Maybe it's different for online goods and services (though I don't see why it would be), or just local to the Kansai region, but sales tax was always included in the advertised price wherever I went while I was in Japan this summer.
It was quite nice to not have to mentally track the percent tax and add it to every price. And quite annoying when I got back home.
I didn't see these two in the article, or a quick check of the comments so far (as clearly they are the two most useful tools in a programmers arsenal): Magic and more magic
I've always thought the car-computer analogy works rather well. Computers right now are like cars shortly after they came into mass production. First, they were very expensive, and people couldn't afford them. Then, they went through the hobbyist phase where most of the people using computers for fun knew how they worked, and could do regular maitnence themselves. Add to that the fact that they were much simpler (mostly software-wise, hardware at the macro level an end user deals with is pretty much the same compared to 10-20 years ago).
Now with companies like Dell, we are getting to the point where you can buy a computer that "just works"*, but we still have some work to do to figure out what all people need, and educate them how to take care of a computer. Just like most people know that their car wont work if they don't fill it up with gas, change the oil every so often, and occasionally take it in to a mechanic for more serious issues, they need to learn the simple things to do to keep a computer running so they only have to find a repair shop for a hardware component failure or an especially bad virus infection.
Don't forget that cars have had a few generations to have general knowledge about them seep into people's thoughts, while computers have really only had a decade or so (and hell, they've really only been around for about 50 years in any form). I'm sure in another 50 or 100 years, computers will have matured to the point that cars have, and regular people will be much better in general at taking care of them.
*Personally I hate all the crap software that comes with dells, but for some people having all that stuff installed is better then figuring out how to do it themselves (read: mseeing up/never doing it).
I don't have this problem at all for my 360. It's in the open in an office-sized computer/game room near the center of the house.
-Controller works fine in the living room (1 room away - mostly no line of sight)
-Controller works fine in the kitchen (2 rooms away - absolutely no line of sight)
-Controller works fine in any of the upstairs rooms (furthest is no fewer then 3 walls away from 360).
Of course, the only time I actually use it at these ranges is to turn on the console and maybe pick my profile/start a game. But it definetly gets better then line-of-sight range.
It also doesn't sound like anything I've ever seen or expect to see. Even a huge open-ended, modern super-hi-res texture game like Oblivion only takes 4.6 gigs HD space (and also fits on a single disc for the 360). It is, essentially, the game that you have described. Except with 10 towns and 200 dungeons. And a large open wilderness between all of them that has a similar level of detail (same texture/model, obviously there are fewer objects though), rather then a low res world-map scenario. If it can all fit on one disk that (presumably) barely makes it over the single-layer DVD mark, I can't imagine any developer would have the time or the budget to make a game so huge that models, textures, and game data account for double the size of Oblivion unless they are doing something wrong.
Personally, I took the grandparent's post to mean something more like "I agree, how come no one (or atleast neither major party) thinks that cutting taxes and spending less is a good idea (/why do they think this is bad)?"
I've seen this many other places, but I guess I'll pass it on here. There are several benifits you dind't mention that were there in the VHS->DVD move that aren't there for this move. (In no particular order, except when they occur to me).
Storage Space - A DVD is a lot smaller then a VHS tape, so it's easier to transport and more fit in the same area. Obviously, both of the new opctical discs are the same size.
Chapters - With a DVD it's alot easier to find a certain part, since you can jump to and skip around in chapters. This technological step up hasn't been improved for the new formats.
Durability - Both in terms of resistance to physical damage and how long the video stays at a reasonable quality (try watchng a VHS from more then a decade or so ago...), DVD beat out VHS. This time, same basic media, no improvement.
Ease of use - Sorta like chapters. Since VHS is a tape, you have to worry about rewinding and such. DVD is a "Put it in and play" system. Don't have to worry about rewinding when your done or if someone else forgot to when you start.
Its possible there are a few more, but if you think none of those things were a factor in DVD replacing VHS...
