I think you're thinking of the Euphoria engine, a specialized physics engine for human(oid) bodies that's a big step over ragdoll. But even that's not exclusive to LucasArts. It's in GTA IV, too, at least.
See the Boston Globe article detailing how he is promoting scanners that he has a financial interest in.
That guy has been scum from day one. This is no different. What about the evidence that these scanners tear apart DNA? How freaking safe is that?
Pen and Paper (PNP) RPGs are by far the better deal. Let's take the most WoWish of all RPGs, D&D 4e as an example. You can grab all three core books for $66.12 on Amazon. A little more if you go buy them from your FLGS where you'll find people to help you get started, dice, advice, and even a place to play.
You can get free adventures (blah - write your own!) on the internet to keep you busy forever. And you'll be playing in a freer, more open world where you can try anything you can imagine. And you'll be playing with actual friends sitting nearby - or far away. I've got plans to include one of my longtime players in a special Skype-based session bridging our Albuquerque-Japan gap in a week or two.
And lets face it - you're reading Slashdot - you have access to a computer. That means all the accessories you might buy like dice, maps, battlemats, markers, miniatures, lists of monsters, lists of treasure etc., are available to you for free. Frankly, lots of awesome games are available to you for free, too. Check out _The Shadow of Yesterday_ or _Spirit of the Century_ or _GURPS Lite_.
Yes, in the past twenty-four years or so, I've spent a lot on PNP RPGs. But a new book (averaging $35-$40) isn't just an investment in a strictly timebound amount of entertainment. Almost every book I own has provided:
A) Hours of enjoyment to read, reread, and peruse B) Entertainment for myself and multiple others while being used to play as intended by the designers C) Ideas that make *other* games more interesting or exciting
Plus, PNP games offer things that MMORPGs just can't offer. Can you sit around on a Sunday and go over your old WoW stuff? Can you call up a bunch of WoWers you raid with and say, "Hey, this weekend, let's play WoW JUST like it was on launch day!" Can you change the course of history in Azeroth? Can you freeze the acidic blood of a fallen enemy with a spell, cram the ice crystals into the lock you couldn't pick before the fight started, take a while to rest and heal and let the melting acid open the lock for you?
No, you can't. But PNP gamers can do all of that and more. I'm not saying WoW sucks, or that it's not worth what it costs. I'm just saying if you want to pretend you're an awesome dude or lady in a world of magic and swordplay, there are cheaper ways. Oh, and the genres available to PNP roleplayers are much more varied as well. There are a lot more options besides fantasy, corporatist sci-fi, and superheroes out there.
There is no formula in ASoIaF. That's what frustrates people so much about the series - it defies expectation.
There's no script immunity for viewpoint characters. And, without being spoilerish, there are no villains that are simply villainous. Nobody in Westeros wakes up and says, "I think I'll go be awful today!"
There is rape, but not like you've described it. I'm trying to think of a likeable character that gets raped - the only multiple rape I can remember is that of a character nobody likes much to begin with, and that's done by an angry mob, not a particular character.
Either you haven't read these books, or your reading comprehension is poor at best.
As far as the delays between books, yes I find those frustrating as well. But like they say about games: A late book is only late until it ships. A bad book is bad forever.
We like games that are released when they're done - books are better when writers are able to infuse them with life instead of simply cranking them out, too. We're talking about art here, people.
I love the idea that the lack of challenging electronic games will cause an influx back to my beloved tabletop realm. Imagine a multiplayer environment so real that you can punch your opponent in the arm when he defeats your crafty strategies!
Think this has anything to do with the rise of the eurogame lately?
I had that schedule for about four years and found it invaluable. Once you've been at work for 8 hours, does 1 more really mean that much to you? As much as 26 additional (albeit inflexibly scheduled) days off per year? I have changed jobs (thanks Bush!) and no longer have the 9/80 schedule as an option. The three day weekends are great - I took a lot of short trips with my kid on those weekends.
Sure, once in a while we had to come in on an "off" Friday, but usually were able to scoot another day around to make up for it. It rocks. I miss it. Enjoy it.
Seriously? You're asking this question without any reference as to what sort of application you'd like to develop? And if you're afraid of Python's indentation, I shudder to think of what your code in any language. I read once a comment that summed up the indentation issue pretty well and I paraphrase it here:
Python's indentation is like lobster. Most people who've tried it, like it. But it can be hard to believe that you'll like it until you try it.
I would pick some task I wanted to accomplish and then go looking for a language that I thought would be suitable for that task by all measures, including being a language I was interested in learning.
