Why didn't the N64 beat the pants off of everyone else then? Couldn't Nintendo leverage the SNES into more time for delivering a product that could beat the competition?
The N64 didn't win that round of consoles but did do well enough - in part due to the strong following Nintendo has in the gamers community. I'm not sure Sony has such a strong following. No, you're incorrect - console companies can't rest on past truimphs or they risk becoming yesterday's news.
That's actually fictional office linebacker Terry Tate you're talking about and the commercials are sopme of the funniest I've seen come out of Reebok, Nike, et al ever.
And the Terry Tate game idea sounds great. If anyone hasn't seen the commercials, check out that link. They're all there. There is nothing more satisfying than watching the corporate peon win a game of solitaire, stand up to celebrate, and then getting absolutely housed by a flying Terry tackle - brilliant, truly brilliant.
Copying without permission? But you've been given permission by the person sharing it in your example. The RIAA doesn't have a store where mp3s are available for download but you can only download if you have permission.
If I went in to Best Buy, and they gave me a free album - I would not be breaking the law, would I? This is the same with P2P networks. The only violation of copyright law comes on the distribution end, which is not what you cite in your example.
Downloading copyrighted material isn't against the law. It's sharing copyrighted material that has got the RIAA up in arms.
Don't try to avoid the pigeon shit. Instead, try to realize that there are no pigeons.
Seriously, Acclaim announces this advertising promos but very rarely follows through with him. In all the promos cited in the article, none of those actually came to fruition. This is no different. Basically, Acclaim announces this junk in order to get press - mission accomplished as evidenced by this article.
Well of course you're also paying money so the company can profit. That's stating the obvious. My point was that the cash paid for your original purchase of the game goes towards the development costs and not server maintanence.
Honestly, of course some of the money on the sale and paying for the service is profit-taking by the company.
So you expect that your forty euros (or whatever you pay for the game - I'm not in Europe), once spent, should give you unlimited access. Let's consider that: in a game like Everquest or the Sims Online where the company has to maintain centralized servers, how long do you think that fourty euros will pay for those servers to be up and running? Ignoring the fact that if you dump all your money into maintaining the servers, you make no profit. The original price of the game pays for development while the monthly subscription pays for the maintanence of the servers. You cite games that don't have the requirement of centralized servers for play where an end user can host. This is quite different.
How does this seem excessive? You pay for the development and packaging of a game - then you pay for the service provided by the company with their servers.
I understand that the newest Gameboys have the backlit screen and are small and sleek and sexy but what games are driving the sales here? I haven't heard about a killer game for the Gameboy akin to what Tetris did for the original GB.
Re:Things PHP is missing
on
PHP Cookbook
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· Score: 1, Interesting
You bring up some good points but here's a thought I have regarding your first suggestion. Why have a function like SetDBType built in when it can easily be accomplished with a simple include file that specifices the type of database you want to connect to? That way an application only has the database type hardcoded in one place for an entire application. As we can see by C, giving the end programmer a smaller set of tools that always works is better than giving the programmer thousands and thousands of built in functions. I mean, that was the reason for the move to RISC processors after all. Giving everyone these functions that only apply in some situations often just leads to unused functions. Although these types of issues can be more of a problem in a language that is much closer to the hardware.
Re:PHP Security
on
PHP Cookbook
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· Score: 4, Interesting
You are right - there is a general lack of books which deal with writing very fault tolerant and secure PHP code. Most of the PHP books I've seen in the stores start from the basics and focus on getting a database connection up and running and then doing some simple input/output/db access. I think that while PHP has taken off as a web language, this has hindered development a bit because everyone using PHP keeps running into the same problems and has to recode constantly to work around them.
Of course, writing secure code isn't specific to a language and any book on writing secure code should help to pave the way to avoid common mistakes, just substitute PHP for language X. For instance Writing Secure Code by Michael Howard could be a good companion book to any programmer's library.
Hopefully, in a few years PHP will have a large enough installed user base (as I think it already does) that the advances issues such as security, tolerance, etc. will be dealt with in entire book(s). Can you tell I am a PHP afficianado?
