Let's not fail to mention about the availability of the value edition of the XBox 360. Weren't the value editions of the PSP hard to come by when it was released?
Not to mention a number of stores (EB and Gamespot in particular) will only offer their special sets that comes with 3 games, strategy guide, and whatever else they can toss into it. Would the cost of those sets $599?
Simple guess would be so Microsoft can claim they have Final Fantasy running on their console. Final Fantasy was always credited for helping to push the original Playstation to the top of the market (especially in Japan). Perhaps Microsoft feels this will increase Japanese acceptance of the Xbox 360? Maybe this was a requirement by Squaresoft so they would develop for the Xbox 360?
Yes, much like the Sega Dreamcast beat out the Sony Playstation 2. Or, ummm, the Sega Saturn beat out the Sony Playstation. Hmmm, or the Sega Genesis dominated the Super Nintendo. 3D0 can't miss with thier specs? Neo-Geo anyone? Amiga CD32 or Atari Panther?
Software, software.. It always comes down to software. Why aren't launch titles getting "leaked" out all over the press every 2 days? And with these "specs", how much will this unit cost? $500? $699? Maybe $360?
People already make livings off of mmorpgs. Do a search of 'UO' on ebay and see how many hits you get. Not quite as profitable as it was a couple years back, but with trade brokers or ebayers selling of upgrade codes/time cards/rewards/rares/scrolls a decent income could be achieved. I know a few that managed to pull in a thousand or two a month, heard of some that pulled in more. Of course, these are folks that were online 7 days a week, 18+ hours a day. Most were college students.
The segment of Honeywell that was involved with Big Dig was HTSI (Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc). HTSI is involved in alot of NASA or military related contracts (primarily ground stations or satellite control like HST, Landsat, etc). HTSI was formally Allied Signal which was formally Bendix (NASA followers should know the name). Lockheed became prime on a major NASA contract and began shrinking HTSI's role in it, so Big Dig was an attempt to branch out into Intelligent Traffic Systems to save jobs. Anyway, it was a disaster since day one. Folks here viewed Big Dig as the last stop to hell. Long mandatory hours with no vacations, constant deadline dates that were pushed back week after week, quarreling customers that literally threw chairs at each other. There were weekly 'farewell' lunches for employees as everyone started jumping ship. HTSI didn't receive the Transdyn software for years. What little that was received had to be completely rewritten (thousands upon thousands of lines of code) because it did not fulfill any of the necessary requirements. Boston refused to pay cost overruns to HTSI was the big kicker that made HTSI start to hemorrhage money. Big Dig was a losing cause.
HTSI eventually managed to recover. Lockheed royally screwed up their contract with NASA so it was ended early and HTSI managed to win on recompetes - by slitting their own throats but that is a story for another day... HTSI negotiated a way to end their involvement in Big Dig early (I guess HTSI learned a lesson and will only get involved in federal level contracts). Rumors are that Transdyn are negotiating to get back into writing the code for Big Dig. Hopefully they will have better luck the second time around. I'm sure there are lots of helpful comments in the current source revs in the ITS software for whoever develops it (particularly Transdyn:P)
The last couple years, there has been increased emphasis on the Japanese market in UO. From the major localization changes a couple years ago to this new expansion coming out soon. It would be safe to wager that possibly 30-40% of the subscription base of UO is located in Japan (of about 200k+ subscribers). If a player hopped onto any of the Japanese servers, they can quickly see they are far more active than most of the American servers (shards).
Of course, FFXI is eating away slowly at that base, but not quite so badly I imagine. They are both mmorpgs, but at a basic level, different games.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's not fail to mention about the availability of the value edition of the XBox 360. Weren't the value editions of the PSP hard to come by when it was released? Not to mention a number of stores (EB and Gamespot in particular) will only offer their special sets that comes with 3 games, strategy guide, and whatever else they can toss into it. Would the cost of those sets $599?
Simple guess would be so Microsoft can claim they have Final Fantasy running on their console. Final Fantasy was always credited for helping to push the original Playstation to the top of the market (especially in Japan). Perhaps Microsoft feels this will increase Japanese acceptance of the Xbox 360? Maybe this was a requirement by Squaresoft so they would develop for the Xbox 360?
I think Microsoft has invented a new marketing term for describing how many polygons per second they can render. Oy....
Software, software.. It always comes down to software. Why aren't launch titles getting "leaked" out all over the press every 2 days? And with these "specs", how much will this unit cost? $500? $699? Maybe $360?
People already make livings off of mmorpgs. Do a search of 'UO' on ebay and see how many hits you get. Not quite as profitable as it was a couple years back, but with trade brokers or ebayers selling of upgrade codes/time cards/rewards/rares/scrolls a decent income could be achieved. I know a few that managed to pull in a thousand or two a month, heard of some that pulled in more. Of course, these are folks that were online 7 days a week, 18+ hours a day. Most were college students.
HTSI eventually managed to recover. Lockheed royally screwed up their contract with NASA so it was ended early and HTSI managed to win on recompetes - by slitting their own throats but that is a story for another day... HTSI negotiated a way to end their involvement in Big Dig early (I guess HTSI learned a lesson and will only get involved in federal level contracts). Rumors are that Transdyn are negotiating to get back into writing the code for Big Dig. Hopefully they will have better luck the second time around. I'm sure there are lots of helpful comments in the current source revs in the ITS software for whoever develops it (particularly Transdyn :P)
The last couple years, there has been increased emphasis on the Japanese market in UO. From the major localization changes a couple years ago to this new expansion coming out soon. It would be safe to wager that possibly 30-40% of the subscription base of UO is located in Japan (of about 200k+ subscribers). If a player hopped onto any of the Japanese servers, they can quickly see they are far more active than most of the American servers (shards). Of course, FFXI is eating away slowly at that base, but not quite so badly I imagine. They are both mmorpgs, but at a basic level, different games.