Ignoring your perfect example of text-based sarcasm at work there, the study seemed to go a little beyond phrenological conjecture. The study indicated that those with damage to an area of the brain associated with empathy had trouble distinguising between the intents of identically phrased statements, one of which had a literal implication, the other sarcastic.
A personal query for any neuroscientists reading: The article uses "prefrontal area" and "prefrontal lobe", and a portion of the article paraphrased from a Stanford professor's assertion that the findings are not surprising mention "the brain's cortex". I've personally read bits about the "prefrontal cortex" and its importance in higher level thinking, planning, and so on. As the only thing approaching a brain anatomy class I've had focused only on visual pathways, I wonder if I should assume that these terms are used interchangeably in the article, whether or not it's technically correct to do so. Regardless, the article mentions damage to "the ventromedial area" being the most strongly associated with the lack ot sarcasm detection. Of course, even "ventromedial" is named based on location.
...that not only play the CSS encrypted DVD, but remove the macrovision so that they can then be copied to VHS bery nicely
Copied to VHS or, you know, actually played back without problems through a VCR on a TV with only a coax input. People wanting to copy to VHS will find a way. The macrovision almost exclusively only hurts people who want to watch the DVD but don't have the equipment to do so in the way Macrovision decides you have to use. They're treated to an experience that varies between annoying and unwatchable.
If the PSP is an indicator, they might choose to save games to those, too (PSP saves games to Memory Stick Pro Duo). Which would mean that you won't be paying $25 for a 64MB plastic-housed flash memory card in 5 years. Of course the PSP is obviously limited by size, so my reasoning is probably useless.
Hm. Maybe about 50/50. The shift in tone from Microsoft hatred in one thread to Sony idolatry in another was immediately obvious to me (though maybe milder than my words might imply), and I felt compelled to comment. Obviously this PS3 unveiling will (hopefully?) be more informative than any single XBox 360 event has been so far, but at this point there have been weeks of information trickling out about that. I doubt more will be known about the PS3 by night's end than is currently known about the XBox 360; it will just be revealed all at once, a situation that is not without appeal to me.
The bias in game threads here is such that attempting to show balance or thoroughly explain a given position is immediately construed as bias against the reader's platform/company of choice.
Also, nice work with the AC posting. Your terse, questionably structured, curse-laden comments sober even the most evangelical of fanboys. No, wait, not "... sober..." The other thing. "... are generally ignored by..." Yeah, that's it.
Coming over here straight from the XBox 360 topic on down the Games page, the shift in tone is hilarious. The XBox comments were generallly guardedly optimistic or speculative, with a few straight-out anti-MS comments or rants against assumed fanboys.
So far in this PS3 topic, the base comments are: 1) a prayer for XBox 360's demise, 2) a statement that Sony's bragfest will be "quite a refreshing change from the endless hype" for the 360, and 3) speculation that developers will flock to Sony's 8 Cell vector processors because XBox 360's three PowerPC cores will be too hard to develop for. Oh, and now someone is piping in with typos a-plenty voicing excitement on what will surely be an immensely informative session about this console that is likely at least a year from release.
Granted, there have been swift and thorough rebuttals to most of these, but they are posted alongside further MS bashing from others. The MTV special will be drawing fire for months, I'm thinking. Because, you know, a hilariously pandering noninformative show intended to appeal to an audience whose intelligence they (hopefully) underestimated certainly has the same exact intent as an event aimed at the gaming media. There was a video released on OurColony the same day that provides much more information about the functionality that I hope they can deliver.
And before I'm branded as a Microsoft fanboy/apologist/astroturfer, I own all three current consoles and the current crop of portables. I've found reasons to enjoy all of them. XBox 360 is the next-gen console we know most about so far, and some of what we do know is impressive, like the cohesive Internet experience that it seems that the new Live can offer.
Re:Sony is deluded.
on
Out Of The XBox
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
Of course, for many other people, there simply is no reason to own a game console apart from playing Halo.
I'm really expecting all three systems to be similar in technical capabilities. It will be a matter of games and, this time, services and ease of use, that distinguish the various systems, I think.
While I know the XBox 360 is much closer to release than the PS3, I've noticed a very large difference in their hype strategies. Sony is doing the same thing they did with the PS2 by hyping the hardware's tecnical potential. While that's impressive to Slashdotters, even we take Sony's boasts with copious amounts of salt, and make up a relatively small portion of the now mainstream target markets.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is hyping the functional promise of the XBox 360. They seem to have a VERY solid and cohesive Internet strategy that I think will take them very far in the public consciousness. Live accounts and the enforcing of Live compliance with all games will be an enticingly transparent and consistent experience that will lure many more to online gaming, like Halo introduced many to the LAN party. The scaled-down free variant of Live will help in this area, especially if "Free Live Weekends" means every weekend is free. There are a lot of people who are moving to 802.11 because of its relative simplicity compared to setting up a wired network; the difference between 54 or even 11Mbps and 100Mbps means little to most people when the Internet connection is 4Mbps.
