Then NES was released 20 years ago so the patents (which lasted 17 years at the time) on the NES arcitechture have run out, so they can do this, at least technology-wise.
Just because something's patented doesn't mean others won't find ways around it. Example: Nintendo's d-pad design, which was patented with its creation for the use in Game and Watch, couldn't be used by any other console until it ran out just in time for the Dreamcast. Look at the Sega Master System's D-pad: a big ugly square. Genesis? More like Nintendo's but on a disk and diagonals were easier to get. Sony's? Detached trapezoids in a plus shape. So, as history has shown, even though something's patented doesn't mean the other console makers can't figure out another way of doing essentially the same thing to give close enough to the same results that people don't care or possibly even prefer it.
As you mentioned, and I'm sure most people who as a kid played an NES can attest to, many people's first instincts with controllers is to move them around as they move their player around. Now, Nintendo's making a controller that actually takes that movement and does something. Imagine if, as a kid, moving the controller like that actually made Mario jump? You would have gotten it on your first try. This is what Nintendo's going after: being able to pick up and near instantly figure out the control scheme because the controller reacts to movement.
Well, making the save button disabled also shows the user that their file has been saved (and while it's disabled, it hasn't been modified), giving a visual component to an otherwise invisible process.
I could have sworn this was documented in the book Game Over. I remember learning about this oscilloscope "video game" sometime around the time I read that book, so I might just be attaching it to the book instead of wherever I learned it from, so can anyone verify that it is indeed in Game Over or not?
Then if that's the case, why not mark the article as such? "In the ongoing event of...", "Update:", or a tag that means "ongoing event"? Right now to the casual eye this is a dupe, and thus the average user who read the original article will skip it, thus not getting the complete story, so Slashdot offering it only helps the relatively anal who actually check out the link before dismissing the post as a dupe.
I also would like to see statistics of non-intercourse sexual activites. My guess is they're on the rise, because teens can easily say "Well, I'm saving myself for marriage, but oral/anal/etc. doesn't count as real sex because there's no chance of making a baby!"
You need to read the article that was linked to in that sentence. Epic revealed they already have Engine 4 in the works, and have been working on it for the last 2 years parallel to Engine 3.
Is the "celsius or fahrenheit, your pick" a reference to the fact it wouldn't matter how cold it is outside for keys, or that -40 is the same temperature in both scales?
I don't think they ever had to "use" the patent to go after someone for making a similar D-pad because first they were the only game in town for half of the patent life, and no one else who made gaming consoles was stupid enough to copy it. The Dreamcast had the Nintendo-style d-pad because the 17year patent life was over in 1997 (the d-pad was patented with the Game and Watch in 1980) and the Dreamcast came out in 1999.
More expansive article here
If you read the article, it tells you "80% decline," but that's a lie. If you actually do the math, a 3.75 billion yen decline to 13.72 billion yen of operating profit is obviously not an 80% decline, and in fact what actually happened is a decline TO 80%. Likewise, they had a 14% drop in sales, netting 70.7 billion yen.
Now, let's look at Sony and Microsoft's numbers (linked article last paragraph). Microsoft lost more money than Nintendo made in profit. Sony lost about a third as much as Microsoft, but they're still in the red! Where's the front page "Sony's losing money! So's Microsoft!" articles?!
Good lord, no wonder why everyone thinks Nintendo's doomed: the media has it out for them! Why didn't they report on Sony or Microsoft's losses, let alone why didn't they check their numbers/headline/article before posting it?! Seriously, Nintendo has an uphill battle next generation, and it's mostly because the media puts them in a bad light like this.
Sony said this already with the PS2 before its release. It's just a marketing scheme to try and get people to accept their over-priced day-one purchase by saying "Hey, this console will still be sold 10 years in the future it will be so popular!" It all stems from the PSOne's popularity: the Playstation was released in 1995 and is still sold in stores, so it has a "10 year lifecycle", especially since the PS3's appearance next year will push the PSOne off of the market. The PS2 was released at the middle point of that 10 years, and the PS3 will be relased in the middle of the PS2's 10 years. The PS2 needs to last until 2010 for its 10 year lifecycle to be true, and the PS3 needs to last until 2016. The whole lifecycle thing is just speculation on Sony's part based on the PS1's sales curve. If Blu-Ray's not accepted or one of a million other things happens, the PS3's lifecycle might be cut short.
