the mainboard.
You're missing the point:
Supposedly, one of the reasons the iPod is so expensive is because Apple's iTMS allows for ease of use; you're paying for convenience.
If a product doesn't have iTMS or the equivalent, well then, the price ought to be a bit lower, don't you think?
Check out DriveThru Records, for example. I can get a CD, purchased and shipped for what it costs to buy an album off iTMS. I get the liner notes, I get the physical media, and I don't have to deal with DRM. You'll find many small and/or independant labels offer similar deals.
iTMS is only a good deal if you're comparing it to the latest $18 Britney Spears CD from WalMart.
That's part of it, yes. But for another, iTMS doesn't exactly have the greatest selection of music on the planet. If my favorite badn is X, and iTMS doesn't carry them, the whole "it's easy" argument is sort of moot.
What's more, I have an MP3 player in my car. To play AAC files, I have to download them, burn a CD, and then rip it back to MP3. Quite a pain in the butt, I'd say.
I already manage my music in that way on my hard drive, for streaming around the house and listening to on my PC. It's easy. As a matter of fact, when I let iTMS manage my music files, at it did was hose up a bunch of ID3 tags and add artist names onto the beginning of each track when the directory structure is already organized by artist and album. That's hardly a superior management system.
For the most part, the justification for the iPod's price is the extra features it supports, like iTMS. If you're not using it, then the price seems all the more absurd.
I think I hit on the rabid Apple fanboy nerve.
And how easy is it when you want to listen to it on the MP3 player in your car?
This whole ease of use thing is important, I agree entirely, but the integration with the Apple store doesn't make it easier for people who want to listen to music they already own on another format, or for people who want to listen to music that isn't carried on iTMS. Neither of those instances may be as large as the number of technophobic soccer moms that want to plug something in and get the Newest Britney Spears album, but to consider them a tiny demographic is delusional. To say that price doesn't matter is equally asinine.
I can't argue with you about mindshare, but here's a tip: "hipsters" aren't listening to U2.
But is that completely true?
Personally, I want a player that doesn't require proprietary software to use. I don't want its main strength to be that it's tied to an overpriced music store that forces me to burn/crack/transcode to be used on half my audio hardware, or a inferior audio player (I'll stick to eMule, my own CD collection and Foobar, for the time being).
Apple's offering, despite the nice physical design and great navigation, is too much bloat for way too much money in my eyes.
Creative's aiming more for a consumer like me. The problem is, their flash-based players don't require proprietary hardawre. The Zen does. And the physical design and navigation are quite bluntly just flat-out inferior to Apple's. But the lack of ITMs? In my eyes, that's a good thing.
But Sony doesn't need to 'beat' Nintendo, because there's a large segment of gamers that Nintendo is completely ignoring in the mobile gaming market.
Think of it this way: Nintendo makes games that are the equivalent to G-rated movies. Some are aimed expressly at children, some are just good games that happen to lack socially objectionable content. But what about those of us that want a cool-looking game, as opposed to cutesy-looking? What about those of us that'd rather be playing a new Metal Gear than a new Mario?
Take Armored Core: Formula Front and Advanced Wars for instance. Both are similar, tactical RPG-styled games. But AC:FF has giant, customizable, mercenary mechs blasting the crap out of each other, while AW looks like the kids from the Pokemon cartoon playing war in a sandbox with third-rate Thomas the Train toys.
That's indicative of the difference between Sony's and Nintendo's platforms. I'm sure I'll get a dozen replies from rabid Nintendo fanboys screeching about how it's the quality of gameplay that matters, or how I'm just some ultra-violent gore monger who wants games full of blood and guts, but that doesn't change this one simple fact:
Nintendo has basically said "You don't exist to us" to the more mature crowd of gamers, and then proceded to deluge the GBA crowd with and endless number of Pokemon sequels, Zelda clones, Mario gimmicks, and RPGs where the main character is 12 years old.
So, you're right: Sony won't dethrone Nintendo in the first generation of the PSP. In their core market, which is younger gamers and their parents, it's unlikely anyone could dethrone Nintendo. But thanks to Nintendo's bull-headedness regarding the direction and content of their games and hardware, Sony doesn't have to dethrone them to still do well in the portable market.
Now, I'm no nuclear physicist...
That out of the way, is there some specific reason we don't start feeding this stuff to breeder reactors? That seems to solve two problems at once: what to do with nuclear waste, and possibly weaning us off our reliance on coal.