Gary, through D&D, has been a major impact on my life. I've been playing since 4th grade, which is 28 years ago, now. And though I stopped playing D&D itself regularly many years ago, I've never stopped playing RPGs. I know people are making jokes, but being a smart kid in my elementary and middle schools wasn't exactly a ticket to popularity. So D&D provided a valuable interactive fantasy that I could share with my small circle of friends as well as a healthy outlet for frustration, aggression, and desires for revenge. My wife has been playing with me since 9th grade, though D&D has never been her game. When I decided my son was old enough to play, I started him with D&D because the very things I found so confining (class / level system) made convenient splats for him, and he was familiar with LotR and Arthuriana. I run a weekly game for three adult players, and a monthly game for nine (!) kids.
D&D got me interested in probability, simulation, narrative structure, theater, and more. A good game session can be the best entertainment around, more engrossing than a video game, a movie or even a book. Furthermore, I appreciate anything that encourages people to produce instead of consume, and RPGs put the participants in an active, creative, participatory role with regard to their entertainment. Roleplaying games give players common history - the stuff of in-jokes - shared experiences that never happened. So Gary gave me years of wonder and excitement, and I've tried to pass that on when I can. Thanks, Gary, and goodbye.
The "Enterprise" controller from the Saturn release of Nights: Into Dreams was one of the most comfortable controllers I had felt up to that point. I think it influenced the Dreamcast controller heavily and therefore the XBOX Duke, S, and 360 controllers.
Check it out on wikipedia
Yep. That big controller meant your hands were a lot more open and relaxed during play. That thing felt substantial and the buttons were far enough apart to help avoid accidental presses of any of them. Duke rocket.
I went through a political crisis about a decade back, the result of which was that I became a Libertarian, because they had a no-holds-barred personal freedoms platform and a don't-strike-first foreign policy platform. But it has become apparent to me that the everything-should-be-private portion of Libertarianism outweighs the positive aspects.
There are several facets of human endeavor that cannot function effectively as businesses because their primary function is not the generation of profit. But we call these "industries", nonetheless.
The healthcare industry
The education industry
The corrections industry
The defense industry
None of those listed above are properly industries - each is intended primarily to produce the noun listed before the word "industry", not profits. Additionally, those are some of the key measures of a civilization - how healthy, well educated, and secure are you? How do you treat those who break society's rules?
My current political crisis started a couple of years ago, and I'm still adrift.
I've been thinking about adding a Wii to sit next to my 360.
But when I want to play boardgames with my family in the living room, we play board games. Try some of these on for size:
Kill Doctor Lucky - the award winning game of what happens right before Clue begins. I happen to own and love the Cheapass version as well.
Battlelore - the best light wargame I've ever played
Mystery of the Abbey - Clue for fans of The Name of the Rose and Brother Cadfael
Puerto Rico - a classic eurogame and, for my money, the best "gateway game" there is. I'll play this over Catan any day of the week.
Warrior Knights - an updated version of the '85 classic, and a terrific American-style boardgame (which is to say, there's direct player vs. player conflict). Where else can you be made Ambassador to the Orient and a Traitor to the Crown on the same turn?
I'm not affiliated with any of these publishers or their resellers or the industry at all - I just wanted to provide links for more information.
My wife and my 10-year old son and I get a lot of pleasure out of playing these games. And believe me, I understand the desire for online and / or anytime play. In today's world, any boardgame has to offer a significant tactile reward for playing, and all of the games I listed are well made and provide pleasure just in handling them.
I'm looking forward to the boardgame releases for the 360, I just don't consider them replacements for real boardgames. Just like Oblivion doesn't replace the tabletop RPG sessions I run.
Thank you for finally saying so! I'm so tired of seeing "Get a real guitar instead!" in threads all over. I've been playing real guitar for about 2.5 years and Guitar Hero for less than a week. The rate of progress in GH is simply not comparable to the rate of progress with a real instrument. And let me lay this little thought on you: A decent rig, with a guitar and amp that will last you for several years and produce tones that make you want to continue playing will run you a great deal more than GH, even without any lessons. I paid just over $600 for my rig (not a lot of money by guitar standards), so GH2 and a second guitar is cheap by comparison.
My launch-day 360 has been home TWICE. But my warranty was extended after the second time until late Sept. 07, and I believe I got a new system after the second time. Service has been good. Don't pretend PS2s didn't and PS3s won't break.
NASA screens relentlesssly for compatibility and skill overlap.
