So that's your personal preference. Me, I can't play Asteroids or Dig Dug anymore even though I grew up with them. I prefer games that are not just meant to entertain but also immerse you in the world and let you feel as though you're really there. Graphics and audio go a long way towards accomplishing that feeling. Polished and good looking are key, but I think that it all comes down to personal preference in the end.
I also have this theory that games are as good as what is available to you at the moment. That is, if I give a 10 year old a choice between the newest hottest Halo and Asteroids, he's going to choose Halo. But if I put him on the bus to school and Asteroids is his only choice, he's going to choose it over nothing and probably enjoy himself. You don't catch many people sitting at home playing cell phone games while their Xbox or PS2 gathers dust.
I know you're being facetious (comon, mod points for the SAT word), but for those who don't know, Andrew Tanenbaum is covered at Wikipedia. His textbook, Modern Operating Systems, is probably one of the most widely used and excellent resources on the subject. He also likes to get into flame wars with Linus Torvalds when he gets bored. This is ironic because supposedly Linus used Tanenbaum's Minix as a starting point and influence for Linux.
Thanks for the reply and suggestions. However, I was doing it all by command line, so I don't KDE or Gnome was the problem. I could probably just do a soft link to the cdrom like you said, but that completely goes against the point of udev, which is supposed to support hotplugging. As for the PSP, I couldn't unmount the thing because the filesystem disappeared after the copy failed and then unmount said the device was busy. So basically, I was able to copy the MP3's I wanted to a thumbdrive, go into Windows XP, and just copy that way.
I'm not saying that I wasn't able to fix it, I'm just saying that one of the things Linux really has to work on is hotplug, graphics, and audio support and the people who are going to help the most won't because it doesn't make business sense.
We should invade the USA, kill Ann Coulter and convert them all to atheism
I think you should practice what you preach. You want a Free as in Freedom operating system, but then you want to invade my country, kill its citizens, and then convert us all to your own beliefs? Sounds a bit sketchy to me.
And before you attack me, understand I'm an atheist already and think my country is in the wrong, but I'd never kill Ann Coulter because it's not my right to take another person's life.
I think you got it more correct than the grandparent. Graphics, sound, and multimedia devices are definitely the biggest hindrance to Linux on the desktop. Last night alone I discovered that somehow Gentoo and udev had removed my/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 link to my cdrom drive so now I couldn't mount a cdrom the same way anymore. Then the copying of files to my PSP via USB failed for some unkown reason. Plus, when I mounted the thing again it was read-only and I couldn't change it. Until Linux improves it's support of the more gadgety stuff like multimedia devices and graphics hardware (don't get me started on ATI drivers), Linux on the desktop is not going to get anywhere. The problem, of course, is that this falls squarely on the shoulders of the device manufacturers. They can argue for business reasons that it's not in their interest to support a third operating system. It's a catch-22 of sorts. Linux won't gain ground until hardware support is better, and hardware support won't increase until the userbase grows a bit more.
The only way this can stop is by getting students in engineering, computer science, and information technology disciplines to learn to like Linux and see it's benefits versus other operating systems. This way, when they go to work for the device makers, they can advocate that it's good to offer support for Linux.
Why the heck is this guy moderated as a Troll? Seriously, we need to stop giving mods to people who don't understand that dissent is not a troll. Trolling should be reserved specifically for people who say something without support such as, "Suse sucks." If I made a comment that said, Suse sucks, you could Troll me. The difference is that he attempts to back up his argument, whereas a troll just says it to start a fight. Just because he doesn't give great reasons, doesn't mean he's a Troll. As it is, I'll probably get a nice Troll or Offtopic for this post, but seriously the modding abuse needs to stop.
If you don't like what they say, leave a comment and argue your point of view. I'm tired of Apple and Nintendo fanboys running around modding everyone who says that Apple or Nintendo is horrible and has support for their argument. Obviously it's not the case here, but it's the same thing. The guy made his point, if you disagree then say so, don't mod it Troll./rant
Dylan Jobe: We've really known officially for about a week and a half, and we did the final tuning just a couple of days ago.
