Here's a thought: lots of people might like things that you don't. Here's another thought: something can be "good" without your approval. I hate GTA, but I can still recognize it as a "good" game because so many other people have, including people I trust.
I have played plenty of FPS on the PC (not the least of which was System Shock 1&2, [insert other good and obscure fps]) and Halo still takes the cake. They just do everything so well, story, graphics, AI, and even controls. I have some friends that if you were playing the same exact game of Halo, them on the controller and you on the mouse and keyboard, they would kick your ass everytime, no matter how much you practiced.
One of defining features of each "web 2.0" application has been that it has done a good job of hype, either by creating "invites" (gmail) or merely letting the web equivalent of word of mouth spread use around (del.icio.us).
I've been following Flock ever since the site launched. I read preview after preview from web 2.0 people who claimed Flock would be God's gift to the modern age, better than parasols or flying airships or rockets to the moon. So, of course, I downloaded it with great haste yesterday only to discover . .. . . . that it is little more than an AJAX-esque skin for Firefox with some "fancy" extensions, fancy meaning slow and unworkable. Marshall McLuhan, media genius and internet saint, said that hot media burns fast and clear, shining for only a moment and then gone. Well, friends, Flock is hot in the McLuhan sense. It was best experienced as an anticipation, not as something that has actually arrived. The reality is that Flock is flying lame.
What the Flock people should have done is release it quietly to a few developers, let them test it under promise of silence, and then when they had something worth screaming about - screamed then, and only then. Instead, they screamed before they had anything, in the sense that they posted flickr screenshots, and whipped up the blogosphere in orgasmic anticipation.
I felt cheated trying Flock, and vindicated when I uninstalled it. I've been very impressed with Web 2.0 so far, or whatever it is they're calling webpages on the internet that are well coded, but if Flock is the future I want out.
Well, the poster said, "Sega" not "Dreamcast." And once again, you said that the two are uncannily similar to the DC without specifically mentioning why. The only one I see is that they are both a year ahead of the PS2, but the same could be said of the PS2 to the Xbox.
I might be insane, but if you think it's all about the games you're niave.
Think back to the PS2 launch. It blew. Seriously. I am not a fanboy. I love all games, regardless of their platform. But when I was an assistant manager at EB during the PS2 launch, people would come into the store during that first year, people who had scrunged and fought for a PS2 (and a memory card!), and they would just stare blankly at the wall. There was nothing. That year's Madden looked like a clean cut and paste of the PS1 version. Onimusha was the first quote-unquote-great game for the PS2.
Onimusha! The PS2 launch was one of the worst launches in history, as admitted by Sony themselves. It was not until MGS2, GTA3, and a Madden designed for the PS2, and later that year FF - all of these were post Xbox - that the PS2 came into its own. Yet, immediately, the PS2 sold amazingly well. Why?
Culture. You're right, the final indicator is unit sales. But we don't have unit sales yet because we're still a month and a half away. I am not saying that Microsoft will conquer all, which is basically what most slashdotters instinctively think whenever you ask people to think reasonably about anything to do with Microsoft. I'm just saying that the Xbox360 is further ahead than the Xbox was when it launched, and look where the Xbox is now.
This isn't worth replying to, but it's late and I'm bored. So, specifically, you - or someone - please explain how is the Xbox360 like the Dreamcast?
You know, instead of using one word or drunken cowardly retorts.
Not that it matters, but I have very little personal interest in the xbox360. PGR3 looks great, as does Xbox Live 2, but beyond that - yawn. But that there aren't many games, or good games, at launch makes it completely different from the Dreamcast, which had a terrific launch lineup.
Come on guys. Every Xbox360 slashpost for the last three months ends up with some highly moderated post about how the Xbox360=Dreamcast. If it's gotten to the point where you're using one word and getting modded up X points, it's too far. There are other, far more intelligent reasons why a first release does not equal an advantage, but a comparison to Sega is not one of them. Sega is nothing like Microsoft, and the Dreamcast is completely different than the Xbox360.
