Either there's simply more focus on MS this year, or something is up -- why would they all be leaving prior to Vista's launch?
Especially all of these "no comment" departures. Gates' reduction in responsibility makes sense, but these other guys seem to be in rather important roles ("head blogger," "exec responsible for Google competition," etc) and are bailing out. I could understand if they had people lined up for these positions, but it seems like they're just leaving.
still hard to really tell
on
Wii-mote In Action
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· Score: 4, Interesting
The Wii thing really seems like a "try it to get it" sort of thing. The concepts are easy enough to explain, sure, but I don't think I'll really understand just exactly how to move the controller.
Does that mean I'm getting old? Now that I think about it, it sounds like my dad, who rocked the joystick back when we had an Atari XE, didn't really get newer controllers until he was actually playing a game (and usually got confused by the multiple things to control).
But yeah, wiggling and shaking demonstrates how it works, but given the fine control w/ the "Wii-mote," I still think it'll be until people have it in their hand that they really get it. Didn't people at E3 say that people started out gesticulating wildly, and then calmed down when it "clicked"? Luckily it seems like a very easy thing to pick up.
Most of the later generation Sega games were very "wet noodle" style of gaming -- let's throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. They obviously had a great number of fans with Sonic, but one franchise rarely "makes" a console, let alone keeps a company afloat. And even then, when Sonic went 3d, it lost what made it unique.
When I was younger, I'd see Sega commercials on TV, but I never saw much in the way of games that were truly interesting. Looking back, there's still just a handful that were released, and many involved the myriad "peripheral-crazy" systems. I was mildly interested back in the Genesis days, and there were some cross-platform games that were genuinely better on the Genesis. But that was it, for me, until the Dreamcast.
In hindsight, I personally think the Dreamcast could've done very well if for 2 things -- Sega had added another thumbstick to the right side, and they hadn't thrown all their money and goodwill away in the mid 90's. It's still a damn good system, and given the short amount of time it was on the market it has a surprising amount of good games. But given the bad timing and the lack of popularity of its previous systems, it's not surprising that even a good console fails.
Eh, I don't think so. How are you going to track and stop something that, as has been said earlier in the comments, deals with files that are in many cases less than 1mb? You can dump the entire NES catalog to someone via FTP in a few minutes, it seems, and if you focus on just the good games for each console, it's trivial to move those files around.
Nintendo has been trying to crack down on ROM distributors for a while now, and failed. People keep playing them and Nintendo never really gains anything from stopping one. To me, this is their response to the ROM dilemma -- distribute the games yourself, from a centralized location, and charge an arguably fair price.
I personally see it as a bit expensive for a digital copy of an old game that, in many cases, is higher than the used market for these titles. I may be surprised, and the purchase be "lifetime" purchases that work on not only the Wii, but future Wiis and future consoles. What would be even nicer is if the Wii could transfer the games to the DS or the "GBA 2." But I'm firmly convinced that Nintendo figured "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," and worked out a way to digitally offer these games. They know people aren't going to track down the original cartridges and old hardware just to play them; they want to play them from the comfort of their computer or current system.
yeah, but DVDs had already been on the market for over 3 years by the time the PS2 launched -- movies were being released on both formats and the "early adopters" had already given DVD the obvious boost. The PS2 certainly helped the DVD market, but given the very obvious advantages over VHS (which, to most consumers, was "never need to rewind"), it didn't "break the market wide open; it helped a new format reach more people faster. DVD players typically cost over $200, and many figured they would simply buy the PS2 since it could play games as well. That was still primarily among the gamer crowd, though.
With the PS3, it will basically be introducing the format to the market. There won't be any movies (or maybe 3-5 movies) available at the time of launch, and very few people will rush out to buy one as a primary Blu-Ray player -- most won't even care about the format.
Now, in 3-4 years, once the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war is in full swing, the option of Blu-Ray could help the PS3. But at that point the console wars are typically declared.
Unlike the internet, you need specialized equipment in order to even listen to ham radio. You can't just turn to the station on the dial in the car, which is where most people listen to the radio. And despite the complexity, it's much easier to get into using a computer compared to taking a leap into ham radio, especially since figuring out what exactly you're going to listen to is such an issue.
It seems that if you have something worthwhile to spread, a podcast that allows people to listen when they want is both more efficient and easier to set up, and even if it's unpopular you're likely to get more listeners. While there have been some important aspects to ham radio, including some of the first responders for Katrina, the Sri Lankan tsunami, and "9/11", the fact that they were so limited in who could listen in seems to be the most drastic problem. Most people don't even know they still exist.
Seems to be like the biggest hurdle for these games to succeed in retail is precisely why they do well online -- space.