Okay wait a second. Let's take a step back and re-read the quote before jumping to conclusions. First, note the word "officially" in the beginning of the sentence. That means that Sony might have come up with this more than a week and a half ago, which is pretty likely. Second, note the use of the word "final" in the last half of the sentence. There is quite a bit you can read into that sentence. Did they start the tuning when they heard about it a week and a half ago? Maybe they unofficially got word 10 months ago and started development then, with final tuning finishing up a few days ago. The point is, the quote says nothing about when Sony decided to do the Dual Shake thing. The rest is just guesses.
Not to mention that most people don't finish fine-tuning features until even hours before something goes live at those conferences. Fine-tuning is possible up until the minute the public is to see it. So let's hold back the accusations that Sony literally woke up out of their bed 2 weeks ago and said, let's add this to our controller! If it really works as well as TFA says, then anyone with any sense of how product development works knows it had to be at least 6 months ago that they dreamed this up.
SFTP support was the only reason I ever use nautilus. Now I've started to use scp from the command line as I dropped GNOME for fluxbox and later E17 long ago. Ironically, they did away with the applications:/// method of editing your Applications menu in GNOME without adding a workaround and that was the last straw.
I completely agree. I am a Verizon subscriber (commence hate posts) and I refuse to have anything to do with their download network at $4 a pop for stuff like ringtones, games, and whatever. Plus, they charge you airtime during the day so you end up getting screwed coming and going. Until the price of content decreases somewhat ($15 a month for their music service plus $4 a song is insane) I am not going to even think about using it. Of course, Verizon takes the tactic of removing any game from your phone, essentially forcing you to buy if you want any.
However, they have great service when it comes to their network (free calls to any Verizon Wireless subscriber) and I have very few complaints about service outage and dropped calls. My parents, brother, and fiance are on Verizon and since they're really the only people I call a lot, I rarely go over the 400 minutes a month I pay for.
Until the price of content goes down, it'll be the lowest priority on my list when it comes to cellphone costs.
Did we expand the definition of developers to include "columnist and game design lecturer" and "director of business relations?" Someone at Gamasutra didn't exactly get a scoop. And what's with two quotes from the same company, Blackbone Entertainment?
Anyways, they all say the same thing. The name sucks, the console is good. However, the best point to get out of the article is from David Sirlin:
"Your mother or girlfriend doesn't want something called an Xbox 360, but that's okay because they won't find any games they like on an Xbox 360 anyway (beside xarcade, that is). They might be less intimidated by the "Wii" and will definitely find Nintendo games and non-games that sound more interesting than "Madden 2007" and "GTA 2008". "
Totally true. The iPod wouldn't have succeeded with a name like "SongGiant 3950" (no product would). I say the name is horrible and acceptable all at the same time. Horrible because it lends itself to multiple negative connotations, and acceptable because it draws in customers that names like Xbox and Playstation won't.
I recall an IP address that was something like 3xx.xxx.xxx.xxx in that movie.
I'm pretty sure there was. And you see that all the time on Law and Order too. I always take it as though it's the equivalent of a 555-xxxx phone number in a movie. Most people know those numbers are fake and they just accept it. I say we give them credit for knowing that it's a series of 4 numbers (or 32 bits or whatever). Much better than the camera zoom pixel smoothing to a high quality photograph that you see in most television. Until they get rid of that, it will always be #1 on the "most unrealistic technnolgy effect" list. I'm waiting for Gimp to release it as an add-on module for April First.
I think you definitely could say that Halo was average. I wouldn't say that it completely sucked because the game was playable and I found it fun. The first Halo was THE game that got me back into consoles. Before that, I was strictly PC only. I think there were a few things that definitely contributed to me liking it. First, the control scheme was actually pretty decent to handle. Second, the game actually had a likeable story. Third, it came out while I was in college and it definitely was the game that brought my roommates together. When Halo came out, Bond was pretty much dead as games went. Freshman year someone set up a CS dedicated server in our dorm and that was constantly busy, but because we all had PC's we couldn't play together. But in sophomore year, Halo allowed us to be in the same room so that we could actually yell at each other and not piss off the RA.
And the multiplayer was the reason it became so popular. It basically became the next iteration of Bond. That and Red vs. Blue was hilarious (still is).
Halo 2, on the other hand, was just a rehash. I never even played it all the way through.
