So, did you tell your bosses boss that, when these money making oppertunities arose and your sites worked for other OSes/browser that the only reason they did so is because you disobeyed the MD and did it the right way? Maybe they will put you in charge, or at least promote you out from under this guy.
I'm shocked this hasn't been mentioned... SCUMMVM is already ported to the DS, so all the LucasArts adventure games are ready to go (you have to mod your DS to run this, but it's firmware and undoable). http://scummvm.drunkencoders.com/
Next up is the AGI 'emulator' already out there for the GBA. this will play the first couple Space Quests and something like the first 4 or 5 Kings Quests, etc. REALLY clever design on the interface for it to work with the GBA. Anyways, this will work on the DS with a regular GBA flash cart. http://www.bripro.com/gbagi/index.php
I really hope that the DS somehow spurs a resurgence in adventure gaming. It seems like a perfect match, with the touch screen and two screens for inventory, main game area, talkie/cutscenes, and the voice control could lead to some cool innovation in the genre. Plus, that sort of game seems like it would fit into the portable world... fire it up for a 15-30 minute session of trying to solve some puzzles and then save it and go back to work.
Nope, it was actually really fun. Just priced poorly. They wanted to charge the 'regular' $13/month for a game that was worth, maybe $8. I played for about 1.5 months in the beta, and then for a almost 6 months after launch. I had to leave because I didn't feel I was getting a good value for my money.
I wouldn't bet the farm on that. Consider this: If they based the nano on the Shuffle electronics, and not the mini electronics, which considering the size, battery life, and cost of the shuffle is highly possible (plus everyone raved about how great it sounds).
There is a good chance that the nano simply does not have a FW bridge or whatever you want to call the bits that make the iPod communicate over a FW port. It may have the USB2 only communications module of the shuffle.
In short, if FW is an absolutely needed function for you to get a new iPod, I would either get a 30gb standard model, or wait until the nano is in people hands who can try it out and let you know what works and what doesn't.
Because the tech to do this is here NOW. It's extractable with current equipment, distributable with current infrastructure, and usable with current consumer products. I'm as much for non-petrol based energy as anyone, but it's too far off for us to be ignoring other sources of oil RIGHT NOW.
We are going to NEED massive amounts of gas, plastics, and other energy to build a non-oil infrastructure. Things like solar panels, wind turbines, hydrogen refiners, etc are going to take massive amount of energy input to get them off the ground, and to make it feasible we will have to have a large, fairly cheap source of oil.
Hey, if we can get someone to come up with an economically realist way of growing and processing enough bio mass to switch to 100% bio-diesels and ethanol for our transportation energy I will be the first in line with my wallet wide open, but until then, we need to do something NOW. We need to end out dependence on foriegn oil, and stabilze both our foriegn policy and the cost of energy for American citizens and businesses, or we are going to be left in the cold, in more than one sense.
Miyamoto also revealed that Mario is getting a brand new sidekick, but kept firmly schtum on the details.
No!!! I always had an odd affinity for Luigi. He just as skilled as Mario, but always gets shunted to the side. Like in Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, it's kind of a joke that no one cares about Luigi. I'm gonna miss is little green overalls...
If you would have kept reading you would have seen that the 80:1, or more accurately 50:1, was a number from the 50's or so. We've used all the easy oil. The stuff we're getting now is much deeper and more diffiuclt to get. The Saudi oil fields are something around 5:1 now-a-days. I don't know if that includes the energy needed tp get all the way across the world, either.
Getting oil in our back yards at 3:1 would be great, and this may me slightly higher than that. Add into that some oil from coal, which is also fairly efficient compared to the shale oils and having a net zero law on oil production and use (as in oil companies can make only what America uses per year, and can't make more or less) along with some sensible energy conservation policies and more growth in renewable elecricity generation and even tho we'd be "paying" more for oil, in terms of ROE investment, our gas and oil prices would drop a bit and stabilize at a sustainable level due to the much higher level of autonomy and energy independance we would have.
Not having to worry about OPEC getting what they want to they keep sending our crack^H^H^H^H^H oil would let us have a sane foriegn policy, and keep a lot of the fluctuation in the oil markets to a minimum.
The first iPod shipped October 23, 2001. I can't believe that Apple managed to design, prototype, test, mass produce, market and ship the iPod in 9 months.
There is also no way that they don't have dated mockups, drawings, documents with interface specs, etc. from Dec 2000 and before.
I don't think that would work at all. First, if you sit someone down to play a new game or a new system, the first thing they do is look at the buttons. They look at where they are and try to see what the do, and see what they are labeled. Having them where you can't see them would be completely non-intuitive.
