If this DRM is like a lot of the other stuff I've seen it will phone home to check if you're allowed to watch the film. I for one don't particularly want my porn phoning home to tell someone you're about to watch Lesbo Rim Jobs From Mars. Isn't there some invasion of privacy law that can be thrown at this?
Well said, plus the example is just replacing one type of language for another. If you're going to embed code within HTML why not just use PHP? With PHP you don't have to learn some new scripting language to put in the HTML and you don't have additional processing overhead for the framework to intereprete the HTML files. It's just putting a scripted language on top of a scripted language. Why do it?
No dummies can use any language, coders who are too undisciplined to be able to write well structured maintainable code without needing a framework are the dummies.
... the iPod is a fashion accessory to many these days and the type of people who buy gadgets because they are fashionable are the kind who just stick the iTunes CD into their PC and let it do it all for them. The idea that they could install eMule and seek out music for free won't have entered their heads. They'll be too busy deciding what fashionable accessory to get next (probably a PSP).
... bunging IGN a few thousand to tell us games like Halo 2, KOTOR 2, Madden 06, Burnout 4 are must haves games when in fact they have bugs or aren't finished is hardly how you contribute to good journalism.
The list was clearly written by someone who knows nothing about the games they're writing about anyway. Just on the first page there were loads of glaring errors, my favourite is the one on Rage Racer which says "Nearly all of the excellent track details and designs from the arcade game made it into the home version". Rage Racer was never in the arcades and it wasn't based on Rave Racer either.
You're not alone, I think both Halo games are the equivalent of the Emperor's New Clothes. They're both fairly well made and quite fun to play but even before Halo 1 came out there were better shooters on the PC. Some people say that because Halo was the first console shooter to be really excellent it deserves some sort of slack, but I don't see why it should be excused from comparisons to games on other platforms and I don't think it was that excellent either.
With games like Riddick on the Xbox I really don't see why Halo 2 deserved all the attention it got, it was flawed and none of the reviews highlighted the flaws in the story, graphics or "ending". It reminds me of all the MGS2 hype, that was a game with some serious drawbacks that again the press failed to mention.
Very true, the worst I've encountered on the Nintendo WFC service are crudely drawn hairy erect penises used as people's logos on their karts and people sending dirty letters to their animals in Animal Crossing. I'm not surprised some of the animals decided to escape to my village...
Thanks for the picture, I see why the image is called "gross"! You might as well just buy an ordinary DVD player, I always imagined the drive would have sat underneath the DC like the Karaoke add-on did or the 64DD did with the N64.
All this talk of add on drives reminds me of the Dreamcast and the persistant rumours of a DVD drive.
Before the PS2 was released there were so many people saying they would wait for the PS2 because it was also a DVD player that rumours began floating around that either a new Dreamcast with a DVD drive or an external drive would be released.
The DVD drive was never officially announced though, whether it was just a rumour or something based in fact I don't know. What I do remember was instead of it helping people to commit to buying a Dreamcast it just made people decide to wait for one with a DVD drive. Given that the rumour acted as a spoiler on sales I often wonder if it really came from Sega or actually Sony...
So with the 360 we have a white console with VGA out and Sega games launched roughly a year before the next Sony console. It would be perfect deja vu except I'm sure Gates' pockets are deep enough to fund the 360 no matter what.
Anyway, I'm dubious as to how soon we'll see an HD-DVD drive for the 360, this announcement strikes me more as a way to hook those saying they'll get a PS3 because of Blu-ray.
... I think we're more likely on the cusp of more John Madden, Need For Speed, NFL, Splinter Cell, LMA Manager and Colin McRae Rally sequels than the video gaming equivalent of Citizen Kane.
Yeah, I meant that when I said "Unlike Xbox Live you don't pay any subscription fee to use the service, the only cost would be your internet connection", however on re-reading it I didn't word that very clearly.:)
Depends where in the world you are. If you're in the US I believe there's free access to be had at any McDonalds. Unlike Xbox Live you don't pay any subscription fee to use the service, the only cost would be your internet connection (unless of course you want to play in McDonalds).
Yeah the floppy drive thing for RAID/SCSI/etc drivers is unbelievably stupid. There is a way to slipstream drivers onto a Windows XP CD but it's quite complex and doesn't work with certain drivers e.g. drivers for Nforce 4 motherbaords.
Of course you need to have a working computer to burn the CD in the first place. Not much good if you're building a computer from scratch!
