Halo for PC is online, Halo for xbox is not online, xbox users will get online play, and PC users (when the pc version is released) will have the continuum of the history and some extra nice features (like hijacking, modding and better AI) you like the package? cool, go and get it, if you dont, dont buy it. Seriously I think is seriously immature and stupic to claim immaturity or stupidity from anyone just because they dont share your beliefs and tastes. Some people loved Halo (as the best console FPS) and want to have more of it, period.
Weither we like it or not, consoles are better business for developers than PCs theres less piracy (slightly), a lot more players some free advertising deals, etc. overall more money.(of course you have to invest more since you have to get official licenses and SDKs etc.)
I mean lets be honest how many casual gamers do you know that have a pc capable of playing halo? (I could blame 3d cards developers on this but.. honestly is useless)
That doesnt mean there wont be pc games at all, the PC(and MAC) is extremely unexpensive to work with, since you dont have to get licenses or even distributors to work in it. practically anyone can design and sell a pc game. Besides the PC will always be the top of the line laboratory for gaming, the level of technology a PC can achieve (by buying expensive hardware actually) will always be much superior than any console. Not even the next gen consoles will have the same level of quality you can have in a pc monitor, modding communities are still a dream far far away, (not to mention complex MMORPGs experiences) and tools.
So I wouldnt worry too much, there will always be something under the soon for PCs besides we get to play console games (even emulate some) and our own without buying one.
Let me see if I get this straight, you think is healthy for anyone to stay in a uncomfortable position for 10 straight hours? some common sense here people.
And knowing MS it probably is this is bad news for all of us who bought the console at full price.. but great news for those who dont have it yet.. And with Ninja Gaiden, DOA online and Doom 3 aproaching this is the best time to get one. I just wish I had a way to look into the future so I could wait for six months before buying... oh well.
Anyway Im expecting Sony to do the same with the ps2 (monkey sees, monkey does) they dont want to lose their first place in market after all.
Nintendo would drop their price at $50 due to this? thats an interesting question.
Thats true! dropping the price wont help sales. look at what happened to nintendo... ooops wrong example!
What they should do is to make them more expensive thats how they will get extra sales and sale the consoles without a loss just like nintendo did.. oops! wrong example again!
This devices did "Made it" for a brief time and some are still "making it" in other countries. "never made it" would only apply to a 1/4 of the devices mentioned.
Who keeps submitting (or reading) gamespy articles anyway?
However.. how many caught the "tongue in cheek" humor of posting this article one week from nintendo announcing the DS? (bastards)
1.Some of us commute to work (for 2 hours)
2.Some of us fly in airplanes routinely (and believe me those magazines become thiner in air)
3.We have to go to the bank, Drs office, ticket lines, taxes, And wait for HOURS
4.We have to wait for a package, boss, wife doing shopping.
5.Sometimes our wifes and kids take over the TV
6.And (well hopefully not that much) we must sleep in the couch.
Those are adult situations in which a GBA or another handheld would be pretty handy. Why do you think phone and PDA games are becoming popular? because kids need games on their PDA's and cel phones?
Besides if you bring to the table the fact that the PSP will include a mp3, mpg (minidvd?) player and that it will have the same price than an IPOD (which did sold pretty well) sony pretty much knows what they are doing.
Maybe the PSP SDK was released a bit early (although Nintendo has mentioned several times they have been working on a new handheld for at least 5 years) to developers before the DS but definetely not last week
Is naive to believe that there arent developers for the DS just because is too soon. The real reason is just that developers are as eskeptical as everyone else about the DS
The DS was announced to us a week ago, selected developers get early word and SDK's for NextGen devices like the DS,XBOX2,PS3 and the PSP (under NDA's of course) sometimes 2 years before its release (as soon as its greenlighted), how much time do you think it takes to design, manufacture and release a device like this? the DS prototype has been sitting in Nintendo labs for some years now.
However the public response to the DS has been mostly negative specially compared to the PSP, and thats the reason why some companies (like EA) are backing off.
However I dont think Nitendo will care that much since they are a first party based company and they can supply release titles. If the DS actually takes off more developers will join in. But until then is just not a safe investment.
It strikes me as odd is that KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic) for the Xbox and the PC wasnt listed as a top seller. After all it won several awards and was a contestant for game of the year in several publications and circles. Same goes for Prince of Persia SOT. Even games that are suposed to be very popular (wrestling,castlevania,THUG) are missing as well.