Similar debates over Planetside's stat tracking have been raging across the boards ever since Planetside implimented stat tracking. There are two main camps:
A) Those for whom stats are the be-all, end-all reason to play the game. They tend to be rather uncooperative (considering it's a team-based game), caustic individuals; the type that view the game less as something to be enjoyed and more a competition that acts as a virtual penis. Almost invariably these players use infantry with heavy assault weapons inside, and Reavers so they can rocket spam infantry outside; why bother taking out the tank that's ripping up your back lines when you could go score 4 or 5 quick kills against infantry that can barely fight back?
B) Those that just want group A to leave the game. Not that they [i]don't[/i] want stats, but believe the absence of stats would cause the group A players to go elsewhere.
Personally, I find myself in group B. I don't care about peoples' stats; if they want to make a name for themselves in-game, let them find a way to do it. So long as the game's based on gross equipment mismatches, though, kill counts don't impress.
One of the most requested features I see is the ability to minimize to the system tray. Have the devs even mentioned this being a consideration?
I use Thunderbird, and I like it, but it drives me nuts having one more thing cluttering my taskbar when all I want it open for is to let me know when mail arrives.
The entire article tries to take on a position of authority on the subject, but provides no concrete proof for any of its assumptions, and it makes many assumptions, and only manages to come across as elitist.
For example, the author describes permadeath:
Nevermind the fact that in a modern, treadmill-driven MMO, adding permadeath would also lead to in-game cowardice (because no one wants to lose the character they spent the past 6 months building up), much grief (because no one wants to die to the lowbie mob that aggroed them while they had a lag spike), and makes the assumption that players need to have their characters forcibly changed so they don't grow board and leave (many people actually like their characters, and grow attached to them over the bazillion hours they spend playing them).
What's even more absurd is the assumption that killing off a player's character and forcing him to play the same content over repeatedly is somehow preferable to one, constantly growing character.
Here's a hint: if people want to replay the same content from a different point of view, they can make a new character without having their old one killed off.
No doubt, there's some truth to his points, but the way it's presented, the author comes across as a troll.
City of Heroes had a fantastic beta, with much communication with the dev team, and a sense that the game was truly moving forward.
However, almost immediately after release, issues regarding aspects of the game that had been widely known, reported, and even confirmed by developers to be working correctly during beta (i.e. Super Speed, Hasten) were quite savagely nerfed. Along with those nerfs was a change to the con system that drastically slowed the pace of advancement in the game.
One expects MMOGs to be in a state of perpetual change, but the severity of the changes made were practically unprecedented in the genre. What changed between beta and release that made those specific issues such a priority and warranted such a drastic change?
Any high-end card these days can also be had in AGP variants. PCI-E is a technology that's being pushed much earlier than necessary; even the most badass of video cards like the X800 Platinum and 6800 Ultra would barely take a performance hit running on an AGP 4x interface, much less 8x or a 16x PCI-E slot.
Additionally, at least Windows users have the option of building a machine themselves, or using a smaller builder, or bargain hunting because there's actually competition. Hell, I can put together a respectable mid-range gaming PC for the price of a low-end iMac. One can play the latest and greatest games. The other's essentially an internet-enabled typewriter. Which do you think is a better value?
I'm not knocking Macs - I don't use one, but I recommend them to family and friends because there's a lot to be said for the simplicity and functionality of the OS, and I know I won't be getting calls to come over and fix them as often as I do with Windows boxes. But from a performance standpoint, Macs are laughably overpriced, even compared to PC gaming rigs.
You missed out on Jumpgate.
It's an MMO space sim. Yes, there is leveling, in which you can get clearance to get new weapons and ships, so it's not like everyone's flying the same thing. And while a light shuttle will be atomized by a heavy fighter in a matter of seconds, a good pilot in a light fighter can take down a mediocre pilot in a heavy fighter. And there are a lot of classes of ships; everything from light shuttles to interceptors to heavily armed transports to fighters to freighters to bombers. Equipment is all handled based on a factional system (3 factions; one emphasizes efficiency, one shields, and one firepower).
Unfortunately, Jumpgate's way past its prime. It's still around, but it rarely peaks at more than 100 players anymore. It's a shame, too, because that game has an awesome community.
No, I'm asking you because I've looked and found nothing, and you're purporting to be some sort of authority on the subject.
Ikaruga rocked, I'll give you that.
Metroid Prime has about 10 hours of gameplay, and which point it sits and collects dust. Great game, but terrible value. Same deal with Pikmin.
Super Monkey Ball, Wario Ware, and Donkey Conga are more gimmicky crap at best. Especially Donkey Conga.
And then there's Baiten Kaitos - a card game.
Harvest Moon - you'll have to forgive me if playing a game based on a young kid on a farm isn't exciting.