For most new products, the hurdle of limited space drastically reduces the ability for a newcomer to make a dent in the market. Stores have little reason to stock something they're unsure of, and they know little about it. That goes doubly so for video games, due to the sheer magnitude of games, let alone how drastically different the games are. How do you explain to a customer that a new indie game is "the perfect mix of Robotron and Tetris blended with a reactive light synth" if they've only played Tetris before... and the professional Tetris is sitting just one row over?
Online, all of these games can build up a reputation for quality, or graphics, or just plain fun gameplay. I don't see how moving into a retail space really helps the indie developers, especially if they end up bundled with other games, or forced to share shelf space with non-indie games. I mean, I almost never see people actively perusing the "cheapy" software aisles at Best Buy. It just seems like a bad pairing to add more software that people have never heard of without the advantages of an online network of support, namely large screenshots, lots of actual customer reviews, demos, and so on.
Sounds, maybe, but in reality entirely different. To go into the shell you simply duck, which makes you mostly impervious. And it differentiates itself further in use, as while you will go into "shell mode" after dashing for a short period, precious few of the levels are truly set up for it, and even in those cases it's often simply for a short portion.
Ultimately, what that means is that it's really more of a "challenge" powerup rather than simply a speed powerup. You can't control the length of your jumps and there's no convenient loops or pipes to zoom around in like in Sonic. Think about Sonic in SMB 1, with all the holes in the ground, square steps, and flat walls. Now remove the blue hedgehog's easy maneuverability while buzzing around the screen.
Unfortunately, "fast and invincible" is not particular to any franchise.
Since these are the "premium" requirements, it does seem like they're overestimating. On the other hand, *most* of the time "minimum" means just that -- an absolute minimum, at which point the system will boot and function, but horribly slow. If they're overestimating, then perhaps the requirements are a "comfortable minimum."
Personally I find that more useful anyway; after all, it's useless to know what a minimum is if it's the bare minimum, but very useful to know at which point the system is happy and will respond at about the same speed, leaving extra resources for applications.
Still, given how many manufacturers still ship 256 or 512 in their computers, I wouldn't be surprised at all if what you said holds true -- that this causes all of these OEMs to up their prices to accomodate the 1gig benchmark. After all, it's just an extra line of text: "Be Vista Compatible! Get 1 gig or more of RAM!"
This is just someone cashing in on a recent event in a rather crude way, in an attempt to "address school shootings." You need to address things that happen often and repeatedly, such as a drug or crime problem. You can't address something that rarely happens; it's like addressing "shark attacks" or "mountain lion maulings."
It's in the same boat as that "suicide bomber" flash game and the JFK game. The only thing that's interesting about any of these things is that the internet allows most anyone to create something and publish it. That's not a function of the games, but the ability for the creator to distribute. It's no different from someone's manifesto making it online, compared to the earlier method of sitting in a shoebox under the bed.
Your idea of failing and theirs are likely different, though. Many gamers believe "failing" to mean "selling the fewest amount of consoles." But they're still profitable, which, to me, is a "win."
So yes, they'll likely continue to develop and create new consoles until it no longer proves to be profitable. And the reason they do so well on the software is (a) they fully understand the hardware, and (b) they can often create the hardware to do what they want in software.
They also get %100 of the profits on their own games, vs. a licensing scheme where they would get at most %80.
So, now not only do they have the platform that most developers use for games, but they're also going to be the source for most advertising within those games. Makes you wonder if they'll be using it to pull any strings, like "hey, if you used our closed source development tools, we'll give you a discount on our ads!"
Since you just switched, I'll give you some tips that I learned when I first got my mac 2 years ago. Maybe at least they'll help your wife overcome some of the initial hurdles:
1. Start Menu. Most people use the Start menu to launch their applications. To do this, all you need to do is drag the Applications folder next to the Trash on the Dock. Then a simple right-click opens it up, similar to Start>Programs. Utilities, like setting up printers and Terminal, are at the bottom in the U section (so Applications>Utilities). For system stuff, it's just the other corner then (the Apple).
2. Hotkeys. Control is OK as a hotkey, but it's unnatural when typing a lot. It forces you to take your hand off the home row and use a finger not known for its dexterity. You'll notice that the apple/command key is right next to the keyboard, so simply slide your [left] thumb over a bit. It's a very natural movement and doesn't require you to lift your hand up. If you're a hunt/peck typist, though, it's just relearning the location, although I'd still recommend using the thumb.
3. Right Click. I don't know which mouse you're using, but every mouse I've plugged into my mac defaults the right click to "control click" and pops up a context menu where applicable.
