I actually might consider buying some downloadable movies if the price was right. If they are thinking about charging $10 or more for them, I will just download them for free if they aren't anything special (and if they are, I would buy the pressed DVD). If the price point was around $5, it would make a whole lot more sense than renting the DVD, and would likely be quicker to acquire. Throw in the cost of a DVD-R, and you have the movie for a fairly good price. The movie studios do not have to go through a middleman (video store), and neither do we, and we get the movie for about the same price. Everyone wins.
I've never been that interested in paying for songs, as downloading the music is about the same price, or more than actually buying the CD. And you have to be out of your mind if you think I am paying $20 for a music CD. So I just download all the music I want for free (I'm Canadian). I would rather spend the money on going to see a live concert.
A kindred spirit then.;-) I speak to you on my laptop, which runs Ubuntu 5.10 almost exclusively. My biggest problem with Mac OS X is its complete lack of respect for standard *nix apps. In my experience, they usually don't com pile without a lot of work, and once you do have them compiled, they aren't well integrated with the OS. Simple things such as being able to place an X11 app on the dock, or be able to associate a filetype with an X11 app would make things ever so much more pleasant. A shared clipboard between X11 and Cocoa would be really frickin nice too.
I do respect Macs for being *nix based... but I really hate them for being incompatible with pretty much everything, and shoving everything with an Apple brand down your throat. I could never find a decent replacement for iTunes (which I loathe with a passion) on a Mac for example... and my girlfriend has an iMac with non-standard microphone plugs... which means she has to buy an apple branded headset, rather than just any old one off the shelf. It's the subtleties like that which really drive me towards hating the OS. I was considering buying an Apple laptop once though... because I don't have a whole lot of use for Windows, and I could install Linux on it... but then I remembered the one button touch pad, and all the nice incompatibilities, and I bought a good old Centrino.
Well, I would sooner cut my throat than use Mac OS, personally. But I have a friend who's a bigtime Mac zealot. And he has absolutely nothing good to say about 10.4. He was always telling me about how Mac OS just gets faster and faster with each release, but he said with 10.4, Apple just fucked up way too much by making things even more pretty at the cost of performance. He doesn't have a whole lot of memory on his machine, so the OS is completely unuseable.
Hey, Mac OS X 10.4 made number 3. That's honestly not that much better. An OS with more prettiness, and a much slower interface than its predecessors doesn't really count as top 100 material to me.
Somehow I just don't see how adding a battery to a purse is going to make things easier to find. You know that women are just going to have one more thing in the purse to move around, and there's going to be too much in there for the light to actually penetrate... I mean seriously, most women I know have a double decker bus worth of stuff in there. It's a wonder they all don't lean when they walk.;)
Yeah, I was laughing my ass off pretty good when I saw this story. But I think it's a disgruntled employee myself. Notice that the submitter is Steve from Hexus? And the last Hexus article was submitted by SteveK?
That's the thing. There is no emulation layer. You can think of the real GBA hardware as being a subset of the DS hardware. The firmware tells the GBA where the framebuffer is, but that's about it. Everything else is pretty much exactly where it was on the GBA.
Well, I have heard the story both ways. Some say it's legal, some say it's not. I'm not going to argue that today.
I will just mention that if I am downloading poisoned data... then I am probably going to be uploading poisoned data as well... meaning no crime is being committed. I can also just arbitrarily say that I am the world's biggest leech.:P
Well, I'm a Canadian. I break no laws when I download music on bittorrent... but these people are making it extremely difficult to download my music in peace.
Because the screen buffers are quite easily swapped. The X and Y buttons are on a completely different register than the A and B buttons. The DS is much like a GBA with extensive modifications. The extra screen can be redirected quite easily just by changing a couple of bits. The extra buttons can not.
Pirates was a game that I bought the limited edition version of. I mainly wanted the game on a DVD, but the DVD version also had some making of videos and interviews. But the real beauty of the package was that it was the same price as the regular version.
I also bought the special edition Half Life 2 release. Again, because I wanted the game on a DVD. But I later regretted the decision a little, as the Gold steam package is just a little bit pricier, but includes a lot more goodies.
And I'm typing from it right now. I don't really have any issues with not hitting the right keys at all, and I don't really feel the need to look at the keyboard. About the only problems that I have with it are when I'm sitting in an unusual position, and I can't find the home row. But overall, the keyboard is very very solid, and feels just right to the fingertips.
Hey, I'm an Ubuntu user, and I've been running 2.12 on my laptop for about 2 days now. Breezy Badger is actually quite a nice distro at this point in time.