Regardless of their precautions, at the end of the mission one of the astronauts turns out to be pregnant and the ensuing jealous murder and schism among crew leaves her the only survior after they crash-land on the desert plains of Mars. She dies shortly after delivering the child, who is raised by transcendental Martians.
When another Mars mission returns the now-grown boy to Earth, he is endangered because a series of legal loopholes involving ancient seafaring salvage laws make him the sole owner of the planet Mars.
Once he escapes from the hospital with the aid of a sexy nurse and a journalist...Hey, this would make a great book!
360 Backwards Compatibility has actually been pretty good in my experience. Just last night I dropped my new-to-me copy of the Futurama game into my 360 tray, et voila! it worked! I like playing my original Xbox games on my 360 mostly because I vastly prefer the 360 controller to my old wired ones, even over my beloved Dukes. Buffy is good news to me, because I just acquired both it and Chaos Bleeds, and the (inferior) latter was the only one the 360 would play.
And I also cheer for Psychonauts, what an awesome game!
You've gotta be kidding. We need a Democratic Congress _now_ if you want any sort of oversight on the last two lame-duck years of the Bush administration. We can worry about splitting Congress again in '08 or '10. Geez. We're on the freaking Titanic and you're encouraging everyone to tidy up his cabin before filing out to the lifeboats.
Want to see next gen graphics? Get Fight Night: Round 3. Or Oblivion. But FNR3 uses the graphics to drive next-gen gameplay. I have never played a more intense, absorbing fighting game. And a good part of that is the no-interface presentation. You have to watch yourself and your opponent to see your health and stamina - facial expression, breathing, how they hold their hands and bodies. Much more interesting than a couple of bar graphs.
I got my 360 at Costco, bundled with an extra wireless controller, Kameo, and 1 play and charge kit. That was the only configuration they offered. But I was going to buy both accessories for sure and Kameo was already a "maybe" for me. So if you calculated the bundled accessories at retail price (Have you seen *any* 360 stuff below retail? Not me.), Kameo came out to a price of $10. So basically, it was $50 below the total retail price of the items in the bundle. I acceptd a lack of choice in exchange for a discount. Seemed fair to me.
But advertising a bare 360 and then not offering it is, in fact, scummy. And seriously - how many launch day 360 buyers were really going to walk out of the store without some games and controllers? Why anger and alienate your market by forcing them to make purchases many would make without the extra pressure?
Uhhh...who's reporting 360s sitting unsold? My friend has been regretting his decision to sleep in on launch day instead of coming out with me to brave the pre-dawn line-standing and can't find a single 360 on the shelves anywhere in the entire state of New Mexico. The fastest he can get one at retail is a three-week wait. And sites like NotifyWire.com show available 360s online having a lifetime of single-digit minutes, and that's in bundles starting at over $700.
If I recall correctly, Forza Motorsport on the original XBOX can be set up in a three-system, three-monitor mode. And I think a trio of XBOXEN and decent TVs will set you back a lot less than high-powered gaming rigs and monitors.
You are misinformed. The Xenon (not Xeon) processor in the 360 is fantastically powerful. It's got three 3.2 GHz PPC cores, each capable of performing whatever magic is trade-named "Hyperthreading" in the Intel world so that they can service two threads without the performance-sapping overhead of switching.
As for polygon processing power, might I remind you that these are video games - their entire reason for existing is to display rich graphical representations of games. So pushing graphical prowess isn't to be scoffed at. Anyone else out there floored by the downloadable demo of (sequel approaching! Run!) Fight Night Round 3 for the 360? I know - it needs to be smoothed out a little to play as well as the XBOX version of FNR2, but I'm sure that the fine-tuning of control is on the agenda for the time before release. Tell me that the viceral experience of boxing isn't enhanced by the improvements in graphics, I dare you.
I don't deny that the Revolution is taking an interesting tack on the next generation. I may even buy one if it's dirt cheap and the games are compelling - and I was a Sega gamer back in the day, so downloadable NES games aren't compelling. Check out Wik: Fable of Souls for a downloadable platformer that's worth your $10 bucks or so.
I don't know enough about the Cell CPU to defend my initial impression that a single core and a bunch of DSPs aren't going to stand up to three general purpose CPU cores in the arena of "logical processing power", but that's my opinion at the moment. And I can tell you for sure that the general CPU oomph of the 360 is impessive - and unlikely to be whipped by the "we're not worried about big hardware improvements" Revolution.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're thinking of the Euphoria engine, a specialized physics engine for human(oid) bodies that's a big step over ragdoll. But even that's not exclusive to LucasArts. It's in GTA IV, too, at least.