They've done this kind of thing atleast once before with the 360, though not publically as far as I know. I bought a 360 around new years, and since I didn't get an extended warranty (although hat was probably a little stupid), it fell out of warranty about the end of March. Back in July, I think it was, they released a big new feature filled patch (the one with background downloading, finally). A few days after that, my 360 started locking up and then showing the Red lights. A little browsing the internet later, I found out quite a few other people had had similarly coincidental hardware failures. After a quick talk with their tech support, I ended up getting the 360 replaced for free, despite it being out of warranty.
It's good to see MS officially admitting that there were hardware problems a large portion of the launch units and fixing them, just like any recall of a deffective product is a good thing to see.
Being a 20 something (21 specifically) who is going to be finishing college in a year or so, and working at an internship this summer that (if it were year round) would be only a little below 50k, I believe I fit your bill.
And let me say that, while I don't have much history with the 8-bit console generation besides playing duck hunt on my neighbors NES from time to time, my first big generation was the 16-bits (SNES and Genisis). Among my friends, it's mostly the same way, and those that didn't start in 16-bit mostly started in 8 bit. I think sony is going to need to wait untill they get to the PS4 at least to be able to claim that a goodly percent of those "just out of college" + "money to burn" types grew up on Playstations.
And for the record, I have absolutely no desire to get a PS3 and am waiting to see how the Wii does with interest.
this is honestly a big deal, the lack of R2 and L2, as well as no right hand stick is going to flat out cut out a number of games from being played this way.
The analog sticks where barely even used on the PS1. And the games that did always worked fine with the classic DPad controller anyway. (Don't forget, PS1 didn't get the dual shock for quite a while).
As for L2/R2, that is a pretty big problem. Best solution I can think of off the top of my head is, analog stick for movement (replaces D-Pad), and use some of the PSP's DPad to replace the missing buttons (but that's very awkward).
Oh well, it all comes down to how they pull it off, if it is done correctly, then I can see this realy boosting PSP sales (there are some GOOD PS1 games out there).
I have a PSP, and I'd say that if this takes off and gets some good games in it, I would seriously consider getting a bigger memory stick (since I doubt the 32-meg it came with would work all that well for storing games), and even re-buying one or two of my old PS1 games (plus there were certainly quite a few good games in that generation I missed anyway).
Hell, I was already planning to buy Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth as soon as Best Buy (which I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole if I didn't have a 50$ gift card to spend) gets it back in stock, and it's supposed to be a "Remake with better cutscenes" deal (think the FF:Anthologies/Origins for PSX).
Actually another thing, apparently the X360 supports a "generic" profile for some controls
Just thought I'd explain how this works (from experience). Basically, there's a menu area for "Default Controls" with a couple options in it. THey break it up into three categories: General, Driving, and "Action" (Basically, FPS). In general, you can set Camera Inversion, look sensitivity, and default dificulty (first one is great for me, I almost always prefer "inverted" for cameras). In Driving, there are some car-specific options, like gearbox (man/auto), default view (in car, chase, ect), and whether to use trigger shift/button gas, or the opposite. I can't remember the "Action" settings off the top of my head, unfortunetly. I think I remember something about auto-aim, and maybe some control settings, but nothing for sure.
The first time I found the menu, I thought it was pretty neet, though I've occasionally been unplesently supprised by the "Hard" for deafault game difficulty that I set. The only weird thing about it is how it's practically hidden. It should have been part of the new-profile set up atleast.
Also, they seem to be pretty universally enforced. Atleast, I haven't found a game that ignored them yet (and I've at least rented a good portion of the game library).
It's right here (and clearly different from anything you saw if you had sigs off): My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 6000 of me. God help us all!
(sarcasm warning: I also see the thing he's complaining about)
Charging for functionality? Since when was Lumines (or any other game) "functionality"? I could see this almost working if you were complaining about the themes/icons, but complaining that they are charging for a game?
The fact of the matter is, XBL is still just a flat rate for the service, and charging for content (not functionality) is nothing new.
I think the point of this article isn't so much that proxy servers are some sort of new, unexpected problem. It's more that people outside the geek community are starting to discover them (and maybe other things that have traditionally been known only to the techy types). I know back when I was in highschool (ugh, makes me sound so old.. graduated a little over 3 years ago), me and a bunch of friends who took just about all the computer-related classes my HS offered used proxies all the time to get past our school filters. Hell, I even ran one for a little while because finding a reliable, fast proxy could be a bother. But I guarantee you we were among the less-than-1% of the school that even knew what a "proxy server" did. Now maybe that number would be a fair bit larger. And while 10 or 15 kids getting around the proxy to play flash games and goof off (nothing extremely inapropriate, though) isn't so much of a problem, a couple hundred may need some additional seeing too.
