Your friends aren't too bright then. They should be using something like an upconverting DVD recorder to upconvert their cable/sat signal. You don't get stretched screens or distorted pictures that way. Once you actually watch a movie in HD that is the real HD experience. Or even the ota HD broadcasts that are free. Watch sports in HD and then try it in SD. There's no comparison.
I just bought a 360 a couple months ago after getting an HDTV. I really enjoy the games on Live. Recently the Wed releases have been really good originals. Small Arms, Roboblitz, and the excellent Assault Heroes released this morning have all been good. $10 for Small Arms and Assault Heroes isn't bad at all. Roboblitz for $15 is pushing it. I also like being able to play Defender, Galaga, etc. without using discs or having a hacked Xbox running MAME.
Marble Blast is pretty much liked by everybody that plays it. With board games like Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan coming to the Live arcade it's getting more diverse.
And that's not even talking about all the other games on there.
As a developer for 10 years now in the semiconductor industry here's some advice:
If you work at a big corporate cubicle environment your coding skills are much less important then your technical writing and communication skills. You will spend most of your time engineering software and writing endless specification, requirements, design, and test documents. Anything I'm not sure how to do gets worked out in the design phase so by the time you start coding there's not much question on what you are to do and the coding is finally the break (at least for me it is when I can sit in my cube listening to music for 8 hours while coding and being left alone) from endless meetings and paperwork.
Learn constantly from the internet. If you wonder how to do something research 50 ways to do it on internet pages and read and understand as much code as you can. Even if it may not completely apply at the time it may come up later at some point.
Be flexible. If other engineers critique your design (and they will trust me, everybody's way of doing things is better than everybody else's usually) be open minded about it and not as personal attack. Review as much of the other engineer's code as you can as well.
That was the first few generations of DLP TVs. Any recent 5th gen or up doesn't have any problems. My 5th Gen RCA 50" DLP has no noticeable lag with either the Xbox or the Xbox 360. The 360 looks awesome on it.
I think the spike was due to Defender.
Seriously though 3 major online games were released GoW, RB6 Vegas, and CoD3. Not to mention the other games released with good online play (TH P8, etc.).
The older DLPs had lag problems but not the 5th and 6th gen sets. I have a 5th gen RCA 50" DLP and I don't perceive any delays in games including Tony Hawk Project 8. The picture is great, extremely bright and great contrast. It's cheap too, Walmart sells it for $1300 with a stand and another $70 for an extended 2 year warranty after the 1 year manufacture's warranty ends. OTA HD content in 720p and 1080i look great on this TV. DirecTV is not bad after running it through a upconverting DVD player. Looks a lot more pixelated without the upconvert. I've had it afew months now and don't have any complaints so far. Can't hang it on the wall though and it doesn't do 1080p which I could really care less about.
Already happened about 6 months ago. SL was down for a weekend and on/off after that to get rid of worms that were generating millions of objects and DoSing the servers.
Sounds pretty stupid to me. I expect to just walk into a store and buy a Wii if I feel like it. Though my local Best Buy told me they only expect 3 or 4 PS3s shipped to them and they won't be opening at midnight or anything special. First come first serve.
I agree too. I've downloaded almost all the demos on there for the 360. Kept me from wasting money on a few games for sure. In the case of Test Drive Unlimited it the demo made me run out and buy it the same night.
That's because your friend is watching an SD broadcast and stretching it on his TV. Watch a sports program in true HD 720p or 1080i and it's painful to ever watch SD again. My 50" DLP has a sharp, clear picture.
Samba de Amigo 2000 (never made it to the US just the original Samba de Amigo) and a couple sets of maracca controllers. Best game to play at a party ever. More alcohol = more fun with this game.
Reply to myself I guess. I just activated a second receiver this morning and found I still had the free internet streaming for the two accounts or I could upgrade to CD quality streaming for $2.99/mo extra. I usually just listen to Howard at work and I don't need any extra quality as it already sounds fine.
What's not clear is if you upgrade to the CD quality if you get all the channels or just the ones they offer now for free(most of the music and few talk channels).
Doesn't sound like a great deal considering you can already listen to Howard online along with a lot of the other Sirius channels on the net when you buy a receiver. If you like Sirius you want it in the car and not just a internet only subscription.
