I have a GameCube, multiple GameBoys (color, etc), an xBox and...
I'm going to wait until PS3 and NR are here and I can see what actual games work on them and what they feel like.
I'll probably get a PS3 this time, but maybe I'll get a NR instead. But the xBox360 severely underwhelmed me. Maybe if I had an HDTV right now I might be more into it, but from my perspective it's the Games that matter, not the console itself.
The reason I bought Sims 2 for the xBox was the graphics were better than the GameCube version. I'm still pretty unimpressed with the xBox, and moreso the xBox360.
ah, so nice to hear from the embittered and distrustful amongst us.
Sure, maybe it doesn't make sense to you, but noone is requiring you to get married, or even live with someone.
Some people prefer the single life, living with thier pets or tamagotchi, able to live online at 2 am instead of having to go to bed and do unseemly things that make you all warm and fuzzy inside.
That's the beauty of it, you get to choose. Now, in Japan, you'd be obligated to give V-Day Choco to your boss, co-workers, friends and boyfriends - and supposedly they'd give you Choco on White Day. And you'd be all stressed out by the whole thing. There V-Day is more of an event than Christmas is for us. And New Years has more meaning.
"On January 19, 2005, the European Industry Association for Information Systems (EICTA) announced that HDCP is a required component of the European "HD ready" Label."
A new requirement for a label is not the same thing as "I can plug my PS3 or xBox360 into my HDTV if I live in Europe or Japan and it works".
I remember doing that when I was in my late teens and early twenties. It was funny. Of course, back then it was play-by-mail games, and BBS chats. You'd be surprised how many guys propose marriage to people they assume are girls but aren't really such.
I used to roll a die to figure out which gender I was going to play - 1-3 male, 4-6 female - and tried to stay consistent with the persona, even when it started getting a bit silly - good thing most of my female characters had a tendency to kill off unwanted suitors at the drop of a hat.
You're telling me that the Revolution, Nintendo's stop gap console with a radically new controller, 20 years of backwards compatability, and easier developer programming (or so I've heard), which is coming out sometime this year is not going to be a primary focus?
Of course not. The focus will be on the handheld Nintendo games, and plans to make them more wireless group compatible, with more cooperative local team games.
Basically, so that people can play Nintendogs in a virtual dog park while waiting for the bus.
Why push a product that isn't at launch instead of a growing market segment product that is taking off like wildfire?
The issue isn't whether or not the PS3 and 360 will display correctly on the HDTVs since both will work just fine. The issue the OP is talking about is that your TV is required to have HDCP (High Definition Content Protection) since few/none of the original HDTVs that were sold in America support.
And my point was this is perhaps a problem in the US, but not in Europe or Japan.
For a lot of folks, myself included, HDCP will negate the Blu-Ray. If you get downgraded content for not having the correct cables and TV, what's the point? Sure, next time I buy an HDTV it'll have more than component input. But by the time that happens players will be cheap and people will be looking forward to the PS4.
This is a US problem only. HDTV has been out in Japan and Europe since the last century.
But, in a related question, is it likely that the PS3 release will coincide closely enough with the mandatory HDTV requirements in the US that it will be "blamed" for the sudden upsurge of HDTV sales?
People with POS PCs like yours are not even in the fringe market for new GPUs.
Today's new GPU is next year's POS PC.
We all know that. I can't tell you how many decades I shelled out anywhere from $2000 to $8000 for the latest and greatest. Nowadays, the difference between a $500 laptop and last year's $2000 GPU PC is - nothing.
So why not make sure that video cards designed for mobile CPUs (as this one is), can be UPGRADED for existing laptops?
We don't buy a new car just because there's a new sound system out for it. We just have the new one installed.
Men, this shit that some sources sling around about America wanting out of fps games, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle over their 5.1 surround sound. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your virtual homes and your virtual loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be out fragged by a high ping bastard n00b. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, everyone of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.
All I know is that a lot of the time I was in the Army, we weren't playing FPS games. We'd play stuff like Mario Kart or Donkey Kong, or Tetris.
We spent too much time doing FPS. If we wanted to do more FPS, we'd pop on down to the range and shoot off a few mags, or sneak into a paint gun or laser tag game pretending we weren't military and have fun mowing down the newbs.