Microsoft could not be more different than Sega in this situation. Sega was already running out of cash. Its arcade incomes had dropped next to nothing. More than that, Sega had lost its single major technology partner - Microsoft - just before launch, because Microsoft had suddenly decided to start dev on its own console. Sega lost its president just before the Dreamcast launch. It postponed the launch date an entire month after a solid promise of September 23. Sega was banking on the Dreamcast, but Microsoft will not go under if no one buys an Xbox360. Sega nearly did when few bought the Dreamcast.
With regards to the hardware, there are now declining returns on hardware performance. Three years of R&D does not look like three years of graphical and gameplay improvement to the mainstream. Nintendo has wisely realized this and correspondingly revamped the UI technology rather than the graphic tech. I haven't seen the PS3 in real action (few have), but I can't imagine it can do much more technically than the Xbox360, at least in terms of the difference between the Dreamcast and PS2. Sega pushed the online capabilities of the Dreamcast, but they were too far ahead of the game (this was when ISDN was fast). Now, with broadband penetration in most American middle class homes, Xbox Live 2 looks revolutionary.
Finally - and unfortunately - Microsoft has realized that it really isn't even games that matter to a consoles success: it's culture. The Dreamcast's launch lineup was unarguably the best console launch ever, and hedgehog heads and tails above the medicore PS2 launch and Halo-driven Xbox launch. What it was missing was cultural penetration. But owning an Xbox, in America and Europe, is cool. Turn on MTV and watch Pimp My Ride. It's not PS2s people want in the backseats of their cars, it's Xboxen. You never saw anything like that with the Dreamcast. Sega thought it was all about the games, and it never was. The PS2 succedded because the PS1 was cool, and because it racked up massive cool points with GTA3.
I could go on. Go research the Dreamcast launch and you'll see that not only is Sega/Dreamcast completely unlike Microsoft/Xbox360, but the market is a completely different animal now. But please, stop with the Sega comparisons. They're dumb.
I love gmail. In fact, most of my friends are on gmail, and it's an understatement to say that it's changed the way we communicate. Emails used to be long, now - thanks to the conversation thread view - we don't feel bad writing one liners that would have otherwise clogged up email boxes. Mailing from one gmail account to another is almost as fast as instant message, and many of our conversations look like group chats.
So three of us decided to mess around with Google Talk. It was lame, and just made us wonder why we weren't gmailing. The VOIP seemed solid enough, but since we all have cellphones with unlimited long distance VOIP seems kind of pointless. These weren't conversations we could archive and search later, and it was only between two people at a time - unlike some of our 20+ person threads.
If there was somehow more integration with gmail this would have been really cool. If Google Talk could somehow have "transcribed" the entire conversation as a gmail, _and_ allowed more than two people in a conversation, we would have used Google Talk for more than 3 minutes. As it stands, it's just another medicore instant message program. Yipee.
I'm using Google Sidebar, and I just can't fathom why all these products aren't interoperable. Why can't Google Sidebar just tell me how many new gmails I have, with a simple number? Why can't Google Talk save my conversations as gmails? Maybe that's the grand plan, whenever Google Beta finally de-beta-izes; but for now it seems like Google is sprawling in so many directions one side doesn't know what the other is doing.
Coming out first was not what killed the Dreamcast. Sega did not have the "The EA Advantage"(TM), "The SquareSoft Advantage"(TM), or the "We Have Cash Coming Out of The Pores on Our Ass Advantage"(TM). Microsoft has like 2 of those 3, which makes this NOT LIKE THE PAST.
I totally agree! I also suggest that we lock up people who use the word "net" in lieu of Inter Network, or "www" instead of World Wide Web, or "email" instead of Electronic Mail.
What is the only form of communication that we have to companies like EA? Hint: it isn't the Contact Us form on their webpage.
It's your wallet. Companies will start learning that they can't publish this when you refuse to buy another EA product because of your experience with Battlefield 2. Dollar amounts are the only language they understand, and right now most PC gamers are saying, "Wooo! Give us more!"