I fit the demographic as well. I had little to no interest in Nintendogs, and was all stoked for Advance Wars. Yet somehow... after playing my girlfriend's copy, I went out and bought my own copy. As I was playing her game, I realized that I could make the dog do anything I bloody well wanted. That really appealed to me.
I now have a pinscher that answers to the name "Pothead", and performs suitable actions upon hearing the commands "pass the bong", "chug chug chug, or (my favorite) "want some dope?".
I was playing the game at PAX when someone came across me talking to my DS, yelling furiously at my dog to "pass the goddamned bong!". I got my money's worth when I passed the DS to the stranger, and watched him try to get my dog to pass the bong.
You don't understand. The man you see there was likely on Pictochat. Pretty much everyone with a DS was on Pictochat. On Saturday's performance, there were almost 3 FULL Pictochat rooms. It was absolutely fantastic to be able to communicate and talk about the performance with fellow concert goers, and just take in the sounds.
This is laughable, and insulting to Nintendo. They will forever dominate this generation based on an advanced tamagotchi and a strategy game that just came out? I should hope they have something better in their lineup. People buy these games for one reason: it's the only thing they can get.
5 weeks in a row:
Trace Memory
Lost in Blue
Castlevania
Trauma Center
Phoenix Wright
Where on earth are you getting your information? DS also has Sonic Rush, Viewtiful Joe, Animal Crossing (online), Mario Kart (online) and Metroid Hunters (online) coming out.
especially with the numbers of people I saw playing it at PAX.
You must have gone to a different PAX than I did. The PAX I went to had about 1 PSP for every 10 DSs.
However, the problem with your analysis is this: the PSP is not in direct competition with the Nintendo DS. The PSP is selling the "adult" games... the Twisted Metals, the Wipeouts, and the (coming soon) GTAs. The DS, however is focusing on something entirely different; it is trying to attract a new crowd of gamers... types like the girlfriends, the less "hardcore" gamers, or the extremely casual gamer.
I agreed with a lot of what you said, but that statement there just cost you a lot of credibility with me. I just got back from PAX 05 not too long ago. Somehow I seriously doubt that there were many casual gamers there, or children. Yet DSs still outnumbered PSPs at least 10:1.
My own review.
on
PAX05 Writeup
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I posted this elsewhere, but I think it's fitting here too.
I just got home from PAX 05, which I have to say was incredible. First, let me give you a run down on what all happened there. (SPOILER: Nintendo stole the fuck out of the show).
1) Exhibitions. Same sort of shit you see at E3, but on a smaller scale. Nintendo was present with just about all of their games that I have been wanting to play for a while (including the new Zelda). Microsoft was present with a chance to enter into a beta testing program, and a free copy of their new MS Office product. (I passed on both of those, as I have no desire for either). Sony was present in a small fashion with playable demos for about 5 or 6 of their new games. (Exact games elude me... I didn't play them, but I did pick up the discs that they were giving out). Ubisoft also had most of their lineup present. That included a bunch of Xbox games I could give a rat's ass about (but they had an airplane game that looked fun), and a trailer for Prince of Persia 3. The Army was present with a table full of shuttle PCs LANed together playing AA, and a hummer and a full set of soldier gear (including kevlar) that people could try on (I tried on the armor, and picked up a pressed AA CD, and a lanyard). There was also a sort of cool VR thing where you were walking around in a sphere (It proved to me once and for all that VR is an absolutely horrible idea.) Other things present included FEAR, Torque, Tabletop RPG things, and the usual assortment of merchandise for sale at such things (I picked up a T-shirt or two, a PAX 04 DVD (good memories), and the Penny Arcade book.)
2) Panels. One of the really great things about PAX is the panels that are going on pretty much all the time. Basically, they get members of the industry to get up in front of a few thousand people and answer questions. There were also other things, such as a chance to beat the pros at their own games (I beat a Soul Calibur II Pro and won a $50 gift certificate at EB) and of course... the classic screening of "The Wizard".
3) Music. The closest thing to a hippie music festival for gamers. Well, maybe not. They had a couple of people play way too much Final Fantasy on the piano, and a few very very horrible rappers. But NESkimos and the Minibosses simply kicked ass.