Second, from a usability standpoint, you would have to hold it with just enough pressure from just the right parts of your hand to keep it in your grip but not hit any buttons by accident. Sounds uncomfortable to me.
That'll be the GBA2. Nintendo specifically said they are planning on a new GBA and that the DS wasn't it.
I'm hoping for something like what you described... a 3" LCD with standard NTSC resolution and a N64 on a chip inside. Give it some extra RAM (or at least what the N64 had with the expansion pack), a better audio subsystem, and a decent control layout with an analog stick (I'd like to see them use the GC layout personally) along with a built in SNES, GBA, and NES emulator and wireless integration with either the Revolution or just with PCs and an online store to purchase older games for download.
I know that the N64 is pretty unimpressive in terms of graphics nowadays, but really it all a portable needs and by now the hardware required for this should be so cheap and well understood that 1) the console would be very low cost, 2) great on battery life, and 3) be cheap to develop for. Aside from all the great "ports" they could do, the
Isn't some company making a N64 on a chip for a system-in-the-controller game system in China? Isn't it like $30 with a game, too? SUre you have to add a nice LCD and a battery, but should be doable for $100 or so. It would be awesome to see a NEW system launch for under $100, with all the talk of the 360 and PS3 being $400.
They could probably make some cash selling an add-on that let you play old N64 carts, too, in addition to just copying old ROMs onto new, smaller carts and selling them. Talk about a cash-cow.
You have a really good point. Something else to think about would be a "Google Office Halo Effect". If they did pick up a good chunk of office users, and it was a really good piece of software that could interoperate with MS or even better supplant it as a format standard, one of the things keeping people on Windows, that is the best office suite, would begin to erode, and Linux would become even more viable.
Personally I think they are going to release an office suite that runs from your browser. They could take the OOo codebase, with the work done by the NeoOffice/J team get the whole thing working in Java;
OR they could do their own with all the new web technologies out there that have been pushing hard with Google Maps, etc.
But, to come back to it, having a free, MS compatible office suite that stores all your documents in your 10gb (or whatever it is by then) gMail account so it's accessible everywhere you go would be pretty sweet. Student would love it (work in the dorm, at home, in the lab, wherever without having to use different applications, bring the most recent edition of your paper everywhere, etc). Small business would love it, it's free. Geeks would love it, it's google, it's open source (maybe), it's free, online, crossplatform.
It wouldn't be an MS killer, but it'd a start. Would be well suited for online collaboration, which with the ever rising cost of fuel for transportation, is going to be a growing use of technology.
It'll be a great revenue generator... targeted ads to what people are typing in their word processor, or creating a presentation about anyone?
What they need to do is bundle some XBox1 games with it, along with some demos, etc. Example, throw Halo/Halo2/both and a demo of Halo 3 onto a single disc and toss it into the package. As a non Xbox owner I would be slightly more inclined to pick a 360 up if it had some bundled older games with it, but as is, no way I'm buying one.
On a related note, if we don't have to feed cows anymore we could probably alleviate the current gas crisis with all the extra ethanol and biodiesel we could grow... 100 pounds of grain for a pound of beef or something ridiculous like the.
How much did DVD Video titles cost in 1997 when DVD Video first came out in North America?
Wish I could find facts to back this up, but I remember DVDs being CHEAPER back then. Maybe I am completely crazy but it seemed that $12-15 was very much the norm for new release DVDs, with them being closer to $20+ now (for the newest, non-sale titles).
Anyone else feel like they are slowly raising the price of DVDs as they have become the standard? I remember talking about how am hour long CD was about $13 and for the same price I could a two hour movie, plus a ton of (sometimes) cool special features...
Additionally, this gives me an extra 10 minutes to get to the movie. Occasionally I will decide to go to a movie shortly before it starts. Sometimes, I won't always make it there exactly when the movie is going to start, but that extra 10 minutes ensures I won't miss anything.
Bah. They should lock people like you out of theatres. Once the lights go down I shouldn't have to listen to your late-ass trying to find a seat.
I used to live by a theatre that started the MOVIE at the posted time. Previews and adds started 20 minutes before that. I wish all cinema's worked that way.
Re:I wish they released a Mac Mini for Intel..
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I'm pretty sure Steve specifically said that the low end systems would go first. Meaning the mini, the iBook, the iMac, the PowerBook, and then the PowerMac will be a likely order. The PowerBook actually will probably get an update when the iBook does, and then the iMac, but the PowerMac will still be last, and the mini still first.