See the Boston Globe article detailing how he is promoting scanners that he has a financial interest in. That guy has been scum from day one. This is no different. What about the evidence that these scanners tear apart DNA? How freaking safe is that?
OK - time for the old school to chime in.
Pen and Paper (PNP) RPGs are by far the better deal. Let's take the most WoWish of all RPGs, D&D 4e as an example. You can grab all three core books for $66.12 on Amazon. A little more if you go buy them from your FLGS where you'll find people to help you get started, dice, advice, and even a place to play.
You can get free adventures (blah - write your own!) on the internet to keep you busy forever. And you'll be playing in a freer, more open world where you can try anything you can imagine. And you'll be playing with actual friends sitting nearby - or far away. I've got plans to include one of my longtime players in a special Skype-based session bridging our Albuquerque-Japan gap in a week or two.
And lets face it - you're reading Slashdot - you have access to a computer. That means all the accessories you might buy like dice, maps, battlemats, markers, miniatures, lists of monsters, lists of treasure etc., are available to you for free. Frankly, lots of awesome games are available to you for free, too. Check out _The Shadow of Yesterday_ or _Spirit of the Century_ or _GURPS Lite_.
Yes, in the past twenty-four years or so, I've spent a lot on PNP RPGs. But a new book (averaging $35-$40) isn't just an investment in a strictly timebound amount of entertainment. Almost every book I own has provided:
A) Hours of enjoyment to read, reread, and peruse
B) Entertainment for myself and multiple others while being used to play as intended by the designers
C) Ideas that make *other* games more interesting or exciting
Plus, PNP games offer things that MMORPGs just can't offer.
Can you sit around on a Sunday and go over your old WoW stuff? Can you call up a bunch of WoWers you raid with and say, "Hey, this weekend, let's play WoW JUST like it was on launch day!" Can you change the course of history in Azeroth? Can you freeze the acidic blood of a fallen enemy with a spell, cram the ice crystals into the lock you couldn't pick before the fight started, take a while to rest and heal and let the melting acid open the lock for you?
No, you can't. But PNP gamers can do all of that and more. I'm not saying WoW sucks, or that it's not worth what it costs. I'm just saying if you want to pretend you're an awesome dude or lady in a world of magic and swordplay, there are cheaper ways. Oh, and the genres available to PNP roleplayers are much more varied as well. There are a lot more options besides fantasy, corporatist sci-fi, and superheroes out there.
There is no formula in ASoIaF. That's what frustrates people so much about the series - it defies expectation.
There's no script immunity for viewpoint characters. And, without being spoilerish, there are no villains that are simply villainous. Nobody in Westeros wakes up and says, "I think I'll go be awful today!"
There is rape, but not like you've described it. I'm trying to think of a likeable character that gets raped - the only multiple rape I can remember is that of a character nobody likes much to begin with, and that's done by an angry mob, not a particular character.
Either you haven't read these books, or your reading comprehension is poor at best.
As far as the delays between books, yes I find those frustrating as well. But like they say about games: A late book is only late until it ships. A bad book is bad forever. We like games that are released when they're done - books are better when writers are able to infuse them with life instead of simply cranking them out, too. We're talking about art here, people.
I love the idea that the lack of challenging electronic games will cause an influx back to my beloved tabletop realm. Imagine a multiplayer environment so real that you can punch your opponent in the arm when he defeats your crafty strategies! Think this has anything to do with the rise of the eurogame lately?
I had that schedule for about four years and found it invaluable. Once you've been at work for 8 hours, does 1 more really mean that much to you? As much as 26 additional (albeit inflexibly scheduled) days off per year? I have changed jobs (thanks Bush!) and no longer have the 9/80 schedule as an option. The three day weekends are great - I took a lot of short trips with my kid on those weekends.
Sure, once in a while we had to come in on an "off" Friday, but usually were able to scoot another day around to make up for it. It rocks. I miss it. Enjoy it.
Seriously? You're asking this question without any reference as to what sort of application you'd like to develop? And if you're afraid of Python's indentation, I shudder to think of what your code in any language. I read once a comment that summed up the indentation issue pretty well and I paraphrase it here:
Python's indentation is like lobster. Most people who've tried it, like it. But it can be hard to believe that you'll like it until you try it.
I would pick some task I wanted to accomplish and then go looking for a language that I thought would be suitable for that task by all measures, including being a language I was interested in learning.