Because Microsoft sold a few hundred thousand more than Nintendo, somehow Microsoft is a "winner" and Nintendo was the "loser"
I don't know where you got the whole winner/loser ideal in terms of Nintendo and Microsoft, but from a business standpoint Microsoft is much bigger and more diversified. Microsoft might lose money in Xbox, but their incredible market share in software as a whole pegs them a lot higher than the "video game company" that Nintendo might get labeled as. Microsoft has more media exposure throughout business and Wall Street would never take a look solely at their Xbox operations and call it a loss, especially since now every 10 year old knows Microsoft's name, which might not have been true 10 or 15 years ago, while Nintendo has always had exposure to that market. While the two companies may compete head to head, Microsoft is a whole playing field above Nintendo when it comes to overall product lines.
Anybody with half of an education should know this stuff.
Demo the ****ware, if you like it buy it!
You make good points, but not everything can be demoed. I personally hate paying $7 for a game rental at blockbuster and haven't really gotten into the whole rent by mail craze because I really don't watch/play that many movies/games a month to make it worthwhile. As for PC games, a lot of games started giving multiplayer only demoes a few years back and I hated that too. Actually, I think the best source for demos is by far IGN's movies when all else fails. Those give you a decent sense of how well the game looks and feels. Plus, I usually wait a few weeks after a game comes out (learned that with Republic) and see what the online feeling is. Also let's patches come out for those PC games and lets people get online for those multiplayer only titles. But like you said, let the buyer beware and make sure the game is really worth top dollar before you buy.
If they just remove support for Windows, without offering any alternative, then people may not be happy at no longer being able to run all those Windows applications and games they have.
Which is true. So Apple gives a 6 month lead time (sound familiar?) and then tells all game developers to support their platform or they lose their hardcore base that's switched to Mac Hardware. Might not be enough time for games about to go gold, but those that are almost done can make the switch within 6-8 months time.
what incentive is there to port PC games to OS X if you can run the PC version so easily on the Mac via BootCamp?
This is definitely a slippery slope, but I think Apple still has the upper hand. They have shown in the past that they definitely are not willing to compromise just to make their users happy in the short run. They also are willing to drop support of a product just to get users to move to a newer version. Microsoft is just starting to learn this trick, but no one does it better than Apple. This is why there are still more PC's with Windows 98 installed than XP and very few Macs with OS9 installed than OSX. I think they'll wait a few months/years to get their sales up, and then cut out the rug and say, we don't support Windows any longer on our hardware. It's a very risky play but I wouldn't put it past Apple to do this.
Three things come to mind about your comment (but aren't directed right at you):
The odds of you starting and ending college majoring in the same thing are about 50/50 based on no statistics whatsoever. I give you 20/80 if you are starting an engineering degree at a liberal arts school.
When I started college, tech was huge (and I wasn't majoring in it). When I went to grad school, the bubble burst (and I went for CS). I just graduated with my Master's and everyone is hiring again. I loosely paid attention because I loved what I was doing. Moral of the story: don't go into a field based on hiring statistics.
Go to graduate school right out of undergrad. My salary is $20,000 higher versus people with an undergraduate degree in the same field from the same school. It also makes you much more desirable in most science and tech fields and it's cheaper in the long run. I was relatively young in my program and most of the people that I met were either further along but like me (went straight to grad school after undergrad) or were professionals using their IRA's to go back. This is definitely a more costly way to do things because a)you're using your retirement savings including a penalty and b)if you do go back when your older, try to get your company to pay for it.
You can now take aim and fire, all while strafing, running, jumping, (can we do Matrix style flipping, puullleeeazze?)
Lawsuits abound involving the new Waichowski Brothers game, "Bouncing Duracell", in which children are encouraged to jump around while playing the game. A Chandeliers Manufacturers of America spokesperson was quoted as saying, "This game has caused us to rethink our product in order to prevent more wrongful death suits from falling glass. The inverted flip sequence especially has caused more innocent children to be impaled by our product than ever before."
Can we take a deep breath from the hype for a second and realize we're talking about a remote control here? I have one word for you about flipping and jumping: PowerPad.
Obviously you don't know what you're talking about. I work for a large investment bank and they definitely are hiring Java programmers here in the States. However, they don't want people that are just Java programmers - they want people with knowledge of Computer Science in general. Tying yourself to one language definitely is a bad idea nowadays. Learning how to think critically and develop/learn any language quickly and effectively are two skills that will take you far. Yes, my company is investing overseas, but most of the developers I work with are sitting right next to me. This past fall a recruiter from IBM told me what definitely seems to be true in all companies - they've sent so much overseas and reduced their domestic prescence so much that now that the baby boomers are retiring they have no one to step up. If anything, right now there is a huge demand for developers. My company has a huge problem hiring even though they offer huge salaries because there is so much competition out there.