I would also suggest that companies have learned. Most of EA's budget goes to console dev, not PC. Even the hardcore niche PC gaming print mags have started to include video games in their coverage, because PC games is becoming more desolate. That's not to say there haven't been some hits - Half Life 2 being the prime example. But whereas there used to be a dozen major games coming out each year from each publisher there are now one, or two max.
But in order to really change the behavior of EA, bitching on some unread message board about patch problems and then being the first in line to buy the $39.99 expansion pack for Battlefield 2 is only saying, "Thank you sir may I have another." Don't buy EA games, and they'll get the message.
This kind of early speculation is kind of useless, because it's all PR right now. Isn't it entirely possible that Sony is using the sub-press to float around a $399 number, then later when they announce the console at $299 gamers and industry will think it's a bargain. By spreading rumors that the console is $399, they're placing a value on it higher than what the xbox is without actually committing to a price point. Hell, why wouldn't you do that?
The strength in Joss Whedon's (JW) is his character writing. People love them, because they're typically witty, clever, and/or funny (the "or" covering Jane of course).
The movie works, or least works best, because JW has had 14 hours of TV to build up histories for the characters. But the film seems to angle the Firefly franchise into cinematic waters and away from television. Frankly, while I loved the movie, it will be very difficult to do what JW does best within the framework of 2 hours instead of 14.
So it's my conclusion that while JW wants the movie to succeed, I can't help but wonder if it isn't just one big loving Dear John letter to the fans. JW will have his hands full with Wonder Woman (we would all be so lucky) for the next few years so it's highly unlikely that we'll even see a sequel to Serenity for some time, and especially any kind of television work.
The only alternative is that JW hands the reins of Firefly off to someone else, in which case it might suck.
Bachus translated into Job-speak (Arr. Dev.)
on
The Phantom...Lives?
·
· Score: 1
In tech, and specifically PCs, large companies have driven research and progress. But it seems that there is always an OEM market that keeps prices reasonable, or finds ways to create the same product but cheaper.
Why isn't that happening with printers? Why isn't some off-market company coming up with printers that never need ink refills?
I have no doubt this will come back to bite current video game voice actors in the ass. They'll probably get their wish, but when the publishers have pay higher rates, they might start hiring other voice actors. You know, good ones.
It's a shame, because I've loved some of these guys since their FMV days. Or something.
So far my favorite of the E3 reporting is Gamespot's Tor Thorsen likening people's response to the Killzone footage to people's reaction after Kennedy's assasination.
Next up from Tor and Gamespot: "When Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 would not be compatible, it was like being in the World Trade Center when the planes hit."
These people are pros incom. Let them do their work.
Remember back in the day, the debates we would all have in our neighborhood backyards as kids, about how certain consoles had more bits and therefore were better?
Enterprise eventually learned what most Sci-Fi still hasn't.
What sci-fi have you not been watching the last ten years?
DS9 was very story-driven, and was probably inspired by the heavily storied Babylon 5. Since then we've had science fiction like Space: Above and Beyond, and more recently the brilliant Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. All these shows are heads and tales above what Enterprise has ever accomplished, even this late in the game.
The source for these specs? The TeamXbox forums. Now I like the staff of TeamXbox. They have created a pretty reasonable and reliable site. But the forum? Let's take a random sample of thread titles:
"a guy where at the mtv show!!!"
"doom 3 @ 400k!!!!!!!!"
"If I have too buy Batterys to play my games on xbox360"
"Can Permanant Marker Wreck Discs?"
"I dreamed I owned an xbox 360 last night"
"Fisher Price is manufacturing the X360 consoles!"
[huge sic]
We need only wait 24 hours before we know the real specs. Maybe these are right, but do you really need to be posting completely speculative specs when the slashdot post is fresh enough that we can all came back and make fun of you if you're wrong?
Slashdot Mirror
Behold: a not-so-scientific experiment using the new Xbox360 controller. Guess which one wins?
Something, apparently.
Here's a thought: lots of people might like things that you don't. Here's another thought: something can be "good" without your approval. I hate GTA, but I can still recognize it as a "good" game because so many other people have, including people I trust.