Maybe they can leverage the Xbox, perhaps a plug on the side of an Xbox for their music player
You may be suprised to find out that there is an optional software update for the 360 that lets you plug in an iPod that lets you plug it into one of the USB ports and play music off of it. How much more could they do with a console tie in?
(Hint: sell songs on the marketplace! But that's probably less convenient then a PC).
Although I havent played Oblivion on the 360, I would think it woud have to follow the same rules as everything else. The worst that can happen is basically:
You are playing oblivion, and decide to connect to XBL. (Side note, you might want to save at this point). You connect the ethernet cable to the 360. After connecting, the guide pops up: "There is an update available for this game! You [must/should] download it before you continue playing. Options: Yes/No." Since you don't want the update, you choose "No." Since most 360 games are multiplayer, having everyone on the same version is more important then with a single-player game like Oblivion, so I don't know that it will be absolutely required (even though most updates are if you want to play). Just the same, you should have saved incase it boots you out after you tell it not to (Might even do this before the guid pops up). THe popup usually comes before the game launch, and requires the game to not be running to install. I've personally never tried this, but the worst that can happen is a few minutes inconvenience (unless you somehow manage to hit "yes").
It could be that they have a check in the installer (it's certainly possible). Although I don't remember one, my experience with setting up BF2 was for a friend (after I helped him build a new computer), and about a year ago. I do remember that it definetly worked when we ran it, despite his concerns about the XP requirement on the package.
If it did take any special messing around w/ the installer, it wasn't much.
Battlefield 2 (along with every other program that claims it requires XP that I've ever seen) runs fine on Windows 2k. From what I remember, they don't even bother to block Win2k in the installer (like some programs - which still work in Win2k after you get them installed), it just says "Requires Windows XP" on the box. My guess is that's just so they don't have to support you if you haven't upgraded to XP.
That's actually what I thought this was going to be when I saw the title. It seems like a kiosk/vending machine where you can but new songs on iTunes would be a pretty good idea in the same kinds of places this is (maybe right next to it? even better!). After all, leaving for a flight in 30 minutes and you want that new album/single, or the song you just heard over the PA system (special tie in bonus! the recently played music list where relevant), or maybe just an old favorite you don't have loaded on just in time for your flight? No worries, just find the local iPod kiosk and buy an album to load on.
I think a physical connection adapter (maybe like the docking station like this one, or a retractable version of the cord that comes with it) would make it more accessible, since I would bet most people don't have or want a BlueTooth adapter.
I think you mean the 20th Anniversary Mac, and Lain was first aired a year after the 20th Anniv. Mac came out, so the Navi might have been inspired by it.
And for that reason alone I found racing games on the PS2 to be needlessly harder then they should have been. I've played GT4 and Forza both quite a bit, and controlling the car's gas and brake pedals with triggers (Forza's default setup - tho you can use the face buttons if you really want to) that have a sensitivity over a range of atleast 1/2 inch is much easier then controlling the same with a pressure sensitive button (GT4 in all setups, the PS2 controllers don't have the right kind of triggers) where you have maybe 1/10 of an inch difference between nothing and full throttle.
Point is, most developers were right to not try to use those buttons. They weren't nearly precise enough for delicate controls when compared with the same tech in the XBox. This motion sensing controller may or may not have similar problems, but there is a precedent for poorly implemented extra controller features from Sony. (Infact, I'd argue that the original PSX analog sticks are a similar 'feature'.. but they had the disadvantage of not being standard on all controllers so it isn't quite fair).
If you think that's pretty bad, I've killed AI's having conversations with other AI's (mostly bandits in dungeons talking about how scary mudcrabs are while they wear full glass armor, but that's another story) and their conversation partner just turns around and finds someone else to talk to.
Don't get me wrong, Radiant AI is pretty cool most of the time (outside of combat, and when not talking about mudcrabs), but when it messes up it messes up bigtime.
