These kinds of issues are prevalent in many companies. You can't do business with a government most US citizens are trained to think is Evil, and NOT have incidents. MS just gets a lot of press because it's the evil empire, but the same disputes about the status of Taiwan, cryptography, sales tactics, labor useage, political affiliations etc. come up here and in my last job. In the end the agreement corporationst end to reach is to bow down to their government except when US law precluded it, in the interests of the almighty buck.
The way things are set up, maybe always have been, is that corporations are OBLIGATED to maximize shareholder value, at any cost...except they can't break US laws. No US law forbids MSN behavior, to not acquiesce to China is almost certainly going to cost money, thus you must acquiesce.
When in China, I expect to follow the laws in China. When in the US, I expect to follow US laws. That is perfectly sensible to me.
The content was in the hands of a US corporation, operating in the US. It seems to make no difference where the citizen or his terminal was physically located. US entities should not be in the position of refusing services based on nationality, period. If China does not like what their citizens are doing, they need to enforce their laws locally.
Personally, if I owned MSN, I'd feel dirty for even thinking of removing that site. They'd have to pry it out of my cold dying hands. I'd instantly make it public, put it on my news network and start a big fight. Of course, I have no financial interest in our continued dealings with China.
It amounts to the same thing. The Chinese government is in a position of selecting who will and will not use their labor, and how much they will enforce laws that are not to their advantage (i.e. copyright law). In order for us to continue enjoying the profits we've become used to, we must see things their way or the deals may change. Either way it translates to principles versus lost money, not that MS feels cowed by the red army.
Parallel situations exist in hardware companies as well. We care less about copyrights and more about the factories that we have invested quite a lot in bringing up, maintaining and educating. Of course, we're not allowed to keep pictures of those factories on our desks, talk about our visits to them, or discuss things like size, shape, locations, numbers of buildings etc.
The only thing global corps won't do is crap in their own bed, so they will not enforce global standards requiring employment practices that are incompatible ith american law.
The answer to that is really, really simple. If you do business in China, and wish to continue to do so, you have to obey their laws, even in the US. I have seen several people fired from my company for saying anti-China things (not anti-Chinese mind you, it was aimed directly at the gov't not the people). In an effort to conduct "consistent" business processes, and "comply with global standards" however, even our US facilities are regulated China-style. We're not allowed to discuss politics or religion, and our email is monitored.
The day is going to come where the bill of rights is going to have to be forced on the corporate world the same way it is forced on the government or it will stop meaning anything. It's not useful if 10-12 hours a day you're under the rule of an oppressive foreign government.
I think he's referring to the soup of DVD(+/-)(R/W). It is just a mess for people to deal with and sure to burn bleeding edge adopters thus slowing adoption rate.
So you're seriously arguing that radio remains more pervasive than TV, and that existing TVs becoming obsolete impacts so few people that it is limited only to constituents of the current administration? That would fit "pork" and your definition of impact. I'll admit that I do not heavily research my off the cuff slashdot posts, but this fails common sense.
I guess we're too far apart to argue. There ARE a lot of radios out there, I could concede that point but I would argue that since they're bundled with casette players, clocks, walkmans, cd-players and stereo's that perhaps it's not something that's used anywhere near as often. I can concede that you do not agree with the switch from analog to digital, thus necessitating this whole mess. It's been argued a long time, I am personally for it, I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks (of which $1.5B seems to be one). I can't see this as pork though, this has been 4 administrations in the making and will apparently make it to a 5th, regardless of who funds it, the electronics industry has been assured of money once it was decided upon. I can't see how coca-cola formula changes are even a close parallel. I can't see that so many people losing working televisions via government mandate is not going to be hurtful. I can't see how anyone could seriously argue a radio would be an acceptable solution to a broken TV set.
We pay regularly for many services that we personally do not need, including education, welfare, foreign aid, housing assistance, defense, etc. But there's enough people out there that do need that stuff that we pay anyway. This seems to affect a vast majority of people, has a pretty small cost, and neither adds nor subtracts significantly to other policies. I don't see why it's bad. If I were omnipotent I would simply ensure the vouchers got where they're needed, but I wouldn't begrudge anyone the money.
Which is why aid should be provided by the government for tuition costs in their local community college so they can get their GED and so forth. Just because it's "college aid" doesn't mean it's all about four-year degrees or graduate work.