While I assume that PS3 will also have wifi, Live's unified front will spoil people if Sony doesn't implement a similarly unified online portal. The idea of Cell technology is impressive, and as a friend noted, success in the form of PS3 will do much to further efforts to use Cell, which would be interesting to see. PS3's losing market share would tarnish Cell's business appeal, deserved or not. If Live's uniformity within what would otherwise be a very fragmented online gamespace marginalizes the PS3's online presence, XBox 360 might severely encroach on Sony's market.
GTA games eventually make it to XBox; Rockstar is independent, bound only by a time-limited exclusivity contract to Sony. Microsoft just absorbs their exclusive developers. Future iterations of Halo will likely never be anywhere but XBox and maybe PC.
Your rebuttal of the "XBox 1.5" claim is spot-on, though. Even without the obvious differences in horsepower, Xbox 360 distinguishes itself remarkably well from the XBox.
Meanwhile, Nintendo, as the aforementioned friend analogized, in the face of the bluster of Sony and Microsoft, has said it wants to go play hopscotch. They marginalize themselves, but as long as they retain their proven economic sanity, they'll stay afloat, and maybe one of their crazy schemes will eventually reinstate them as a leader.
Yeah, and we all know that, just like the XBox 360, Apple's profit strategy also relies pretty much entirely on licensed software sales, 20 million identical units, decreased mass production costs over a 5-year product cycle, and... oh, wait.
To clarify the parent's assertion: the single-cartridge multiplay is only for some games, and ONLY for the short-range wireless. Any internet play will require each player to have the game.
Not all carriers are so strict. I have a Nokia 3660 I got through T-Mobile. Transferring pictures over bluetooth is wonderfully transparent. Same thing with transferring files to the phone: they show up as a new message and you open them from there. I've not yet tried sending over a MIDI file for a ringtone, but I imagine that will be similarly easy. And all this with a $20 USB bluetooth dongle from CompUSA.
I don't think Palm or MS have a significant presence in mainstream cell phones yet. Palm tends to be in the PDA hybrid phones like the Treo. MS is on a few models of (expensive) Smartphone and PDAs with cell phone capabilities. Symbian is in all of Nokia's recent phones.
Tangent: I know someone whose phone has Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition on it. It's actually very nice, but takes FOREVER to boot up. I thought my 3660 with Symbian Series 60 took a while, but his took at least twice as long.
The second package sounds like a significantly better value than the first. I was hoping for $199 and $299, but I guess this is better than it could have been. As you say, though, it's by no means confirmed.
I've seen a few recent reviews that note that, with respect to actual gameplay, the Timesplitters games are not much beyond Goldeneye or Perfect Dark (e.g. no jumping, etc.). While they're still fun, other console FPSes are evolving beyond that toward more PC-like levels of interaction. The level designer in the newest one is noted to be unique among console games, at least. And they added online play, too.
Doesn't help that they're also advertising on Penny Arcade, 1 in a selection of about 4 ads (Guild Wars, Empire Earth 2, some manga, and PSO... yeah, that's 4).
Didn't they also do last year's critically acclaimed GBA Astro Boy: Omega Factor? I really liked it. The second time through (to get the real ending) is significantly harder... I think; at least one of the bosses is. I haven't played it in a little while.
I'm looking forward to Gunstar Heroes, though. I played the Genesis game once, and it had the bizarre and hectic feel that Bangai-O can have, only constant and faster. This seems great for the GBA.
Alright, I'll just use the number you give me when you call me to let me know that there's a 1080p display that most people will consider affordable. Even 720p/1080i displays can be expensive, but at least you can get a decent-sized one for under $1000.
Oh yeah, I forgot: Yawn. Can't be elitist without feigning intense boredom.
Agreed. Now go play a 4-player split-screen game on a PC. Oh, yeah, nevermind.
I'll admit that I've never been a fan of split-screen, maybe specifically because I was used to PC resolution advantages. Whatever the reason, my first exposure to 4-player Goldeneye was one of mild surprise that people devoted considerable time to playing it.