If you've ever heard a 360 at full "whine" you'd understand why some people would fiddle with the cooling. Maybe I just got a dodgy 360 but the fan and DVD drive are so loud in mine they drown out the fan in my projector. And my projector already sounded like a hair dryer. Honestly it's like playing games at the hair dressers!;)
I'll tell you who Jared Rea is- he's a petty comment deleter. In one of his articles about Tecmo a while back I posted a short criticism of Tecmo for suing their fans at ninjahackers.net (who modded the Dead or Alive games with new costumes). Rea called all the users there pirates and made a bunch of incorrect statements about copyrights and piracy. I pointed out why he was wrong and at which point he started deleting my comments because he'd been made to look ignorant. He strikes me as a rather two bit editor, I mean why have a comments section at all if you're not willing to discuss what you've written?
So in my opinion any list of games he makes is bound to be worthless. I notice he's got Ninja Gaiden Black as best action game of the year. I'd certainly suggest Resident Evil 4 deserves that spot over a reheated version of Ninja Gaiden from the year before. What was it he was saying about fanboys in his article again?
Yeah, I've been somewhat annoyed with the long delay! But I spotted this recently, so hopefully that means we'll start seeing nano boards in the rest of the world fairly soon!
The main questions I have now are how much space the heat sink takes up and what sort of power supply requirements it has.
Nano-ITX is looking to be a very small package (12cm x 12cm) so we are likely to see some even more abitious case mods over time. Most of my favourite case mods are where people mount Mini-ITX boards in classic games consoles like the NES.
Given that I've got NES emulators on my PC, phone, iPaq, DS, PSP and GBA and I've got a Gold Famicom style GBA and a Famicom Style GB Micro I don't really feel the need to revisit the Famicom/NES again.
What I would pay good money for is a revisit to the SNES, one of my all time favourite consoles. A Generation NEX-type SNES with wireless controllers would certainly suit the bill for me, I think this might be impossible though. IIRC the SNES had lots of custom chips which might not be possible to duplicate. The NES was a pretty simple system with mostly off the shelf parts which I think is why they are so easily cloned.
Yep, IGN's "review" sounded more like a press release to me. But then again, much of what they write does, especially if it's a game from EA, Microsoft or Sony...
I was very interested in this game when I first heard about it, now you've described what sort of challenges it has I definitely want it, it's a pity about the language barrier otherwise I'd import it like a shot.
I agree that this could be a great game to bring to the US, I think it's got a broad appeal like Tetris on the old GB had. Trouble is Nintendo US seems to be very nervous about releasing the more unusual DS titles in the US e.g. Electroplankton is only available via their website IIRC.
There's a film coming soon based on Alan Moore's "V for Vendetta" comic series. I've not read the comic but the film seems to be about a vigilante taking down a police state government who are running the UK.
My question is, does anyone know if V is available for real world work? Can we borrow him to get rid of Tony Blair?
I mean we are going to track the movement of all vehicles, citizens will be required to have ID cards on them at all times, the police can now arrest and detain people for 30 days without any evidence if terrorism is suspected, demonstrations are banned within a kilometre of Parliament and there is soon to be a database of all children in the country which is clearly a back door to creating a database on all citizens.
The trouble with cases like this is they keep highlighting the "modded consoles" part, and only adding the part about the pirated games as if it's an afterthought. I totally agree that pirates flogging Xboxes with 77 pirated games is criminal, but if I want to mod my Xbox I should be allowed to. Criminalizing people's right to modify things they own is something that is really pissing me off, it seems like a deliberate attempt to link modifying with crime even though I don't believe a link should exist.
I modded my Xbox myself, I put a bigger hard drive in it and it's one of the best console experiences I've had. I do not pirate games, but I did want to play imports which is one of the reasons I modded my console. The other main reason for the mod was so I could have all the games installed on the hard drive. I love being able to just browse a big list of my games and pick whatever takes my fancy. And until Tecmo started suing their fans there was an excellent modding community for their games. I can FTP files to the Xbox, there's a button combination to reset to the main list of games and I can turn the console off in software. On top of that there's excellent media player software for playing Divx/Xvid and DVDs in 720p or 1080i and that's before we even get into the Linux stuff. These are all excellent features and one day I hope they become standard in all consoles. The 360 seems to have some of this covered already (like switching the console off from the controller) but the installing games part is something which may only ever be possible via a modchip...