Microsoft has a lot of cash on hand, but I think buying Sony would be too much, too quickly. Not to mention that Sony is huge, making products in a lot of areas that Microsoft has no prior experience. Music, Movies, Television, and consumer electronics. Microsoft makes software and video game hardware. Sony might be in a rut, but their products are so diversified that if one industry has it bad, the rest will recover. Not to mention that these guys complain about losing money to music piracy, but what is really happening is that they are making less money. They're not in trouble, they're just not as profitable as they once were. Sony isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Plus, I'd love to see an American corporation buy out a Japanese one. The Japanese will not let that happen.
I have seen some captchas that ask users in plain text to solve a simple arithmetic or logic problem
I actually implemented this on my blog a little while back as a quick deterrent(Because I didn't have the resources to implement it). The system was quite simple - it basically was scientific notation like so:
seven times one hundred plus eight times ten plus six
Answer: 786
Simple enough to check and because it's text it takes a little more effort to write something to crack it. I didn't get a comment spammer but the site was pretty low traffic so I don't know how effective it was. Hopefully just enough for people to think it wasn't worth the effort.
I agree with you, a lot of people will switch now that they can run both XP and OS X. The only thing that keeps me tied to Windows at home is the fact that I can't run many games on Linux without hassle or money (cedega just isn't worth the effort IMO). I also am going to agree with you on the cost of a Mac vs. the cost of a video card. Both cost alot of money. So I personally am not going to buy a Mac in the near future, but it is something that's potentially down the road for me. However, the real thing I'm hoping for is that as developers can finally standardize on Mac hardware for Windows games, it might encourage them to turn games out for the Mac quicker. Since Mac is based on Unix, it might also speed up (and increase) the number of "retail" (read: does not need cedega) releases of Linux games as well by decreasing that migration time. That's really what I'm waiting for. The only thing tying me to Windows right now is the games, and Linux is my favorite alternative. The only thing I like about OS X over XP is a new and improved interface, and I can get that with Linux by running E17.
OS X is definitely a better OS IMO than Windows, but Linux is cheaper and I get all the bells and whistles I want. I think moving to Mac is definitely something most "image concious" geeks want to do, but I'm going to sit back and wait to see how it all falls out.
We're talking about broadband only. I lived all over my state and only found one to two choices in an area - telco or cable. If you want to get technical, I could have bought Earthlink that uses Road Runner, but if Road Runner is prioritizing traffic than it makes no difference whether I'm using Earthlink or Road Runner. I'm still getting the same service. So if I really want to protest packet prioritization, I have to settle for dialup. As a red blooded geek, I refuse to settle for dialup.
Slashdot Mirror
So that's your personal preference. Me, I can't play Asteroids or Dig Dug anymore even though I grew up with them. I prefer games that are not just meant to entertain but also immerse you in the world and let you feel as though you're really there. Graphics and audio go a long way towards accomplishing that feeling. Polished and good looking are key, but I think that it all comes down to personal preference in the end.
I also have this theory that games are as good as what is available to you at the moment. That is, if I give a 10 year old a choice between the newest hottest Halo and Asteroids, he's going to choose Halo. But if I put him on the bus to school and Asteroids is his only choice, he's going to choose it over nothing and probably enjoy himself. You don't catch many people sitting at home playing cell phone games while their Xbox or PS2 gathers dust.
I know you're being facetious (comon, mod points for the SAT word), but for those who don't know, Andrew Tanenbaum is covered at Wikipedia. His textbook, Modern Operating Systems, is probably one of the most widely used and excellent resources on the subject. He also likes to get into flame wars with Linus Torvalds when he gets bored. This is ironic because supposedly Linus used Tanenbaum's Minix as a starting point and influence for Linux.
Thanks for the reply and suggestions. However, I was doing it all by command line, so I don't KDE or Gnome was the problem. I could probably just do a soft link to the cdrom like you said, but that completely goes against the point of udev, which is supposed to support hotplugging. As for the PSP, I couldn't unmount the thing because the filesystem disappeared after the copy failed and then unmount said the device was busy. So basically, I was able to copy the MP3's I wanted to a thumbdrive, go into Windows XP, and just copy that way.