There are actually two separate tournaments involving RTCW. There's the RTCW: Team Tournament that will have 64 teams - six players per team. And there's the Wolfenstein Enemy Territory tournament that will let "128 lucky attendees" do battle for a $4,000 top prize!
Check out this pic from the gallery...are you getting pumped for Doom III yet? THE EVIL LIVES ON!
How can Lucas be this unaware? All we need to do is take a look at the comments in reply to this and see that everyone is sick and tired of Star Wars and George Lucas trying to suck every last dollar out of us. Now, George Lucas must be somewhat intelligent - why doesn't he realize that this type of behavior hurts his ticket sales more than it helps? If you want to charge people a bit for server costs, that's one thing. But $20 for infrequently updated and grainy pics of people standing around waiting for Portman to come out of her trailer? That's outrageous and I hope no one signs up for this "service."
But Lucas never shows any respect for the fans so why am I surprised.
"Or will Wright go more mainstream to get a bigger audience?"
Why would you think that what Wright creates wouldn't have mainstream appeal? Look at the games he has been responsible - some of the biggest selling games to the non-gamer. He's always been able to create content that was interesting to a large number of people.
"Hopefully people will finally get sick of the drudge TV and radio have become and demand things be put back the way they were. I mean seriously, look at what crap cable is now."
Oh? The way things were? You mean back in the day when there were two television channels? The content on television is much more diverse than at any other point in the medium's history. So I'm not sure what good times you want to harken back to but good luck.
You may also want to note that Time Warner internet access is not tied in to cable access. There is no one forcing you to pay for the television channels if all you want is the internet connection. Rather than being so upset about your situation (and, in turn, spew vulgarities on Slashdot about it) why don't you call Time Warner and cancel the television channels? It's very simple.
The fall of America eh? Who is going to take you seriously when you say things like that? Take a look at the rest of the world and tell me that America is falling into mediocrity. The United States is far and away the most progressive country founded on the principals of a Republican democracy and the system of capitalism.
Again, one cannot "slander" Linux. Check the definition. What you are trying to say is that SCO, by making statements about Linux, has indirectly slandered Linus.
"is indeed slandering Linus"
Legally, you can make that argument but it won't hold up in court. You should review some case law and do a little more investigation before you decide someone has been slandered. Now, getting into a discussion of legal boundaries on Slashdot is quite foolish so I'm not going to go any further than that. Do a little more research and you might just find out why it is that you're wrong.
I would have to beg to differ. Firstly, SCO has directly slandered RMS and others in the Free Software movement with their statements, particularly their misquotes [sco.com]. They have directly slandered IBM (which is a corporation and therefore a person). They have indirectly slandered Linus yesterday, for I quote [computerworld.com]:
I was informing the parent to which I was responding to that Linux is an OS and therefore cannot be smeared. You quoted this and told me I was wrong. But then you cited SCO slandering RMS, IBM, etc. Nowhere in your little tirade did you inform me how SCO slandered Linux; probably because that is impossible. An OS cannot be slandered. I was informing the parent to my post of what the word slander means. Since you told me I was wrong in your first sentence but gave no supporting evidence of this (although none exists because Linux is not a person in any legal sense) I decided not to read the rest of what you posted. Have a good day and when you decide someone is wrong - try to refute what they actually said instead of what you wished they had said.
From the list for best sports game they have listed "Madden NFL 2004 (Electronic Arts for All Platforms)" but I feel like the PS2 version should not be lumped in with all the other versions because online play will be exclusive to the PS2. Madden 2004 will not be playable on XBox Live and I think that detracts significantly from the game. In fact, all of EA's future sports titles will only be online compatible for the PS2.
Although, I heard this tidbit on G4, I am assuming that the PC version will have online play - perhaps EA won't have dedicated servers for users to play on and it will only be P2P. Anyway, I think that this movie for EA spells a lot of success for the PS2 - with the recent announcement by Sony that all future PS2's will come with network adapters, the only console to play sports games on will be the PS2.
I just wish Sega had included online play in World Series Baseball 2K3 - a great game that could be made even better. Does anyone know if any of the current year's baseball titles are online compatible?