That's a lot but not that huge of an amount either. I made 10 transatlantic flights in 2 years as a software engineer. If you work in the semiconductor industry in the US there's a lot of travel to Japan, Singapore, Korea, China, most of Europe where the fabs are. Management could easily surpass 40 in 6 years.
This was a draw for me to the Xbox 360. My system can't run Oblivion worth a crap and I don't feel like upgrading my PC to play games on it in a corner of a bedroom. I wasn't going to get a 360 due to only have a SD TV. Recently I picked up a DLP TV and ended up getting a 360 too. Now I can sit on my couch and play Oblivion on my 50" TV. I'm pretty happy with it.
Same here... Doesn't seem like that long ago. I ran BBS' on an Apple//e, a C64, Atari ST, and finally a 386. Fidonet, Tradewars, the whole deal. Demo scenes, art scenes, warez... $300 9600 bps modems. It was nice to be there and participate but now I feel pretty damn old.
I used to go to a Gym called Q years ago and they had bikes with cable TV/CD players on them, bikes with networked racing and a trail riding games where you could ride through a town and up a hill and the bike would increase resistance to similate the hill (the bikes leaned to turn and you had a small dpad and buttons for other functions), etc, step climbers with games on them (one of them you piloted a plane putting out fires, one searched for treasure in the ocean, etc.)
It really was more motivating to keep exercising.
I think I will get one to put in my RV and let my son play his Gamecube games and a few Wii games on the road with us. I'm not as thrilled about it as I once was. Hype is starting to wear off I guess. That and thinking a Wii with a second controller and a decent game will be around $360 it's not that great of a deal financially.
I bought a 50" HDTV a month ago and decided to pick up a 360 to take advantage of it. Now after playing a ton of Test Drive Unlimited with it's smooth Live integration, great graphics, etc. and Live Arcade games like Geometry Wars and Marble Blast I'm pretty much satisified with my gaming system now.
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Your friends aren't too bright then. They should be using something like an upconverting DVD recorder to upconvert their cable/sat signal. You don't get stretched screens or distorted pictures that way. Once you actually watch a movie in HD that is the real HD experience. Or even the ota HD broadcasts that are free. Watch sports in HD and then try it in SD. There's no comparison.
Those three would be great choices to get introduce people to boardgaming. Heroscape, crack for boys and their fathers.
Everyone knows Martian tunnels lead to releasing the trapped oxygen there. Didn't you see Total Recall?
Minter is releasing a upgraded Tempest 2000 type of game for Live Arcade!
I just bought a 360 a couple months ago after getting an HDTV. I really enjoy the games on Live. Recently the Wed releases have been really good originals. Small Arms, Roboblitz, and the excellent Assault Heroes released this morning have all been good. $10 for Small Arms and Assault Heroes isn't bad at all. Roboblitz for $15 is pushing it. I also like being able to play Defender, Galaga, etc. without using discs or having a hacked Xbox running MAME. Marble Blast is pretty much liked by everybody that plays it. With board games like Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan coming to the Live arcade it's getting more diverse. And that's not even talking about all the other games on there.
As a developer for 10 years now in the semiconductor industry here's some advice: If you work at a big corporate cubicle environment your coding skills are much less important then your technical writing and communication skills. You will spend most of your time engineering software and writing endless specification, requirements, design, and test documents. Anything I'm not sure how to do gets worked out in the design phase so by the time you start coding there's not much question on what you are to do and the coding is finally the break (at least for me it is when I can sit in my cube listening to music for 8 hours while coding and being left alone) from endless meetings and paperwork. Learn constantly from the internet. If you wonder how to do something research 50 ways to do it on internet pages and read and understand as much code as you can. Even if it may not completely apply at the time it may come up later at some point. Be flexible. If other engineers critique your design (and they will trust me, everybody's way of doing things is better than everybody else's usually) be open minded about it and not as personal attack. Review as much of the other engineer's code as you can as well.
Buy the kids their own Blackberrys.
That was the first few generations of DLP TVs. Any recent 5th gen or up doesn't have any problems. My 5th Gen RCA 50" DLP has no noticeable lag with either the Xbox or the Xbox 360. The 360 looks awesome on it.
I think the spike was due to Defender. Seriously though 3 major online games were released GoW, RB6 Vegas, and CoD3. Not to mention the other games released with good online play (TH P8, etc.).
