Minigames are great as a free pack in game to show off what the system can do, but shes not going to pay for a minigame collection.
She was a big ssx fan on last gen systems and had high hopes for the wii version of that, but it only got mediocre reviews. Her dad is a golfer and liked toying around with wii sports golf, so I kept my eye on wii tiger woods but that didn't get reviewed all that well either. I guess now we have our fingers crossed for the upcoming prince of persia.
My girlfriend wanted one since she heard about it. We couldn't find one at release and I finally managed to get a hold of one to give her in February. We had a blast with Wii sports for about 2 hours, but I've never played the thing a second time and she got bored of it about a week later. Shes not interested in Zelda (I pointed out that makes her crazy) and she can't find a 2nd game worth buying, and frankly I can't either.
The Wii has a lot of hype and a lot of potential, but MS is mostly right on with the "We're yet to see a really good game on Wii that really says 'OK that control kicked ass'" quote.
In regards to your moderation complaint, I usually use mod points when I arrive 'late' to a topic I was going to respond to, and simply mod up someone that says what I was going to say. If I see no such post, then I make my own.
Agreed entirely. Theres nothing wrong with the elite as a machine. HDMI and a larger drive is good. Not including an HD-DVD is fine too since nobody really cares about these formats. This just isn't the right way to position it and this wasn't the right time to launch it.
Microsoft has the upper hand for the time being with its large game library and installed base, and after being out for close to a year and a half its probably gotten cheaper to make. If they were smart they would have dropped the price of both the core and the premium by $50 each and launched this thing at $400. If thats too much of financial hit for them then they should have waited 6 months and done it then.
All they've done is reduce the desirability of the premium, and weaken the perceived price advantage over the PS3.
Even assuming that price and storage space fall into line, the cell phone unpleasantness still puts this in a whole different market. Compare the process of buying an ipod now with the process of buying a cellphone. Buying a cellphone sucks. You choose your plan and contract length and pick your options and transfer data from your old phone etc... Ipods are simple. Its easy to buy for yourself, its easy to give as a gift, and you can buy it pretty much anytime you want it.
Who's going to give iphones as gifts if they have to find out the status of your current cellphone contract first? Whats going to happen to apple's sales when people only even think of buying their product every couple of years when their current contracts expire? Its not an ipod that's also a phone, its a phone that's also an ipod.
It costs significantly more money, has significantly less storage space, and inherits the messiness and unpleasantness of cellphone contracts. This doesn't appeal to people who just want to play their mp3s.
No doubt theres work arounds for most everything, but really, what are you gaining besides that warm feeling that you're using all those bits you paid for? I've run the 64 bit flavor of the dapper and edgy and while I've managed to scour the internet until I got everything to work, I'll be switching to 32 bit feisty when its officially released and have all of these things work out of the box.
Who said the xbox was designed for grandma to use? The 360 isn't even really competing in this space. Its $100 more and offers these features as a secondary bonus for people already comfortable using the controller for gaming. I was merely saying his statement was incorrect.
Honestly, the 360 should really only come up in the context of "What does apple TV offer to existing xbox 360 owners?" The answer seems to range from 'nothing' to 'quite a bit' depending on if you're already an itunes user.
He also says that if you use the xbox controller you have to move through the bottom button bar to pause. I'm almost positive that clicking one of the analog sticks pauses.
I wouldn't run the 64 bit version of any OS unless you really had a reason. Theres no 64 bit flash for any platform, no wine and plenty of other misc problems. Unless you have a good reason (> 4gb ram) then you're only going to run into headaches.
If the rumor is to be believed, you'd only pay the extra $80 if you wanted one of the initial run. You could just wait a month or so until this is the new $400 model.
It isn't the price alone that hurt the ps3, its the expectations that come with that price and the failure to meet them. With an extra year and and extra $200, it really needed to show up the Xbox 360 and its yet to really do so.
I think it has more to do with marketing than actually cannibalizing sales. They would like to be able to say they have a big name title coming out this month, and a big name title coming out next month, and so on. Releasing them all in September (for example) would be great for that month, but what new stuff will they have to talk about for the rest of the holiday season?