I can picture it now:
Microsoft Office Vista:
* Formated a document using Bold [10 Points]
* Narrowed the margins to make your report seem longer then it is [50 Points]
* Printed more then 10 copies of a document [25 Points]
* Saved the same document more then 20 times [10 Points]
* Created a new document [5 Points]
* Created 100 new documents [100 Points]
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it's different for online goods and services (though I don't see why it would be), or just local to the Kansai region, but sales tax was always included in the advertised price wherever I went while I was in Japan this summer.
It was quite nice to not have to mentally track the percent tax and add it to every price. And quite annoying when I got back home.
I didn't see these two in the article, or a quick check of the comments so far (as clearly they are the two most useful tools in a programmers arsenal):
Magic and more magic
I've always thought the car-computer analogy works rather well. Computers right now are like cars shortly after they came into mass production. First, they were very expensive, and people couldn't afford them. Then, they went through the hobbyist phase where most of the people using computers for fun knew how they worked, and could do regular maitnence themselves. Add to that the fact that they were much simpler (mostly software-wise, hardware at the macro level an end user deals with is pretty much the same compared to 10-20 years ago).
Now with companies like Dell, we are getting to the point where you can buy a computer that "just works"*, but we still have some work to do to figure out what all people need, and educate them how to take care of a computer. Just like most people know that their car wont work if they don't fill it up with gas, change the oil every so often, and occasionally take it in to a mechanic for more serious issues, they need to learn the simple things to do to keep a computer running so they only have to find a repair shop for a hardware component failure or an especially bad virus infection.
Don't forget that cars have had a few generations to have general knowledge about them seep into people's thoughts, while computers have really only had a decade or so (and hell, they've really only been around for about 50 years in any form). I'm sure in another 50 or 100 years, computers will have matured to the point that cars have, and regular people will be much better in general at taking care of them.
*Personally I hate all the crap software that comes with dells, but for some people having all that stuff installed is better then figuring out how to do it themselves (read: mseeing up/never doing it).
I don't have this problem at all for my 360. It's in the open in an office-sized computer/game room near the center of the house.
-Controller works fine in the living room (1 room away - mostly no line of sight)
-Controller works fine in the kitchen (2 rooms away - absolutely no line of sight)
-Controller works fine in any of the upstairs rooms (furthest is no fewer then 3 walls away from 360).
Of course, the only time I actually use it at these ranges is to turn on the console and maybe pick my profile/start a game. But it definetly gets better then line-of-sight range.
It also doesn't sound like anything I've ever seen or expect to see. Even a huge open-ended, modern super-hi-res texture game like Oblivion only takes 4.6 gigs HD space (and also fits on a single disc for the 360). It is, essentially, the game that you have described. Except with 10 towns and 200 dungeons. And a large open wilderness between all of them that has a similar level of detail (same texture/model, obviously there are fewer objects though), rather then a low res world-map scenario. If it can all fit on one disk that (presumably) barely makes it over the single-layer DVD mark, I can't imagine any developer would have the time or the budget to make a game so huge that models, textures, and game data account for double the size of Oblivion unless they are doing something wrong.
Personally, I took the grandparent's post to mean something more like "I agree, how come no one (or atleast neither major party) thinks that cutting taxes and spending less is a good idea (/why do they think this is bad)?"
You get a few other things that the US version doesn't, as well: the Charge kit, and extra wireless controller, and the marketplace points.
I've seen this many other places, but I guess I'll pass it on here. There are several benifits you dind't mention that were there in the VHS->DVD move that aren't there for this move. (In no particular order, except when they occur to me).
Storage Space - A DVD is a lot smaller then a VHS tape, so it's easier to transport and more fit in the same area. Obviously, both of the new opctical discs are the same size.
Chapters - With a DVD it's alot easier to find a certain part, since you can jump to and skip around in chapters. This technological step up hasn't been improved for the new formats.
Durability - Both in terms of resistance to physical damage and how long the video stays at a reasonable quality (try watchng a VHS from more then a decade or so ago...), DVD beat out VHS. This time, same basic media, no improvement.
