Ya I hate to say it but the talent you find in Quebec is no different than what you would find any other location in North America.
The difference is like I said that the Quebec provincial government is the only one with any intelligence to invest early into this stuff. Which I must say I am quite envious and jealous, I wish we had non inept technology ministers here who knew how to do their dammed jobs and invest in its citizens properly.
As for Quebec provincial income, the only figure worth pointing out is the 20 billion the place takes in with transfer payments from everyone else. Spout your hydro quebec crap elsewhere since it's power that they got for a song and a dance via good intentions of sharing from Newfoundland and Labrador and then stab them in the back by reselling it to the US power grids. If that money went back to the people who gave it to you that might be another story worth sharing, but we all know doesn't happen.
In regards to investing in Quebec or not, I couldn't care, what I do care is a use of the nations tax dollars to create unfair markets. It's stupid that we have trade agreements to counter this stuff with other nations but within our own country its OK to screw one another over by taking advantage of our nature to share and look out for one another.
FYI: I don't hate Quebec, I just hate the people from Quebec who think that they are treated unfairly because of some BS about being a "distinct and seperate society" and don't realize how good they have it. Guess what guys, you're Canadians so bloody well act like it.
The province of Quebec unfortunately offers some of the best incentives in the world for game development studios with various funds, incentives and tax grants for R&D as well as technology employment. This is the only reason why anyone sets up there, not because of their training, education or talent (which is good but wasn't anything special). So to answer Zonks question, no there wouldn't be a change, not unless someone wants to spend more money doing the same thing at least.
As a side note, I am a bit pissed at this deal since I live in one of the Canadian provinces that supports the other freeloading provinces and have lost numerous contracts and gigs to Quebec firms because they utilize my tax dollars to undercut me. It's most definately not right and it is 100% bullshit that the only place on this continent with the intelligence to see what a boon this industry is has to be Quebec:(
I thought that I would point out that most of the Tribes developers have moved onto GarageGames and the independent game development scene with the Torque Game Engine.
If you haven't checked out GarageGames or the indie games tha they develop and publish then I highly recommend that you do. There are a variety of great games available to suit anyone's needs (from your puzzle games, to your more traditional FPS ones) and they run a bunch of different OSes such as Windows, OSX and Linux. I think you would be shocked at what has been done.
Lore is a cross-platform game that supports Linux, Windows, OSX and Lindows and was recently listed one of the top 10 items of the recent Linux Desktop Summit by both organizers and attendees alike.
The version that was demonstrated at the Linux Desktop Summit will be out on the 18th of March if you want to wait for a demo. But as an added bonus any current Retail user can gain access to the release simply by asking the developers!
Seriously check it out, its a good game that is turning a lot of heads and will be the dark horse of the IGF.
I can confirm that you do indeed get to see the future of your sidekicks if you play the game right. I have done it as a light side character and had enough influence with her that there you are able to offer her redemption, she is touched but declines offering to destroy herself as well but before she does she will tell you of the future. Kreia will tell you what happens to each person as well as other key items and objects in the game world that you have encountered before you redeem her. I agree that it was a bit wierd to not interact with the rest of your party at the end, but the story was never about them.
As for her goal/purpose for the whole thing. She was the Master of Scion and Maskdude until they both teamed up to overthrow her (as revealed in her backstory if you get enough influence with her). As for her involvement with your character, its more of a 'one last chance' to teech a pupil who is worthy such as Revan was when she trained him/her.
As for the game itself, think of it like Empire Strikes back, because its how the guys at Obsidian looked at the game. Sure the ending is very much open, but it was done intentially to foreshadow that there is more of a story to come here. Sure we all wanted more, but you have to admit what they delivered was a far better story, role playing game and star wars themed product than its predicessor gave out.
It's easy to look back at this stuff in retrospect or to compare what the game was supposed to deliver if you were a fanboy and followed all this stuff and say that it didn't live up... but you can do this for any game that has been on the market.
I will agree that there are things I didn't like about Halo 2 (the only notable issue being its "ending") but there were many things that I did like as well. I personally feel though that I got a great entertainment value out of it so I am going to categorize this article in the "you can never please a fanboy nor a so-called hardcore gamer because they will always find something they don't like" section.
Just as a follow up to my first post, the article states that there are two seperate grants being given.
The Province of Quebec is giving 52 million while the federal government is doing 5, both of these are over about 5 years.