I have played plenty of FPS on the PC (not the least of which was System Shock 1&2, [insert other good and obscure fps]) and Halo still takes the cake. They just do everything so well, story, graphics, AI, and even controls. I have some friends that if you were playing the same exact game of Halo, them on the controller and you on the mouse and keyboard, they would kick your ass everytime, no matter how much you practiced.
One of defining features of each "web 2.0" application has been that it has done a good job of hype, either by creating "invites" (gmail) or merely letting the web equivalent of word of mouth spread use around (del.icio.us).
.
I've been following Flock ever since the site launched. I read preview after preview from web 2.0 people who claimed Flock would be God's gift to the modern age, better than parasols or flying airships or rockets to the moon. So, of course, I downloaded it with great haste yesterday only to discover . .
. . . that it is little more than an AJAX-esque skin for Firefox with some "fancy" extensions, fancy meaning slow and unworkable. Marshall McLuhan, media genius and internet saint, said that hot media burns fast and clear, shining for only a moment and then gone. Well, friends, Flock is hot in the McLuhan sense. It was best experienced as an anticipation, not as something that has actually arrived. The reality is that Flock is flying lame.
What the Flock people should have done is release it quietly to a few developers, let them test it under promise of silence, and then when they had something worth screaming about - screamed then, and only then. Instead, they screamed before they had anything, in the sense that they posted flickr screenshots, and whipped up the blogosphere in orgasmic anticipation.
I felt cheated trying Flock, and vindicated when I uninstalled it. I've been very impressed with Web 2.0 so far, or whatever it is they're calling webpages on the internet that are well coded, but if Flock is the future I want out.
Well, the poster said, "Sega" not "Dreamcast." And once again, you said that the two are uncannily similar to the DC without specifically mentioning why. The only one I see is that they are both a year ahead of the PS2, but the same could be said of the PS2 to the Xbox.
I might be insane, but if you think it's all about the games you're niave.
Think back to the PS2 launch. It blew. Seriously. I am not a fanboy. I love all games, regardless of their platform. But when I was an assistant manager at EB during the PS2 launch, people would come into the store during that first year, people who had scrunged and fought for a PS2 (and a memory card!), and they would just stare blankly at the wall. There was nothing. That year's Madden looked like a clean cut and paste of the PS1 version. Onimusha was the first quote-unquote-great game for the PS2.
Onimusha!
The PS2 launch was one of the worst launches in history, as admitted by Sony themselves. It was not until MGS2, GTA3, and a Madden designed for the PS2, and later that year FF - all of these were post Xbox - that the PS2 came into its own. Yet, immediately, the PS2 sold amazingly well. Why?
Culture. You're right, the final indicator is unit sales. But we don't have unit sales yet because we're still a month and a half away. I am not saying that Microsoft will conquer all, which is basically what most slashdotters instinctively think whenever you ask people to think reasonably about anything to do with Microsoft. I'm just saying that the Xbox360 is further ahead than the Xbox was when it launched, and look where the Xbox is now.
This isn't worth replying to, but it's late and I'm bored. So, specifically, you - or someone - please explain how is the Xbox360 like the Dreamcast?
You know, instead of using one word or drunken cowardly retorts.
Not that it matters, but I have very little personal interest in the xbox360. PGR3 looks great, as does Xbox Live 2, but beyond that - yawn. But that there aren't many games, or good games, at launch makes it completely different from the Dreamcast, which had a terrific launch lineup.
Come on guys. Every Xbox360 slashpost for the last three months ends up with some highly moderated post about how the Xbox360=Dreamcast. If it's gotten to the point where you're using one word and getting modded up X points, it's too far. There are other, far more intelligent reasons why a first release does not equal an advantage, but a comparison to Sega is not one of them. Sega is nothing like Microsoft, and the Dreamcast is completely different than the Xbox360.