Everything I know about regular expressions came from the Python documentation. http://docs.python.org/lib/re-syntax.html
Gary, through D&D, has been a major impact on my life. I've been playing since 4th grade, which is 28 years ago, now. And though I stopped playing D&D itself regularly many years ago, I've never stopped playing RPGs. I know people are making jokes, but being a smart kid in my elementary and middle schools wasn't exactly a ticket to popularity. So D&D provided a valuable interactive fantasy that I could share with my small circle of friends as well as a healthy outlet for frustration, aggression, and desires for revenge. My wife has been playing with me since 9th grade, though D&D has never been her game. When I decided my son was old enough to play, I started him with D&D because the very things I found so confining (class / level system) made convenient splats for him, and he was familiar with LotR and Arthuriana. I run a weekly game for three adult players, and a monthly game for nine (!) kids.
D&D got me interested in probability, simulation, narrative structure, theater, and more. A good game session can be the best entertainment around, more engrossing than a video game, a movie or even a book. Furthermore, I appreciate anything that encourages people to produce instead of consume, and RPGs put the participants in an active, creative, participatory role with regard to their entertainment. Roleplaying games give players common history - the stuff of in-jokes - shared experiences that never happened. So Gary gave me years of wonder and excitement, and I've tried to pass that on when I can. Thanks, Gary, and goodbye.
The "Enterprise" controller from the Saturn release of Nights: Into Dreams was one of the most comfortable controllers I had felt up to that point. I think it influenced the Dreamcast controller heavily and therefore the XBOX Duke, S, and 360 controllers. Check it out on wikipedia
Yep. That big controller meant your hands were a lot more open and relaxed during play. That thing felt substantial and the buttons were far enough apart to help avoid accidental presses of any of them. Duke rocket.
I went through a political crisis about a decade back, the result of which was that I became a Libertarian, because they had a no-holds-barred personal freedoms platform and a don't-strike-first foreign policy platform. But it has become apparent to me that the everything-should-be-private portion of Libertarianism outweighs the positive aspects.
There are several facets of human endeavor that cannot function effectively as businesses because their primary function is not the generation of profit. But we call these "industries", nonetheless.
None of those listed above are properly industries - each is intended primarily to produce the noun listed before the word "industry", not profits. Additionally, those are some of the key measures of a civilization - how healthy, well educated, and secure are you? How do you treat those who break society's rules?
My current political crisis started a couple of years ago, and I'm still adrift.
- Kill Doctor Lucky - the award winning game of what happens right before Clue begins. I happen to own and love the Cheapass version as well.
- Battlelore - the best light wargame I've ever played
- Mystery of the Abbey - Clue for fans of The Name of the Rose and Brother Cadfael
- Puerto Rico - a classic eurogame and, for my money, the best "gateway game" there is. I'll play this over Catan any day of the week.
- Warrior Knights - an updated version of the '85 classic, and a terrific American-style boardgame (which is to say, there's direct player vs. player conflict). Where else can you be made Ambassador to the Orient and a Traitor to the Crown on the same turn?
I'm not affiliated with any of these publishers or their resellers or the industry at all - I just wanted to provide links for more information. My wife and my 10-year old son and I get a lot of pleasure out of playing these games. And believe me, I understand the desire for online and / or anytime play. In today's world, any boardgame has to offer a significant tactile reward for playing, and all of the games I listed are well made and provide pleasure just in handling them. I'm looking forward to the boardgame releases for the 360, I just don't consider them replacements for real boardgames. Just like Oblivion doesn't replace the tabletop RPG sessions I run.Thank you for finally saying so! I'm so tired of seeing "Get a real guitar instead!" in threads all over. I've been playing real guitar for about 2.5 years and Guitar Hero for less than a week. The rate of progress in GH is simply not comparable to the rate of progress with a real instrument. And let me lay this little thought on you: A decent rig, with a guitar and amp that will last you for several years and produce tones that make you want to continue playing will run you a great deal more than GH, even without any lessons. I paid just over $600 for my rig (not a lot of money by guitar standards), so GH2 and a second guitar is cheap by comparison.
My launch-day 360 has been home TWICE. But my warranty was extended after the second time until late Sept. 07, and I believe I got a new system after the second time. Service has been good. Don't pretend PS2s didn't and PS3s won't break.
NASA screens relentlesssly for compatibility and skill overlap.
Regardless of their precautions, at the end of the mission one of the astronauts turns out to be pregnant and the ensuing jealous murder and schism among crew leaves her the only survior after they crash-land on the desert plains of Mars. She dies shortly after delivering the child, who is raised by transcendental Martians.