4) Community. PAX 05 might have been pretty boring if you were a PSP owner (and you probably would have had a hard time getting multiplayer going... there were a good 10 DSs for every PSP). But believe me when I tell you that PictoChat was DESIGNED for events like that. For 3 days, there was a continuously running pictochat conversation. This was especially handy during things such as panels or the music concerts, as it was our way of providing running commentary on things. (and drawing penii). You also meet many interesting people such as Eyes5, who can make PictoChat do absolutely insane things. I wish I could have saved some of her drawings. She was also quite the gamer... I was simply shocked to see 4:30 spent on Nintendogs when it was only out a few days beforehand... The dog knew about 20 tricks, and had won like every competition.
If any of you were at PAX, and owned a DS, you might remember me as PAX_Dave, who was serving E3 demos from his laptop at odd times during the convention. Late on the first day, I had grown very very proud of all the DS owners around (PSP owners were a VERY small minority), and I wanted to do something special, so I began hosting demos such as Jump Superstars, Submarine Tech Demo, Zelda trailer, and Trauma Center, as well as some homebrew. It became a common event for me to set up my laptop during a panel, or in the speakeasy booth and let my fellow DS fans have at her.
5) Nintendo. Let me list a few items. Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid: Hunters, Mario Kart DS, Viewtiful Joe DS, Castlevania DS, Met
I've given bucketloads to Skype for the PC2Phone services. But I've recently moved to voipbuster, where the calls are free... but hang up automatically after an hour.:(
Well, I currently have an XROM 512Mb from Easybuy 2000 (google them). It's a good enough card... gets the job done. But if I was going to do it over again, I would probably get the GB Movie Player, and upgrade the firmware on it, giving me homebrew access (via CF cards). Either that or get a Flash2Advance. The advantage there of course being that you can actually flash your card in Linux. =P (would eliminate the need for msys or cygwin)
You forgot about the DS ports of Hexen and Heretic. I am currently in the process of creating a Lumines clone for DS. Tepples has already released a Lumines clone for GBA called Luminesweeper.
I also forgot to mention ScummVM, which ironically... I was flashing to my flash cart while I was writing that (it works great!).
You forgot about the DS ports of [url=http://www.telefragged.com/thefatal/index.php ?content=inc_si_ds.htm]Hexen[/url] and [url=http://heretic.drunkencoders.com/]Heretic[/ur l].
I am currently in the process of creating a Lumines clone for DS. Tepples has already released a Lumines clone for GBA called [url=http://pinocchio.jk0.org/lu/]Luminesweeper[/u rl].
Slashdot Mirror
I actually might consider buying some downloadable movies if the price was right. If they are thinking about charging $10 or more for them, I will just download them for free if they aren't anything special (and if they are, I would buy the pressed DVD). If the price point was around $5, it would make a whole lot more sense than renting the DVD, and would likely be quicker to acquire. Throw in the cost of a DVD-R, and you have the movie for a fairly good price. The movie studios do not have to go through a middleman (video store), and neither do we, and we get the movie for about the same price. Everyone wins.
I've never been that interested in paying for songs, as downloading the music is about the same price, or more than actually buying the CD. And you have to be out of your mind if you think I am paying $20 for a music CD. So I just download all the music I want for free (I'm Canadian). I would rather spend the money on going to see a live concert.
A kindred spirit then. ;-) I speak to you on my laptop, which runs Ubuntu 5.10 almost exclusively. My biggest problem with Mac OS X is its complete lack of respect for standard *nix apps. In my experience, they usually don't com pile without a lot of work, and once you do have them compiled, they aren't well integrated with the OS. Simple things such as being able to place an X11 app on the dock, or be able to associate a filetype with an X11 app would make things ever so much more pleasant. A shared clipboard between X11 and Cocoa would be really frickin nice too.
I do respect Macs for being *nix based... but I really hate them for being incompatible with pretty much everything, and shoving everything with an Apple brand down your throat. I could never find a decent replacement for iTunes (which I loathe with a passion) on a Mac for example... and my girlfriend has an iMac with non-standard microphone plugs... which means she has to buy an apple branded headset, rather than just any old one off the shelf. It's the subtleties like that which really drive me towards hating the OS. I was considering buying an Apple laptop once though... because I don't have a whole lot of use for Windows, and I could install Linux on it... but then I remembered the one button touch pad, and all the nice incompatibilities, and I bought a good old Centrino.
Well, I would sooner cut my throat than use Mac OS, personally. But I have a friend who's a bigtime Mac zealot. And he has absolutely nothing good to say about 10.4. He was always telling me about how Mac OS just gets faster and faster with each release, but he said with 10.4, Apple just fucked up way too much by making things even more pretty at the cost of performance. He doesn't have a whole lot of memory on his machine, so the OS is completely unuseable.