This is a proof that game quality has less to do with its sales than we assume.
Now this looks like an interesting research instead of hearing the "my console is winning" cries from fanboys this are hard cold numbers who have little to argue about.
However I wouldnt take those as a forecast of the numbers for this year. (except for the ps2 who most probably will continue to dominate the market) you have to realize they are based on the best selling titles of this year which were E to T rated. (Only ETM and GTA figured on the list as M titles)
The most important M rated titles for last year were delayed. Doom 3, Half life 2, DNF (just kidding) Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2. If those titles are actually released this year, the balance might turn. Plus those titles were for the consoles that shown bad numbers for this year (the PC and the Xbox) so the ball is on their side this year.
They are lessons to be learned from this statistics, but I wouldnt take it as "M rated games wont sell" or the classic "the PC and the XBOX are going down Nintendo is going up" fanboy rant. The messages are on the lines Old but good franchises still sell (a lot), games that are controversial (and good) have a place in the market (weither congressmen like it or not) and making a movie tie in is still a risky business from all the movie games out this year only 1 was an enourmous success. (spite of its quality).
I agree, specially if you consider the screens will be VERTICAL if they were horizontal then we will be talking about multimonitors, but on horizontal it means you will have a split screen no more no less. Wishing you had the whole screen instead, and probably (in a turn of fate) some developer will do this and stay like this in most games.
Worst of cases most developers wont know what to do with the second screen and display a menu a map or a splash screen. (none of them useful actually)
Best of case someone will realize they dont need the other screen and use the 2 cpus for something interesting instead (like polygon calculations or advanced AI).
Heres your screen
+------------+
*
Ok the PSP wont be backwards compatible I give you that.
But heres a pop quiz: how is nintendo who survives mostly thanks to their 1st party titles is going to handle 2 handhelds in the market at the same time?
(specially in the middle of a war with the PSP) You want to know the answer? they wont. sooner or later N will stop delivering games for the GBA in order to have exclusive titles for the DS.
If they kept them both then the GBA and the DS will have to compete with each other and the PSP (since no one has 2 handhelds) and to be honest with a small initial library of games extra batery usage plus extra price, the DS doesnt stand a chance against the GBA the only way for the DS to success is by Nintendo killing the GBA sending their new games to the DS only!.
Of course they already have a bunch of us buying GBAs and titles, so they will do it in the most quiet and slow way as possible Thats why they are calling it not a "succesor" but an "extra" product but you have to be very naive to believe that.
You probably havent noticed but soul calibur and tekken are really easy to pick by non gamers since most moves only require button mashing, there are almost no moves that require "ha-do-kens" and the like. Besides some character are actually attractive to their opposite sexes. (male and female) so It makes a great party game specially if you organize tournaments. (as soon as you dont try to show off by beating everyone with 50-90% combos).
HALO, Doom and Quake3 (and similars) are HARD for nongamers, but they sure pick up the "shoot whatever is in your sight" motif in deathmatch and co-op! they wont oftenly win (and tend to drive jeeps off cliffs in HALO) but they have a good time trying, besides never understimate the power of camping,luck and sniper rifles! (not for nongamer girls though)
When I started reading the article "Adult contest game", I thought this would be real cool, specially for non gamers, imagine a multiplayer game show with questions about sexuality, wars, literature,politics etc. Unfortunately a lot of people confuse "Adult" with "completely immature" what a shame.
Like I said in a previous post, this kind of games never take off due to their lack of quality, obviously the publisher is relying on its shock value instead, and at the end that will sink the game. Judging by the er... success of BMX-XXX I wouldnt expect a publisher taking this one soon. They are not idiots you know?
A drinking game A**hole? that sentence doesnt even make sense not even in a crude way. And thanks but definetily I dont need a game console to play a drinking game.
Im glad IGN is getting paid for publishing articles like this, but I would recommend them to publish something that wouldnt diminish their credibilty this much.
Thank you!...next
Nintendo announced their next device: "wouldnt be a new console or a handheld".. then they announced a new handheld, since when is ok to blatantly lie in an official announcement? Look! theres nintendo credibilty going all the way down the drain.