When another Mars mission returns the now-grown boy to Earth, he is endangered because a series of legal loopholes involving ancient seafaring salvage laws make him the sole owner of the planet Mars.
Once he escapes from the hospital with the aid of a sexy nurse and a journalist...Hey, this would make a great book!
360 Backwards Compatibility has actually been pretty good in my experience. Just last night I dropped my new-to-me copy of the Futurama game into my 360 tray, et voila! it worked! I like playing my original Xbox games on my 360 mostly because I vastly prefer the 360 controller to my old wired ones, even over my beloved Dukes. Buffy is good news to me, because I just acquired both it and Chaos Bleeds, and the (inferior) latter was the only one the 360 would play.
And I also cheer for Psychonauts, what an awesome game!
What about Democracy Player and their Broadcast Machine? We've been able to do this ourselves for some time now.
You've gotta be kidding. We need a Democratic Congress _now_ if you want any sort of oversight on the last two lame-duck years of the Bush administration. We can worry about splitting Congress again in '08 or '10. Geez. We're on the freaking Titanic and you're encouraging everyone to tidy up his cabin before filing out to the lifeboats.
Reasons to turn on your 360?
Fight Night
Call of Duty
Oblivion.
Want to see next gen graphics? Get Fight Night: Round 3. Or Oblivion. But FNR3 uses the graphics to drive next-gen gameplay. I have never played a more intense, absorbing fighting game. And a good part of that is the no-interface presentation. You have to watch yourself and your opponent to see your health and stamina - facial expression, breathing, how they hold their hands and bodies. Much more interesting than a couple of bar graphs.
I got my 360 at Costco, bundled with an extra wireless controller, Kameo, and 1 play and charge kit. That was the only configuration they offered. But I was going to buy both accessories for sure and Kameo was already a "maybe" for me. So if you calculated the bundled accessories at retail price (Have you seen *any* 360 stuff below retail? Not me.), Kameo came out to a price of $10. So basically, it was $50 below the total retail price of the items in the bundle. I acceptd a lack of choice in exchange for a discount. Seemed fair to me.
But advertising a bare 360 and then not offering it is, in fact, scummy. And seriously - how many launch day 360 buyers were really going to walk out of the store without some games and controllers? Why anger and alienate your market by forcing them to make purchases many would make without the extra pressure?
Uhhh...who's reporting 360s sitting unsold? My friend has been regretting his decision to sleep in on launch day instead of coming out with me to brave the pre-dawn line-standing and can't find a single 360 on the shelves anywhere in the entire state of New Mexico. The fastest he can get one at retail is a three-week wait. And sites like NotifyWire.com show available 360s online having a lifetime of single-digit minutes, and that's in bundles starting at over $700.
If I recall correctly, Forza Motorsport on the original XBOX can be set up in a three-system, three-monitor mode. And I think a trio of XBOXEN and decent TVs will set you back a lot less than high-powered gaming rigs and monitors.
Supposed to be a good racing game, too.
You are misinformed. The Xenon (not Xeon) processor in the 360 is fantastically powerful. It's got three 3.2 GHz PPC cores, each capable of performing whatever magic is trade-named "Hyperthreading" in the Intel world so that they can service two threads without the performance-sapping overhead of switching.
As for polygon processing power, might I remind you that these are video games - their entire reason for existing is to display rich graphical representations of games. So pushing graphical prowess isn't to be scoffed at. Anyone else out there floored by the downloadable demo of (sequel approaching! Run!) Fight Night Round 3 for the 360? I know - it needs to be smoothed out a little to play as well as the XBOX version of FNR2, but I'm sure that the fine-tuning of control is on the agenda for the time before release. Tell me that the viceral experience of boxing isn't enhanced by the improvements in graphics, I dare you.
I don't deny that the Revolution is taking an interesting tack on the next generation. I may even buy one if it's dirt cheap and the games are compelling - and I was a Sega gamer back in the day, so downloadable NES games aren't compelling. Check out Wik: Fable of Souls for a downloadable platformer that's worth your $10 bucks or so.
I don't know enough about the Cell CPU to defend my initial impression that a single core and a bunch of DSPs aren't going to stand up to three general purpose CPU cores in the arena of "logical processing power", but that's my opinion at the moment. And I can tell you for sure that the general CPU oomph of the 360 is impessive - and unlikely to be whipped by the "we're not worried about big hardware improvements" Revolution.