I believe the gents over at Warp Pipe are already working on this and have been for while now. They have done this with the GameCube already and there have been rumors abound in the warpipe forums about a DS version. I noticed yesterday that their logo at the top now has two screens it, like the DS logo does. Coincidence? I think not.
I'm just wondering if there's something about Steam that really is radically different in terms of content delivery from typical online delivery
The key thing that is different is the much-maligned online license key verfication through Steam. In order to play HL2, Counter Strike (one of the most popular online games) and any other online mods that may come out of Half-Life 2, you must have a Steam account and a verfied license key. If you are a small, independent, game developer every extra game sold helps. If Steam makes it difficult for people to play on or offline with illegal copies, most likely more copies of the game will be sold.
I've had no problems playing Doom III on my Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB, Half-Life 2 as well. It's probably more of a software issue than hardware I would guess. Are all of your mobo, direct x, etc drivers up to date as well? Not flaming, just trying to help.:)
What idea is that? Trying to prevent piracy of a product that they spent millions and millions of dollars developing?Sure Steam was problematic when Half Life 2 was released, but the problems were shortly overcome. My boxed copy's authentication was delayed because of the flood of people trying do so at the same time, but I was still able to play offline and Steam notified me the next day when my authentication was complete.
What happens when you buy something like a pc that fails for some reason but is still under warranty? You have to call their tech support and go through the hoops to try to rectify the problem. If that doesn't work, you may have to send them your PC (happened to a pc at work recently). I guess your solution would take it back to Best Buy, then later that night after they close break in and steal another one?
Or what about if your Internet connection should go down? Do you cancel your subscription, then go and steal it from your neighbors?
I live in Calgary, Alberta and the same thing happened to me about 6:30 P.M. MST. The Steam authentication said it was too busy, but it said I could play the single player game offline and they would contact me when the key authorization was complete. Then I played it for about 4 hours straight, great game thus far!!!!
Not everyone is playing, some of us have to work for a living!;)
Two words...
on
Halo 2 Reviews
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Blood Gulch!
I've played maybe 5 minutes of Halo's single player missions, but I've played many, many hours of the multiplayer mode with friends. The most popular map with our group was Blood Gulch, playing CTF. Yes, I play PC shooters and prefer them to console shooters (damn console auto aim: someone shooting you will a pistol from 100 ft away gets annoying fast), but Halo's multiplayer is alot of fun.
Playing Halo with a group of friends is what sold millions of copys of Halo, and since Halo 2 is online in addition to the 4-16 multiplayer lan possibilities, it will probably sell more copies than Halo.
My old roommate had the same problem. His XBox started giving read errors all the time so he bought a new one about 4 months ago. Not sure if his was a launch model or not. With Microsoft losing so much money on each XBox, they probably are not using the highest quality components out there.
I've heard of this happening with PS2s as well and the first Playstation was known for failing. They overheated so to get them to work you have to stand them on their side so the vents on the bottom can breathe or flip them over. This worked with a different roommates old Playstation which was a launch model.
Other sweet games coming out in Nov. include Metroid Prime 2 Echoes (Nov 15th), Metal Gear Solid 3 (Nov 17th). I'm also interested in Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault (Nov 9th) since Allied Assault was so good, IMHO.
GPA, shme-PA! I'm done school, so these games are going to screw over my stats!
Yes, cheating has been occuring in CS for years and no rewrite will prevent all cheating, but could you imagine how much more cheating would be going on if the source code was released before it came out? I play tons of Battlefield 1942 online and I bet there would be many more cheaters out there if the games source were released.
I would rather have Valve spend more time ensuring a better experience than have some easily hackable code come out. If you don't like the delay, don't buy the game when it comes out.
Oh and for people not caring about the source code anymore, I think some people still care.
"Instead they try to blame it on the source code leak. Sorry, I don't buy it."
It makes perfect sense for Valve to delay their game because of a source code leak. The fact that the Source engine and Steam code were stolen would allow people to easily hack the game if Valve did not spend the time to change it. Playing games against cheaters its quite annoying so Valve should take all the time they need to get it right.
$99 is the "magic" price point if you will. Once you hit the two digit range it falls in the impulse buy price range. Look at what happened to Nintendo's sales once they dropped their price to $99. One could argue that the Cube may have a stronger software appeal in certain categorys as it has Nintendo's exclusive software, but I think a price cut to $99 would increase sales for the Xbox.
I doubt that Microsoft would be willing to cut the cost of the XBox to $99 dollars since they have already lost around $800 million the last fiscal year on XBox related costs.
They are competing very well with Nintendo on a worldwide basis (number of units sold) so why would they lose even more money to what would only amount to a few percentage points gain in market share. If a price drop was going to occur it probably would have happened around Christmas so that they could've countered Nintendo's drop to $99.
Perhaps if they cut the cost in Japan it would help them there because they are getting destroyed over there, but with their lack of Japanese software titles it probably wouldn't help very much.