You're right, these absolutely are "catch up" features, and they did have a "we'll add things as they're finished" mentality. But the biggest thing I take from this is that in the age of online consoles, that doesn't matter. All 3 consoles have the ability to add big features post launch via software updates, and if one of them should decided to be noble and stick with what they launched with, they'll be buried. A year from now, nobody will care when each feature was released, only that they can have them now.
The actual wording from the press release is "...with nearly 70% of all connected consoles already downloading and playing Xbox LIVE Arcade titles." Downloading and playing does not necessarily mean purchasing, as every Xbox live Arcade game has a downloadable demo.
I think part of the reason boss fights all seem the same is that you can just run in and kill the boss without much fear of the baddies. There are 2 higher difficulty levels that I've yet to check out, but I'm willing to bet these would make boss fights a more strategic affair. In the same vein, the mission briefings for each boss have a separate page about the bosses base, and lists some alternate entrances for each one.
I just wanted to say that I checked out the article this morning and found it to be spot-on. This was very much the same experience I had with Ubuntu, including the extra frustrations of trying out the x64 flavor. I especially liked that you didn't just bail out when you ran into problems, and googled around until you got things working, since your readers are likely to do the same.
If I have one suggestion, its that you give your readers a bit more credit. Hand editing a config file is not rocket science, and chances are its mostly going to be copy/paste from some website. Same with many of the console commands you posted. Coming up with that stuff, or understanding it may be hard for a novice, but just using them is simply following directions.
You can't directly opt out, but before you log off you could remove all your gear. Your armory profile will show you wearing nothing, and only your talents will be exposed.
Second of all, adding your inflated 500,000 to the 1.1 million* they sold from launch to December puts them at 1.6 million. Adding MS' 300,000 to their 4.5 million* in NA puts them at 4.8 million. So I guess they did sell "almost half as many units as the XBox 360 has sold in its entire lifetime" if by almost you mean "if they sold 50% more units than they actually did."
Despite the optimistic math, your point is solid. Good month for Nintendo.
Slashdot Mirror
Minigames are great as a free pack in game to show off what the system can do, but shes not going to pay for a minigame collection.
/still waiting on wii lightsaber fights
She was a big ssx fan on last gen systems and had high hopes for the wii version of that, but it only got mediocre reviews. Her dad is a golfer and liked toying around with wii sports golf, so I kept my eye on wii tiger woods but that didn't get reviewed all that well either. I guess now we have our fingers crossed for the upcoming prince of persia.
My girlfriend wanted one since she heard about it. We couldn't find one at release and I finally managed to get a hold of one to give her in February. We had a blast with Wii sports for about 2 hours, but I've never played the thing a second time and she got bored of it about a week later. Shes not interested in Zelda (I pointed out that makes her crazy) and she can't find a 2nd game worth buying, and frankly I can't either.
The Wii has a lot of hype and a lot of potential, but MS is mostly right on with the "We're yet to see a really good game on Wii that really says 'OK that control kicked ass'" quote.
In regards to your moderation complaint, I usually use mod points when I arrive 'late' to a topic I was going to respond to, and simply mod up someone that says what I was going to say. If I see no such post, then I make my own.
Agreed entirely. Theres nothing wrong with the elite as a machine. HDMI and a larger drive is good. Not including an HD-DVD is fine too since nobody really cares about these formats. This just isn't the right way to position it and this wasn't the right time to launch it.
Microsoft has the upper hand for the time being with its large game library and installed base, and after being out for close to a year and a half its probably gotten cheaper to make. If they were smart they would have dropped the price of both the core and the premium by $50 each and launched this thing at $400. If thats too much of financial hit for them then they should have waited 6 months and done it then.
All they've done is reduce the desirability of the premium, and weaken the perceived price advantage over the PS3.
Even assuming that price and storage space fall into line, the cell phone unpleasantness still puts this in a whole different market. Compare the process of buying an ipod now with the process of buying a cellphone. Buying a cellphone sucks. You choose your plan and contract length and pick your options and transfer data from your old phone etc... Ipods are simple. Its easy to buy for yourself, its easy to give as a gift, and you can buy it pretty much anytime you want it.
Who's going to give iphones as gifts if they have to find out the status of your current cellphone contract first? Whats going to happen to apple's sales when people only even think of buying their product every couple of years when their current contracts expire? Its not an ipod that's also a phone, its a phone that's also an ipod.