Slashdot Mirror
If this DRM is like a lot of the other stuff I've seen it will phone home to check if you're allowed to watch the film. I for one don't particularly want my porn phoning home to tell someone you're about to watch Lesbo Rim Jobs From Mars. Isn't there some invasion of privacy law that can be thrown at this?
Well said, plus the example is just replacing one type of language for another. If you're going to embed code within HTML why not just use PHP? With PHP you don't have to learn some new scripting language to put in the HTML and you don't have additional processing overhead for the framework to intereprete the HTML files. It's just putting a scripted language on top of a scripted language. Why do it?
No dummies can use any language, coders who are too undisciplined to be able to write well structured maintainable code without needing a framework are the dummies.
... the iPod is a fashion accessory to many these days and the type of people who buy gadgets because they are fashionable are the kind who just stick the iTunes CD into their PC and let it do it all for them. The idea that they could install eMule and seek out music for free won't have entered their heads. They'll be too busy deciding what fashionable accessory to get next (probably a PSP).
... bunging IGN a few thousand to tell us games like Halo 2, KOTOR 2, Madden 06, Burnout 4 are must haves games when in fact they have bugs or aren't finished is hardly how you contribute to good journalism.
The list was clearly written by someone who knows nothing about the games they're writing about anyway. Just on the first page there were loads of glaring errors, my favourite is the one on Rage Racer which says "Nearly all of the excellent track details and designs from the arcade game made it into the home version". Rage Racer was never in the arcades and it wasn't based on Rave Racer either.
I can attest to this as well, I've always said that I can do my best work at midnight, not 9am.
You're not alone, I think both Halo games are the equivalent of the Emperor's New Clothes. They're both fairly well made and quite fun to play but even before Halo 1 came out there were better shooters on the PC. Some people say that because Halo was the first console shooter to be really excellent it deserves some sort of slack, but I don't see why it should be excused from comparisons to games on other platforms and I don't think it was that excellent either.
With games like Riddick on the Xbox I really don't see why Halo 2 deserved all the attention it got, it was flawed and none of the reviews highlighted the flaws in the story, graphics or "ending". It reminds me of all the MGS2 hype, that was a game with some serious drawbacks that again the press failed to mention.
Very true, the worst I've encountered on the Nintendo WFC service are crudely drawn hairy erect penises used as people's logos on their karts and people sending dirty letters to their animals in Animal Crossing. I'm not surprised some of the animals decided to escape to my village...
Thanks for the picture, I see why the image is called "gross"! You might as well just buy an ordinary DVD player, I always imagined the drive would have sat underneath the DC like the Karaoke add-on did or the 64DD did with the N64.
All this talk of add on drives reminds me of the Dreamcast and the persistant rumours of a DVD drive.
Before the PS2 was released there were so many people saying they would wait for the PS2 because it was also a DVD player that rumours began floating around that either a new Dreamcast with a DVD drive or an external drive would be released.
The DVD drive was never officially announced though, whether it was just a rumour or something based in fact I don't know. What I do remember was instead of it helping people to commit to buying a Dreamcast it just made people decide to wait for one with a DVD drive. Given that the rumour acted as a spoiler on sales I often wonder if it really came from Sega or actually Sony...
So with the 360 we have a white console with VGA out and Sega games launched roughly a year before the next Sony console. It would be perfect deja vu except I'm sure Gates' pockets are deep enough to fund the 360 no matter what.
Anyway, I'm dubious as to how soon we'll see an HD-DVD drive for the 360, this announcement strikes me more as a way to hook those saying they'll get a PS3 because of Blu-ray.
... I think we're more likely on the cusp of more John Madden, Need For Speed, NFL, Splinter Cell, LMA Manager and Colin McRae Rally sequels than the video gaming equivalent of Citizen Kane.
Yeah, I meant that when I said "Unlike Xbox Live you don't pay any subscription fee to use the service, the only cost would be your internet connection", however on re-reading it I didn't word that very clearly. :)
Depends where in the world you are. If you're in the US I believe there's free access to be had at any McDonalds. Unlike Xbox Live you don't pay any subscription fee to use the service, the only cost would be your internet connection (unless of course you want to play in McDonalds).
Ah thanks, I gave up after my 5th coaster! :)
Yeah the floppy drive thing for RAID/SCSI/etc drivers is unbelievably stupid. There is a way to slipstream drivers onto a Windows XP CD but it's quite complex and doesn't work with certain drivers e.g. drivers for Nforce 4 motherbaords.
Of course you need to have a working computer to burn the CD in the first place. Not much good if you're building a computer from scratch!