That aid continues to be available. The problem in every situation I've seen it applied is that people are either unaware of what is offered, or more commonly unable to use it. The most common scenario is people needing to work and care for families tend to not have time for a GED. It does not make sense to grow this particular funding. I don't plan to argue about welfare or social security, especially on slashdot. Smarter and more informed people argue about it every day and still can't agree, we won't here either.
Even in the Twenty-First Century, there are still more radio listeners than television viewers. According to the CIA's World Factbook, there are about six times as many FM broadcasters as there are TV broadcasters, and that doesn't include AM. Even if you include (pay-for) cable, there are still far more information sources on radio than on television.
That's not a very helpful fact. Radios aren't in many houses, not everyone owns a car (esp. in cities) but you can always count on a TV being around. You don't have to watch the damned thing 24/7 for it to be a vital tool. Obsolete TVs and you can't rely on that unless they can be replaced. For many that will be difficult.
TV isn't in your car. And 99 times out of 100, your employer isn't going to let you put a TV on your desk, but a radio is usually permitted. That's up to 9 waking hours that the average American is sans television.
Not everyone has a car (especially in cities, especially if they are financially struggling), and we're not talking about replacing the radio. The radio is critical for many emergencies that involve lost power. Nor is it relevant what people's employers do as employers tend to buy the TV. This is about home purchases. I don't know many families who sit around the radio at night anymore.
No, it's not. Television works only when it is turned on, and if nothing else, people do actually turn the things off when they go to bed. This is why we have loud sirens to warn us about tornados and the like.
People tend to keep them on an awful lot. Personally I don't use it much, but when I want to know what's going on locally I turn it on. More so when events are occuring that I have somehow grasped as important, transit strike information, government scandal, weather alerts, local shootings, whatever. I'm sure this transcends class boundaries, it's part of living in society. I'd LOVE to shut out the world, if I knew it would stay out. A very small fraction of required education is available in any kind of schools, most of it is ongoing.
Television does not help anybody who does not own and view one, if it helps anybody at all. But even then, if it's so damned important, why is Congress messing with it by forcing us all to upgrade to begin with?
For a variety of reasons I know a great deal of people who are living below the poverty line. Not homeless people, I don't know much about that group, but just poor. I don't know a single one without a TV. Not one. I know many without phones, many without cars, some who lose heat/hot water every so often, but not one without a TV. I can't say the same for any other communications device.
Better yet, instead of all this shady pork, why not pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing each and every citizen a television?
Because that would cost a lot more, a one time $1.5B charge is not enough for that. Now you're talking about a program.
My only point is that this is not as unreasonable as you try to make it out. If I were god of all things, I'd probably run this ship a little different too. But slashdot is first and foremost about technology, and TV, whether we like it or not, has a pretty significant impact on a huge numb
60 years ago I would have agreed with you. Radios aren't all that common anymore. Many people don't have one around, or at least don't use it if they do. I can't say when the last time I listened to my car radio was, perhaps if you commute in a large city.
It's not actually that horrifying that they're subsidizing it. College money isn't going to help a good number of disadvantaged people, these may not have finished high school and may be barely literate, or any number of scenarios in which education is neither helpful nor possible. Having a working TV is very important, it's the only way to keep citizens informed of emergencies, government activities, etc. We take the state of the union address for granted, but it's important it is there, and gets out to people. Similarly hurricanes, tornados, terrorist attack info, etc. need to get out to everyone and the TV is a reliable way of doing it. You can count on a TV being almost everywhere (certainly anywhere I've ever lived, worked or went to school). It's like having roads or a standing army, the kind of thing that everyone benefits from.
Now I'd hope that the subsidies are going to people who really need it and not just every idiot out there.
And by the way: this wonderful "Video Internet" Mr. Metcalfe is fantasizing about... Who needs it?
I'm guessing the people who really need it are the broadband monopolies who felt a little left out of the last internet bubble because a) they weren't ready and b) they had no services to sell to guarantee they'd retain control of the network. Yes the media companies might like it to if they can get control of PC content display out of it, consider them the corporate axis of evil, bonded tightly together by a unified greed.
I have not heard a single feature customers NEED from "video internet" that they're not already getting one way or another, exactly as they like it. All we'd see from this new method is that it'd be easier to get the content you want, but it'll cost more and not always work and you may or may not be able to store it. What we'll end up with is a lot more paid advertisements built into everything, a lot more content restrictions, and less control over how we use the internet (usually dumbed to the LCD).