It costs significantly more money, has significantly less storage space, and inherits the messiness and unpleasantness of cellphone contracts. This doesn't appeal to people who just want to play their mp3s.
Fair enough. Never tried it in such an environment.
No doubt theres work arounds for most everything, but really, what are you gaining besides that warm feeling that you're using all those bits you paid for? I've run the 64 bit flavor of the dapper and edgy and while I've managed to scour the internet until I got everything to work, I'll be switching to 32 bit feisty when its officially released and have all of these things work out of the box.
Who said the xbox was designed for grandma to use? The 360 isn't even really competing in this space. Its $100 more and offers these features as a secondary bonus for people already comfortable using the controller for gaming. I was merely saying his statement was incorrect.
Honestly, the 360 should really only come up in the context of "What does apple TV offer to existing xbox 360 owners?" The answer seems to range from 'nothing' to 'quite a bit' depending on if you're already an itunes user.
This is a beta. The final release comes out next month.
He also says that if you use the xbox controller you have to move through the bottom button bar to pause. I'm almost positive that clicking one of the analog sticks pauses.
I wouldn't run the 64 bit version of any OS unless you really had a reason. Theres no 64 bit flash for any platform, no wine and plenty of other misc problems. Unless you have a good reason (> 4gb ram) then you're only going to run into headaches.
No there won't be. The current 360 models only can output an analog signal.
If the rumor is to be believed, you'd only pay the extra $80 if you wanted one of the initial run. You could just wait a month or so until this is the new $400 model.
It isn't the price alone that hurt the ps3, its the expectations that come with that price and the failure to meet them. With an extra year and and extra $200, it really needed to show up the Xbox 360 and its yet to really do so.
...that regardless of specs, this dream machine will have to have a vagina.
I think it has more to do with marketing than actually cannibalizing sales. They would like to be able to say they have a big name title coming out this month, and a big name title coming out next month, and so on. Releasing them all in September (for example) would be great for that month, but what new stuff will they have to talk about for the rest of the holiday season?
Science be praised!
You're right, these absolutely are "catch up" features, and they did have a "we'll add things as they're finished" mentality. But the biggest thing I take from this is that in the age of online consoles, that doesn't matter. All 3 consoles have the ability to add big features post launch via software updates, and if one of them should decided to be noble and stick with what they launched with, they'll be buried. A year from now, nobody will care when each feature was released, only that they can have them now.
The actual wording from the press release is "...with nearly 70% of all connected consoles already downloading and playing Xbox LIVE Arcade titles." Downloading and playing does not necessarily mean purchasing, as every Xbox live Arcade game has a downloadable demo.
I think part of the reason boss fights all seem the same is that you can just run in and kill the boss without much fear of the baddies. There are 2 higher difficulty levels that I've yet to check out, but I'm willing to bet these would make boss fights a more strategic affair. In the same vein, the mission briefings for each boss have a separate page about the bosses base, and lists some alternate entrances for each one.
Hi author.
I just wanted to say that I checked out the article this morning and found it to be spot-on. This was very much the same experience I had with Ubuntu, including the extra frustrations of trying out the x64 flavor. I especially liked that you didn't just bail out when you ran into problems, and googled around until you got things working, since your readers are likely to do the same.
If I have one suggestion, its that you give your readers a bit more credit. Hand editing a config file is not rocket science, and chances are its mostly going to be copy/paste from some website. Same with many of the console commands you posted. Coming up with that stuff, or understanding it may be hard for a novice, but just using them is simply following directions.
You can't directly opt out, but before you log off you could remove all your gear. Your armory profile will show you wearing nothing, and only your talents will be exposed.
Err...maybe that came out wrong
As soon as a new Windows comes out, the old one is suddenly hailed as everything you would ever need, and a marvel of efficient resource usage.
First of all, who rounds 436,000 to 500,000?
Second of all, adding your inflated 500,000 to the 1.1 million* they sold from launch to December puts them at 1.6 million. Adding MS' 300,000 to their 4.5 million* in NA puts them at 4.8 million. So I guess they did sell "almost half as many units as the XBox 360 has sold in its entire lifetime" if by almost you mean "if they sold 50% more units than they actually did."
Despite the optimistic math, your point is solid. Good month for Nintendo.
* numbers from the December NPD press release