And FF:CC was hands-down the biggest upset I've ever had over a game. I've been waiting for a solid Secret of Mana successor for years. Then, they release that pile of shit... *ugh* There was nothing redeeming about that game.
Look, I never said every game on the systems were bad. I said the library sucks. There are games on the GCN I like, but one or two isn't enough to make having the system worthwhile. The GBA on the other hand... *shudder*
Where's the epic RPG? How about some mech combat, or some turn-based strategy that doesn't look like Pokemon with guns and swords?
Christ, if the GBA had more ports, I'd probably be happier - the SNES had probably the best library of any console ever. But instead of porting excellent games from it like Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy 6, Metal Warriors, Gradius, Ninja Gaiden, Terranigma, Star Ocean, Shadowrun, Soul Blazer, or the Megaman series, they choose to port tired, old SNES games with minor graphic updates (Sword of Mana, River City Ransom), Mario Bros. 3, and turn Megaman into Pokemon.
That's why I'm so bitter about the system and think the DS will suck. Because Nintendo's style of games don't appeal to me, and they don't have the sense to get any decent 3rd party support.
So, do me a favor then - name one RPG title on the GBA or GCN that doesn't play like the ones I've mentioned, isn't cross-platform, and isn't a card game.
Believe me, I've looked. I love may Gamecube and GBA for the hardware, but the exclusive game lineup on both systems is complete and utter shit for anyone that doesn't like Mario, Pokemon, or Link to the Past clones.
Like the other reply said...
Nintendo adds a second screen with some gimmicky features that've already been done before, and it's called innovative.
Sony releases the Eye Toy. Where are all the cries about how 'innovative' it is on Slashdot?
Your post is typical Nintendo Fanboyism on this site: it's a veiled attack on anyone competing with Nintendo. Nintendo has more 3rd-rate spinoff games using its main stable of characters than virtually anyone except maybe Sega, and they're "innovative" for it. They have a ton of ports. Sony announces a bunch of ports, and they're "exploiting".
Hold up a minute. This is Slashdot, and I fully expected to get trolled and mod-bombed over a post critical of anything Nintendo does, but I'm really getting sick of the argument you and a billion other Nintendo fanboys keep spouting off about.
I didn't say anything about violence in games. I sure as hell didn't say anything about GTA3 - that has to be the single most overrated franchise next to, perhaps, Mario and Final Fantasy. No one said anything about death matching (and for the record, Metroid Prime: Hunters multiplayer is deathmatch). I said more mature. Perhaps you need an explanation:
Nintendo's portable systems are dominated by games like, say, Golden Sun, Megaman: Battle Network, and Pokemon. In each instance, the main character is extremely young, the dialogue is insultingly simple and/or convoluted (see: Fire Emblem on the GBA), and Nintendo pulls all sorts of crap like this.
I've said it a dozen times on Slashdot: when I want a more mature game, I want a game that isn't insultingly simple to play, or where the main character doesn't act like a little kid, not blood and guts. I'm not looking to strangle some guy to death with his own intestines.
So, even the staunchest of Sony fanboys have to concede that when it comes to creativity and battery life, Nintendo's going to win this round. But I still don't think it's going to be a repeat of Game Gear vs. Gameboy.
For starters, look at the launch titles for the DS:
Super Mario 64 DS
Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt (demo)
Pictochat (built-in)
Feel the Magic: XY/XX
Mr. Driller: Drill Spirits
Ridge Racer DS
Madden NFL 2005
Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf
The Urbz: Sims in the City
Asphalt Urban GT
Rayman DS
Spider-Man 2
Ping Pals
It's nothing but a couple sports games, a couple platformers, two racers and a bunch of gimicky nonsense. If this is in any way indicative of the DS' overall lineup, Sony will still win this round.
I think this is going to be more like GCN vs. PS2. Why? Because Sony's game lineup appears stronger. Not only will it have many of the same third-party games (i.e. Spiderman 2, Madden, Tiger Woods), but it will have many more, such as Tony Hawk's Underground 2, Tales of Eternia, FIFA, and Need For Speed Underground.
What's more, the PSP is suppsoedly going to come packaged with Tiger Woods and Need for Speed Underground. What's the DS have? The gimmicky made-for-gradeschoolers Pictochat, and a demo of the first level of Metroid Prime: Hunters.
Look, I'm not proclaiming early victory for the PSP, but let's not relegate this to some failure of a system like the nGage before it even hits the market. This is Sony we're talking about. They have a more mature and diverse lineup of games with a much better stable of 3rd-party developers, and anyone who says the PSP's screen isn't just plain sexy is a liar.
Personally, I'm itnrigued by the DS, but much lke the GBA, I think the game lineup is horrid. But I hope they both do well. More choice is never a bad thing.