Ease of use - Sorta like chapters. Since VHS is a tape, you have to worry about rewinding and such. DVD is a "Put it in and play" system. Don't have to worry about rewinding when your done or if someone else forgot to when you start.
Its possible there are a few more, but if you think none of those things were a factor in DVD replacing VHS...
They've done this kind of thing atleast once before with the 360, though not publically as far as I know. I bought a 360 around new years, and since I didn't get an extended warranty (although hat was probably a little stupid), it fell out of warranty about the end of March. Back in July, I think it was, they released a big new feature filled patch (the one with background downloading, finally). A few days after that, my 360 started locking up and then showing the Red lights. A little browsing the internet later, I found out quite a few other people had had similarly coincidental hardware failures. After a quick talk with their tech support, I ended up getting the 360 replaced for free, despite it being out of warranty.
It's good to see MS officially admitting that there were hardware problems a large portion of the launch units and fixing them, just like any recall of a deffective product is a good thing to see.
Being a 20 something (21 specifically) who is going to be finishing college in a year or so, and working at an internship this summer that (if it were year round) would be only a little below 50k, I believe I fit your bill.
And let me say that, while I don't have much history with the 8-bit console generation besides playing duck hunt on my neighbors NES from time to time, my first big generation was the 16-bits (SNES and Genisis). Among my friends, it's mostly the same way, and those that didn't start in 16-bit mostly started in 8 bit. I think sony is going to need to wait untill they get to the PS4 at least to be able to claim that a goodly percent of those "just out of college" + "money to burn" types grew up on Playstations.
And for the record, I have absolutely no desire to get a PS3 and am waiting to see how the Wii does with interest.
The analog sticks where barely even used on the PS1. And the games that did always worked fine with the classic DPad controller anyway. (Don't forget, PS1 didn't get the dual shock for quite a while).
As for L2/R2, that is a pretty big problem. Best solution I can think of off the top of my head is, analog stick for movement (replaces D-Pad), and use some of the PSP's DPad to replace the missing buttons (but that's very awkward).
I have a PSP, and I'd say that if this takes off and gets some good games in it, I would seriously consider getting a bigger memory stick (since I doubt the 32-meg it came with would work all that well for storing games), and even re-buying one or two of my old PS1 games (plus there were certainly quite a few good games in that generation I missed anyway).
Hell, I was already planning to buy Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth as soon as Best Buy (which I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole if I didn't have a 50$ gift card to spend) gets it back in stock, and it's supposed to be a "Remake with better cutscenes" deal (think the FF:Anthologies/Origins for PSX).
The first time I found the menu, I thought it was pretty neet, though I've occasionally been unplesently supprised by the "Hard" for deafault game difficulty that I set. The only weird thing about it is how it's practically hidden. It should have been part of the new-profile set up atleast.
Also, they seem to be pretty universally enforced. Atleast, I haven't found a game that ignored them yet (and I've at least rented a good portion of the game library).
Good news! You didn't!
It's right here (and clearly different from anything you saw if you had sigs off):
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 6000 of me. God help us all!
(sarcasm warning: I also see the thing he's complaining about)
Charging for functionality? Since when was Lumines (or any other game) "functionality"? I could see this almost working if you were complaining about the themes/icons, but complaining that they are charging for a game?
The fact of the matter is, XBL is still just a flat rate for the service, and charging for content (not functionality) is nothing new.
I think the point of this article isn't so much that proxy servers are some sort of new, unexpected problem. It's more that people outside the geek community are starting to discover them (and maybe other things that have traditionally been known only to the techy types). I know back when I was in highschool (ugh, makes me sound so old .. graduated a little over 3 years ago), me and a bunch of friends who took just about all the computer-related classes my HS offered used proxies all the time to get past our school filters. Hell, I even ran one for a little while because finding a reliable, fast proxy could be a bother. But I guarantee you we were among the less-than-1% of the school that even knew what a "proxy server" did. Now maybe that number would be a fair bit larger. And while 10 or 15 kids getting around the proxy to play flash games and goof off (nothing extremely inapropriate, though) isn't so much of a problem, a couple hundred may need some additional seeing too.
You may be suprised to find out that there is an optional software update for the 360 that lets you plug in an iPod that lets you plug it into one of the USB ports and play music off of it. How much more could they do with a console tie in?