4. Windows-style uninstall. This would entail using a Windows-style install, which would mean putting lots of random little files in random places. I much prefer Apple's "throw it in the trash like any other file" system, especially since it's smart enough to realize when something's been thrown away and removes references to it in the shell. If you're worried about the little 5k text file left over, well, they're easy to track down and delete as well, since they're usually placed in ~/Library/Preferences.
It took me a little while to get used to OS X, but it's really more an issue of some things just being different. They're not going to win converts by doing everything just like Windows; if anything, the things you point out do a good job of highlighting their differences. People have been using the "quirks" of OS X just fine for years now, and it's a great way to show people that there's more than one way to accomplish the same tasks, and the one you're used to isn't always best.
I assume the DVD-RW is mentioned to point out that he reuses the same disc or discs over and over again. It starts to eat into the effectiveness when you need to buy more RW discs, catalog them, store them, etc.
I thought it was already established that there were a large number of people who didn't like FF7 when it came out, and more who changed their mind as time went on?
For many people, it was the first Final Fantasy game that they played, so it's obvious why there are many who hold it in high regard. But it's sluggishly paced and the characters are mostly interchangeable towards the end game, despite their roles (or lack thereof in some cases) in the story.
Perhaps, except that his use of dual analog controls is really what makes the game fun. The limited movement on the PSP proves that in a large part, the controller's abilities made the game what it was.
The thing that I don't understand about criticisms of the controller is that they seem to ignore the fact that "attachments" seem to be the order of the day. I'll balk at the Big N as much as the next guy if each attachment runs $20 and you need 4 or 5 in order to play the best games, but ignoring that, there's no reason he couldn't create a very creative game, and then create an attachment that really works for the game -- instead of having to graft it on to a standard controller.
It's actually been switching, even by Nintendo themselves. In the US, we now get "hard modes" tacked on to our delayed releases, and they typically tweak difficulty so it's actually harder in the US. One of the more notable examples was Metroid Prime, where we got a hard mode that Japan didn't get.
It used to be the case because here, the NES was pretty much for kids -- in Japan, it was for everyone. But in Japan, they still focus on story and quirkiness. A good example is many of the Final Fantasy extras. They made FF4 "easy" for US gamers. Yet they added the ultra-difficult WEAPONs for the US release.
If anything, it's been the easier games that haven't made the jump across the pacific, especially if you look at some of the games released in Japan that are purely simulators or offer little competition.
Here's the big ones, IMO, from a mac user's perspective:
Memory leaks
321283 - Using Find causes documents to leak.
323532 - Leak when using history autocomplete.
323377 - Lots of leaks in nsInternetSearchService.
Numerous times would I come home to see Firefox using over a gig of memory and eating up about 40% of my proc cycles. A quick quit/restart of the app would fix it, but still -- I regularly close tabs and don't develop long histories on multiple open tabs, so it didn't make any sense.
I just hope that those leaks are the ones I was actually experiencing...
When was it? Mine was in 2002, in Minnesota. Then again, given how different phone company's customer service reps are, maybe I just got nice ones (or you got mean ones)
The only one I currently battle is using "architect" as a verb. I'm a geek enough to know what paradigms, quanta, and synergy is, so I actually enjoy their use (because it's easy to use them mockingly, and it helps to point out the cliche).
After all, to me it's not so much that these words or phrases are bad. It's that they're often being used in entirely the wrong context, like your bandwidth example. Or using "download" seriously when nothing's being downloaded. At that point, it's only one quick hop over to cliche, and then the term's doomed, no matter how useful it may be perceived.
You make it sound like OS X isn't already the main reason to buy a computer from Apple.
If anything, this will get more people to buy macs and will cause more of them to get sick of dual booting, and will put pressure on companies to simply support OS X. After all, even if your customers can boot into Windows, do you want to force them to?
I don't know if it's that new. Cybersquatting's been a term for quite a while, and this is just a type of cybersquatting that's based on typos. Which has also been around for quite a long time; basically as long as people have realized that with web ads, more traffic = more money.
Slashdot Mirror
Either there's simply more focus on MS this year, or something is up -- why would they all be leaving prior to Vista's launch? Especially all of these "no comment" departures. Gates' reduction in responsibility makes sense, but these other guys seem to be in rather important roles ("head blogger," "exec responsible for Google competition," etc) and are bailing out. I could understand if they had people lined up for these positions, but it seems like they're just leaving.
Does that mean I'm getting old? Now that I think about it, it sounds like my dad, who rocked the joystick back when we had an Atari XE, didn't really get newer controllers until he was actually playing a game (and usually got confused by the multiple things to control).
But yeah, wiggling and shaking demonstrates how it works, but given the fine control w/ the "Wii-mote," I still think it'll be until people have it in their hand that they really get it. Didn't people at E3 say that people started out gesticulating wildly, and then calmed down when it "clicked"? Luckily it seems like a very easy thing to pick up.