I believe the main reason they don't want to ditch the hardware is that they get a licensing fee (around $7-8) for each unit of software sold on their system for the software they don't create. This fee is in place for all 3 major consoles.
So even if they would sell many more units of their software on the PS2, they would be paying Sony a fee. On their system there is no fee on their internally created software, hence an extra $7 of profit.
Taking into account that Nintendo's titles are usually the highest selling titles for the GameCube, I think right now with the total number of software pieces they are selling it's still profitable for them to make their own console.
I don't think it was actually that bad. I bought it when it was $4.00 (CAN) back in the day (probably about the same time they were bulldozing them;)) and I thought it wasn't that bad. At the same time though, I was about 9 years old....
"What I can not realistically see is someone buying a game, hearing a song in the game then going out to buy the CD of that artist."
I'm not so sure that is the case. I've played a lot of NHL 2003 and I have heard some songs that I hadn't heard anywhere else that are pretty good. It's piqued my interest in some of the artists and though I haven't bought a CD from any of these artists I can't say I won't do so in the future. I also have SSX 3 and found there are some pretty good tunes in there as well.
Since I have a Cube, I'm really looking forward to The Twin Snakes since I played only a few hours worth of the original on the Playstation. The article is a good read if you are interested in the Twin Snakes or MGS 3.
That's true, but what if you don't want to buy that console since you already have one. I have only a GameCube now and I have access to a few Sega games at least.
... buying them. If the Sammy buyout goes through then Sega will most likely still develop games for all consoles.:) If Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo would buy them then Sega games would be exclusive to one console again, which isn't fun if you don't have all 3 consoles.
Why would they release the iQue in Japan, or anywhere else in the world besides China? Japan had the N64 ages ago, so why would they release a console that is around 8 years old to the market again? The iQue is an experiment for Nintendo to see how Chinese game players accept a pay-for-your-games business model as opposed to the rampant piracy that occurs there now.
The GameBoy Advance is system of choice for re-releasing old games (SNES & NEs that is). I'm sure the next GameBoy will have the power to play N64 games.
"Linux users, on average, are probably more educated than Windows users."
Educated in what? Computer Science(my degree), Engineering, other tech fields, etc. Ya, sure. But what about other areas of education? I'm sure most doctors out there have never used linux and could care less, but on average make more money than techies. What about every other degree that you can get from University? Are people with those degrees less educated those those with tech degree? I think not.
I don't have a PS2, but I have friends with PS2s who have the disc read error. My cube is a launch day cube, no problems so far. Friends with cube also have no problems.
Sony does have a sketchy history with consoles though. My old roommate had a first run Playstation that eventually had to be stood on its side to work properly, otherwise it would overheat and games would start to skip.
I live in Canada also, but I don't think $10 is to much to pay, as long as you can play all games online with that $10.
How much do you pay for cable, high-speed internet, phone, or cell phone per month? All are probably a lot more than $10/month. Rent two movies a month = XBOX live. But then again, does Sony charge anything to play any of their games online? Or EA? I don't own a PS2 so I don't know.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe the gents over at Warp Pipe are already working on this and have been for while now. They have done this with the GameCube already and there have been rumors abound in the warpipe forums about a DS version. I noticed yesterday that their logo at the top now has two screens it, like the DS logo does. Coincidence? I think not.
The key thing that is different is the much-maligned online license key verfication through Steam. In order to play HL2, Counter Strike (one of the most popular online games) and any other online mods that may come out of Half-Life 2, you must have a Steam account and a verfied license key. If you are a small, independent, game developer every extra game sold helps. If Steam makes it difficult for people to play on or offline with illegal copies, most likely more copies of the game will be sold.
I've had no problems playing Doom III on my Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB, Half-Life 2 as well. It's probably more of a software issue than hardware I would guess. Are all of your mobo, direct x, etc drivers up to date as well? Not flaming, just trying to help. :)
What idea is that? Trying to prevent piracy of a product that they spent millions and millions of dollars developing?Sure Steam was problematic when Half Life 2 was released, but the problems were shortly overcome. My boxed copy's authentication was delayed because of the flood of people trying do so at the same time, but I was still able to play offline and Steam notified me the next day when my authentication was complete.
What happens when you buy something like a pc that fails for some reason but is still under warranty? You have to call their tech support and go through the hoops to try to rectify the problem. If that doesn't work, you may have to send them your PC (happened to a pc at work recently). I guess your solution would take it back to Best Buy, then later that night after they close break in and steal another one?
Or what about if your Internet connection should go down? Do you cancel your subscription, then go and steal it from your neighbors?
I live in Calgary, Alberta and the same thing happened to me about 6:30 P.M. MST. The Steam authentication said it was too busy, but it said I could play the single player game offline and they would contact me when the key authorization was complete. Then I played it for about 4 hours straight, great game thus far!!!!