Well, the other two games were on the N64 (Animal Crossing only in Japan) which is more in line with the DS in power, which gives those games a boost in engine creation since Nintendo already knows how to move an N64 engine over to the DS. Prime's only been on the Gamecube and so shoehorning that engine (which was made by Retro Studios and NST's handling Hunters, which probably means the engine's being made from the ground up rather than converted like the other two games) onto the DS would be much more labor/programming intensive.
The article's angry that Nintendo won't shoehorn in a wireless mode into Metroid Prime:Hunters. Mario Kart and Animal Crossing are doing it too, he says. Nintendo sucks and blah blah because this one game won't have online play!
Oh, but wait, both of those "look they're online so why can't you be" games are based off of existing franchises and so the development time is much, much shorter than developing a completely new engine/game on a (then) brand new system? The turnaround time for putting a good online multiplayer that interfaces with Nintendo's sytem is too longfor Nintendo's tastes? Especially when when the details of their wireless system wasn't settled upon until halfway through said game's development cycle? I guess these aren't viable reasons to the gaming media. Who can say "bias?" I know I can!
I believe the post you're replying to was a joke pointing out that calling it DRM is indeed a silly idea, as well as making fun of the Slashdot post that did so.
Actually, Nintendo took back the card making rights from WotC about a couple of years ago right after the invent of Pokemon-e. (here's a link to a news story)
That's the T-piece and the zig-zag, not the block and the zig-zag. The block would force you to end the zig-zag chain that you normally achieve by standing them end on end.
I've just invented the most evil version of Tetris ever: it only gives you the block and one (randomly picked at the start but stays the same throughout) of the zig-zag pieces. Now try making lines with that!
Slashdot Mirror
Then NES was released 20 years ago so the patents (which lasted 17 years at the time) on the NES arcitechture have run out, so they can do this, at least technology-wise.
Just because something's patented doesn't mean others won't find ways around it. Example: Nintendo's d-pad design, which was patented with its creation for the use in Game and Watch, couldn't be used by any other console until it ran out just in time for the Dreamcast. Look at the Sega Master System's D-pad: a big ugly square. Genesis? More like Nintendo's but on a disk and diagonals were easier to get. Sony's? Detached trapezoids in a plus shape. So, as history has shown, even though something's patented doesn't mean the other console makers can't figure out another way of doing essentially the same thing to give close enough to the same results that people don't care or possibly even prefer it.
As you mentioned, and I'm sure most people who as a kid played an NES can attest to, many people's first instincts with controllers is to move them around as they move their player around. Now, Nintendo's making a controller that actually takes that movement and does something. Imagine if, as a kid, moving the controller like that actually made Mario jump? You would have gotten it on your first try. This is what Nintendo's going after: being able to pick up and near instantly figure out the control scheme because the controller reacts to movement.
Well, making the save button disabled also shows the user that their file has been saved (and while it's disabled, it hasn't been modified), giving a visual component to an otherwise invisible process.
I could have sworn this was documented in the book Game Over. I remember learning about this oscilloscope "video game" sometime around the time I read that book, so I might just be attaching it to the book instead of wherever I learned it from, so can anyone verify that it is indeed in Game Over or not?
Then if that's the case, why not mark the article as such? "In the ongoing event of...", "Update:", or a tag that means "ongoing event"? Right now to the casual eye this is a dupe, and thus the average user who read the original article will skip it, thus not getting the complete story, so Slashdot offering it only helps the relatively anal who actually check out the link before dismissing the post as a dupe.
The article's dated Oct 31st, which means it was released after Lost Coast came out! Those must be some pretty bad editors over there.
I also would like to see statistics of non-intercourse sexual activites. My guess is they're on the rise, because teens can easily say "Well, I'm saving myself for marriage, but oral/anal/etc. doesn't count as real sex because there's no chance of making a baby!"
You need to read the article that was linked to in that sentence. Epic revealed they already have Engine 4 in the works, and have been working on it for the last 2 years parallel to Engine 3.
Because patenting kept Sony from adding analog sticks and rumble to the PS1's controller after Nintendo revealed the N64 controller, right?