Anyway Im I the only one who sees this as a step back for portable gaming? the GBA is basically an portable SNES (not a bad thing) the GBA2(DS) is an SNES with 2 screens... what the? wasnt the next thing a portable n64 or similar? the Double screen is basically a mimick not an advancement. I dont think that even counts as a new handheld
Not GBA compatible ? I hope Nintendo is lying about that too, otherwise I dont see why should I switch from my non expensive GBA to a more expensive GBA because it has 2 screens it just doesnt make sense. Oh yeah, I Know how they are going to convince us, they will force us to since the new processor is slightly faster new games wont run in GBA, so all people who just bought their GBAs and SPs this xmas (like me) are royally screwed, just great Nintendo! thanks!
Screw this! Im selling my GBA and getting a PSP is twice as expensive but At least sony cares about backwards compability and not killing their consoles each 2 years.
Im not sure, but the code he mentions is not from Mortal Kombat is from Mexican Kombat a small game made In Mexico (in My Un to be exact) that went to sale quite a while ago. I would be really surprised if It got that far, but Saddam does appear there and the name looks a like since is a "homage" of MK so I dont know maybe thats what he is talking about.
Saddam Hussein does not appear in any MK and I have played them all back to back, there are some weird codes here and there but theres not even a hint of Saddam anywhere. Maybe he is confusing him for other character?
First of all Im glad this was the mystery device I was expecting a *Y.A.U.N.D. this is close but not as bas as could be.
Sega tried something similar with the VRAM (visual ram) for the DC and had unusual results, a lot of games used it, but most of them just displayed a splash screen, a message which already was in the main screen or a "beep" noise, little to no games did anything interesting or useful with it (although it came with the DC).
*Developers (specially small evelopers) wont have the budget to implement this feature in their games simply because too few will have it (compared to those who have a GBA) it would be rare to see a feature that would need the second screen.
*People Will do MIND about the battery usage, 50% of life its significative this means you would have to recharge your GBA twice as much which can vary depending on how much you use your backlit OR extra light adapter.
*Extra battery usage plus extra price plus a very small (although important) library of games are too many inconvenients for an average user, I expect only hardcores to get this device and therefore its library will be pretty limited (like the gba adapter for the cube which only 1 out of 10 games use).
IMO: Valve has not provided any convincing and unquestionable proof that they were actually atacked by any hacker group, the attack they described is surrounded by inconsistencies: Why did the hackers only stole 1/3 of the code and left all media behind?why they didnt attacked any other product in the company like CS:zero and Cs:xbox? And anyway how can be they be so SURE that this so called hackers are American? an IP can be easily be faked and tracers can fail attackers could be anywhere in the world (and therefore outside of FBI jurisdiction)
If valve continues this actitude, Im not buying any of their products anymore and Im discontinuing my use of hl and steam until further notice
If valve cares for their clients, I invite them to use their time to FINISH HL2 and release it in a reasonable time. Instead of hunting down so called hackers with questionable evidence.
This is just my opinion, but it is also the course of action I will take
An efficient way to deal with this problem for developers would be to use middleware, per example Renderware not only this helps to make the developing phase a little shorter, each version of the game is optimized for each console. Per example MKDA plays and looks exactly the same in each version. Prince of persia was also made in middleware software and the results are astonishing.
p.s.
Max Payne 2 for xbox takes the cake as one of the worst ports ever, not only they made missions shorter and the auto targeting cheap, it doesnt pull ANY effect of the PC version. it doesnt even feature reflections on mirrors. Oh yeah and it hangs on the same level lots of times.
Is easier to spot a port on the xbox than in any other system, games designed for the xbox usually pull effects like glow, soft shadowing, and fov (they are relatively easy to pull by the gfx card). Just Try to compare the looks of otogi, PGR2 or rainbow six with those of ROTK, THUG or jedi knight2 (and those games are so cool what a shame!) crap! even freaking spongebob squarepants looks cool with those effects!
Fortunately some companies go the extra mile and pull the same look on all platforms (prince of persia and need for speed underground) but they are still just a few.
Well at least most ports have antialias on (it takes a line of code to turn on/off but ok).
