360 owning FPS fans will be playing too much halo 3 to care about another FPS until 2009. UT3 is a much less important title to the 360 than it is to the ps3.
This whole post is ignorant of the actual situation.
I'm not interested in shelling out my cash for a game that could well turn into a paperweight (and a poor one at that) somewhere down the line when the activation server goes away. They have already said that this is strictly for early in the game's life cycle when its most at risk of being pirated. At some point in the future, the whole procedure will go away.
Or when I've installed for the Nth + 1 time, or whatever. You have 5 installs. You use one when you install, you get it back when you do an uninstall. Inconvenience? Yes. A bit insulting? Yes. But it doesn't actually prevent you from installing it each of the 50 times you wipe your OS. Criticisms of copy protection as a matter of principle are entirely valid, but your specific gripes are simply not true.
No way they could drop the warranty from the fixed consoles, but they shouldn't need to anyway. If they truly fixed the problem then offering to fix consoles that don't fail shouldn't cost them anything.
I would bet that they don't plan to tell you. MS has been been putting improved heatsinks in 360s manufactured after march/april and they didn't bother to tell anybody about that. I would assume that the heatsink, and not the process shrink is the solution to the overheating problems. It allows them to own up the the red ring problem, offer the warranty and be able to say the problem has already been fixed. See here for more discussion of that, and how to tell if you have the new heatsink or not.
They way I would envision this working is that the demos normally included with the magazine will cost $2.50 or whatever for the month associated with that issue's release. When the month is up they would make them free to everyone. Thats the only way I can see them doing this without pissing everyone off.
Doesn't work that way these days, I did it yesterday. You plug yourself in and you get an ip address on a subnet that redirects any page you load to software download page. You have to run that software which registers you. It takes your account number, and makes you create a username and password. This software requires IE, which is what the article is about. After you're set up, its networking as usual with DHCP.
If you can't or won't use IE however, they can do whatever the software does over the phone, so its really a moot point.
Trailer wasn't FMV, it was realtime, in-engine footage. Not gameplay, but its a far cry from pre-rendered FMV. Its the same graphical quality you'd see from gameplay.
It's the same reason that bungie.net uses proprietary microsoft video plugin bullshit instead of something even passingly cross-platform. I can only assume you're talking about the trailer being in wmv format. Its available in quicktime here: http://nikon.bungie.org/misc/h3_e3_2007/. Bungie.net even links you to it.
Bungie has the halo 3 trailer up in HD on its website. After a closer look on my own screen (as opposed to low rez streaming or the horrible g4 coverage) I thought it looked much much better than the multiplayer beta.
Overall, I think it was an odd presentation. They only showed stuff coming out this year, and while there are a lot of quality titles coming in the next few months, it might come back to bite them. If Sony's presentation tomorrow contains all kinds of gorgeous footage from games that are still more than a year away, people will come away far more impressed. This is a lesson they should have learned from 2 years ago during the unveiling of the consoles. Sony showed CG footage that they hoped would represent in-game graphics, and even though it was BS, people came away wowed.
I don't read Slashdot / etc. while at work, I do that on my own time after I get home. But I have things that actually need to get done when I'm at home!
This is a perfectly logical move for them. Sure the price seems high, but GTA4 is guaranteed to get some undecided people onto the next-gen bandwagon. If Microsoft can make it seem like the 360 version will be the definitive and most complete version, all the 360s it would sell could give MS an overwhelming installed base advantage over the ps3, making moves like this unnecessary in the future. They're hoping for a killing blow, but I think this downloadable content would need to be pretty major to actually sway someone who was going to get a ps3.
is there a way to filter out background noise or make it just broadcast my voice?
I implore anyone who uses voicechat to use some kind of push-to-talk button. I don't want to hear you breathing. I don't want to hear you argue with your mom. I basically don't need to hear you unless you saying something you want me to hear.
Exactly. And this was their policy on the original xbox as well so I don't see why this would be a surprise to anyone. One of the strengths of xbox live is that you know the playing field is even. Its a closed network with no way a person can cheat via hacks or mods. They can't determine the nature of your change. Maybe it was something harmless, but maybe it allows you to see through walls in halo, or you're using your own drive with your own code that you can trick the xbox into executing.
You can do what you want to your console in your living room, but they won't let you get it onto their sterilized network where your changes can impact other. Seems reasonable to me.
You think its easy to build dvd drives that loud? Its not like they just buy drives off the shelf, none of them can meet their required noise level. They have to go to each dvd drive manufacturer and pick through their defect bin by hand to ensure that every 360 has that trademark sound. And we 360 owners reap the benefits. Clearly, my 360 must be super fast and powerful if its louder than my car.
You're using the difference in north american sales to show when nintendo will close the world wide gap. Remember that the wii sells well in Japan, where the 360 doesn't really sell at all. Nintendo is actually catching up considerably faster than this.
They had to do all of this for the 48 licensed songs that were included on the retail game. And that only cost $90 and included a guitar controller that retails for $50-$60. That comes to $1.88 per song, including guitar controller and retail packaging. This is $2.08 per song with no guitar or packaging. They are way off the mark on price.
Not sure if I'm buying your theory on game reviewers not knowing how to review Wii games. A good game is a good game, and I'm pretty sure you know when you're playing one. And while renting is definitely an option, when I'm borderline on if I should buy a 360 game, I just download the demo and try it out. I know the wii is a different machine with a different philosophy and all that, but demos have gotten me to buy two games that I otherwise wouldn't have. Its such a fantastic feature and nintendo should find some way to implement it, even if it requires buying a big fat memory card or something.
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Jack Thompson now has all the proof he needs to show that non violent video games are just as dangerous as violent ones!