As soon as the broadband companies are forced into only being able to supply bandwidth, we may actually see another "bubble". Until then it's too scary to have the 500lb gorilla trying to take your lunch money every time you se a feature he should be adding. Keep your money in the bank for this one.
It sounds stupid when any company does it. Sorta_like_putting _underscores randomly_throughout adds_. Especially when combined with spelled out keyboard actions SHIFT_foobar.
Or a different twist... "scientific" information about a disease from a ("research hospital") doctor and a ("revolutionary new drug") drug company are trusted equally poorly. There is a ton of information out there of questionable value in everything from the impossible politics to what ought to be pretty solid science. No one has time to go to the primary sources to get the information, even assuming primary sources are out there with proper references in a language that is accessible to anyone outside of the field.
I don't know what the hell is going on in Iraq, but I know I can't trust pretty much anyone to tell me. Similarly I'm not sure what kind of diet is ACTUALLY optimal for me personally. There's no shortage of information, some of it good, some bad, most of it has grains of truth with a lot of hyperbole or just misinterpretation of a subtle point. The only things I can believe unequivocally are the things I'e witnessed first hand (even if they are statistical anomalies, such as all the old smokers I know having died or are dying of cancer). Unfortunately that kind of logic isn't.
Having a lot of bulk information is less than useless, it's harmful. We need fewer, but more accurate sources.
I'd say it's the aesthetics of the landscape more than the models. I hate playing horde because the landscape is so dismal and dreary, while Night Elf land is amazing. Sure, at the high levels it's all the same, but depending on how you play, you do end up spending a lot of time in your starting territories.
That doesn't make any sense. Shortages are never good. The only argument you could make is that they wanted to be "the hot item for Christmas", but that makes no sense. It's a well known product that fanboi's have wanted since it was announced.
Holding off two weeks wouldn't have helped supply. Assume they are building as fast as they can, using far east slaves working factories around the clock. All they could have done to improve the shortage on release would have been to start building EARLIER, stockpile and release more initially, but as we developers know, that would have meant pushing up deadlines and maybe cutting corners on testing. In all probability they targetted november for delivery, but the compromise was that the designs didn't get to the factory in time to build up a huge number of units.
The universe of games for me are MMOGs, RTSs and FPSs, all of which are done best on PCs, so from my perspective I had it right already;)
I like RPGs too, but there are so few worth playing on any platform that it's not worth mentioning.
Civ4 is just sloppy coding. I've managed to duplicate much of their graphics engine at a far greater frame rate (mostly so I can make a map builder that does not suck). Don't get me wrong, I love Civ4, it's not meant to be a FPS so I can understand them not focusing on performance graphics. I actually would rather they let you play out of a window and just use sprites, but I digress.
I stopped playing FPSs a few years ago, firstly because I don't think there's anything more that can be done with the genre that isn't done to death, usually better, by doom and quake 2. Secondly I get really dizzy from them for some reason. When games make you sick, it's time to stop playing.
HD has 4:3 aspect ratios too. It's a common misconception that HD necessarily means 16:9. In fact some xbox (1) games support 4:3 HD resolutions. It looks a little silly to play that way (since there's all that blank space unless you stretch/deform the picture) but it's nice to have the extra detail.
As for whether HD is critical to gaming, the answer should be DUH. It's been answered on the PC for years. 320x200 stopped being "enough" over 10 years ago. 640x480 (for practical purposes, this is standard TV res) went out with the VooDoo. If you are used to playing PC games at 1600x1200, you'll upgrade or drop other details before you drop resolution. It's just consoles and their addiction to the living room TV that have been stuck in the stone age.
Nope, I think you're mostly wrong on that. I think most of us are happy on both counts. I think I understand the MS in EU case the least, but I can be happy that they're getting spanked and not worry about it.
You're missing the point. It's not about democrat or republican. Bad laws are being passed by both parties quietly while the general public at large is distracted with "Iraq" or "Intelligent Design". The democrats LOVE Bush, that's why they didn't run a real candidate. He pushes all our buttons so incredibly well we have no idea what's really going on. Clinton was pretty "good" too, we were busy watching his sex life on TV, not congress.