That said, I think I can get very used to playing something at 640x360. That's better than standard TVs fullscreen, isn't it? I hope that, by the time the 360 comes out, I'll have a 720p projector (there's apparently a very nice Panasonic one that can be obtained for under $2000, which is more than can be said of 720p LCD TVs of considerable size).
Even at that, your particular argument doesn't really make sense to me; decent-resolution split-screen isn't an advantage PCs offer, and online play is going to be a big feature of a lot of games in the upcoming console generation. Split-screen started initially out of necessity, and only continues because it can still be fun, and much more economical, to have several people crowded around a single screen. With HD, it'll be even better, but online play renders it nonessential.
I can't wait until 40GB of flash memory is cheaper than a 40GB hard drive!
I still love how console memory cards are about the worst price on flash memory you can get these days. Sony's are occasionally on sale for $20 (from their normal retail price of $25), and have "8MB" emblazoned on them for all to see.
Meanwhile, a couple of aisles over at Wal-Mart, you can get a 512MB CompactFlash card for $30.
People just aren't giong to pay even $5 for 20-40 minutes of TV that they can only watch on their computer. I don't even mind the viewing location limitation, but there's no way I'd pay that much. And if someone decides that $10 is the price to charge, they're either trying to prove that it's not a viable distribution method or they have completely unrealistic conceptions of their product's perceived value. Either that or I'll be flabbergasted when people start paying $10 for the latest American Idol and Joey episodes.
And Star Trek seasons tend to be around $99, come with plenty of extras, and include attractive packaging and physical media. I don't know how well they sell, but I know several fans who simply can't afford $100 a season. Collecting all of TNG or DS9 would be $700.
With the exception of a few shows like Star Trek, most season box sets stay below $50, and seasons of half-hour shows tend to be $30-$40 depending on popularity and vendor. $2 an episode for a no-frills copy seems reasonable based on that. Especially when you consider that the music on iTunes works out to be about the same price per song as you'd get on a CD. I know TV show episodes are longer and significantly more complex data-wise, but I imagine people view an episode within a season to be analogous to a track on a CD.
All of that is very heartening, and from the sound of things, the extra money to move up past the near-generic $1200 XGA ones is probably well worth it. Though an affordable 1280x1024 would be awesome. Any idea what replacement bulbs cost for yours or what their projected (pun!) lifetime is?
Sorry to assault you with all these questions, but I really haven't seen many other people with actual experience with a mini in an HTPC environment. And that you also have a projector is even less common.
Yeah, I did have the original Half-Life, but I had accidentally passed my CD key off to a friend soon after Steam started tracking such things and while I didn't quite care enough to wrest it back from him, it was nice that I could get it, expansions, and CS: Condition Zero (which I may or may not ever play) for just $10 and no need to keep up with CDs. Also, I forget: did the $49 version also include Half-Life: Source, or was that also part of the $59 incentive bundle?
The other point made in Stormy's column was that many people have become disenchanted with real-time PC multiplayer gaming because you can gain a huge advantage simply by spending money on nice hardware. Current online console games present a refreshingly level playing field (except for Internet connection-based latency) in terms of inherent hardware-based performance. In the next generation, developers will be encouraged to take full advantage of HD to impress gamers. There will, of course, still be people with standard-definition TVs, as well. Simply owning an HD setup (and maybe surround sound) will give a gamer a tremendous advantage over people still using standard definition TVs, both in terms of field of view (16:9 TVs will offer better than 4:3; to gain the same field of view, a 4:3 viewer has to sacrifice around 1/3 of their vertical resolution, which already sucked) and resolution.
Slashdot Mirror
A personal query for any neuroscientists reading: The article uses "prefrontal area" and "prefrontal lobe", and a portion of the article paraphrased from a Stanford professor's assertion that the findings are not surprising mention "the brain's cortex". I've personally read bits about the "prefrontal cortex" and its importance in higher level thinking, planning, and so on. As the only thing approaching a brain anatomy class I've had focused only on visual pathways, I wonder if I should assume that these terms are used interchangeably in the article, whether or not it's technically correct to do so. Regardless, the article mentions damage to "the ventromedial area" being the most strongly associated with the lack ot sarcasm detection. Of course, even "ventromedial" is named based on location.
Copied to VHS or, you know, actually played back without problems through a VCR on a TV with only a coax input. People wanting to copy to VHS will find a way. The macrovision almost exclusively only hurts people who want to watch the DVD but don't have the equipment to do so in the way Macrovision decides you have to use. They're treated to an experience that varies between annoying and unwatchable.
Possibly, but they still want $20-$25 for an 8MB card today.