How does Valve explain that code from "doom3",,"doom nukem forever","halo2" and even "counterstrike zero" (which is also produced by sierra) which are games with similar (or even bigger) hype, are known for having a very large fan base including modding and hacker communities (specially on counterstrike) and are made by american based companies using similar protection techniques. Have never suffered *"leaks" or "security attacks" like the ones they described when their code was "stolen" from them?
*As far as we know the only one who suffered a leak was doom3, which "leaked" an e3 demo (not a bit of source code).
The security Sierra provided for CS:Zero was tighter than for their flagship most expensive and expected product?
How come the hackers found a way into a security system, yet they decided to only stole a fraction of the code in it, and didnt attacked any other product using the same security system in the same company? or similar systems in other companies?
How they did that? they called the secretary and asked for the password? a dizzy employee released his password (or code) in a forum? how could they have installed so called "password loggers" only in the valve office and leaved all other sierra projects (and other valuable information) intact And most importantly, if they are so good at it how come they didnt tried to steal other gaming projects? not even in the same company?
is it going to be on 6 cds?
well, thats exactly a size fit for a DVD-R so I wouldnt be surprised.
Anyway, what was leaked was some of the code (a third of the code) and the E3 demo, it didnt included the actual media (which takes a most of the space) so theres no telling how big the final product would be.
I wonder if the famous hl2 "leak" was somehow a way to make it "open source" so the active and large fan community could help solve the thousands of problems that valve ran into while making this extremely ambitious game?...
After all, once the code is back in the product nobody will be able to claim property but valve (since it was modified ilegally) the community couldnt even watch the actual code again (unless they buy it at several thousands of dollars)...
I dont know is too thin yes, but suspicious none the least...
About Hl2 being sold in russia.. bah, who would buy it? it was released for free in all the warez sites, and according those who download it, it didnt even worked. The equivalent of selling the doom3 alpha (which was done) Nothing new there, move on.
Just to add mine, Sidewinder is a pretty good controller I have used for all emulators and doesnt require drivers for windows 2000-xp since is MS based is already on the install files.
The only big problem is a big stupid button which actually turns off the controller and is in the midle of it, who thought of that? MS motto: we will screw up something in our product somewhere, guaranteed.
Slashdot Mirror
Halo for PC is online, Halo for xbox is not online, xbox users will get online play, and PC users (when the pc version is released) will have the continuum of the history and some extra nice features (like hijacking, modding and better AI) you like the package? cool, go and get it, if you dont, dont buy it.
Seriously I think is seriously immature and stupic to claim immaturity or stupidity from anyone just because they dont share your beliefs and tastes.
Some people loved Halo (as the best console FPS) and want to have more of it, period.
Weither we like it or not, consoles are better business for developers than PCs theres less piracy (slightly), a lot more players some free advertising deals, etc. overall more money.(of course you have to invest more since you have to get official licenses and SDKs etc.)
I mean lets be honest how many casual gamers do you know that have a pc capable of playing halo? (I could blame 3d cards developers on this but.. honestly is useless)
That doesnt mean there wont be pc games at all, the PC(and MAC) is extremely unexpensive to work with, since you dont have to get licenses or even distributors to work in it. practically anyone can design and sell a pc game. Besides the PC will always be the top of the line laboratory for gaming, the level of technology a PC can achieve (by buying expensive hardware actually) will always be much superior than any console. Not even the next gen consoles will have the same level of quality you can have in a pc monitor, modding communities are still a dream far far away, (not to mention complex MMORPGs experiences) and tools. So I wouldnt worry too much, there will always be something under the soon for PCs besides we get to play console games (even emulate some) and our own without buying one.
Let me see if I get this straight, you think is healthy for anyone to stay in a uncomfortable position for 10 straight hours? some common sense here people.
And knowing MS it probably is this is bad news for all of us who bought the console at full price.. but great news for those who dont have it yet..
And with Ninja Gaiden, DOA online and Doom 3 aproaching this is the best time to get one.
I just wish I had a way to look into the future so I could wait for six months before buying... oh well.
Anyway Im expecting Sony to do the same with the ps2 (monkey sees, monkey does) they dont want to lose their first place in market after all.
Nintendo would drop their price at $50 due to this? thats an interesting question.
Thats true! dropping the price wont help sales. look at what happened to nintendo... ooops wrong example!
What they should do is to make them more expensive thats how they will get extra sales and sale the consoles without a loss just like nintendo did.. oops! wrong example again!