My reading of the parent post, and his comparison with Hitler was exactly that. He used public feelings to distract people from the freedoms and government controls they were losing. At the core, all totalitarian governments have that in common. It's not acceptable under any leadership.
All that matters are what laws that are being proposed, who proposed them, who supports them and who voted them in. And by laws, I mean the actual text contained inside the bill, NOT the title of the bill, NOT how it's described on the news, but each provision, including all the shit added at the end by various interests.
Not many people download movies "just as they hit the theater". Try it, you'll find the quality so low it's not worth stealing.
As for the rest I wonder why people are doing it. Is it because, as you say, they are theives? Or because they can't get what they want how they want it at a price that is reasonable. Anyone who downloads movies as they hit the theater is certainly not doing so to avoid payment, he just wants to watch a movie at home, now. Not wait a year for the DVD, or stand in line and pay $10 to watch 30% commercials in a dirty theater. I'm not sure how pampering the MPAA on this is helping sponsor the creation of new material, unless you really think charging people for the movie, the pay per view, the cable channel and the vhs/laserdisc/dvd/hd-dvd/newformat2k is really what people had in mind when they invented the concept of a copyright. The goal was only to reward creative people to stimulate new ideas.
The same sorts of arguments could be made about music. Apple has no trouble selling songs at $.99, but CD's at $15 aren't flying off shelves. Probably because there is only 1-2 songs per CD that are worth listening to. Similarly, why drive all the way to a music store to buy a CD that just takes up space when you can throw it on your hard drive for a buck and have it now?
Rather than address new market needs and responding to cost concerns, they're antagonizing consumers. The response is overwhelming, consumers are finding it easier and easier to take for free what they could otherwise be paying for. Copyright law is, after all, completely artificial. The harder these groups push their case, the more people think about it and realize "I'm stealing what, exactly?".
Seriously it's going to take longer than a month for hardware fixes to get in place, UNLESS they knew about the problems before they shipped! I doubt they could even get firmware patches in place in a month, it's not like patching a PC. Problems have to be found, ECOs issued, new hardware built & tested (if HW is faulty) and new flash devices created. That doesn't usually happen within a month, especially given that anything arriving this week was probably built 2-3 weeks ago.
If you want to be sure you don't get broken hardware wait about 6 months, make sure your store has been sold out. Listen for reports of people with new systems that don't have problems, then buy.
Slashdot Mirror
These kinds of issues are prevalent in many companies. You can't do business with a government most US citizens are trained to think is Evil, and NOT have incidents. MS just gets a lot of press because it's the evil empire, but the same disputes about the status of Taiwan, cryptography, sales tactics, labor useage, political affiliations etc. come up here and in my last job. In the end the agreement corporationst end to reach is to bow down to their government except when US law precluded it, in the interests of the almighty buck.
The way things are set up, maybe always have been, is that corporations are OBLIGATED to maximize shareholder value, at any cost...except they can't break US laws. No US law forbids MSN behavior, to not acquiesce to China is almost certainly going to cost money, thus you must acquiesce.
When in China, I expect to follow the laws in China. When in the US, I expect to follow US laws. That is perfectly sensible to me.
The content was in the hands of a US corporation, operating in the US. It seems to make no difference where the citizen or his terminal was physically located. US entities should not be in the position of refusing services based on nationality, period. If China does not like what their citizens are doing, they need to enforce their laws locally.
Personally, if I owned MSN, I'd feel dirty for even thinking of removing that site. They'd have to pry it out of my cold dying hands. I'd instantly make it public, put it on my news network and start a big fight. Of course, I have no financial interest in our continued dealings with China.
It amounts to the same thing. The Chinese government is in a position of selecting who will and will not use their labor, and how much they will enforce laws that are not to their advantage (i.e. copyright law). In order for us to continue enjoying the profits we've become used to, we must see things their way or the deals may change. Either way it translates to principles versus lost money, not that MS feels cowed by the red army.
Parallel situations exist in hardware companies as well. We care less about copyrights and more about the factories that we have invested quite a lot in bringing up, maintaining and educating. Of course, we're not allowed to keep pictures of those factories on our desks, talk about our visits to them, or discuss things like size, shape, locations, numbers of buildings etc.
The only thing global corps won't do is crap in their own bed, so they will not enforce global standards requiring employment practices that are incompatible ith american law.