The 52 million that got you all worked up comes from a very lucrative setup the Quebec government has going to entice businesses there. Essentially they will give you $10,000 a year for each technical worker that is employed in the province as well as a 50% return on all R&D work that you perform in the province. This is one of the biggest reasons why Quebec has become a mecca in the past 10 years for software development, its cheaper to do business there thanks to these grants.
I hate to break this to you but this is no different than the Film & TV Grants that are setup to encourage productions to come here to Canada. In fact any Canadian game development studio can apply for this grant since game development falls into the Film & TV category within Canada.
As for stealing the tax payers money, this has been going on for years, its called "equalization payments".
The Sims is another fine example. EA thought it was a dumb idea and wouldnt guarentee the million unit EA wants its games to do. They only let it happen to shut up Maxis and bring them in line. Obviously we know how this story ends, but its still amazing that these same companies who want the next big thing wont take the risks in order to make it happen.
This is the very attitude that is the problem with the games industry today. Funded developers are being forced to make decisions based on some bean-counters desire to make *more* money so that they can justify a big bonus or raise.
But on the flip side I must thank them for opening up more doors for people like myself to sweep in as Independant game developers. We can provide the niche products that gamers still want but the studios won't do because it doesn't automaticly guarentee a million units or more in sales off the bat.
I think a lot of the people who have posted here already forget the fact that irregardless if the game is 2D or 3D if its a good game its a good game.
The option of having something like Torque 2D will definately allow us to see a revivement of many of lost genres such as adventure games as well as give indies an easier method of making puzzle games and more. So personally I think this option is great to have since it will allow me as a developer to do my work more productively.
I wish to thank the writer, director and the studio for being so forthcoming regarding what a load of crap this "Doom" franchise movie will be. They have saved me the price of a movie admission (and of course snack food) and the horror of seeing another poorly done Game to Movie release.
Congratulations on destroying your product before it ever got off the ground guys, you could write a good "what not to do with a valuable IP" book. Anyone who might have cared or wanted to see this film have written it off.
As a 3D artist I had to laugh pretty hard at this question because anyone who works with a 3D application jokes about the mythical "Make Art" button that will produce photorealistic super art for whatever XYZ application is being paid fan service by zealots.
The simple answer to the question though is NEVER. A tool, or an application in this case, does not make art, it's the talent driving the application (no not your computer) that produces good work.
I honestly wouldn't get too excited about the source "engine". Any company that can afford to add in Shader support and most importantly the Havok Physics engine can produce something that is along the lines of the Source "engine".
With that said though its not the engine that matters but how you use it and Valve was able to do a lot with it which is why every "joe gamer" thinks that its the greatest thing since free internet porn:)
These parents and their BS groups crack me up. Really they do. They are so rife with double standards and hipocracy that I am certain if you ever put a mirror in front of them they would attack it for morally corrupting society and the groups demands to have a say in how they raise your children. Its never the individual parents fault for not paying attention to what their kids are doing, its always societies fault.
It's apparently okay with them to give out Barbie toys to little girls and enforce the stereo type that you should be a little prissy California princess with size DDD breasts and a 6 inch waist to be beautiful, but its wrong to give out some nice plush Neopet toys (they are really nice quality) as a part of the McDonals Happy Meal cross-promotion gimmick? Or better yet, its okay with these groups to allow kids to see and play voilent video games... just as long as it's cartoon voilence?
So I guess the solution for NeoPets is to sell this off as cartoon gambling? That way its okay because it works for voilence doesn't it?
As someone who has used the Torque engine quite extensively I would have to say that it does come up to the table on par with any of the game engines that you have mentioned there. It is an awesome low-priced (but high-end) alternative that is well worth considering, especially if you don't want to be bent over a table just to make your game;)
The only real major different in features between something like Torque and the engines that you have mentioned are A) Shaders (which are easily solved, either by waiting for their Torque Shader Engine or by doing it yourself) and B) a 3rd party physics engine that is being passed as the engines own technology.
Tom, we should have an update to the Linux demo out soon. As you can guess it's incredibly difficult getting a 100% happy Linux install going considering all the varients and flavours on the market.
Thanks for taking interest in the product though. If you like you can send an email to us to test out the next Linux installer.
Yes we don't have a multi-million dollar budget and we cannot blow smoke up your ass, but we have done a good job (IMHO) of giving you an enjoyable game and really at the end of the day that is what counts.