Microsoft could not be more different than Sega in this situation. Sega was already running out of cash. Its arcade incomes had dropped next to nothing. More than that, Sega had lost its single major technology partner - Microsoft - just before launch, because Microsoft had suddenly decided to start dev on its own console. Sega lost its president just before the Dreamcast launch. It postponed the launch date an entire month after a solid promise of September 23. Sega was banking on the Dreamcast, but Microsoft will not go under if no one buys an Xbox360. Sega nearly did when few bought the Dreamcast.
With regards to the hardware, there are now declining returns on hardware performance. Three years of R&D does not look like three years of graphical and gameplay improvement to the mainstream. Nintendo has wisely realized this and correspondingly revamped the UI technology rather than the graphic tech. I haven't seen the PS3 in real action (few have), but I can't imagine it can do much more technically than the Xbox360, at least in terms of the difference between the Dreamcast and PS2. Sega pushed the online capabilities of the Dreamcast, but they were too far ahead of the game (this was when ISDN was fast). Now, with broadband penetration in most American middle class homes, Xbox Live 2 looks revolutionary.
Finally - and unfortunately - Microsoft has realized that it really isn't even games that matter to a consoles success: it's culture. The Dreamcast's launch lineup was unarguably the best console launch ever, and hedgehog heads and tails above the medicore PS2 launch and Halo-driven Xbox launch. What it was missing was cultural penetration. But owning an Xbox, in America and Europe, is cool. Turn on MTV and watch Pimp My Ride. It's not PS2s people want in the backseats of their cars, it's Xboxen. You never saw anything like that with the Dreamcast. Sega thought it was all about the games, and it never was. The PS2 succedded because the PS1 was cool, and because it racked up massive cool points with GTA3.
I could go on. Go research the Dreamcast launch and you'll see that not only is Sega/Dreamcast completely unlike Microsoft/Xbox360, but the market is a completely different animal now. But please, stop with the Sega comparisons. They're dumb.
Turn off your monitor for an all-black gui! It roxor!
Retailers are trying to sell as much as they can! Someone stop the world from spinning!
I love gmail. In fact, most of my friends are on gmail, and it's an understatement to say that it's changed the way we communicate. Emails used to be long, now - thanks to the conversation thread view - we don't feel bad writing one liners that would have otherwise clogged up email boxes. Mailing from one gmail account to another is almost as fast as instant message, and many of our conversations look like group chats.
So three of us decided to mess around with Google Talk. It was lame, and just made us wonder why we weren't gmailing. The VOIP seemed solid enough, but since we all have cellphones with unlimited long distance VOIP seems kind of pointless. These weren't conversations we could archive and search later, and it was only between two people at a time - unlike some of our 20+ person threads.
If there was somehow more integration with gmail this would have been really cool. If Google Talk could somehow have "transcribed" the entire conversation as a gmail, _and_ allowed more than two people in a conversation, we would have used Google Talk for more than 3 minutes. As it stands, it's just another medicore instant message program. Yipee.
I'm using Google Sidebar, and I just can't fathom why all these products aren't interoperable. Why can't Google Sidebar just tell me how many new gmails I have, with a simple number? Why can't Google Talk save my conversations as gmails? Maybe that's the grand plan, whenever Google Beta finally de-beta-izes; but for now it seems like Google is sprawling in so many directions one side doesn't know what the other is doing.
Putting more ads before movies has been working great for that industry.
Coming out first was not what killed the Dreamcast. Sega did not have the "The EA Advantage"(TM), "The SquareSoft Advantage"(TM), or the "We Have Cash Coming Out of The Pores on Our Ass Advantage"(TM). Microsoft has like 2 of those 3, which makes this NOT LIKE THE PAST.
I hate how anachronistic we are.
I totally agree! I also suggest that we lock up people who use the word "net" in lieu of Inter Network, or "www" instead of World Wide Web, or "email" instead of Electronic Mail.
When are game companies going to learn?
What is the only form of communication that we have to companies like EA? Hint: it isn't the Contact Us form on their webpage.
It's your wallet. Companies will start learning that they can't publish this when you refuse to buy another EA product because of your experience with Battlefield 2. Dollar amounts are the only language they understand, and right now most PC gamers are saying, "Wooo! Give us more!"