This devices did "Made it" for a brief time and some are still "making it" in other countries. "never made it" would only apply to a 1/4 of the devices mentioned. Who keeps submitting (or reading) gamespy articles anyway?
However.. how many caught the "tongue in cheek" humor of posting this article one week from nintendo announcing the DS? (bastards)
Top 10 articles that didnt made it!
guess which one will be on top?
Silly Gamespy, journalism is not for hmm... you.
Well you are forgetting a few things.
1.Some of us commute to work (for 2 hours)
2.Some of us fly in airplanes routinely (and believe me those magazines become thiner in air)
3.We have to go to the bank, Drs office, ticket lines, taxes, And wait for HOURS
4.We have to wait for a package, boss, wife doing shopping.
5.Sometimes our wifes and kids take over the TV
6.And (well hopefully not that much) we must sleep in the couch.
Those are adult situations in which a GBA or another handheld would be pretty handy. Why do you think phone and PDA games are becoming popular? because kids need games on their PDA's and cel phones?
Besides if you bring to the table the fact that the PSP will include a mp3, mpg (minidvd?) player and that it will have the same price than an IPOD (which did sold pretty well) sony pretty much knows what they are doing.
Maybe the PSP SDK was released a bit early (although Nintendo has mentioned several times they have been working on a new handheld for at least 5 years) to developers before the DS but definetely not last week
Is naive to believe that there arent developers for the DS just because is too soon. The real reason is just that developers are as eskeptical as everyone else about the DS
The DS was announced to us a week ago, selected developers get early word and SDK's for NextGen devices like the DS,XBOX2,PS3 and the PSP (under NDA's of course) sometimes 2 years before its release (as soon as its greenlighted), how much time do you think it takes to design, manufacture and release a device like this? the DS prototype has been sitting in Nintendo labs for some years now.
However the public response to the DS has been mostly negative specially compared to the PSP, and thats the reason why some companies (like EA) are backing off.
However I dont think Nitendo will care that much since they are a first party based company and they can supply release titles. If the DS actually takes off more developers will join in. But until then is just not a safe investment.
It strikes me as odd is that KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic) for the Xbox and the PC wasnt listed as a top seller. After all it won several awards and was a contestant for game of the year in several publications and circles. Same goes for Prince of Persia SOT. Even games that are suposed to be very popular (wrestling,castlevania,THUG) are missing as well.
This is a proof that game quality has less to do with its sales than we assume.
Now this looks like an interesting research instead of hearing the "my console is winning" cries from fanboys this are hard cold numbers who have little to argue about.
However I wouldnt take those as a forecast of the numbers for this year. (except for the ps2 who most probably will continue to dominate the market) you have to realize they are based on the best selling titles of this year which were E to T rated. (Only ETM and GTA figured on the list as M titles) The most important M rated titles for last year were delayed. Doom 3, Half life 2, DNF (just kidding) Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2. If those titles are actually released this year, the balance might turn. Plus those titles were for the consoles that shown bad numbers for this year (the PC and the Xbox) so the ball is on their side this year.
They are lessons to be learned from this statistics, but I wouldnt take it as "M rated games wont sell" or the classic "the PC and the XBOX are going down Nintendo is going up" fanboy rant. The messages are on the lines Old but good franchises still sell (a lot), games that are controversial (and good) have a place in the market (weither congressmen like it or not) and making a movie tie in is still a risky business from all the movie games out this year only 1 was an enourmous success. (spite of its quality).
I agree, specially if you consider the screens will be VERTICAL if they were horizontal then we will be talking about multimonitors, but on horizontal it means you will have a split screen no more no less. Wishing you had the whole screen instead, and probably (in a turn of fate) some developer will do this and stay like this in most games.
Worst of cases most developers wont know what to do with the second screen and display a menu a map or a splash screen. (none of them useful actually) Best of case someone will realize they dont need the other screen and use the 2 cpus for something interesting instead (like polygon calculations or advanced AI). Heres your screen +------------+ *
Ok the PSP wont be backwards compatible I give you that.
But heres a pop quiz: how is nintendo who survives mostly thanks to their 1st party titles is going to handle 2 handhelds in the market at the same time? (specially in the middle of a war with the PSP) You want to know the answer? they wont. sooner or later N will stop delivering games for the GBA in order to have exclusive titles for the DS.