Top that all off with the fact that we are always developing and adding new enhancements (including visual) to the game, and I don't think that you can honesty beat the value that you get here, but that's just my opinion of course.
You can download a unlimited time demo (some features are limited though) for Dark Horizons Lore for Linux, Mac OSX and Windows. Download demo from GarageGames.com.
In regards to Heavy Gear 2, it's been a while since I played it. From my recolection there are definately similarities between the two in the sense that they are very much FPS games more than Simulators. I feel that Lore plays a bit faster than Heavy Gear though.
I will try to give an objective (though probably slightly biased) feedback to your questions...
GamePlay - The game is a FPS-Mecha hybrid game. So essentially it's the fast paced action and easy controls of a FPS game with some of the more mechanical feel of a simulator. We intentionally did this so that the game would be more about action and team combat than wandering about aimlessly in some lumbering mech on your own.
Community - As an independantly developed game, Lore doesn't have the massive multi-million dollar marketing campaign. Instead we have word of mouth and whatever kind support that the online news sites for Linux, Apple and Windows gaming provides us. The community itself is small but always growing as time goes on. Everyone is very helpful (to one another and us devs) and loves competition. Overall based on my past experiances in other communities it really is one of the best experiances I have seen.
Ranking - Ranging is done bunch of different ways in that any Core Server (a machine we authorize to report to our battle system) will report the results of each mission to our DB. From there you can sort via kills, deaths, kill to death ratio, points, etc.. As you gain more experiance with the system you are allowed to increase your influence (one example would be being allowed to have a larger squad that you are in command of).
Moding - Yes you can mod to your heart's content.
Similarities to BT 3025 - Yes we have heard this comment from a lot of people who have played Lore. This game was very inspirational to us and did influence us a lot with our online Comcent system that one uses to keep track of how the online faction war is going.
Other - As mentioned this is an "Early Adopters" version of the game, as such there is still room for it to grow and expand (much of that is based on the feedback we get from our community). We have a lot of cool features that are always being added to help keep the game fresh and entertaining.
If you have any other questions, just feel free to ask.
As one of the developers of this product I just want to say that it's good to finally have a Linux release candidate available. It is something that we promised long ago and I am certain that many of you will appreciate it what this game offers and the many great things that are to come in the future.
I certainly hope that you enjoy the "Early Adopters" release of Dark Horizons - Lore, please let us know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions (as Indie developers we are actually allowed to listen to, communicate with and fine tune the game based on what you guys tell us).
I (and probably others) will be lurking here to answer any questions you guys have, I hope that no one is offended by that.
Sorry the burst your bubble guys but no I do not work for Infinium Labs. I can see where you got that assumption though.
I am an independant game developer who makes games (such as Dark Horizons Lore, which is coming to Linux very soon) with the Torque Game Engine. As a game developer I see the Phantom as another potential market to move my products onto with the added benefit that I don't have to change much (if anything) from my WindowsPC build to get it working.
As for "defending" the Phantom Console... I guess you could look at it that way though I always felt that I was trying to give a more objective look at the issue (as opposed to the one-sided and shoddy reporting that most news sites have done). Call me a "fan boy" if you like, but the simple fact is that I am actually someone who has had a chance to sit down and play on the Phantom (at E3) and although I was very skeptical at first about it, what I demoed there was a very good product. So it really is a double win situation, once as a developer who can put my games onto this platform without many additional costs, and again if I was a consumer who was looking for something just like this.
There were actually quite a few people who where checking out the Phantom at E3... though I suspect most of them were there for the free T-shirts (I got a few plus demoed the Phantom).
I feel that there is most definately a market for this... just not with nerds and gamers like us. There is a much larger untapped and under developed casual gamer market that would love to have a no nonsense IBM compatible machine where all they need to play is downloaded through their monthly subscription.
As a game developer I personally hope that they pull through and can succeed as it opens up more markets for everyone to enjoy great games (and not the old rehashed console garbage).
Sorry buddy but their console works and its actually a pretty cool and viable product. If you were at E3 you actually got a chance to sit down an play with the console (and it was a great experiance to say the least).
It wont appeal to the hardcore nerd or gamer who likes to build their own machines and have absolute control. But for the Moms and Dads out there that want to buy a good gaming computer for their kids, where they don't have to worry about running to the store to buy new software (since a large number of the games will be included in your monthly subscription fee) or crap getting installed that they don't want their kids to install it is a perfect buy.
Don't bash the product until you have tried it.