Is the "celsius or fahrenheit, your pick" a reference to the fact it wouldn't matter how cold it is outside for keys, or that -40 is the same temperature in both scales?
I don't think they ever had to "use" the patent to go after someone for making a similar D-pad because first they were the only game in town for half of the patent life, and no one else who made gaming consoles was stupid enough to copy it. The Dreamcast had the Nintendo-style d-pad because the 17year patent life was over in 1997 (the d-pad was patented with the Game and Watch in 1980) and the Dreamcast came out in 1999.
Is it such a slow news day that a website putting up a strategy guide is considered news?
More expansive article here If you read the article, it tells you "80% decline," but that's a lie. If you actually do the math, a 3.75 billion yen decline to 13.72 billion yen of operating profit is obviously not an 80% decline, and in fact what actually happened is a decline TO 80%. Likewise, they had a 14% drop in sales, netting 70.7 billion yen.
Now, let's look at Sony and Microsoft's numbers (linked article last paragraph). Microsoft lost more money than Nintendo made in profit. Sony lost about a third as much as Microsoft, but they're still in the red! Where's the front page "Sony's losing money! So's Microsoft!" articles?!
Good lord, no wonder why everyone thinks Nintendo's doomed: the media has it out for them! Why didn't they report on Sony or Microsoft's losses, let alone why didn't they check their numbers/headline/article before posting it?! Seriously, Nintendo has an uphill battle next generation, and it's mostly because the media puts them in a bad light like this.
I just googled "10 year PS2" and got lots of articles quoting it from the 2004 GDC, here's the I'm Feeling Lucky link: http://news.techwhack.com/4/sony-sees-10-year-life -for-playstation-2-console/
Sony said this already with the PS2 before its release. It's just a marketing scheme to try and get people to accept their over-priced day-one purchase by saying "Hey, this console will still be sold 10 years in the future it will be so popular!" It all stems from the PSOne's popularity: the Playstation was released in 1995 and is still sold in stores, so it has a "10 year lifecycle", especially since the PS3's appearance next year will push the PSOne off of the market. The PS2 was released at the middle point of that 10 years, and the PS3 will be relased in the middle of the PS2's 10 years. The PS2 needs to last until 2010 for its 10 year lifecycle to be true, and the PS3 needs to last until 2016. The whole lifecycle thing is just speculation on Sony's part based on the PS1's sales curve. If Blu-Ray's not accepted or one of a million other things happens, the PS3's lifecycle might be cut short.
Well, the other two games were on the N64 (Animal Crossing only in Japan) which is more in line with the DS in power, which gives those games a boost in engine creation since Nintendo already knows how to move an N64 engine over to the DS. Prime's only been on the Gamecube and so shoehorning that engine (which was made by Retro Studios and NST's handling Hunters, which probably means the engine's being made from the ground up rather than converted like the other two games) onto the DS would be much more labor/programming intensive.
The article's angry that Nintendo won't shoehorn in a wireless mode into Metroid Prime:Hunters. Mario Kart and Animal Crossing are doing it too, he says. Nintendo sucks and blah blah because this one game won't have online play!
Oh, but wait, both of those "look they're online so why can't you be" games are based off of existing franchises and so the development time is much, much shorter than developing a completely new engine/game on a (then) brand new system? The turnaround time for putting a good online multiplayer that interfaces with Nintendo's sytem is too longfor Nintendo's tastes? Especially when when the details of their wireless system wasn't settled upon until halfway through said game's development cycle? I guess these aren't viable reasons to the gaming media. Who can say "bias?" I know I can!
This policy was touched upon by today's Something Positive: http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp07142005.shtml
I believe the post you're replying to was a joke pointing out that calling it DRM is indeed a silly idea, as well as making fun of the Slashdot post that did so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surety_bond
No wonder obesity's such a problem! Kids aren't just eating food, but eating technology as well!
Actually, Nintendo took back the card making rights from WotC about a couple of years ago right after the invent of Pokemon-e. (here's a link to a news story)
That's the T-piece and the zig-zag, not the block and the zig-zag. The block would force you to end the zig-zag chain that you normally achieve by standing them end on end.
I've just invented the most evil version of Tetris ever: it only gives you the block and one (randomly picked at the start but stays the same throughout) of the zig-zag pieces. Now try making lines with that!