Not everyone is playing, some of us have to work for a living! ;)
I've played maybe 5 minutes of Halo's single player missions, but I've played many, many hours of the multiplayer mode with friends. The most popular map with our group was Blood Gulch, playing CTF. Yes, I play PC shooters and prefer them to console shooters (damn console auto aim: someone shooting you will a pistol from 100 ft away gets annoying fast), but Halo's multiplayer is alot of fun.
Playing Halo with a group of friends is what sold millions of copys of Halo, and since Halo 2 is online in addition to the 4-16 multiplayer lan possibilities, it will probably sell more copies than Halo.
I've heard of this happening with PS2s as well and the first Playstation was known for failing. They overheated so to get them to work you have to stand them on their side so the vents on the bottom can breathe or flip them over. This worked with a different roommates old Playstation which was a launch model.
Oops, the bfstats link above is wrong. I meant this bfstats!
Other sweet games coming out in Nov. include Metroid Prime 2 Echoes (Nov 15th), Metal Gear Solid 3 (Nov 17th). I'm also interested in Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault (Nov 9th) since Allied Assault was so good, IMHO. GPA, shme-PA! I'm done school, so these games are going to screw over my stats!
Yes, cheating has been occuring in CS for years and no rewrite will prevent all cheating, but could you imagine how much more cheating would be going on if the source code was released before it came out? I play tons of Battlefield 1942 online and I bet there would be many more cheaters out there if the games source were released.
I would rather have Valve spend more time ensuring a better experience than have some easily hackable code come out. If you don't like the delay, don't buy the game when it comes out.
Oh and for people not caring about the source code anymore, I think some people still care.
"Instead they try to blame it on the source code leak. Sorry, I don't buy it."
It makes perfect sense for Valve to delay their game because of a source code leak. The fact that the Source engine and Steam code were stolen would allow people to easily hack the game if Valve did not spend the time to change it. Playing games against cheaters its quite annoying so Valve should take all the time they need to get it right.
$99 is the "magic" price point if you will. Once you hit the two digit range it falls in the impulse buy price range. Look at what happened to Nintendo's sales once they dropped their price to $99. One could argue that the Cube may have a stronger software appeal in certain categorys as it has Nintendo's exclusive software, but I think a price cut to $99 would increase sales for the Xbox.
I doubt that Microsoft would be willing to cut the cost of the XBox to $99 dollars since they have already lost around $800 million the last fiscal year on XBox related costs.
They are competing very well with Nintendo on a worldwide basis (number of units sold) so why would they lose even more money to what would only amount to a few percentage points gain in market share. If a price drop was going to occur it probably would have happened around Christmas so that they could've countered Nintendo's drop to $99.
Perhaps if they cut the cost in Japan it would help them there because they are getting destroyed over there, but with their lack of Japanese software titles it probably wouldn't help very much.
So even if they would sell many more units of their software on the PS2, they would be paying Sony a fee. On their system there is no fee on their internally created software, hence an extra $7 of profit.
Taking into account that Nintendo's titles are usually the highest selling titles for the GameCube, I think right now with the total number of software pieces they are selling it's still profitable for them to make their own console.
I don't think it was actually that bad. I bought it when it was $4.00 (CAN) back in the day (probably about the same time they were bulldozing them ;)) and I thought it wasn't that bad. At the same time though, I was about 9 years old....
I saw shortages here in Canada as well. Mario Kart was sold out at many stores before X-mas that I went to.
I'm not so sure that is the case. I've played a lot of NHL 2003 and I have heard some songs that I hadn't heard anywhere else that are pretty good. It's piqued my interest in some of the artists and though I haven't bought a CD from any of these artists I can't say I won't do so in the future. I also have SSX 3 and found there are some pretty good tunes in there as well.
Since I have a Cube, I'm really looking forward to The Twin Snakes since I played only a few hours worth of the original on the Playstation. The article is a good read if you are interested in the Twin Snakes or MGS 3.
That's true, but what if you don't want to buy that console since you already have one. I have only a GameCube now and I have access to a few Sega games at least.
... buying them. If the Sammy buyout goes through then Sega will most likely still develop games for all consoles. :) If Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo would buy them then Sega games would be exclusive to one console again, which isn't fun if you don't have all 3 consoles.
The GameBoy Advance is system of choice for re-releasing old games (SNES & NEs that is). I'm sure the next GameBoy will have the power to play N64 games.
Educated in what? Computer Science(my degree), Engineering, other tech fields, etc. Ya, sure. But what about other areas of education? I'm sure most doctors out there have never used linux and could care less, but on average make more money than techies. What about every other degree that you can get from University? Are people with those degrees less educated those those with tech degree? I think not.
Sony does have a sketchy history with consoles though. My old roommate had a first run Playstation that eventually had to be stood on its side to work properly, otherwise it would overheat and games would start to skip.
How much do you pay for cable, high-speed internet, phone, or cell phone per month? All are probably a lot more than $10/month. Rent two movies a month = XBOX live. But then again, does Sony charge anything to play any of their games online? Or EA? I don't own a PS2 so I don't know.