I'm not saying that I wasn't able to fix it, I'm just saying that one of the things Linux really has to work on is hotplug, graphics, and audio support and the people who are going to help the most won't because it doesn't make business sense.
We should invade the USA, kill Ann Coulter and convert them all to atheism
I think you should practice what you preach. You want a Free as in Freedom operating system, but then you want to invade my country, kill its citizens, and then convert us all to your own beliefs? Sounds a bit sketchy to me.
And before you attack me, understand I'm an atheist already and think my country is in the wrong, but I'd never kill Ann Coulter because it's not my right to take another person's life.
I think you got it more correct than the grandparent. Graphics, sound, and multimedia devices are definitely the biggest hindrance to Linux on the desktop. Last night alone I discovered that somehow Gentoo and udev had removed my /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 link to my cdrom drive so now I couldn't mount a cdrom the same way anymore. Then the copying of files to my PSP via USB failed for some unkown reason. Plus, when I mounted the thing again it was read-only and I couldn't change it. Until Linux improves it's support of the more gadgety stuff like multimedia devices and graphics hardware (don't get me started on ATI drivers), Linux on the desktop is not going to get anywhere. The problem, of course, is that this falls squarely on the shoulders of the device manufacturers. They can argue for business reasons that it's not in their interest to support a third operating system. It's a catch-22 of sorts. Linux won't gain ground until hardware support is better, and hardware support won't increase until the userbase grows a bit more.
The only way this can stop is by getting students in engineering, computer science, and information technology disciplines to learn to like Linux and see it's benefits versus other operating systems. This way, when they go to work for the device makers, they can advocate that it's good to offer support for Linux.
Gentoo wiki has a nice list, not sure how up to date it is though - HARDWARE_Video_Card_Support_Under_XGL
Why the heck is this guy moderated as a Troll? Seriously, we need to stop giving mods to people who don't understand that dissent is not a troll. Trolling should be reserved specifically for people who say something without support such as, "Suse sucks." If I made a comment that said, Suse sucks, you could Troll me. The difference is that he attempts to back up his argument, whereas a troll just says it to start a fight. Just because he doesn't give great reasons, doesn't mean he's a Troll. As it is, I'll probably get a nice Troll or Offtopic for this post, but seriously the modding abuse needs to stop.
/rant
If you don't like what they say, leave a comment and argue your point of view. I'm tired of Apple and Nintendo fanboys running around modding everyone who says that Apple or Nintendo is horrible and has support for their argument. Obviously it's not the case here, but it's the same thing. The guy made his point, if you disagree then say so, don't mod it Troll.
Than to post an old story...
Okay wait a second. Let's take a step back and re-read the quote before jumping to conclusions. First, note the word "officially" in the beginning of the sentence. That means that Sony might have come up with this more than a week and a half ago, which is pretty likely. Second, note the use of the word "final" in the last half of the sentence. There is quite a bit you can read into that sentence. Did they start the tuning when they heard about it a week and a half ago? Maybe they unofficially got word 10 months ago and started development then, with final tuning finishing up a few days ago. The point is, the quote says nothing about when Sony decided to do the Dual Shake thing. The rest is just guesses.
Not to mention that most people don't finish fine-tuning features until even hours before something goes live at those conferences. Fine-tuning is possible up until the minute the public is to see it. So let's hold back the accusations that Sony literally woke up out of their bed 2 weeks ago and said, let's add this to our controller! If it really works as well as TFA says, then anyone with any sense of how product development works knows it had to be at least 6 months ago that they dreamed this up.
SFTP support was the only reason I ever use nautilus. Now I've started to use scp from the command line as I dropped GNOME for fluxbox and later E17 long ago. Ironically, they did away with the applications:/// method of editing your Applications menu in GNOME without adding a workaround and that was the last straw.
I completely agree. I am a Verizon subscriber (commence hate posts) and I refuse to have anything to do with their download network at $4 a pop for stuff like ringtones, games, and whatever. Plus, they charge you airtime during the day so you end up getting screwed coming and going. Until the price of content decreases somewhat ($15 a month for their music service plus $4 a song is insane) I am not going to even think about using it. Of course, Verizon takes the tactic of removing any game from your phone, essentially forcing you to buy if you want any.