If the PSP is an indicator, they might choose to save games to those, too (PSP saves games to Memory Stick Pro Duo). Which would mean that you won't be paying $25 for a 64MB plastic-housed flash memory card in 5 years. Of course the PSP is obviously limited by size, so my reasoning is probably useless.
The bias in game threads here is such that attempting to show balance or thoroughly explain a given position is immediately construed as bias against the reader's platform/company of choice.
Also, nice work with the AC posting. Your terse, questionably structured, curse-laden comments sober even the most evangelical of fanboys. No, wait, not "... sober..." The other thing. "... are generally ignored by..." Yeah, that's it.
So far in this PS3 topic, the base comments are: 1) a prayer for XBox 360's demise, 2) a statement that Sony's bragfest will be "quite a refreshing change from the endless hype" for the 360, and 3) speculation that developers will flock to Sony's 8 Cell vector processors because XBox 360's three PowerPC cores will be too hard to develop for. Oh, and now someone is piping in with typos a-plenty voicing excitement on what will surely be an immensely informative session about this console that is likely at least a year from release.
Granted, there have been swift and thorough rebuttals to most of these, but they are posted alongside further MS bashing from others. The MTV special will be drawing fire for months, I'm thinking. Because, you know, a hilariously pandering noninformative show intended to appeal to an audience whose intelligence they (hopefully) underestimated certainly has the same exact intent as an event aimed at the gaming media. There was a video released on OurColony the same day that provides much more information about the functionality that I hope they can deliver.
And before I'm branded as a Microsoft fanboy/apologist/astroturfer, I own all three current consoles and the current crop of portables. I've found reasons to enjoy all of them. XBox 360 is the next-gen console we know most about so far, and some of what we do know is impressive, like the cohesive Internet experience that it seems that the new Live can offer.
I'm really expecting all three systems to be similar in technical capabilities. It will be a matter of games and, this time, services and ease of use, that distinguish the various systems, I think.
While I know the XBox 360 is much closer to release than the PS3, I've noticed a very large difference in their hype strategies. Sony is doing the same thing they did with the PS2 by hyping the hardware's tecnical potential. While that's impressive to Slashdotters, even we take Sony's boasts with copious amounts of salt, and make up a relatively small portion of the now mainstream target markets.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is hyping the functional promise of the XBox 360. They seem to have a VERY solid and cohesive Internet strategy that I think will take them very far in the public consciousness. Live accounts and the enforcing of Live compliance with all games will be an enticingly transparent and consistent experience that will lure many more to online gaming, like Halo introduced many to the LAN party. The scaled-down free variant of Live will help in this area, especially if "Free Live Weekends" means every weekend is free. There are a lot of people who are moving to 802.11 because of its relative simplicity compared to setting up a wired network; the difference between 54 or even 11Mbps and 100Mbps means little to most people when the Internet connection is 4Mbps.
While I assume that PS3 will also have wifi, Live's unified front will spoil people if Sony doesn't implement a similarly unified online portal. The idea of Cell technology is impressive, and as a friend noted, success in the form of PS3 will do much to further efforts to use Cell, which would be interesting to see. PS3's losing market share would tarnish Cell's business appeal, deserved or not. If Live's uniformity within what would otherwise be a very fragmented online gamespace marginalizes the PS3's online presence, XBox 360 might severely encroach on Sony's market.
GTA games eventually make it to XBox; Rockstar is independent, bound only by a time-limited exclusivity contract to Sony. Microsoft just absorbs their exclusive developers. Future iterations of Halo will likely never be anywhere but XBox and maybe PC.
Your rebuttal of the "XBox 1.5" claim is spot-on, though. Even without the obvious differences in horsepower, Xbox 360 distinguishes itself remarkably well from the XBox.
Meanwhile, Nintendo, as the aforementioned friend analogized, in the face of the bluster of Sony and Microsoft, has said it wants to go play hopscotch. They marginalize themselves, but as long as they retain their proven economic sanity, they'll stay afloat, and maybe one of their crazy schemes will eventually reinstate them as a leader.
Yeah, and we all know that, just like the XBox 360, Apple's profit strategy also relies pretty much entirely on licensed software sales, 20 million identical units, decreased mass production costs over a 5-year product cycle, and... oh, wait.
To clarify the parent's assertion: the single-cartridge multiplay is only for some games, and ONLY for the short-range wireless. Any internet play will require each player to have the game.
Not all carriers are so strict. I have a Nokia 3660 I got through T-Mobile. Transferring pictures over bluetooth is wonderfully transparent. Same thing with transferring files to the phone: they show up as a new message and you open them from there. I've not yet tried sending over a MIDI file for a ringtone, but I imagine that will be similarly easy. And all this with a $20 USB bluetooth dongle from CompUSA.