If they kept them both then the GBA and the DS will have to compete with each other and the PSP (since no one has 2 handhelds) and to be honest with a small initial library of games extra batery usage plus extra price, the DS doesnt stand a chance against the GBA the only way for the DS to success is by Nintendo killing the GBA sending their new games to the DS only!.
Of course they already have a bunch of us buying GBAs and titles, so they will do it in the most quiet and slow way as possible Thats why they are calling it not a "succesor" but an "extra" product but you have to be very naive to believe that.
You probably havent noticed but soul calibur and tekken are really easy to pick by non gamers since most moves only require button mashing, there are almost no moves that require "ha-do-kens" and the like. Besides some character are actually attractive to their opposite sexes. (male and female) so It makes a great party game specially if you organize tournaments. (as soon as you dont try to show off by beating everyone with 50-90% combos). HALO, Doom and Quake3 (and similars) are HARD for nongamers, but they sure pick up the "shoot whatever is in your sight" motif in deathmatch and co-op! they wont oftenly win (and tend to drive jeeps off cliffs in HALO) but they have a good time trying, besides never understimate the power of camping,luck and sniper rifles! (not for nongamer girls though)
When I started reading the article "Adult contest game", I thought this would be real cool, specially for non gamers, imagine a multiplayer game show with questions about sexuality, wars, literature,politics etc. Unfortunately a lot of people confuse "Adult" with "completely immature" what a shame.
...next
Like I said in a previous post, this kind of games never take off due to their lack of quality, obviously the publisher is relying on its shock value instead, and at the end that will sink the game. Judging by the er... success of BMX-XXX I wouldnt expect a publisher taking this one soon. They are not idiots you know?
A drinking game A**hole? that sentence doesnt even make sense not even in a crude way. And thanks but definetily I dont need a game console to play a drinking game.
Im glad IGN is getting paid for publishing articles like this, but I would recommend them to publish something that wouldnt diminish their credibilty this much. Thank you!
Nintendo announced their next device: "wouldnt be a new console or a handheld".. then they announced a new handheld, since when is ok to blatantly lie in an official announcement?
Look! theres nintendo credibilty going all the way down the drain.
Anyway Im I the only one who sees this as a step back for portable gaming? the GBA is basically an portable SNES (not a bad thing) the GBA2(DS) is an SNES with 2 screens... what the? wasnt the next thing a portable n64 or similar? the Double screen is basically a mimick not an advancement. I dont think that even counts as a new handheld
Not GBA compatible ? I hope Nintendo is lying about that too, otherwise I dont see why should I switch from my non expensive GBA to a more expensive GBA because it has 2 screens it just doesnt make sense. Oh yeah, I Know how they are going to convince us, they will force us to since the new processor is slightly faster new games wont run in GBA, so all people who just bought their GBAs and SPs this xmas (like me) are royally screwed, just great Nintendo! thanks!
Screw this! Im selling my GBA and getting a PSP is twice as expensive but At least sony cares about backwards compability and not killing their consoles each 2 years.
Im not sure, but the code he mentions is not from Mortal Kombat is from Mexican Kombat a small game made In Mexico (in My Un to be exact) that went to sale quite a while ago. I would be really surprised if It got that far, but Saddam does appear there and the name looks a like since is a "homage" of MK so I dont know maybe thats what he is talking about.
Saddam Hussein does not appear in any MK and I have played them all back to back, there are some weird codes here and there but theres not even a hint of Saddam anywhere. Maybe he is confusing him for other character?
First of all Im glad this was the mystery device I was expecting a *Y.A.U.N.D. this is close but not as bas as could be.
Sega tried something similar with the VRAM (visual ram) for the DC and had unusual results, a lot of games used it, but most of them just displayed a splash screen, a message which already was in the main screen or a "beep" noise, little to no games did anything interesting or useful with it (although it came with the DC).
*Developers (specially small evelopers) wont have the budget to implement this feature in their games simply because too few will have it (compared to those who have a GBA) it would be rare to see a feature that would need the second screen.
*People Will do MIND about the battery usage, 50% of life its significative this means you would have to recharge your GBA twice as much which can vary depending on how much you use your backlit OR extra light adapter.