The older DLPs had lag problems but not the 5th and 6th gen sets. I have a 5th gen RCA 50" DLP and I don't perceive any delays in games including Tony Hawk Project 8. The picture is great, extremely bright and great contrast. It's cheap too, Walmart sells it for $1300 with a stand and another $70 for an extended 2 year warranty after the 1 year manufacture's warranty ends. OTA HD content in 720p and 1080i look great on this TV. DirecTV is not bad after running it through a upconverting DVD player. Looks a lot more pixelated without the upconvert. I've had it afew months now and don't have any complaints so far. Can't hang it on the wall though and it doesn't do 1080p which I could really care less about.
Nope I was at work already reclining in a slouch when I read it. I always slouch... No wonder I don't have back problems.
Already happened about 6 months ago. SL was down for a weekend and on/off after that to get rid of worms that were generating millions of objects and DoSing the servers.
Sounds pretty stupid to me. I expect to just walk into a store and buy a Wii if I feel like it. Though my local Best Buy told me they only expect 3 or 4 PS3s shipped to them and they won't be opening at midnight or anything special. First come first serve.
I agree too. I've downloaded almost all the demos on there for the 360. Kept me from wasting money on a few games for sure. In the case of Test Drive Unlimited it the demo made me run out and buy it the same night.
That's because your friend is watching an SD broadcast and stretching it on his TV. Watch a sports program in true HD 720p or 1080i and it's painful to ever watch SD again. My 50" DLP has a sharp, clear picture.
It will be a download you buy. It saves to the hard drive and Oblivion will load it up automatically. Same as the downloads you can get for it now.
Samba de Amigo 2000 (never made it to the US just the original Samba de Amigo) and a couple sets of maracca controllers. Best game to play at a party ever. More alcohol = more fun with this game.
Reply to myself I guess. I just activated a second receiver this morning and found I still had the free internet streaming for the two accounts or I could upgrade to CD quality streaming for $2.99/mo extra. I usually just listen to Howard at work and I don't need any extra quality as it already sounds fine. What's not clear is if you upgrade to the CD quality if you get all the channels or just the ones they offer now for free(most of the music and few talk channels).
Doesn't sound like a great deal considering you can already listen to Howard online along with a lot of the other Sirius channels on the net when you buy a receiver. If you like Sirius you want it in the car and not just a internet only subscription.
That's a lot but not that huge of an amount either. I made 10 transatlantic flights in 2 years as a software engineer. If you work in the semiconductor industry in the US there's a lot of travel to Japan, Singapore, Korea, China, most of Europe where the fabs are. Management could easily surpass 40 in 6 years.
This was a draw for me to the Xbox 360. My system can't run Oblivion worth a crap and I don't feel like upgrading my PC to play games on it in a corner of a bedroom. I wasn't going to get a 360 due to only have a SD TV. Recently I picked up a DLP TV and ended up getting a 360 too. Now I can sit on my couch and play Oblivion on my 50" TV. I'm pretty happy with it.
Same here... Doesn't seem like that long ago. I ran BBS' on an Apple //e, a C64, Atari ST, and finally a 386. Fidonet, Tradewars, the whole deal. Demo scenes, art scenes, warez... $300 9600 bps modems. It was nice to be there and participate but now I feel pretty damn old.
I used to go to a Gym called Q years ago and they had bikes with cable TV/CD players on them, bikes with networked racing and a trail riding games where you could ride through a town and up a hill and the bike would increase resistance to similate the hill (the bikes leaned to turn and you had a small dpad and buttons for other functions), etc, step climbers with games on them (one of them you piloted a plane putting out fires, one searched for treasure in the ocean, etc.) It really was more motivating to keep exercising.
Well if you want a cheap Blu-Ray player...
I think I will get one to put in my RV and let my son play his Gamecube games and a few Wii games on the road with us. I'm not as thrilled about it as I once was. Hype is starting to wear off I guess. That and thinking a Wii with a second controller and a decent game will be around $360 it's not that great of a deal financially. I bought a 50" HDTV a month ago and decided to pick up a 360 to take advantage of it. Now after playing a ton of Test Drive Unlimited with it's smooth Live integration, great graphics, etc. and Live Arcade games like Geometry Wars and Marble Blast I'm pretty much satisified with my gaming system now.