The basic problem is that you bought a fuckin' eMachine! What were you thinkin!?!
I was thinking... um... oh, I know... that it was a $500 laptop with 11b/g wireless, 2600 AMD CPU, a video card that would run The Sims 2, and that I could put 706MB of RAM in for an additional $20.
From that viewpoint, it's been great.
My point is that having non-upgradeable video cards for laptops is kind of silly.
Probably true. The only problem with this is that if dogs are their thing, those 1.5 million people could have adopted real puppies instead and saved them from being put to sleep.
Yeah, but you're assuming they want to:
a. have to clean up after the dog. b. want the dog to grow up. c. want to keep the same dog. d. want to have to drive to the dog park in the pouring rain or snow or the dog gets unruly when they're having to do the laundry and pick up the kids.
Virtual dogs have none of these problems, plus when you have to do something, you just put them on pause. Plus, if you get bored with your German Shepherd puppy, you can buy the Chihuahua version and you've got four new puppies to play with!
Not Yah, but stick head in sand
on
Mario All Grown Up?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I don't think it's that women find games too complex, I think it's that they find currently offered games:
1. too boring (FPS bang bang bleed bleed no challenge after first time); 2. too involved (takes 30 minutes before it really kicks in, hard to pause, save takes forever); 3. not group-oriented (sure, you can battle faceless opponents worldwide via wifi, but can you play with your neighbors or coworkers at lunch?); 4. too action-oriented not cooperative.
Many studies have shown that most games fail on those counts for women and girls. And last time I checked, they had lots of disposable income to spend on that, instead of on the latest Beach Volleyball game.
Re: These are not the DS sales you're looking for
on
Mario All Grown Up?
·
· Score: 1
well, you're probably only counting US titles.
A lot of people play Mah Jong and Karate games on DS handhelds in Japan, for example, or sports games which are very popular worldwide - with networked DS fantasy sports teams.
When reading analyses of markets, always ask yourself - which market? US? World? Euro? Japan?
No, they'll be stuck with an FPS that only attracts their core audience.
That was their core audience.
If you look at unit sales and profitability, you'll see the audience is shifting.
Now, I'm not saying that, for example, the move by Nintendo DS to such other areas will be as successful with Nintendo Revolution. I'm not really sure how the markets are shaping up.
It's possible that US metrics will show FPS to still be dominant, while world metrics may soon show a shift away from that.
But I do know that the growth, as I said, is highly concentrated, even in the US, in the women and girls markets, whereas the boys and men markets are at or near saturation - and many other articles have pointed this out.
Mind you, I'm basing some of this on reports by Konami at their annual shareholders meeting [english videocast] and other data that I've read in the Wall Street Journal. I'm not that into gaming as a business, even if I do own and have owned shares in companies in that sphere.
But, as with all things, gaming changes and moves. Sometimes when you're high on the wave, you can't see the forces at work to cause it to crash - sometimes you can sense it early on though.
and I'm saying that as an Intel shareholder (can't remember if it's 200 or 300 shares).
Now, if they'd just said "we will support unlimited on Intel chips and, once we test it out with AMD, will release an AMD version in six months that supports their most popular chipsets", that would have been workable.
But not supporting AMD means my laptop would be included.
Slashdot Mirror
If we'd just gone along with the HDTV signal patterns used by the rest of the world, none of this would have been a problem.
... and it isn't even better, it's worse.
But no, we had to go create our own version
I for one, am doing just that.
...
I have a GameCube, multiple GameBoys (color, etc), an xBox and
I'm going to wait until PS3 and NR are here and I can see what actual games work on them and what they feel like.
I'll probably get a PS3 this time, but maybe I'll get a NR instead. But the xBox360 severely underwhelmed me. Maybe if I had an HDTV right now I might be more into it, but from my perspective it's the Games that matter, not the console itself.
The reason I bought Sims 2 for the xBox was the graphics were better than the GameCube version. I'm still pretty unimpressed with the xBox, and moreso the xBox360.
No, I think he did mean Spore. All the TV coverage said that it was something that stuck in people's minds and grew.
ah, so nice to hear from the embittered and distrustful amongst us.