*Extra battery usage plus extra price plus a very small (although important) library of games are too many inconvenients for an average user, I expect only hardcores to get this device and therefore its library will be pretty limited (like the gba adapter for the cube which only 1 out of 10 games use).
*(YAUND) Yet Another Useless Nintendo Device.
IMO: Valve has not provided any convincing and unquestionable proof that they were actually atacked by any hacker group, the attack they described is surrounded by inconsistencies: Why did the hackers only stole 1/3 of the code and left all media behind? why they didnt attacked any other product in the company like CS:zero and Cs:xbox? And anyway how can be they be so SURE that this so called hackers are American? an IP can be easily be faked and tracers can fail attackers could be anywhere in the world (and therefore outside of FBI jurisdiction)
If valve continues this actitude, Im not buying any of their products anymore and Im discontinuing my use of hl and steam until further notice
If valve cares for their clients, I invite them to use their time to FINISH HL2 and release it in a reasonable time. Instead of hunting down so called hackers with questionable evidence.
This is just my opinion, but it is also the course of action I will take
An efficient way to deal with this problem for developers would be to use middleware, per example Renderware not only this helps to make the developing phase a little shorter, each version of the game is optimized for each console. Per example MKDA plays and looks exactly the same in each version. Prince of persia was also made in middleware software and the results are astonishing.
p.s.
Max Payne 2 for xbox takes the cake as one of the worst ports ever, not only they made missions shorter and the auto targeting cheap, it doesnt pull ANY effect of the PC version. it doesnt even feature reflections on mirrors. Oh yeah and it hangs on the same level lots of times.
Is easier to spot a port on the xbox than in any other system, games designed for the xbox usually pull effects like glow, soft shadowing, and fov (they are relatively easy to pull by the gfx card). Just Try to compare the looks of otogi, PGR2 or rainbow six with those of ROTK, THUG or jedi knight2 (and those games are so cool what a shame!) crap! even freaking spongebob squarepants looks cool with those effects! Fortunately some companies go the extra mile and pull the same look on all platforms (prince of persia and need for speed underground) but they are still just a few.
Well at least most ports have antialias on (it takes a line of code to turn on/off but ok).
How does Valve explain that code from "doom3", ,"doom nukem forever","halo2" and even "counterstrike zero" (which is also produced by sierra) which are games with similar (or even bigger) hype, are known for having a very large fan base including modding and hacker communities (specially on counterstrike) and are made by american based companies using similar protection techniques. Have never suffered *"leaks" or "security attacks" like the ones they described when their code was "stolen" from them?
*As far as we know the only one who suffered a leak was doom3, which "leaked" an e3 demo (not a bit of source code).
The security Sierra provided for CS:Zero was tighter than for their flagship most expensive and expected product?
How come the hackers found a way into a security system, yet they decided to only stole a fraction of the code in it, and didnt attacked any other product using the same security system in the same company? or similar systems in other companies?
How they did that? they called the secretary and asked for the password? a dizzy employee released his password (or code) in a forum? how could they have installed so called "password loggers" only in the valve office and leaved all other sierra projects (and other valuable information) intact And most importantly, if they are so good at it how come they didnt tried to steal other gaming projects? not even in the same company?
is it going to be on 6 cds?
well, thats exactly a size fit for a DVD-R so I wouldnt be surprised.
Anyway, what was leaked was some of the code (a third of the code) and the E3 demo, it didnt included the actual media (which takes a most of the space) so theres no telling how big the final product would be.
I wonder if the famous hl2 "leak" was somehow a way to make it "open source" so the active and large fan community could help solve the thousands of problems that valve ran into while making this extremely ambitious game?...
After all, once the code is back in the product nobody will be able to claim property but valve (since it was modified ilegally) the community couldnt even watch the actual code again (unless they buy it at several thousands of dollars)...
I dont know is too thin yes, but suspicious none the least...
About Hl2 being sold in russia.. bah, who would buy it? it was released for free in all the warez sites, and according those who download it, it didnt even worked. The equivalent of selling the doom3 alpha (which was done)
Nothing new there, move on.
Just to add mine, Sidewinder is a pretty good controller I have used for all emulators and doesnt require drivers for windows 2000-xp since is MS based is already on the install files.
The only big problem is a big stupid button which actually turns off the controller and is in the midle of it, who thought of that? MS motto: we will screw up something in our product somewhere, guaranteed.