I would also suggest that companies have learned. Most of EA's budget goes to console dev, not PC. Even the hardcore niche PC gaming print mags have started to include video games in their coverage, because PC games is becoming more desolate. That's not to say there haven't been some hits - Half Life 2 being the prime example. But whereas there used to be a dozen major games coming out each year from each publisher there are now one, or two max.
But in order to really change the behavior of EA, bitching on some unread message board about patch problems and then being the first in line to buy the $39.99 expansion pack for Battlefield 2 is only saying, "Thank you sir may I have another." Don't buy EA games, and they'll get the message.
This kind of early speculation is kind of useless, because it's all PR right now. Isn't it entirely possible that Sony is using the sub-press to float around a $399 number, then later when they announce the console at $299 gamers and industry will think it's a bargain. By spreading rumors that the console is $399, they're placing a value on it higher than what the xbox is without actually committing to a price point. Hell, why wouldn't you do that?
Since you're at 4-interesting, I guess that your post is a testament to the power of long entrenched atheism?
The strength in Joss Whedon's (JW) is his character writing. People love them, because they're typically witty, clever, and/or funny (the "or" covering Jane of course).
The movie works, or least works best, because JW has had 14 hours of TV to build up histories for the characters. But the film seems to angle the Firefly franchise into cinematic waters and away from television. Frankly, while I loved the movie, it will be very difficult to do what JW does best within the framework of 2 hours instead of 14.
So it's my conclusion that while JW wants the movie to succeed, I can't help but wonder if it isn't just one big loving Dear John letter to the fans. JW will have his hands full with Wonder Woman (we would all be so lucky) for the next few years so it's highly unlikely that we'll even see a sequel to Serenity for some time, and especially any kind of television work.
The only alternative is that JW hands the reins of Firefly off to someone else, in which case it might suck.
"Still. Where did the lighter fluid go."
In tech, and specifically PCs, large companies have driven research and progress. But it seems that there is always an OEM market that keeps prices reasonable, or finds ways to create the same product but cheaper.
Why isn't that happening with printers? Why isn't some off-market company coming up with printers that never need ink refills?
I have no doubt this will come back to bite current video game voice actors in the ass. They'll probably get their wish, but when the publishers have pay higher rates, they might start hiring other voice actors. You know, good ones.
It's a shame, because I've loved some of these guys since their FMV days. Or something.
I hear he can carry nearly 80 Gigs of data in his head.
Whoa.
Not in the near future.
So far my favorite of the E3 reporting is Gamespot's Tor Thorsen likening people's response to the Killzone footage to people's reaction after Kennedy's assasination.
Next up from Tor and Gamespot: "When Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 would not be compatible, it was like being in the World Trade Center when the planes hit."
These people are pros incom. Let them do their work.
Oh geez.
Remember back in the day, the debates we would all have in our neighborhood backyards as kids, about how certain consoles had more bits and therefore were better?
Looks like *flops are the new bits.
Enterprise eventually learned what most Sci-Fi still hasn't.
What sci-fi have you not been watching the last ten years?
DS9 was very story-driven, and was probably inspired by the heavily storied Babylon 5. Since then we've had science fiction like Space: Above and Beyond, and more recently the brilliant Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. All these shows are heads and tales above what Enterprise has ever accomplished, even this late in the game.
. . . of the Killers! They were awesome and completely off the hook! I can't wait until their good album comes out!
The source for these specs? The TeamXbox forums. Now I like the staff of TeamXbox. They have created a pretty reasonable and reliable site. But the forum? Let's take a random sample of thread titles:
"a guy where at the mtv show!!!"
"doom 3 @ 400k!!!!!!!!"
"If I have too buy Batterys to play my games on xbox360"
"Can Permanant Marker Wreck Discs?"
"I dreamed I owned an xbox 360 last night"
"Fisher Price is manufacturing the X360 consoles!"
[huge sic]
We need only wait 24 hours before we know the real specs. Maybe these are right, but do you really need to be posting completely speculative specs when the slashdot post is fresh enough that we can all came back and make fun of you if you're wrong?