However, they have great service when it comes to their network (free calls to any Verizon Wireless subscriber) and I have very few complaints about service outage and dropped calls. My parents, brother, and fiance are on Verizon and since they're really the only people I call a lot, I rarely go over the 400 minutes a month I pay for.
Until the price of content goes down, it'll be the lowest priority on my list when it comes to cellphone costs.
Did we expand the definition of developers to include "columnist and game design lecturer" and "director of business relations?" Someone at Gamasutra didn't exactly get a scoop. And what's with two quotes from the same company, Blackbone Entertainment?
Anyways, they all say the same thing. The name sucks, the console is good. However, the best point to get out of the article is from David Sirlin:
"Your mother or girlfriend doesn't want something called an Xbox 360, but that's okay because they won't find any games they like on an Xbox 360 anyway (beside xarcade, that is). They might be less intimidated by the "Wii" and will definitely find Nintendo games and non-games that sound more interesting than "Madden 2007" and "GTA 2008". "
Totally true. The iPod wouldn't have succeeded with a name like "SongGiant 3950" (no product would). I say the name is horrible and acceptable all at the same time. Horrible because it lends itself to multiple negative connotations, and acceptable because it draws in customers that names like Xbox and Playstation won't.
I'm pretty sure there was. And you see that all the time on Law and Order too. I always take it as though it's the equivalent of a 555-xxxx phone number in a movie. Most people know those numbers are fake and they just accept it. I say we give them credit for knowing that it's a series of 4 numbers (or 32 bits or whatever). Much better than the camera zoom pixel smoothing to a high quality photograph that you see in most television. Until they get rid of that, it will always be #1 on the "most unrealistic technnolgy effect" list. I'm waiting for Gimp to release it as an add-on module for April First.
I think you definitely could say that Halo was average. I wouldn't say that it completely sucked because the game was playable and I found it fun. The first Halo was THE game that got me back into consoles. Before that, I was strictly PC only. I think there were a few things that definitely contributed to me liking it. First, the control scheme was actually pretty decent to handle. Second, the game actually had a likeable story. Third, it came out while I was in college and it definitely was the game that brought my roommates together. When Halo came out, Bond was pretty much dead as games went. Freshman year someone set up a CS dedicated server in our dorm and that was constantly busy, but because we all had PC's we couldn't play together. But in sophomore year, Halo allowed us to be in the same room so that we could actually yell at each other and not piss off the RA.
And the multiplayer was the reason it became so popular. It basically became the next iteration of Bond. That and Red vs. Blue was hilarious (still is).
Halo 2, on the other hand, was just a rehash. I never even played it all the way through.
I don't know where you got the whole winner/loser ideal in terms of Nintendo and Microsoft, but from a business standpoint Microsoft is much bigger and more diversified. Microsoft might lose money in Xbox, but their incredible market share in software as a whole pegs them a lot higher than the "video game company" that Nintendo might get labeled as. Microsoft has more media exposure throughout business and Wall Street would never take a look solely at their Xbox operations and call it a loss, especially since now every 10 year old knows Microsoft's name, which might not have been true 10 or 15 years ago, while Nintendo has always had exposure to that market. While the two companies may compete head to head, Microsoft is a whole playing field above Nintendo when it comes to overall product lines.
You make good points, but not everything can be demoed. I personally hate paying $7 for a game rental at blockbuster and haven't really gotten into the whole rent by mail craze because I really don't watch/play that many movies/games a month to make it worthwhile. As for PC games, a lot of games started giving multiplayer only demoes a few years back and I hated that too. Actually, I think the best source for demos is by far IGN's movies when all else fails. Those give you a decent sense of how well the game looks and feels. Plus, I usually wait a few weeks after a game comes out (learned that with Republic) and see what the online feeling is. Also let's patches come out for those PC games and lets people get online for those multiplayer only titles. But like you said, let the buyer beware and make sure the game is really worth top dollar before you buy.
Which is true. So Apple gives a 6 month lead time (sound familiar?) and then tells all game developers to support their platform or they lose their hardcore base that's switched to Mac Hardware. Might not be enough time for games about to go gold, but those that are almost done can make the switch within 6-8 months time.