The answer to that is really, really simple. If you do business in China, and wish to continue to do so, you have to obey their laws, even in the US. I have seen several people fired from my company for saying anti-China things (not anti-Chinese mind you, it was aimed directly at the gov't not the people). In an effort to conduct "consistent" business processes, and "comply with global standards" however, even our US facilities are regulated China-style. We're not allowed to discuss politics or religion, and our email is monitored.
The day is going to come where the bill of rights is going to have to be forced on the corporate world the same way it is forced on the government or it will stop meaning anything. It's not useful if 10-12 hours a day you're under the rule of an oppressive foreign government.
I think he's referring to the soup of DVD(+/-)(R/W). It is just a mess for people to deal with and sure to burn bleeding edge adopters thus slowing adoption rate.
So you're seriously arguing that radio remains more pervasive than TV, and that existing TVs becoming obsolete impacts so few people that it is limited only to constituents of the current administration? That would fit "pork" and your definition of impact. I'll admit that I do not heavily research my off the cuff slashdot posts, but this fails common sense.
I guess we're too far apart to argue. There ARE a lot of radios out there, I could concede that point but I would argue that since they're bundled with casette players, clocks, walkmans, cd-players and stereo's that perhaps it's not something that's used anywhere near as often. I can concede that you do not agree with the switch from analog to digital, thus necessitating this whole mess. It's been argued a long time, I am personally for it, I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks (of which $1.5B seems to be one). I can't see this as pork though, this has been 4 administrations in the making and will apparently make it to a 5th, regardless of who funds it, the electronics industry has been assured of money once it was decided upon. I can't see how coca-cola formula changes are even a close parallel. I can't see that so many people losing working televisions via government mandate is not going to be hurtful. I can't see how anyone could seriously argue a radio would be an acceptable solution to a broken TV set.
We pay regularly for many services that we personally do not need, including education, welfare, foreign aid, housing assistance, defense, etc. But there's enough people out there that do need that stuff that we pay anyway. This seems to affect a vast majority of people, has a pretty small cost, and neither adds nor subtracts significantly to other policies. I don't see why it's bad. If I were omnipotent I would simply ensure the vouchers got where they're needed, but I wouldn't begrudge anyone the money.
That aid continues to be available. The problem in every situation I've seen it applied is that people are either unaware of what is offered, or more commonly unable to use it. The most common scenario is people needing to work and care for families tend to not have time for a GED. It does not make sense to grow this particular funding. I don't plan to argue about welfare or social security, especially on slashdot. Smarter and more informed people argue about it every day and still can't agree, we won't here either.
Even in the Twenty-First Century, there are still more radio listeners than television viewers. According to the CIA's World Factbook, there are about six times as many FM broadcasters as there are TV broadcasters, and that doesn't include AM. Even if you include (pay-for) cable, there are still far more information sources on radio than on television.
That's not a very helpful fact. Radios aren't in many houses, not everyone owns a car (esp. in cities) but you can always count on a TV being around. You don't have to watch the damned thing 24/7 for it to be a vital tool. Obsolete TVs and you can't rely on that unless they can be replaced. For many that will be difficult.
TV isn't in your car. And 99 times out of 100, your employer isn't going to let you put a TV on your desk, but a radio is usually permitted. That's up to 9 waking hours that the average American is sans television.
Not everyone has a car (especially in cities, especially if they are financially struggling), and we're not talking about replacing the radio. The radio is critical for many emergencies that involve lost power. Nor is it relevant what people's employers do as employers tend to buy the TV. This is about home purchases. I don't know many families who sit around the radio at night anymore.
No, it's not. Television works only when it is turned on, and if nothing else, people do actually turn the things off when they go to bed. This is why we have loud sirens to warn us about tornados and the like.
People tend to keep them on an awful lot. Personally I don't use it much, but when I want to know what's going on locally I turn it on. More so when events are occuring that I have somehow grasped as important, transit strike information, government scandal, weather alerts, local shootings, whatever. I'm sure this transcends class boundaries, it's part of living in society. I'd LOVE to shut out the world, if I knew it would stay out. A very small fraction of required education is available in any kind of schools, most of it is ongoing.
Television does not help anybody who does not own and view one, if it helps anybody at all. But even then, if it's so damned important, why is Congress messing with it by forcing us all to upgrade to begin with?
For a variety of reasons I know a great deal of people who are living below the poverty line. Not homeless people, I don't know much about that group, but just poor. I don't know a single one without a TV. Not one. I know many without phones, many without cars, some who lose heat/hot water every so often, but not one without a TV. I can't say the same for any other communications device.