However, I am willing to bet that when the $100 lease runs out there will be another machine available, this one probably for SALE to developers that will be much closer to the actual Intel PowerMacs.It will have all the DRM locks, the custom BIOS/Firmwaer, a GPU slot for upgradable video cards (I'm not sure how well game development could be going on the current systems)...
Just a nitpick, really, but Apple ISN'T going to "crappy-ass broken-by-design, unreliable, wintel trash". Since there's no Windows involved, it'd just be "crappy-ass broken-by-design, unreliable, Intel trash"...:)
But it's not just the CPU that factors into the price of the system. There is, of coure, as you mention the overall design which adds to the cost (and well worth it, imo).
However, there is also things like IO controllers, GPUs, sound susbsytems, etc to consider. Since Apple is pretty much the only one out there making consumer grade PPC systems they likely spend a good chunk of money 'making it all work'. With an Intel/x86 based system they can recyle alot of the design that's out there. Take a fairly standard Intel chipset, with onboard network, IO, sound, etc built in, add a few minor changes to get it to run OS X and fit it into whatever the cool new case they came up with and I bet they are saving money over designing the whole PPC based system...
Or not, I could be entirely wrong. Personally, I am guessing the prices will stay about the same, you will just get more for that money. Better GPUs, more memory, faster CPU's, etc.
To bad it's Windows only. These seems like the perfect kind of game to be available on Linux/Mac/etc. No complex 3D engine to port or worry about, etc. Oh well, wonder if it's any good?
Nope, my copy of WC3 is fine. I have to take it out of the case and put it in my machine every time I want to play it. However, I know about 20 people who downloaded WC3 and a no-cd patch for it. So the DRM has failed entirely. I am a paying customer who is inconvenienced and less likely to buy another Blizzard game, and anyone who wants to play without paying can do so, and not have insert a CD to do so.
Another case of DRM failing to be effective what-so-ever.
DRM doesn't work in the way that it's creators intend, I think is more the point here.
You said it yourself. Not EVERYONE is able to crack a game run without the CD or to copy a copy protected disc, etc.
But some people CAN. The ones who WANT to pirate the games/song/movie can do so. The people who have paid for and would like to USE their copy of it are now hindered while trying to do so, sometimes to the point it simply won't work (see copy protected audio CDs for examples).
DRM is completely useless as an anti-piracy technique. Any information that you encrypt with the intention of it being decrypted by the public at large will eventually be broken. Even if it is difficult and tedious to do, people who want to "steal" that information will be able to do so. The rest of us will have to continue to insert a disc into our computers everytime we want to play WarCraft 3 even though the whole thing is stored on our discs. If that disc gets broken, lost, scratched beyond usability, well, you're SOL.
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So, did you tell your bosses boss that, when these money making oppertunities arose and your sites worked for other OSes/browser that the only reason they did so is because you disobeyed the MD and did it the right way? Maybe they will put you in charge, or at least promote you out from under this guy.
Next up is the AGI 'emulator' already out there for the GBA. this will play the first couple Space Quests and something like the first 4 or 5 Kings Quests, etc. REALLY clever design on the interface for it to work with the GBA. Anyways, this will work on the DS with a regular GBA flash cart. http://www.bripro.com/gbagi/index.php
I really hope that the DS somehow spurs a resurgence in adventure gaming. It seems like a perfect match, with the touch screen and two screens for inventory, main game area, talkie/cutscenes, and the voice control could lead to some cool innovation in the genre. Plus, that sort of game seems like it would fit into the portable world... fire it up for a 15-30 minute session of trying to solve some puzzles and then save it and go back to work.
Nope, it was actually really fun. Just priced poorly. They wanted to charge the 'regular' $13/month for a game that was worth, maybe $8. I played for about 1.5 months in the beta, and then for a almost 6 months after launch. I had to leave because I didn't feel I was getting a good value for my money.
There is a good chance that the nano simply does not have a FW bridge or whatever you want to call the bits that make the iPod communicate over a FW port. It may have the USB2 only communications module of the shuffle.
In short, if FW is an absolutely needed function for you to get a new iPod, I would either get a 30gb standard model, or wait until the nano is in people hands who can try it out and let you know what works and what doesn't.