360 owning FPS fans will be playing too much halo 3 to care about another FPS until 2009. UT3 is a much less important title to the 360 than it is to the ps3.
Or when I've installed for the Nth + 1 time, or whatever. You have 5 installs. You use one when you install, you get it back when you do an uninstall. Inconvenience? Yes. A bit insulting? Yes. But it doesn't actually prevent you from installing it each of the 50 times you wipe your OS. Criticisms of copy protection as a matter of principle are entirely valid, but your specific gripes are simply not true.
No way they could drop the warranty from the fixed consoles, but they shouldn't need to anyway. If they truly fixed the problem then offering to fix consoles that don't fail shouldn't cost them anything.
I would bet that they don't plan to tell you. MS has been been putting improved heatsinks in 360s manufactured after march/april and they didn't bother to tell anybody about that. I would assume that the heatsink, and not the process shrink is the solution to the overheating problems. It allows them to own up the the red ring problem, offer the warranty and be able to say the problem has already been fixed. See here for more discussion of that, and how to tell if you have the new heatsink or not.
Just thought I'd mention that "The Mythical Man Month" was required reading for my college software engineering class.
They way I would envision this working is that the demos normally included with the magazine will cost $2.50 or whatever for the month associated with that issue's release. When the month is up they would make them free to everyone. Thats the only way I can see them doing this without pissing everyone off.
"Butters go buy World of Warcraft, install it on your computer, and join the online sensation before we all murder you."
Doesn't work that way these days, I did it yesterday. You plug yourself in and you get an ip address on a subnet that redirects any page you load to software download page. You have to run that software which registers you. It takes your account number, and makes you create a username and password. This software requires IE, which is what the article is about. After you're set up, its networking as usual with DHCP. If you can't or won't use IE however, they can do whatever the software does over the phone, so its really a moot point.
"The only person I saw saying that the event was an unqualified failure was Michael Pachter, the well-known games industry."
Did anyone read this before posting it? I mean subtle spelling and punctuation mistakes slip through, but there's a freaking word missing here.
I guess my only response to that is that it simply didn't look good enough to be pre-rendered FMV.
Trailer wasn't FMV, it was realtime, in-engine footage. Not gameplay, but its a far cry from pre-rendered FMV. Its the same graphical quality you'd see from gameplay.
So you missed the point then?
Bungie has the halo 3 trailer up in HD on its website. After a closer look on my own screen (as opposed to low rez streaming or the horrible g4 coverage) I thought it looked much much better than the multiplayer beta.
Overall, I think it was an odd presentation. They only showed stuff coming out this year, and while there are a lot of quality titles coming in the next few months, it might come back to bite them. If Sony's presentation tomorrow contains all kinds of gorgeous footage from games that are still more than a year away, people will come away far more impressed. This is a lesson they should have learned from 2 years ago during the unveiling of the consoles. Sony showed CG footage that they hoped would represent in-game graphics, and even though it was BS, people came away wowed.
This is a perfectly logical move for them. Sure the price seems high, but GTA4 is guaranteed to get some undecided people onto the next-gen bandwagon. If Microsoft can make it seem like the 360 version will be the definitive and most complete version, all the 360s it would sell could give MS an overwhelming installed base advantage over the ps3, making moves like this unnecessary in the future. They're hoping for a killing blow, but I think this downloadable content would need to be pretty major to actually sway someone who was going to get a ps3.
I implore anyone who uses voicechat to use some kind of push-to-talk button. I don't want to hear you breathing. I don't want to hear you argue with your mom. I basically don't need to hear you unless you saying something you want me to hear.
Exactly. And this was their policy on the original xbox as well so I don't see why this would be a surprise to anyone. One of the strengths of xbox live is that you know the playing field is even. Its a closed network with no way a person can cheat via hacks or mods. They can't determine the nature of your change. Maybe it was something harmless, but maybe it allows you to see through walls in halo, or you're using your own drive with your own code that you can trick the xbox into executing. You can do what you want to your console in your living room, but they won't let you get it onto their sterilized network where your changes can impact other. Seems reasonable to me.
You think its easy to build dvd drives that loud? Its not like they just buy drives off the shelf, none of them can meet their required noise level. They have to go to each dvd drive manufacturer and pick through their defect bin by hand to ensure that every 360 has that trademark sound. And we 360 owners reap the benefits. Clearly, my 360 must be super fast and powerful if its louder than my car.
You're using the difference in north american sales to show when nintendo will close the world wide gap. Remember that the wii sells well in Japan, where the 360 doesn't really sell at all. Nintendo is actually catching up considerably faster than this.
They had to do all of this for the 48 licensed songs that were included on the retail game. And that only cost $90 and included a guitar controller that retails for $50-$60. That comes to $1.88 per song, including guitar controller and retail packaging. This is $2.08 per song with no guitar or packaging. They are way off the mark on price.
The same site you linked to already did a follow up stating that this is not coming out April 9th.
e ars-of-war-update-next-week-249795.php
http://kotaku.com/gaming/gears-of-war/whoops-no-g
Not sure if I'm buying your theory on game reviewers not knowing how to review Wii games. A good game is a good game, and I'm pretty sure you know when you're playing one. And while renting is definitely an option, when I'm borderline on if I should buy a 360 game, I just download the demo and try it out. I know the wii is a different machine with a different philosophy and all that, but demos have gotten me to buy two games that I otherwise wouldn't have. Its such a fantastic feature and nintendo should find some way to implement it, even if it requires buying a big fat memory card or something.
Heh, Wii Sports tennis is the reason I qualified that sentence with "mostly." Technically though, the MS quote is in reference to third parties.