Better yet, instead of all this shady pork, why not pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing each and every citizen a television?
Because that would cost a lot more, a one time $1.5B charge is not enough for that. Now you're talking about a program.
My only point is that this is not as unreasonable as you try to make it out. If I were god of all things, I'd probably run this ship a little different too. But slashdot is first and foremost about technology, and TV, whether we like it or not, has a pretty significant impact on a huge numb
60 years ago I would have agreed with you. Radios aren't all that common anymore. Many people don't have one around, or at least don't use it if they do. I can't say when the last time I listened to my car radio was, perhaps if you commute in a large city.
Newspapers/broadband/etc. aren't live.
It's not actually that horrifying that they're subsidizing it. College money isn't going to help a good number of disadvantaged people, these may not have finished high school and may be barely literate, or any number of scenarios in which education is neither helpful nor possible. Having a working TV is very important, it's the only way to keep citizens informed of emergencies, government activities, etc. We take the state of the union address for granted, but it's important it is there, and gets out to people. Similarly hurricanes, tornados, terrorist attack info, etc. need to get out to everyone and the TV is a reliable way of doing it. You can count on a TV being almost everywhere (certainly anywhere I've ever lived, worked or went to school). It's like having roads or a standing army, the kind of thing that everyone benefits from.
Now I'd hope that the subsidies are going to people who really need it and not just every idiot out there.
I have not heard a single feature customers NEED from "video internet" that they're not already getting one way or another, exactly as they like it. All we'd see from this new method is that it'd be easier to get the content you want, but it'll cost more and not always work and you may or may not be able to store it. What we'll end up with is a lot more paid advertisements built into everything, a lot more content restrictions, and less control over how we use the internet (usually dumbed to the LCD).
As soon as the broadband companies are forced into only being able to supply bandwidth, we may actually see another "bubble". Until then it's too scary to have the 500lb gorilla trying to take your lunch money every time you se a feature he should be adding. Keep your money in the bank for this one.
Probably because they'd rather you buy a new $3k machine than repair your existing one.
It sounds stupid when any company does it. Sorta_like_putting _underscores randomly_throughout adds_. Especially when combined with spelled out keyboard actions SHIFT_foobar.
Or a different twist... "scientific" information about a disease from a ("research hospital") doctor and a ("revolutionary new drug") drug company are trusted equally poorly. There is a ton of information out there of questionable value in everything from the impossible politics to what ought to be pretty solid science. No one has time to go to the primary sources to get the information, even assuming primary sources are out there with proper references in a language that is accessible to anyone outside of the field.
I don't know what the hell is going on in Iraq, but I know I can't trust pretty much anyone to tell me. Similarly I'm not sure what kind of diet is ACTUALLY optimal for me personally. There's no shortage of information, some of it good, some bad, most of it has grains of truth with a lot of hyperbole or just misinterpretation of a subtle point. The only things I can believe unequivocally are the things I'e witnessed first hand (even if they are statistical anomalies, such as all the old smokers I know having died or are dying of cancer). Unfortunately that kind of logic isn't.
Having a lot of bulk information is less than useless, it's harmful. We need fewer, but more accurate sources.
I'd say it's the aesthetics of the landscape more than the models. I hate playing horde because the landscape is so dismal and dreary, while Night Elf land is amazing. Sure, at the high levels it's all the same, but depending on how you play, you do end up spending a lot of time in your starting territories.
That doesn't make any sense. Shortages are never good. The only argument you could make is that they wanted to be "the hot item for Christmas", but that makes no sense. It's a well known product that fanboi's have wanted since it was announced.
Holding off two weeks wouldn't have helped supply. Assume they are building as fast as they can, using far east slaves working factories around the clock. All they could have done to improve the shortage on release would have been to start building EARLIER, stockpile and release more initially, but as we developers know, that would have meant pushing up deadlines and maybe cutting corners on testing. In all probability they targetted november for delivery, but the compromise was that the designs didn't get to the factory in time to build up a huge number of units.
The universe of games for me are MMOGs, RTSs and FPSs, all of which are done best on PCs, so from my perspective I had it right already ;)
I like RPGs too, but there are so few worth playing on any platform that it's not worth mentioning.