Sure, maybe it doesn't make sense to you, but noone is requiring you to get married, or even live with someone.
Some people prefer the single life, living with thier pets or tamagotchi, able to live online at 2 am instead of having to go to bed and do unseemly things that make you all warm and fuzzy inside.
That's the beauty of it, you get to choose. Now, in Japan, you'd be obligated to give V-Day Choco to your boss, co-workers, friends and boyfriends - and supposedly they'd give you Choco on White Day. And you'd be all stressed out by the whole thing. There V-Day is more of an event than Christmas is for us. And New Years has more meaning.
"On January 19, 2005, the European Industry Association for Information Systems (EICTA) announced that HDCP is a required component of the European "HD ready" Label."
A new requirement for a label is not the same thing as "I can plug my PS3 or xBox360 into my HDTV if I live in Europe or Japan and it works".
Works. Not uses a new overlay of protocols.
Again, mountains made from molehills.
Many Males Online role playing Girls!
I remember doing that when I was in my late teens and early twenties. It was funny. Of course, back then it was play-by-mail games, and BBS chats. You'd be surprised how many guys propose marriage to people they assume are girls but aren't really such.
I used to roll a die to figure out which gender I was going to play - 1-3 male, 4-6 female - and tried to stay consistent with the persona, even when it started getting a bit silly - good thing most of my female characters had a tendency to kill off unwanted suitors at the drop of a hat.
You're telling me that the Revolution, Nintendo's stop gap console with a radically new controller, 20 years of backwards compatability, and easier developer programming (or so I've heard), which is coming out sometime this year is not going to be a primary focus?
Of course not. The focus will be on the handheld Nintendo games, and plans to make them more wireless group compatible, with more cooperative local team games.
Basically, so that people can play Nintendogs in a virtual dog park while waiting for the bus.
Why push a product that isn't at launch instead of a growing market segment product that is taking off like wildfire?
The issue isn't whether or not the PS3 and 360 will display correctly on the HDTVs since both will work just fine. The issue the OP is talking about is that your TV is required to have HDCP (High Definition Content Protection) since few/none of the original HDTVs that were sold in America support.
And my point was this is perhaps a problem in the US, but not in Europe or Japan.
Thanks for agreeing with me.
and the reaction to one's words after a few slipped pixels is always a good sign.
... well ...
Now if they hadn't disabled the hack in Sims 2 with the latest patch
Let's just say that choosing an online avatar that actually corresponds to one's self is a good thing.
HDTV
not
HDCP
Sorry, but both the PS3 and xBox360 will work with existing HDTV sets in Europe and Japan.
For a lot of folks, myself included, HDCP will negate the Blu-Ray. If you get downgraded content for not having the correct cables and TV, what's the point? Sure, next time I buy an HDTV it'll have more than component input. But by the time that happens players will be cheap and people will be looking forward to the PS4.
This is a US problem only. HDTV has been out in Japan and Europe since the last century.
But, in a related question, is it likely that the PS3 release will coincide closely enough with the mandatory HDTV requirements in the US that it will be "blamed" for the sudden upsurge of HDTV sales?
And look forward to the appearance of their mold-controlled Giant Robots!
You're right. Animal Crossing sucked.
Actually, I love Animal Crossing. There's just something about being able to talk in Animalese and the parodies of human society are immensely funny.
Now, I haven't checked out the sequel, I admit.
People with POS PCs like yours are not even in the fringe market for new GPUs.
Today's new GPU is next year's POS PC.
We all know that. I can't tell you how many decades I shelled out anywhere from $2000 to $8000 for the latest and greatest. Nowadays, the difference between a $500 laptop and last year's $2000 GPU PC is - nothing.
So why not make sure that video cards designed for mobile CPUs (as this one is), can be UPGRADED for existing laptops?
We don't buy a new car just because there's a new sound system out for it. We just have the new one installed.
Men, this shit that some sources sling around about America wanting out of fps games, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle over their 5.1 surround sound. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your virtual homes and your virtual loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be out fragged by a high ping bastard n00b. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, everyone of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.