Because the tech to do this is here NOW. It's extractable with current equipment, distributable with current infrastructure, and usable with current consumer products. I'm as much for non-petrol based energy as anyone, but it's too far off for us to be ignoring other sources of oil RIGHT NOW. We are going to NEED massive amounts of gas, plastics, and other energy to build a non-oil infrastructure. Things like solar panels, wind turbines, hydrogen refiners, etc are going to take massive amount of energy input to get them off the ground, and to make it feasible we will have to have a large, fairly cheap source of oil. Hey, if we can get someone to come up with an economically realist way of growing and processing enough bio mass to switch to 100% bio-diesels and ethanol for our transportation energy I will be the first in line with my wallet wide open, but until then, we need to do something NOW. We need to end out dependence on foriegn oil, and stabilze both our foriegn policy and the cost of energy for American citizens and businesses, or we are going to be left in the cold, in more than one sense.
No!!! I always had an odd affinity for Luigi. He just as skilled as Mario, but always gets shunted to the side. Like in Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, it's kind of a joke that no one cares about Luigi. I'm gonna miss is little green overalls...
If you would have kept reading you would have seen that the 80:1, or more accurately 50:1, was a number from the 50's or so. We've used all the easy oil. The stuff we're getting now is much deeper and more diffiuclt to get. The Saudi oil fields are something around 5:1 now-a-days. I don't know if that includes the energy needed tp get all the way across the world, either.
Getting oil in our back yards at 3:1 would be great, and this may me slightly higher than that. Add into that some oil from coal, which is also fairly efficient compared to the shale oils and having a net zero law on oil production and use (as in oil companies can make only what America uses per year, and can't make more or less) along with some sensible energy conservation policies and more growth in renewable elecricity generation and even tho we'd be "paying" more for oil, in terms of ROE investment, our gas and oil prices would drop a bit and stabilize at a sustainable level due to the much higher level of autonomy and energy independance we would have.
Not having to worry about OPEC getting what they want to they keep sending our crack^H^H^H^H^H oil would let us have a sane foriegn policy, and keep a lot of the fluctuation in the oil markets to a minimum.
Forget that, I would have sent them a bill. 10,000 downloads of my game at 10 cents a peice. Please send $1000 check now.
The first iPod shipped October 23, 2001. I can't believe that Apple managed to design, prototype, test, mass produce, market and ship the iPod in 9 months.
There is also no way that they don't have dated mockups, drawings, documents with interface specs, etc. from Dec 2000 and before.
I don't think that would work at all. First, if you sit someone down to play a new game or a new system, the first thing they do is look at the buttons. They look at where they are and try to see what the do, and see what they are labeled. Having them where you can't see them would be completely non-intuitive.
Second, from a usability standpoint, you would have to hold it with just enough pressure from just the right parts of your hand to keep it in your grip but not hit any buttons by accident. Sounds uncomfortable to me.
That'll be the GBA2. Nintendo specifically said they are planning on a new GBA and that the DS wasn't it. I'm hoping for something like what you described... a 3" LCD with standard NTSC resolution and a N64 on a chip inside. Give it some extra RAM (or at least what the N64 had with the expansion pack), a better audio subsystem, and a decent control layout with an analog stick (I'd like to see them use the GC layout personally) along with a built in SNES, GBA, and NES emulator and wireless integration with either the Revolution or just with PCs and an online store to purchase older games for download. I know that the N64 is pretty unimpressive in terms of graphics nowadays, but really it all a portable needs and by now the hardware required for this should be so cheap and well understood that 1) the console would be very low cost, 2) great on battery life, and 3) be cheap to develop for. Aside from all the great "ports" they could do, the Isn't some company making a N64 on a chip for a system-in-the-controller game system in China? Isn't it like $30 with a game, too? SUre you have to add a nice LCD and a battery, but should be doable for $100 or so. It would be awesome to see a NEW system launch for under $100, with all the talk of the 360 and PS3 being $400. They could probably make some cash selling an add-on that let you play old N64 carts, too, in addition to just copying old ROMs onto new, smaller carts and selling them. Talk about a cash-cow.
You have a really good point. Something else to think about would be a "Google Office Halo Effect". If they did pick up a good chunk of office users, and it was a really good piece of software that could interoperate with MS or even better supplant it as a format standard, one of the things keeping people on Windows, that is the best office suite, would begin to erode, and Linux would become even more viable.
Personally I think they are going to release an office suite that runs from your browser. They could take the OOo codebase, with the work done by the NeoOffice/J team get the whole thing working in Java;
OR they could do their own with all the new web technologies out there that have been pushing hard with Google Maps, etc.
But, to come back to it, having a free, MS compatible office suite that stores all your documents in your 10gb (or whatever it is by then) gMail account so it's accessible everywhere you go would be pretty sweet. Student would love it (work in the dorm, at home, in the lab, wherever without having to use different applications, bring the most recent edition of your paper everywhere, etc). Small business would love it, it's free. Geeks would love it, it's google, it's open source (maybe), it's free, online, crossplatform.