Anyway, trying to judge what system is going to have the best games based on E3 is a lot like forcasting the weather by turning on TV and checking to see if the sky in the current episode of Dawson's Creek is cloudy. Who knows when some of these games are going to come out. Although, Metal Gear Solid 3 is going to be high atop my list of stuff to buy.
A company cannot slander Linux. Slander is the oral communication of false statements that injure a person's reputation. As Linux is not a person, slander doesn't apply. Also, Linus would not have a great case for the guy at SCO slandering him because of the nature of the statement. Stating that you are considering bringing a lawsuit against someone is not slander since it is probable that this statement is true, and hard to prove otherwise.
Well, isn't it a different market? It seems to me that the biggest hits in Japan haven't always been the biggest hits in North America. I haven't checked out the global market much. I'm curious though.
Was GTA a big hit in Japan? Was it even sold there? I remember reading about Dance Dance Revolution being a huge hit in Japan and only being a niche market in North America (although, I seem to see Dance Dance Revolution everywhere I go). Does someone have a table of top ten selling video games for N. America and Japan? I would bet that a lot of the games would not match. I know that EA's line of FIFA games does very well worldwide BUT is overshadowed in N. America by many games.
Are sports games a big market in Japan? I'm going to go do some research on this topic.
I'm going to play fast and hard with numbers here so watch out if something doesn't quite add up but anyway...
let's suppose Sega Sports spent 10 dollars on development to corner 33% of the sports game market. Now, EA spends 10 dollars to get their 33% of the market, leaving 33% for Company X. Now, with a business alliance, Sega can throw in 5 dollars and EA can throw in 5 dollars to get 66% of the market. Or, if we want to get nuts, both companies can throw in 8 dollars and use some of the excess for advertising in order to get a bigger chunk of the pie. Sega can spend less on development and get more profit by this alliance BECAUSE even if they get a smaller chunk, they can spend less money due to the alliance.
At least that's my guess - although I'm not any kind of MBA so I could be wrong and will be replied to as such, I am sure.
Listen, it's our duty to open up the portal to Hell, we believe that the imps have weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, those Battlefield 1942 guys have been receiving safe harbor from the residents of hell. That being said, we must wage war!
ANd if we're going to start learning "lessons" from video games and/or popular movies, well, we're in a heap of trouble that not even a double-barrelled shotgun can solve.
Everquest?
on
Saving MUDs?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Forgive me if I make any outrageous errors in my comment as I never took much interest in the MUD world BUT is a MUD any different at this point than, say, Everquest? As far as I know, the basic ideas are the same and your experience is still up to you - whether you want to use it just to chat with new people or actually go on adventures. MUDs are probably easier to modify and add items and such to for the end user, as Sony dictates most of the Everquest world but that seems like a small sacrifice to make in favor of a ton more eye candy.
Your monthly bill pays for some of the service - in order for everyone in the industry to make a tidy profit - commercials are included in order to make a bit more. The reason that HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax are premium channels is because there are no commercials. Therefore, HBO, Cinemax, and the like are not making any money from commercials and therefore charge the cable company more for the feed. You pay for part of the cost in your monthly bill and another portion of it is paid by the commercials that you are agreeing to have pumped into your home.
And there is no reason you have to watch commercials; turn the television off whenever a commercial comes on. Sure, you might miss some of the show but you won't see commercials.
Well, did you read the article? Obviously the new owners of ReplayTV feel that their inclusion of these features helped to incite some anger within major media companies and, because of this, created friction for ReplayTV.
"Hollingsworth added that ReplayTV models selling today still include Commercial Advance and Send Show options, but the company has not made up its mind about including those features in future products.
Two years ago when ReplayTV introduced its 4000 series of digital recorders, those services upset major media players such as Walt Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA) and the TV networks, which filed lawsuits against Sonicblue claiming that ReplayTV violated copyright laws and robbed them of ad revenue."
It's a very bad idea for a company to upset the big boys and this may have been part of the reason that ReplayTV hit the ground hard. So by eliminating these features, you get more support from companies such as Disney and Viacom.
No, it's not a better predictor. Yes, it introduces the possibility of random chance but that randomness is not a reflection of the real game in any way whatsoever. There is a huge difference between video game football and real football and using statistical models of football games will be a much better predictor over the long run.