(Hint: sell songs on the marketplace! But that's probably less convenient then a PC).
Although I havent played Oblivion on the 360, I would think it woud have to follow the same rules as everything else. The worst that can happen is basically:
You are playing oblivion, and decide to connect to XBL. (Side note, you might want to save at this point). You connect the ethernet cable to the 360. After connecting, the guide pops up: "There is an update available for this game! You [must/should] download it before you continue playing. Options: Yes/No." Since you don't want the update, you choose "No." Since most 360 games are multiplayer, having everyone on the same version is more important then with a single-player game like Oblivion, so I don't know that it will be absolutely required (even though most updates are if you want to play). Just the same, you should have saved incase it boots you out after you tell it not to (Might even do this before the guid pops up). THe popup usually comes before the game launch, and requires the game to not be running to install. I've personally never tried this, but the worst that can happen is a few minutes inconvenience (unless you somehow manage to hit "yes").
It could be that they have a check in the installer (it's certainly possible). Although I don't remember one, my experience with setting up BF2 was for a friend (after I helped him build a new computer), and about a year ago. I do remember that it definetly worked when we ran it, despite his concerns about the XP requirement on the package. If it did take any special messing around w/ the installer, it wasn't much.
Battlefield 2 (along with every other program that claims it requires XP that I've ever seen) runs fine on Windows 2k. From what I remember, they don't even bother to block Win2k in the installer (like some programs - which still work in Win2k after you get them installed), it just says "Requires Windows XP" on the box. My guess is that's just so they don't have to support you if you haven't upgraded to XP.
No worries, I only found out that info because I wanted to see a picture of one.
That's actually what I thought this was going to be when I saw the title. It seems like a kiosk/vending machine where you can but new songs on iTunes would be a pretty good idea in the same kinds of places this is (maybe right next to it? even better!). After all, leaving for a flight in 30 minutes and you want that new album/single, or the song you just heard over the PA system (special tie in bonus! the recently played music list where relevant), or maybe just an old favorite you don't have loaded on just in time for your flight? No worries, just find the local iPod kiosk and buy an album to load on.
I think a physical connection adapter (maybe like the docking station like this one, or a retractable version of the cord that comes with it) would make it more accessible, since I would bet most people don't have or want a BlueTooth adapter.
I think you mean the 20th Anniversary Mac, and Lain was first aired a year after the 20th Anniv. Mac came out, so the Navi might have been inspired by it.
And for that reason alone I found racing games on the PS2 to be needlessly harder then they should have been. I've played GT4 and Forza both quite a bit, and controlling the car's gas and brake pedals with triggers (Forza's default setup - tho you can use the face buttons if you really want to) that have a sensitivity over a range of atleast 1/2 inch is much easier then controlling the same with a pressure sensitive button (GT4 in all setups, the PS2 controllers don't have the right kind of triggers) where you have maybe 1/10 of an inch difference between nothing and full throttle.
.. but they had the disadvantage of not being standard on all controllers so it isn't quite fair).
Point is, most developers were right to not try to use those buttons. They weren't nearly precise enough for delicate controls when compared with the same tech in the XBox. This motion sensing controller may or may not have similar problems, but there is a precedent for poorly implemented extra controller features from Sony. (Infact, I'd argue that the original PSX analog sticks are a similar 'feature'
If you think that's pretty bad, I've killed AI's having conversations with other AI's (mostly bandits in dungeons talking about how scary mudcrabs are while they wear full glass armor, but that's another story) and their conversation partner just turns around and finds someone else to talk to.
Don't get me wrong, Radiant AI is pretty cool most of the time (outside of combat, and when not talking about mudcrabs), but when it messes up it messes up bigtime.
acheivements and gamerscore are coming to Vista.
I can picture it now:
Microsoft Office Vista:
* Formated a document using Bold [10 Points]
* Narrowed the margins to make your report seem longer then it is [50 Points]
* Printed more then 10 copies of a document [25 Points]
* Saved the same document more then 20 times [10 Points]
* Created a new document [5 Points]
* Created 100 new documents [100 Points]
Oh boy! I sure know I can't wait!