It wouldn't be an MS killer, but it'd a start. Would be well suited for online collaboration, which with the ever rising cost of fuel for transportation, is going to be a growing use of technology.
It'll be a great revenue generator... targeted ads to what people are typing in their word processor, or creating a presentation about anyone?
You know they are geeks (in a good way!) because the forcast icons for 'Windy' are wind power generators. I think it's cool anyways.
What they need to do is bundle some XBox1 games with it, along with some demos, etc. Example, throw Halo/Halo2/both and a demo of Halo 3 onto a single disc and toss it into the package. As a non Xbox owner I would be slightly more inclined to pick a 360 up if it had some bundled older games with it, but as is, no way I'm buying one.
On a related note, if we don't have to feed cows anymore we could probably alleviate the current gas crisis with all the extra ethanol and biodiesel we could grow... 100 pounds of grain for a pound of beef or something ridiculous like the.
1) You may be a R.S.G. (really smart guy), but
2) There is always someone smarter than you somewhere.
3) As you point out, there is a ton of money involved in getting this started, so
4) Don't you think that they would have hired some people from group (2) to go over the numbers with more detailed information?
5) They apparantly have decided there is a good chance they will make money on this, which leads me to my conclusion,
6) You don't have any idea what you are talking about.
Wish I could find facts to back this up, but I remember DVDs being CHEAPER back then. Maybe I am completely crazy but it seemed that $12-15 was very much the norm for new release DVDs, with them being closer to $20+ now (for the newest, non-sale titles).
Anyone else feel like they are slowly raising the price of DVDs as they have become the standard? I remember talking about how am hour long CD was about $13 and for the same price I could a two hour movie, plus a ton of (sometimes) cool special features...
Bah. They should lock people like you out of theatres. Once the lights go down I shouldn't have to listen to your late-ass trying to find a seat.
I used to live by a theatre that started the MOVIE at the posted time. Previews and adds started 20 minutes before that. I wish all cinema's worked that way.
I'm pretty sure Steve specifically said that the low end systems would go first. Meaning the mini, the iBook, the iMac, the PowerBook, and then the PowerMac will be a likely order. The PowerBook actually will probably get an update when the iBook does, and then the iMac, but the PowerMac will still be last, and the mini still first.
However, I am willing to bet that when the $100 lease runs out there will be another machine available, this one probably for SALE to developers that will be much closer to the actual Intel PowerMacs.It will have all the DRM locks, the custom BIOS/Firmwaer, a GPU slot for upgradable video cards (I'm not sure how well game development could be going on the current systems)...
Just a nitpick, really, but Apple ISN'T going to "crappy-ass broken-by-design, unreliable, wintel trash". Since there's no Windows involved, it'd just be "crappy-ass broken-by-design, unreliable, Intel trash"... :)
However, there is also things like IO controllers, GPUs, sound susbsytems, etc to consider. Since Apple is pretty much the only one out there making consumer grade PPC systems they likely spend a good chunk of money 'making it all work'. With an Intel/x86 based system they can recyle alot of the design that's out there. Take a fairly standard Intel chipset, with onboard network, IO, sound, etc built in, add a few minor changes to get it to run OS X and fit it into whatever the cool new case they came up with and I bet they are saving money over designing the whole PPC based system...
Or not, I could be entirely wrong. Personally, I am guessing the prices will stay about the same, you will just get more for that money. Better GPUs, more memory, faster CPU's, etc.
To bad it's Windows only. These seems like the perfect kind of game to be available on Linux/Mac/etc. No complex 3D engine to port or worry about, etc. Oh well, wonder if it's any good?
Another case of DRM failing to be effective what-so-ever.
You said it yourself. Not EVERYONE is able to crack a game run without the CD or to copy a copy protected disc, etc.
But some people CAN. The ones who WANT to pirate the games/song/movie can do so. The people who have paid for and would like to USE their copy of it are now hindered while trying to do so, sometimes to the point it simply won't work (see copy protected audio CDs for examples).
DRM is completely useless as an anti-piracy technique. Any information that you encrypt with the intention of it being decrypted by the public at large will eventually be broken. Even if it is difficult and tedious to do, people who want to "steal" that information will be able to do so. The rest of us will have to continue to insert a disc into our computers everytime we want to play WarCraft 3 even though the whole thing is stored on our discs. If that disc gets broken, lost, scratched beyond usability, well, you're SOL.
DRM doesn't work.