8 out of 8? 8 tries and you're terming it a success? Discrete math tells us that eight trials is not going to cut it for this type of event. And if you want to know why gambling remains as an industry it is because people love to take the odds - and most times lose. The favored team will, the majority of the time, win. Statistical models exist and are used all the time to determine odds.
Also, when you say "You can't statistically model a clutch player or someone who folds under pressure", I assume you are claiming that with this inclusion of human players that you are modeling this. This is not the case. First of all, the players aren't under nearly as much pressure in these games. There are people watching but there's not a stadium full screaming at them. The game is not being broadcast around the world. The clutch player you mention is not even neccescarily playing the game. Sure, the in-game representation is there, but you're negating the possibility that the game models a player's ability to step up in the big game. In short, only two players are involved in this game, which is much, much smaller than the actual number of players involved in the game and therefore this process only creates an element of randomness that is not stemming from reality because the two players are not interacting with the other X players not represented. Therefore, as I said, it's not a good predictor. You may wish to check out this book to get a better idea of why just including randomness, does not a good model make.
Slashdot Mirror
The N64 didn't win that round of consoles but did do well enough - in part due to the strong following Nintendo has in the gamers community. I'm not sure Sony has such a strong following. No, you're incorrect - console companies can't rest on past truimphs or they risk becoming yesterday's news.
And the Terry Tate game idea sounds great. If anyone hasn't seen the commercials, check out that link. They're all there. There is nothing more satisfying than watching the corporate peon win a game of solitaire, stand up to celebrate, and then getting absolutely housed by a flying Terry tackle - brilliant, truly brilliant.
If I went in to Best Buy, and they gave me a free album - I would not be breaking the law, would I? This is the same with P2P networks. The only violation of copyright law comes on the distribution end, which is not what you cite in your example.
Downloading copyrighted material isn't against the law. It's sharing copyrighted material that has got the RIAA up in arms.
Seriously, Acclaim announces this advertising promos but very rarely follows through with him. In all the promos cited in the article, none of those actually came to fruition. This is no different. Basically, Acclaim announces this junk in order to get press - mission accomplished as evidenced by this article.
Honestly, of course some of the money on the sale and paying for the service is profit-taking by the company.
How does this seem excessive? You pay for the development and packaging of a game - then you pay for the service provided by the company with their servers.
I understand that the newest Gameboys have the backlit screen and are small and sleek and sexy but what games are driving the sales here? I haven't heard about a killer game for the Gameboy akin to what Tetris did for the original GB.
You bring up some good points but here's a thought I have regarding your first suggestion. Why have a function like SetDBType built in when it can easily be accomplished with a simple include file that specifices the type of database you want to connect to? That way an application only has the database type hardcoded in one place for an entire application. As we can see by C, giving the end programmer a smaller set of tools that always works is better than giving the programmer thousands and thousands of built in functions. I mean, that was the reason for the move to RISC processors after all. Giving everyone these functions that only apply in some situations often just leads to unused functions. Although these types of issues can be more of a problem in a language that is much closer to the hardware.
Of course, writing secure code isn't specific to a language and any book on writing secure code should help to pave the way to avoid common mistakes, just substitute PHP for language X. For instance Writing Secure Code by Michael Howard could be a good companion book to any programmer's library.
Hopefully, in a few years PHP will have a large enough installed user base (as I think it already does) that the advances issues such as security, tolerance, etc. will be dealt with in entire book(s). Can you tell I am a PHP afficianado?
Check out this pic from the gallery...are you getting pumped for Doom III yet? THE EVIL LIVES ON!
But Lucas never shows any respect for the fans so why am I surprised.
You may also want to note that Time Warner internet access is not tied in to cable access. There is no one forcing you to pay for the television channels if all you want is the internet connection. Rather than being so upset about your situation (and, in turn, spew vulgarities on Slashdot about it) why don't you call Time Warner and cancel the television channels? It's very simple.
The fall of America eh? Who is going to take you seriously when you say things like that? Take a look at the rest of the world and tell me that America is falling into mediocrity. The United States is far and away the most progressive country founded on the principals of a Republican democracy and the system of capitalism.