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Ya I hate to say it but the talent you find in Quebec is no different than what you would find any other location in North America. The difference is like I said that the Quebec provincial government is the only one with any intelligence to invest early into this stuff. Which I must say I am quite envious and jealous, I wish we had non inept technology ministers here who knew how to do their dammed jobs and invest in its citizens properly. As for Quebec provincial income, the only figure worth pointing out is the 20 billion the place takes in with transfer payments from everyone else. Spout your hydro quebec crap elsewhere since it's power that they got for a song and a dance via good intentions of sharing from Newfoundland and Labrador and then stab them in the back by reselling it to the US power grids. If that money went back to the people who gave it to you that might be another story worth sharing, but we all know doesn't happen. In regards to investing in Quebec or not, I couldn't care, what I do care is a use of the nations tax dollars to create unfair markets. It's stupid that we have trade agreements to counter this stuff with other nations but within our own country its OK to screw one another over by taking advantage of our nature to share and look out for one another. FYI: I don't hate Quebec, I just hate the people from Quebec who think that they are treated unfairly because of some BS about being a "distinct and seperate society" and don't realize how good they have it. Guess what guys, you're Canadians so bloody well act like it.
The province of Quebec unfortunately offers some of the best incentives in the world for game development studios with various funds, incentives and tax grants for R&D as well as technology employment. This is the only reason why anyone sets up there, not because of their training, education or talent (which is good but wasn't anything special). So to answer Zonks question, no there wouldn't be a change, not unless someone wants to spend more money doing the same thing at least. As a side note, I am a bit pissed at this deal since I live in one of the Canadian provinces that supports the other freeloading provinces and have lost numerous contracts and gigs to Quebec firms because they utilize my tax dollars to undercut me. It's most definately not right and it is 100% bullshit that the only place on this continent with the intelligence to see what a boon this industry is has to be Quebec :(
I thought that I would point out that most of the Tribes developers have moved onto GarageGames and the independent game development scene with the Torque Game Engine.
If you haven't checked out GarageGames or the indie games tha they develop and publish then I highly recommend that you do. There are a variety of great games available to suit anyone's needs (from your puzzle games, to your more traditional FPS ones) and they run a bunch of different OSes such as Windows, OSX and Linux. I think you would be shocked at what has been done.
Lore is a cross-platform game that supports Linux, Windows, OSX and Lindows and was recently listed one of the top 10 items of the recent Linux Desktop Summit by both organizers and attendees alike .
The version that was demonstrated at the Linux Desktop Summit will be out on the 18th of March if you want to wait for a demo. But as an added bonus any current Retail user can gain access to the release simply by asking the developers!
Seriously check it out, its a good game that is turning a lot of heads and will be the dark horse of the IGF.
I can confirm that you do indeed get to see the future of your sidekicks if you play the game right. I have done it as a light side character and had enough influence with her that there you are able to offer her redemption, she is touched but declines offering to destroy herself as well but before she does she will tell you of the future. Kreia will tell you what happens to each person as well as other key items and objects in the game world that you have encountered before you redeem her. I agree that it was a bit wierd to not interact with the rest of your party at the end, but the story was never about them.
As for her goal/purpose for the whole thing. She was the Master of Scion and Maskdude until they both teamed up to overthrow her (as revealed in her backstory if you get enough influence with her). As for her involvement with your character, its more of a 'one last chance' to teech a pupil who is worthy such as Revan was when she trained him/her.
As for the game itself, think of it like Empire Strikes back, because its how the guys at Obsidian looked at the game. Sure the ending is very much open, but it was done intentially to foreshadow that there is more of a story to come here. Sure we all wanted more, but you have to admit what they delivered was a far better story, role playing game and star wars themed product than its predicessor gave out.
It's easy to look back at this stuff in retrospect or to compare what the game was supposed to deliver if you were a fanboy and followed all this stuff and say that it didn't live up... but you can do this for any game that has been on the market.
I will agree that there are things I didn't like about Halo 2 (the only notable issue being its "ending") but there were many things that I did like as well. I personally feel though that I got a great entertainment value out of it so I am going to categorize this article in the "you can never please a fanboy nor a so-called hardcore gamer because they will always find something they don't like" section.
Just as a follow up to my first post, the article states that there are two seperate grants being given.
The Province of Quebec is giving 52 million while the federal government is doing 5, both of these are over about 5 years.