This is definitely a slippery slope, but I think Apple still has the upper hand. They have shown in the past that they definitely are not willing to compromise just to make their users happy in the short run. They also are willing to drop support of a product just to get users to move to a newer version. Microsoft is just starting to learn this trick, but no one does it better than Apple. This is why there are still more PC's with Windows 98 installed than XP and very few Macs with OS9 installed than OSX. I think they'll wait a few months/years to get their sales up, and then cut out the rug and say, we don't support Windows any longer on our hardware. It's a very risky play but I wouldn't put it past Apple to do this.
Three things come to mind about your comment (but aren't directed right at you):
Lawsuits abound involving the new Waichowski Brothers game, "Bouncing Duracell", in which children are encouraged to jump around while playing the game. A Chandeliers Manufacturers of America spokesperson was quoted as saying, "This game has caused us to rethink our product in order to prevent more wrongful death suits from falling glass. The inverted flip sequence especially has caused more innocent children to be impaled by our product than ever before."
Can we take a deep breath from the hype for a second and realize we're talking about a remote control here? I have one word for you about flipping and jumping: PowerPad.
Obviously you don't know what you're talking about. I work for a large investment bank and they definitely are hiring Java programmers here in the States. However, they don't want people that are just Java programmers - they want people with knowledge of Computer Science in general. Tying yourself to one language definitely is a bad idea nowadays. Learning how to think critically and develop/learn any language quickly and effectively are two skills that will take you far. Yes, my company is investing overseas, but most of the developers I work with are sitting right next to me. This past fall a recruiter from IBM told me what definitely seems to be true in all companies - they've sent so much overseas and reduced their domestic prescence so much that now that the baby boomers are retiring they have no one to step up. If anything, right now there is a huge demand for developers. My company has a huge problem hiring even though they offer huge salaries because there is so much competition out there.
Microsoft has a lot of cash on hand, but I think buying Sony would be too much, too quickly. Not to mention that Sony is huge, making products in a lot of areas that Microsoft has no prior experience. Music, Movies, Television, and consumer electronics. Microsoft makes software and video game hardware. Sony might be in a rut, but their products are so diversified that if one industry has it bad, the rest will recover. Not to mention that these guys complain about losing money to music piracy, but what is really happening is that they are making less money. They're not in trouble, they're just not as profitable as they once were. Sony isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Plus, I'd love to see an American corporation buy out a Japanese one. The Japanese will not let that happen.
I actually implemented this on my blog a little while back as a quick deterrent(Because I didn't have the resources to implement it). The system was quite simple - it basically was scientific notation like so:
seven times one hundred plus eight times ten plus six
Answer: 786
Simple enough to check and because it's text it takes a little more effort to write something to crack it. I didn't get a comment spammer but the site was pretty low traffic so I don't know how effective it was. Hopefully just enough for people to think it wasn't worth the effort.
I agree with you, a lot of people will switch now that they can run both XP and OS X. The only thing that keeps me tied to Windows at home is the fact that I can't run many games on Linux without hassle or money (cedega just isn't worth the effort IMO). I also am going to agree with you on the cost of a Mac vs. the cost of a video card. Both cost alot of money. So I personally am not going to buy a Mac in the near future, but it is something that's potentially down the road for me. However, the real thing I'm hoping for is that as developers can finally standardize on Mac hardware for Windows games, it might encourage them to turn games out for the Mac quicker. Since Mac is based on Unix, it might also speed up (and increase) the number of "retail" (read: does not need cedega) releases of Linux games as well by decreasing that migration time. That's really what I'm waiting for. The only thing tying me to Windows right now is the games, and Linux is my favorite alternative. The only thing I like about OS X over XP is a new and improved interface, and I can get that with Linux by running E17.
OS X is definitely a better OS IMO than Windows, but Linux is cheaper and I get all the bells and whistles I want. I think moving to Mac is definitely something most "image concious" geeks want to do, but I'm going to sit back and wait to see how it all falls out.
We're talking about broadband only. I lived all over my state and only found one to two choices in an area - telco or cable. If you want to get technical, I could have bought Earthlink that uses Road Runner, but if Road Runner is prioritizing traffic than it makes no difference whether I'm using Earthlink or Road Runner. I'm still getting the same service. So if I really want to protest packet prioritization, I have to settle for dialup. As a red blooded geek, I refuse to settle for dialup.