If you've ever heard a 360 at full "whine" you'd understand why some people would fiddle with the cooling. Maybe I just got a dodgy 360 but the fan and DVD drive are so loud in mine they drown out the fan in my projector. And my projector already sounded like a hair dryer. Honestly it's like playing games at the hair dressers! ;)
I'll tell you who Jared Rea is- he's a petty comment deleter. In one of his articles about Tecmo a while back I posted a short criticism of Tecmo for suing their fans at ninjahackers.net (who modded the Dead or Alive games with new costumes). Rea called all the users there pirates and made a bunch of incorrect statements about copyrights and piracy. I pointed out why he was wrong and at which point he started deleting my comments because he'd been made to look ignorant. He strikes me as a rather two bit editor, I mean why have a comments section at all if you're not willing to discuss what you've written?
So in my opinion any list of games he makes is bound to be worthless. I notice he's got Ninja Gaiden Black as best action game of the year. I'd certainly suggest Resident Evil 4 deserves that spot over a reheated version of Ninja Gaiden from the year before. What was it he was saying about fanboys in his article again?
Yeah, I've been somewhat annoyed with the long delay! But I spotted this recently, so hopefully that means we'll start seeing nano boards in the rest of the world fairly soon!
The main questions I have now are how much space the heat sink takes up and what sort of power supply requirements it has.
Nano-ITX is looking to be a very small package (12cm x 12cm) so we are likely to see some even more abitious case mods over time. Most of my favourite case mods are where people mount Mini-ITX boards in classic games consoles like the NES.
Given that I've got NES emulators on my PC, phone, iPaq, DS, PSP and GBA and I've got a Gold Famicom style GBA and a Famicom Style GB Micro I don't really feel the need to revisit the Famicom/NES again.
What I would pay good money for is a revisit to the SNES, one of my all time favourite consoles. A Generation NEX-type SNES with wireless controllers would certainly suit the bill for me, I think this might be impossible though. IIRC the SNES had lots of custom chips which might not be possible to duplicate. The NES was a pretty simple system with mostly off the shelf parts which I think is why they are so easily cloned.
Yep, IGN's "review" sounded more like a press release to me. But then again, much of what they write does, especially if it's a game from EA, Microsoft or Sony...
I was very interested in this game when I first heard about it, now you've described what sort of challenges it has I definitely want it, it's a pity about the language barrier otherwise I'd import it like a shot.
I agree that this could be a great game to bring to the US, I think it's got a broad appeal like Tetris on the old GB had. Trouble is Nintendo US seems to be very nervous about releasing the more unusual DS titles in the US e.g. Electroplankton is only available via their website IIRC.
There's a film coming soon based on Alan Moore's "V for Vendetta" comic series. I've not read the comic but the film seems to be about a vigilante taking down a police state government who are running the UK.
My question is, does anyone know if V is available for real world work? Can we borrow him to get rid of Tony Blair?
I mean we are going to track the movement of all vehicles, citizens will be required to have ID cards on them at all times, the police can now arrest and detain people for 30 days without any evidence if terrorism is suspected, demonstrations are banned within a kilometre of Parliament and there is soon to be a database of all children in the country which is clearly a back door to creating a database on all citizens.
What was that saying about life imitating art?
The trouble with cases like this is they keep highlighting the "modded consoles" part, and only adding the part about the pirated games as if it's an afterthought. I totally agree that pirates flogging Xboxes with 77 pirated games is criminal, but if I want to mod my Xbox I should be allowed to. Criminalizing people's right to modify things they own is something that is really pissing me off, it seems like a deliberate attempt to link modifying with crime even though I don't believe a link should exist.
I modded my Xbox myself, I put a bigger hard drive in it and it's one of the best console experiences I've had. I do not pirate games, but I did want to play imports which is one of the reasons I modded my console. The other main reason for the mod was so I could have all the games installed on the hard drive. I love being able to just browse a big list of my games and pick whatever takes my fancy. And until Tecmo started suing their fans there was an excellent modding community for their games. I can FTP files to the Xbox, there's a button combination to reset to the main list of games and I can turn the console off in software. On top of that there's excellent media player software for playing Divx/Xvid and DVDs in 720p or 1080i and that's before we even get into the Linux stuff. These are all excellent features and one day I hope they become standard in all consoles. The 360 seems to have some of this covered already (like switching the console off from the controller) but the installing games part is something which may only ever be possible via a modchip...