Hey, Mac OS X 10.4 made number 3. That's honestly not that much better. An OS with more prettiness, and a much slower interface than its predecessors doesn't really count as top 100 material to me.
Somehow I just don't see how adding a battery to a purse is going to make things easier to find. You know that women are just going to have one more thing in the purse to move around, and there's going to be too much in there for the light to actually penetrate... I mean seriously, most women I know have a double decker bus worth of stuff in there. It's a wonder they all don't lean when they walk. ;)
Yeah, I was laughing my ass off pretty good when I saw this story. But I think it's a disgruntled employee myself. Notice that the submitter is Steve from Hexus? And the last Hexus article was submitted by SteveK?
That's the thing. There is no emulation layer. You can think of the real GBA hardware as being a subset of the DS hardware. The firmware tells the GBA where the framebuffer is, but that's about it. Everything else is pretty much exactly where it was on the GBA.
Well, I have heard the story both ways. Some say it's legal, some say it's not. I'm not going to argue that today.
:P
I will just mention that if I am downloading poisoned data... then I am probably going to be uploading poisoned data as well... meaning no crime is being committed. I can also just arbitrarily say that I am the world's biggest leech.
Conformist.
Well, I'm a Canadian. I break no laws when I download music on bittorrent... but these people are making it extremely difficult to download my music in peace.
Because the screen buffers are quite easily swapped. The X and Y buttons are on a completely different register than the A and B buttons. The DS is much like a GBA with extensive modifications. The extra screen can be redirected quite easily just by changing a couple of bits. The extra buttons can not.
Pirates was a game that I bought the limited edition version of. I mainly wanted the game on a DVD, but the DVD version also had some making of videos and interviews. But the real beauty of the package was that it was the same price as the regular version.
I also bought the special edition Half Life 2 release. Again, because I wanted the game on a DVD. But I later regretted the decision a little, as the Gold steam package is just a little bit pricier, but includes a lot more goodies.
And I'm typing from it right now. I don't really have any issues with not hitting the right keys at all, and I don't really feel the need to look at the keyboard. About the only problems that I have with it are when I'm sitting in an unusual position, and I can't find the home row. But overall, the keyboard is very very solid, and feels just right to the fingertips.
Hey, I'm an Ubuntu user, and I've been running 2.12 on my laptop for about 2 days now. Breezy Badger is actually quite a nice distro at this point in time.
I fit the demographic as well. I had little to no interest in Nintendogs, and was all stoked for Advance Wars. Yet somehow... after playing my girlfriend's copy, I went out and bought my own copy. As I was playing her game, I realized that I could make the dog do anything I bloody well wanted. That really appealed to me.
I now have a pinscher that answers to the name "Pothead", and performs suitable actions upon hearing the commands "pass the bong", "chug chug chug, or (my favorite) "want some dope?".
I was playing the game at PAX when someone came across me talking to my DS, yelling furiously at my dog to "pass the goddamned bong!". I got my money's worth when I passed the DS to the stranger, and watched him try to get my dog to pass the bong.
You don't understand. The man you see there was likely on Pictochat. Pretty much everyone with a DS was on Pictochat. On Saturday's performance, there were almost 3 FULL Pictochat rooms. It was absolutely fantastic to be able to communicate and talk about the performance with fellow concert goers, and just take in the sounds.
This is laughable, and insulting to Nintendo. They will forever dominate this generation based on an advanced tamagotchi and a strategy game that just came out? I should hope they have something better in their lineup. People buy these games for one reason: it's the only thing they can get.
5 weeks in a row:
Trace Memory
Lost in Blue
Castlevania
Trauma Center
Phoenix Wright
Where on earth are you getting your information? DS also has Sonic Rush, Viewtiful Joe, Animal Crossing (online), Mario Kart (online) and Metroid Hunters (online) coming out.
especially with the numbers of people I saw playing it at PAX.
You must have gone to a different PAX than I did. The PAX I went to had about 1 PSP for every 10 DSs.
I agreed with a lot of what you said, but that statement there just cost you a lot of credibility with me. I just got back from PAX 05 not too long ago. Somehow I seriously doubt that there were many casual gamers there, or children. Yet DSs still outnumbered PSPs at least 10:1.
I posted this elsewhere, but I think it's fitting here too. I just got home from PAX 05, which I have to say was incredible. First, let me give you a run down on what all happened there. (SPOILER: Nintendo stole the fuck out of the show).