Really? I hadn't heard that. Are they going to have LAN play built in then, at least?
Although, I heard this tidbit on G4, I am assuming that the PC version will have online play - perhaps EA won't have dedicated servers for users to play on and it will only be P2P. Anyway, I think that this movie for EA spells a lot of success for the PS2 - with the recent announcement by Sony that all future PS2's will come with network adapters, the only console to play sports games on will be the PS2.
I just wish Sega had included online play in World Series Baseball 2K3 - a great game that could be made even better. Does anyone know if any of the current year's baseball titles are online compatible?
Anyway, trying to judge what system is going to have the best games based on E3 is a lot like forcasting the weather by turning on TV and checking to see if the sky in the current episode of Dawson's Creek is cloudy. Who knows when some of these games are going to come out. Although, Metal Gear Solid 3 is going to be high atop my list of stuff to buy.
A company cannot slander Linux. Slander is the oral communication of false statements that injure a person's reputation. As Linux is not a person, slander doesn't apply. Also, Linus would not have a great case for the guy at SCO slandering him because of the nature of the statement. Stating that you are considering bringing a lawsuit against someone is not slander since it is probable that this statement is true, and hard to prove otherwise.
Was GTA a big hit in Japan? Was it even sold there? I remember reading about Dance Dance Revolution being a huge hit in Japan and only being a niche market in North America (although, I seem to see Dance Dance Revolution everywhere I go). Does someone have a table of top ten selling video games for N. America and Japan? I would bet that a lot of the games would not match. I know that EA's line of FIFA games does very well worldwide BUT is overshadowed in N. America by many games.
Are sports games a big market in Japan? I'm going to go do some research on this topic.
let's suppose Sega Sports spent 10 dollars on development to corner 33% of the sports game market. Now, EA spends 10 dollars to get their 33% of the market, leaving 33% for Company X. Now, with a business alliance, Sega can throw in 5 dollars and EA can throw in 5 dollars to get 66% of the market. Or, if we want to get nuts, both companies can throw in 8 dollars and use some of the excess for advertising in order to get a bigger chunk of the pie. Sega can spend less on development and get more profit by this alliance BECAUSE even if they get a smaller chunk, they can spend less money due to the alliance.
At least that's my guess - although I'm not any kind of MBA so I could be wrong and will be replied to as such, I am sure.
ANd if we're going to start learning "lessons" from video games and/or popular movies, well, we're in a heap of trouble that not even a double-barrelled shotgun can solve.
Forgive me if I make any outrageous errors in my comment as I never took much interest in the MUD world BUT is a MUD any different at this point than, say, Everquest? As far as I know, the basic ideas are the same and your experience is still up to you - whether you want to use it just to chat with new people or actually go on adventures. MUDs are probably easier to modify and add items and such to for the end user, as Sony dictates most of the Everquest world but that seems like a small sacrifice to make in favor of a ton more eye candy.
And there is no reason you have to watch commercials; turn the television off whenever a commercial comes on. Sure, you might miss some of the show but you won't see commercials.
8 out of 8? 8 tries and you're terming it a success? Discrete math tells us that eight trials is not going to cut it for this type of event. And if you want to know why gambling remains as an industry it is because people love to take the odds - and most times lose. The favored team will, the majority of the time, win. Statistical models exist and are used all the time to determine odds.
Also, when you say "You can't statistically model a clutch player or someone who folds under pressure", I assume you are claiming that with this inclusion of human players that you are modeling this. This is not the case. First of all, the players aren't under nearly as much pressure in these games. There are people watching but there's not a stadium full screaming at them. The game is not being broadcast around the world. The clutch player you mention is not even neccescarily playing the game. Sure, the in-game representation is there, but you're negating the possibility that the game models a player's ability to step up in the big game. In short, only two players are involved in this game, which is much, much smaller than the actual number of players involved in the game and therefore this process only creates an element of randomness that is not stemming from reality because the two players are not interacting with the other X players not represented. Therefore, as I said, it's not a good predictor. You may wish to check out this book to get a better idea of why just including randomness, does not a good model make.