The 52 million that got you all worked up comes from a very lucrative setup the Quebec government has going to entice businesses there. Essentially they will give you $10,000 a year for each technical worker that is employed in the province as well as a 50% return on all R&D work that you perform in the province. This is one of the biggest reasons why Quebec has become a mecca in the past 10 years for software development, its cheaper to do business there thanks to these grants.
I hate to break this to you but this is no different than the Film & TV Grants that are setup to encourage productions to come here to Canada. In fact any Canadian game development studio can apply for this grant since game development falls into the Film & TV category within Canada.
As for stealing the tax payers money, this has been going on for years, its called "equalization payments".
The Sims is another fine example. EA thought it was a dumb idea and wouldnt guarentee the million unit EA wants its games to do. They only let it happen to shut up Maxis and bring them in line. Obviously we know how this story ends, but its still amazing that these same companies who want the next big thing wont take the risks in order to make it happen.
This is the very attitude that is the problem with the games industry today. Funded developers are being forced to make decisions based on some bean-counters desire to make *more* money so that they can justify a big bonus or raise.
But on the flip side I must thank them for opening up more doors for people like myself to sweep in as Independant game developers. We can provide the niche products that gamers still want but the studios won't do because it doesn't automaticly guarentee a million units or more in sales off the bat.
I think a lot of the people who have posted here already forget the fact that irregardless if the game is 2D or 3D if its a good game its a good game.
The option of having something like Torque 2D will definately allow us to see a revivement of many of lost genres such as adventure games as well as give indies an easier method of making puzzle games and more. So personally I think this option is great to have since it will allow me as a developer to do my work more productively.
I wish to thank the writer, director and the studio for being so forthcoming regarding what a load of crap this "Doom" franchise movie will be. They have saved me the price of a movie admission (and of course snack food) and the horror of seeing another poorly done Game to Movie release. Congratulations on destroying your product before it ever got off the ground guys, you could write a good "what not to do with a valuable IP" book. Anyone who might have cared or wanted to see this film have written it off.
As a 3D artist I had to laugh pretty hard at this question because anyone who works with a 3D application jokes about the mythical "Make Art" button that will produce photorealistic super art for whatever XYZ application is being paid fan service by zealots.
The simple answer to the question though is NEVER. A tool, or an application in this case, does not make art, it's the talent driving the application (no not your computer) that produces good work.
I honestly wouldn't get too excited about the source "engine". Any company that can afford to add in Shader support and most importantly the Havok Physics engine can produce something that is along the lines of the Source "engine". With that said though its not the engine that matters but how you use it and Valve was able to do a lot with it which is why every "joe gamer" thinks that its the greatest thing since free internet porn :)
These parents and their BS groups crack me up. Really they do. They are so rife with double standards and hipocracy that I am certain if you ever put a mirror in front of them they would attack it for morally corrupting society and the groups demands to have a say in how they raise your children. Its never the individual parents fault for not paying attention to what their kids are doing, its always societies fault.
It's apparently okay with them to give out Barbie toys to little girls and enforce the stereo type that you should be a little prissy California princess with size DDD breasts and a 6 inch waist to be beautiful, but its wrong to give out some nice plush Neopet toys (they are really nice quality) as a part of the McDonals Happy Meal cross-promotion gimmick? Or better yet, its okay with these groups to allow kids to see and play voilent video games... just as long as it's cartoon voilence?
So I guess the solution for NeoPets is to sell this off as cartoon gambling? That way its okay because it works for voilence doesn't it?
As someone who has used the Torque engine quite extensively I would have to say that it does come up to the table on par with any of the game engines that you have mentioned there. It is an awesome low-priced (but high-end) alternative that is well worth considering, especially if you don't want to be bent over a table just to make your game ;)
The only real major different in features between something like Torque and the engines that you have mentioned are A) Shaders (which are easily solved, either by waiting for their Torque Shader Engine or by doing it yourself) and B) a 3rd party physics engine that is being passed as the engines own technology.
Tom, we should have an update to the Linux demo out soon. As you can guess it's incredibly difficult getting a 100% happy Linux install going considering all the varients and flavours on the market. Thanks for taking interest in the product though. If you like you can send an email to us to test out the next Linux installer.
Yes we don't have a multi-million dollar budget and we cannot blow smoke up your ass, but we have done a good job (IMHO) of giving you an enjoyable game and really at the end of the day that is what counts.