1) Exhibitions. Same sort of shit you see at E3, but on a smaller scale. Nintendo was present with just about all of their games that I have been wanting to play for a while (including the new Zelda). Microsoft was present with a chance to enter into a beta testing program, and a free copy of their new MS Office product. (I passed on both of those, as I have no desire for either). Sony was present in a small fashion with playable demos for about 5 or 6 of their new games. (Exact games elude me... I didn't play them, but I did pick up the discs that they were giving out). Ubisoft also had most of their lineup present. That included a bunch of Xbox games I could give a rat's ass about (but they had an airplane game that looked fun), and a trailer for Prince of Persia 3. The Army was present with a table full of shuttle PCs LANed together playing AA, and a hummer and a full set of soldier gear (including kevlar) that people could try on (I tried on the armor, and picked up a pressed AA CD, and a lanyard). There was also a sort of cool VR thing where you were walking around in a sphere (It proved to me once and for all that VR is an absolutely horrible idea.) Other things present included FEAR, Torque, Tabletop RPG things, and the usual assortment of merchandise for sale at such things (I picked up a T-shirt or two, a PAX 04 DVD (good memories), and the Penny Arcade book.)
2) Panels. One of the really great things about PAX is the panels that are going on pretty much all the time. Basically, they get members of the industry to get up in front of a few thousand people and answer questions. There were also other things, such as a chance to beat the pros at their own games (I beat a Soul Calibur II Pro and won a $50 gift certificate at EB) and of course... the classic screening of "The Wizard".
3) Music. The closest thing to a hippie music festival for gamers. Well, maybe not. They had a couple of people play way too much Final Fantasy on the piano, and a few very very horrible rappers. But NESkimos and the Minibosses simply kicked ass.
4) Community. PAX 05 might have been pretty boring if you were a PSP owner (and you probably would have had a hard time getting multiplayer going... there were a good 10 DSs for every PSP). But believe me when I tell you that PictoChat was DESIGNED for events like that. For 3 days, there was a continuously running pictochat conversation. This was especially handy during things such as panels or the music concerts, as it was our way of providing running commentary on things. (and drawing penii). You also meet many interesting people such as Eyes5, who can make PictoChat do absolutely insane things. I wish I could have saved some of her drawings. She was also quite the gamer... I was simply shocked to see 4:30 spent on Nintendogs when it was only out a few days beforehand... The dog knew about 20 tricks, and had won like every competition.
If any of you were at PAX, and owned a DS, you might remember me as PAX_Dave, who was serving E3 demos from his laptop at odd times during the convention. Late on the first day, I had grown very very proud of all the DS owners around (PSP owners were a VERY small minority), and I wanted to do something special, so I began hosting demos such as Jump Superstars, Submarine Tech Demo, Zelda trailer, and Trauma Center, as well as some homebrew. It became a common event for me to set up my laptop during a panel, or in the speakeasy booth and let my fellow DS fans have at her.
5) Nintendo. Let me list a few items. Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid: Hunters, Mario Kart DS, Viewtiful Joe DS, Castlevania DS, Met
Hey, I use the software. It's one minute if you don't have any credit. If you buy credit, the limit is raised to one hour.
I've given bucketloads to Skype for the PC2Phone services. But I've recently moved to voipbuster, where the calls are free... but hang up automatically after an hour. :(
Well, I currently have an XROM 512Mb from Easybuy 2000 (google them). It's a good enough card... gets the job done. But if I was going to do it over again, I would probably get the GB Movie Player, and upgrade the firmware on it, giving me homebrew access (via CF cards). Either that or get a Flash2Advance. The advantage there of course being that you can actually flash your card in Linux. =P (would eliminate the need for msys or cygwin)
You forgot about the DS ports of Hexen and Heretic. I am currently in the process of creating a Lumines clone for DS. Tepples has already released a Lumines clone for GBA called Luminesweeper.
I also forgot to mention ScummVM, which ironically... I was flashing to my flash cart while I was writing that (it works great!).
You forgot about the DS ports of [url=http://www.telefragged.com/thefatal/index.php ?content=inc_si_ds.htm]Hexen[/url] and [url=http://heretic.drunkencoders.com/]Heretic[/ur l].
I am currently in the process of creating a Lumines clone for DS. Tepples has already released a Lumines clone for GBA called [url=http://pinocchio.jk0.org/lu/]Luminesweeper[/u rl].
Do you have any idea how many Space Invaders ports there are for other handhelds? And how many homebrew clones?