Civ4 is just sloppy coding. I've managed to duplicate much of their graphics engine at a far greater frame rate (mostly so I can make a map builder that does not suck). Don't get me wrong, I love Civ4, it's not meant to be a FPS so I can understand them not focusing on performance graphics. I actually would rather they let you play out of a window and just use sprites, but I digress.
I stopped playing FPSs a few years ago, firstly because I don't think there's anything more that can be done with the genre that isn't done to death, usually better, by doom and quake 2. Secondly I get really dizzy from them for some reason. When games make you sick, it's time to stop playing.
HD has 4:3 aspect ratios too. It's a common misconception that HD necessarily means 16:9. In fact some xbox (1) games support 4:3 HD resolutions. It looks a little silly to play that way (since there's all that blank space unless you stretch/deform the picture) but it's nice to have the extra detail.
As for whether HD is critical to gaming, the answer should be DUH. It's been answered on the PC for years. 320x200 stopped being "enough" over 10 years ago. 640x480 (for practical purposes, this is standard TV res) went out with the VooDoo. If you are used to playing PC games at 1600x1200, you'll upgrade or drop other details before you drop resolution. It's just consoles and their addiction to the living room TV that have been stuck in the stone age.
You probably couldn't afford it. However if you laden it down with enough frivolous lawsuits you probably could. *wink wink*
Nope, I think you're mostly wrong on that. I think most of us are happy on both counts. I think I understand the MS in EU case the least, but I can be happy that they're getting spanked and not worry about it.
You're missing the point. It's not about democrat or republican. Bad laws are being passed by both parties quietly while the general public at large is distracted with "Iraq" or "Intelligent Design". The democrats LOVE Bush, that's why they didn't run a real candidate. He pushes all our buttons so incredibly well we have no idea what's really going on. Clinton was pretty "good" too, we were busy watching his sex life on TV, not congress.
My reading of the parent post, and his comparison with Hitler was exactly that. He used public feelings to distract people from the freedoms and government controls they were losing. At the core, all totalitarian governments have that in common. It's not acceptable under any leadership.
All that matters are what laws that are being proposed, who proposed them, who supports them and who voted them in. And by laws, I mean the actual text contained inside the bill, NOT the title of the bill, NOT how it's described on the news, but each provision, including all the shit added at the end by various interests.
Amen, Preach on.
Until you can play FPSs with a keyboard and a mouse, PCs will be better gaming platforms. I can't believe anyone puts up with a joystick on an fps.
Not many people download movies "just as they hit the theater". Try it, you'll find the quality so low it's not worth stealing.
As for the rest I wonder why people are doing it. Is it because, as you say, they are theives? Or because they can't get what they want how they want it at a price that is reasonable. Anyone who downloads movies as they hit the theater is certainly not doing so to avoid payment, he just wants to watch a movie at home, now. Not wait a year for the DVD, or stand in line and pay $10 to watch 30% commercials in a dirty theater. I'm not sure how pampering the MPAA on this is helping sponsor the creation of new material, unless you really think charging people for the movie, the pay per view, the cable channel and the vhs/laserdisc/dvd/hd-dvd/newformat2k is really what people had in mind when they invented the concept of a copyright. The goal was only to reward creative people to stimulate new ideas.
The same sorts of arguments could be made about music. Apple has no trouble selling songs at $.99, but CD's at $15 aren't flying off shelves. Probably because there is only 1-2 songs per CD that are worth listening to. Similarly, why drive all the way to a music store to buy a CD that just takes up space when you can throw it on your hard drive for a buck and have it now?
Rather than address new market needs and responding to cost concerns, they're antagonizing consumers. The response is overwhelming, consumers are finding it easier and easier to take for free what they could otherwise be paying for. Copyright law is, after all, completely artificial. The harder these groups push their case, the more people think about it and realize "I'm stealing what, exactly?".
Seriously it's going to take longer than a month for hardware fixes to get in place, UNLESS they knew about the problems before they shipped! I doubt they could even get firmware patches in place in a month, it's not like patching a PC. Problems have to be found, ECOs issued, new hardware built & tested (if HW is faulty) and new flash devices created. That doesn't usually happen within a month, especially given that anything arriving this week was probably built 2-3 weeks ago.
If you want to be sure you don't get broken hardware wait about 6 months, make sure your store has been sold out. Listen for reports of people with new systems that don't have problems, then buy.