Top that all off with the fact that we are always developing and adding new enhancements (including visual) to the game, and I don't think that you can honesty beat the value that you get here, but that's just my opinion of course.
You can download a unlimited time demo (some features are limited though) for Dark Horizons Lore for Linux, Mac OSX and Windows. Download demo from GarageGames.com.
In regards to Heavy Gear 2, it's been a while since I played it. From my recolection there are definately similarities between the two in the sense that they are very much FPS games more than Simulators. I feel that Lore plays a bit faster than Heavy Gear though.
I will try to give an objective (though probably slightly biased) feedback to your questions...
GamePlay - The game is a FPS-Mecha hybrid game. So essentially it's the fast paced action and easy controls of a FPS game with some of the more mechanical feel of a simulator. We intentionally did this so that the game would be more about action and team combat than wandering about aimlessly in some lumbering mech on your own.
Community - As an independantly developed game, Lore doesn't have the massive multi-million dollar marketing campaign. Instead we have word of mouth and whatever kind support that the online news sites for Linux, Apple and Windows gaming provides us. The community itself is small but always growing as time goes on. Everyone is very helpful (to one another and us devs) and loves competition. Overall based on my past experiances in other communities it really is one of the best experiances I have seen.
Ranking - Ranging is done bunch of different ways in that any Core Server (a machine we authorize to report to our battle system) will report the results of each mission to our DB. From there you can sort via kills, deaths, kill to death ratio, points, etc.. As you gain more experiance with the system you are allowed to increase your influence (one example would be being allowed to have a larger squad that you are in command of).
Moding - Yes you can mod to your heart's content.
Similarities to BT 3025 - Yes we have heard this comment from a lot of people who have played Lore. This game was very inspirational to us and did influence us a lot with our online Comcent system that one uses to keep track of how the online faction war is going.
Other - As mentioned this is an "Early Adopters" version of the game, as such there is still room for it to grow and expand (much of that is based on the feedback we get from our community). We have a lot of cool features that are always being added to help keep the game fresh and entertaining.
If you have any other questions, just feel free to ask.
As one of the developers of this product I just want to say that it's good to finally have a Linux release candidate available. It is something that we promised long ago and I am certain that many of you will appreciate it what this game offers and the many great things that are to come in the future.
I certainly hope that you enjoy the "Early Adopters" release of Dark Horizons - Lore, please let us know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions (as Indie developers we are actually allowed to listen to, communicate with and fine tune the game based on what you guys tell us).
I (and probably others) will be lurking here to answer any questions you guys have, I hope that no one is offended by that.
Sorry the burst your bubble guys but no I do not work for Infinium Labs. I can see where you got that assumption though.
I am an independant game developer who makes games (such as Dark Horizons Lore, which is coming to Linux very soon) with the Torque Game Engine. As a game developer I see the Phantom as another potential market to move my products onto with the added benefit that I don't have to change much (if anything) from my WindowsPC build to get it working.
As for "defending" the Phantom Console... I guess you could look at it that way though I always felt that I was trying to give a more objective look at the issue (as opposed to the one-sided and shoddy reporting that most news sites have done). Call me a "fan boy" if you like, but the simple fact is that I am actually someone who has had a chance to sit down and play on the Phantom (at E3) and although I was very skeptical at first about it, what I demoed there was a very good product. So it really is a double win situation, once as a developer who can put my games onto this platform without many additional costs, and again if I was a consumer who was looking for something just like this.
There were actually quite a few people who where checking out the Phantom at E3... though I suspect most of them were there for the free T-shirts (I got a few plus demoed the Phantom).
I feel that there is most definately a market for this... just not with nerds and gamers like us. There is a much larger untapped and under developed casual gamer market that would love to have a no nonsense IBM compatible machine where all they need to play is downloaded through their monthly subscription. As a game developer I personally hope that they pull through and can succeed as it opens up more markets for everyone to enjoy great games (and not the old rehashed console garbage).
Sorry buddy but their console works and its actually a pretty cool and viable product. If you were at E3 you actually got a chance to sit down an play with the console (and it was a great experiance to say the least). It wont appeal to the hardcore nerd or gamer who likes to build their own machines and have absolute control. But for the Moms and Dads out there that want to buy a good gaming computer for their kids, where they don't have to worry about running to the store to buy new software (since a large number of the games will be included in your monthly subscription fee) or crap getting installed that they don't want their kids to install it is a perfect buy. Don't bash the product until you have tried it.