Tangent: I know someone whose phone has Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition on it. It's actually very nice, but takes FOREVER to boot up. I thought my 3660 with Symbian Series 60 took a while, but his took at least twice as long.
The second package sounds like a significantly better value than the first. I was hoping for $199 and $299, but I guess this is better than it could have been. As you say, though, it's by no means confirmed.
I've seen a few recent reviews that note that, with respect to actual gameplay, the Timesplitters games are not much beyond Goldeneye or Perfect Dark (e.g. no jumping, etc.). While they're still fun, other console FPSes are evolving beyond that toward more PC-like levels of interaction. The level designer in the newest one is noted to be unique among console games, at least. And they added online play, too.
Doesn't help that they're also advertising on Penny Arcade, 1 in a selection of about 4 ads (Guild Wars, Empire Earth 2, some manga, and PSO... yeah, that's 4).
I'm looking forward to Gunstar Heroes, though. I played the Genesis game once, and it had the bizarre and hectic feel that Bangai-O can have, only constant and faster. This seems great for the GBA.
Oh yeah, I forgot: Yawn. Can't be elitist without feigning intense boredom.
I'll admit that I've never been a fan of split-screen, maybe specifically because I was used to PC resolution advantages. Whatever the reason, my first exposure to 4-player Goldeneye was one of mild surprise that people devoted considerable time to playing it.
That said, I think I can get very used to playing something at 640x360. That's better than standard TVs fullscreen, isn't it? I hope that, by the time the 360 comes out, I'll have a 720p projector (there's apparently a very nice Panasonic one that can be obtained for under $2000, which is more than can be said of 720p LCD TVs of considerable size).
Even at that, your particular argument doesn't really make sense to me; decent-resolution split-screen isn't an advantage PCs offer, and online play is going to be a big feature of a lot of games in the upcoming console generation. Split-screen started initially out of necessity, and only continues because it can still be fun, and much more economical, to have several people crowded around a single screen. With HD, it'll be even better, but online play renders it nonessential.
I forgot to note that the $300 machine comes with the OS, so you don't have to buy (pirate) it yourself.
Or Half-Life 2 at 1280x720 at 60fps on a $300 machine.
I still love how console memory cards are about the worst price on flash memory you can get these days. Sony's are occasionally on sale for $20 (from their normal retail price of $25), and have "8MB" emblazoned on them for all to see.
Meanwhile, a couple of aisles over at Wal-Mart, you can get a 512MB CompactFlash card for $30.
And Star Trek seasons tend to be around $99, come with plenty of extras, and include attractive packaging and physical media. I don't know how well they sell, but I know several fans who simply can't afford $100 a season. Collecting all of TNG or DS9 would be $700.
With the exception of a few shows like Star Trek, most season box sets stay below $50, and seasons of half-hour shows tend to be $30-$40 depending on popularity and vendor. $2 an episode for a no-frills copy seems reasonable based on that. Especially when you consider that the music on iTunes works out to be about the same price per song as you'd get on a CD. I know TV show episodes are longer and significantly more complex data-wise, but I imagine people view an episode within a season to be analogous to a track on a CD.
Many thanks for the links. I'll peruse them thoroughly.
Sorry to assault you with all these questions, but I really haven't seen many other people with actual experience with a mini in an HTPC environment. And that you also have a projector is even less common.
Yeah, I did have the original Half-Life, but I had accidentally passed my CD key off to a friend soon after Steam started tracking such things and while I didn't quite care enough to wrest it back from him, it was nice that I could get it, expansions, and CS: Condition Zero (which I may or may not ever play) for just $10 and no need to keep up with CDs. Also, I forget: did the $49 version also include Half-Life: Source, or was that also part of the $59 incentive bundle?
The other point made in Stormy's column was that many people have become disenchanted with real-time PC multiplayer gaming because you can gain a huge advantage simply by spending money on nice hardware. Current online console games present a refreshingly level playing field (except for Internet connection-based latency) in terms of inherent hardware-based performance. In the next generation, developers will be encouraged to take full advantage of HD to impress gamers. There will, of course, still be people with standard-definition TVs, as well. Simply owning an HD setup (and maybe surround sound) will give a gamer a tremendous advantage over people still using standard definition TVs, both in terms of field of view (16:9 TVs will offer better than 4:3; to gain the same field of view, a 4:3 viewer has to sacrifice around 1/3 of their vertical resolution, which already sucked) and resolution.