All I know is that a lot of the time I was in the Army, we weren't playing FPS games. We'd play stuff like Mario Kart or Donkey Kong, or Tetris.
We spent too much time doing FPS. If we wanted to do more FPS, we'd pop on down to the range and shoot off a few mags, or sneak into a paint gun or laser tag game pretending we weren't military and have fun mowing down the newbs.
damn good point, if only more laptop makers thought this way...
Exactly, how hard is it to put an access port so you can remove your video card and replace it?
Sure, most won't bother, but haven't we all wanted the ability?
The basic problem is that you bought a fuckin' eMachine! What were you thinkin!?!
... um ... oh, I know ... that it was a $500 laptop with 11b/g wireless, 2600 AMD CPU, a video card that would run The Sims 2, and that I could put 706MB of RAM in for an additional $20.
I was thinking
From that viewpoint, it's been great.
My point is that having non-upgradeable video cards for laptops is kind of silly.
Probably true. The only problem with this is that if dogs are their thing, those 1.5 million people could have adopted real puppies instead and saved them from being put to sleep.
Yeah, but you're assuming they want to:
a. have to clean up after the dog.
b. want the dog to grow up.
c. want to keep the same dog.
d. want to have to drive to the dog park in the pouring rain or snow or the dog gets unruly when they're having to do the laundry and pick up the kids.
Virtual dogs have none of these problems, plus when you have to do something, you just put them on pause. Plus, if you get bored with your German Shepherd puppy, you can buy the Chihuahua version and you've got four new puppies to play with!
I don't think it's that women find games too complex, I think it's that they find currently offered games:
1. too boring (FPS bang bang bleed bleed no challenge after first time);
2. too involved (takes 30 minutes before it really kicks in, hard to pause, save takes forever);
3. not group-oriented (sure, you can battle faceless opponents worldwide via wifi, but can you play with your neighbors or coworkers at lunch?);
4. too action-oriented not cooperative.
Many studies have shown that most games fail on those counts for women and girls. And last time I checked, they had lots of disposable income to spend on that, instead of on the latest Beach Volleyball game.
well, you're probably only counting US titles.
A lot of people play Mah Jong and Karate games on DS handhelds in Japan, for example, or sports games which are very popular worldwide - with networked DS fantasy sports teams.
When reading analyses of markets, always ask yourself - which market? US? World? Euro? Japan?
I normally presume we're talking world market.
No, they'll be stuck with an FPS that only attracts their core audience.
That was their core audience.
If you look at unit sales and profitability, you'll see the audience is shifting.
Now, I'm not saying that, for example, the move by Nintendo DS to such other areas will be as successful with Nintendo Revolution. I'm not really sure how the markets are shaping up.
It's possible that US metrics will show FPS to still be dominant, while world metrics may soon show a shift away from that.
But I do know that the growth, as I said, is highly concentrated, even in the US, in the women and girls markets, whereas the boys and men markets are at or near saturation - and many other articles have pointed this out.
Mind you, I'm basing some of this on reports by Konami at their annual shareholders meeting [english videocast] and other data that I've read in the Wall Street Journal. I'm not that into gaming as a business, even if I do own and have owned shares in companies in that sphere.
But, as with all things, gaming changes and moves. Sometimes when you're high on the wave, you can't see the forces at work to cause it to crash - sometimes you can sense it early on though.
Perhaps we're at that point?
All this graphics card wow factor is meaningless to me.
...
Now, fix that basic problem for my AMD 2600 eMachines laptop, so I could actually upgrade my video card, and I'd be interested.
But until then
Which is why Nintendogs is doing so well.
If game companies don't grok this, they'll be stuck with FPS that noone wants to play.
and I'm saying that as an Intel shareholder (can't remember if it's 200 or 300 shares).
Now, if they'd just said "we will support unlimited on Intel chips and, once we test it out with AMD, will release an AMD version in six months that supports their most popular chipsets", that would have been workable.
But not supporting AMD means my laptop would be included.
And that means I'll switch.
Too bad.
It fell out when I wasn't watching where I was going around Deimos, and I had to limp home on solar sails.
...
Um, any chance they can return it to me any time soon? Those things are real expensive