Of course! He's James Brown!
When I was younger, I'd see Sega commercials on TV, but I never saw much in the way of games that were truly interesting. Looking back, there's still just a handful that were released, and many involved the myriad "peripheral-crazy" systems. I was mildly interested back in the Genesis days, and there were some cross-platform games that were genuinely better on the Genesis. But that was it, for me, until the Dreamcast.
In hindsight, I personally think the Dreamcast could've done very well if for 2 things -- Sega had added another thumbstick to the right side, and they hadn't thrown all their money and goodwill away in the mid 90's. It's still a damn good system, and given the short amount of time it was on the market it has a surprising amount of good games. But given the bad timing and the lack of popularity of its previous systems, it's not surprising that even a good console fails.
Perhaps, except it's "up up down down left right left right b a start"
Nintendo has been trying to crack down on ROM distributors for a while now, and failed. People keep playing them and Nintendo never really gains anything from stopping one. To me, this is their response to the ROM dilemma -- distribute the games yourself, from a centralized location, and charge an arguably fair price.
I personally see it as a bit expensive for a digital copy of an old game that, in many cases, is higher than the used market for these titles. I may be surprised, and the purchase be "lifetime" purchases that work on not only the Wii, but future Wiis and future consoles. What would be even nicer is if the Wii could transfer the games to the DS or the "GBA 2." But I'm firmly convinced that Nintendo figured "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," and worked out a way to digitally offer these games. They know people aren't going to track down the original cartridges and old hardware just to play them; they want to play them from the comfort of their computer or current system.
With the PS3, it will basically be introducing the format to the market. There won't be any movies (or maybe 3-5 movies) available at the time of launch, and very few people will rush out to buy one as a primary Blu-Ray player -- most won't even care about the format.
Now, in 3-4 years, once the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war is in full swing, the option of Blu-Ray could help the PS3. But at that point the console wars are typically declared.
Nope, it would taste almost like chicken.
It seems that if you have something worthwhile to spread, a podcast that allows people to listen when they want is both more efficient and easier to set up, and even if it's unpopular you're likely to get more listeners. While there have been some important aspects to ham radio, including some of the first responders for Katrina, the Sri Lankan tsunami, and "9/11", the fact that they were so limited in who could listen in seems to be the most drastic problem. Most people don't even know they still exist.
For most new products, the hurdle of limited space drastically reduces the ability for a newcomer to make a dent in the market. Stores have little reason to stock something they're unsure of, and they know little about it. That goes doubly so for video games, due to the sheer magnitude of games, let alone how drastically different the games are. How do you explain to a customer that a new indie game is "the perfect mix of Robotron and Tetris blended with a reactive light synth" if they've only played Tetris before... and the professional Tetris is sitting just one row over?
Online, all of these games can build up a reputation for quality, or graphics, or just plain fun gameplay. I don't see how moving into a retail space really helps the indie developers, especially if they end up bundled with other games, or forced to share shelf space with non-indie games. I mean, I almost never see people actively perusing the "cheapy" software aisles at Best Buy. It just seems like a bad pairing to add more software that people have never heard of without the advantages of an online network of support, namely large screenshots, lots of actual customer reviews, demos, and so on.
Ultimately, what that means is that it's really more of a "challenge" powerup rather than simply a speed powerup. You can't control the length of your jumps and there's no convenient loops or pipes to zoom around in like in Sonic. Think about Sonic in SMB 1, with all the holes in the ground, square steps, and flat walls. Now remove the blue hedgehog's easy maneuverability while buzzing around the screen.
Unfortunately, "fast and invincible" is not particular to any franchise.
Personally I find that more useful anyway; after all, it's useless to know what a minimum is if it's the bare minimum, but very useful to know at which point the system is happy and will respond at about the same speed, leaving extra resources for applications.
Still, given how many manufacturers still ship 256 or 512 in their computers, I wouldn't be surprised at all if what you said holds true -- that this causes all of these OEMs to up their prices to accomodate the 1gig benchmark. After all, it's just an extra line of text: "Be Vista Compatible! Get 1 gig or more of RAM!"
It's in the same boat as that "suicide bomber" flash game and the JFK game. The only thing that's interesting about any of these things is that the internet allows most anyone to create something and publish it. That's not a function of the games, but the ability for the creator to distribute. It's no different from someone's manifesto making it online, compared to the earlier method of sitting in a shoebox under the bed.
So yes, they'll likely continue to develop and create new consoles until it no longer proves to be profitable. And the reason they do so well on the software is (a) they fully understand the hardware, and (b) they can often create the hardware to do what they want in software.
They also get %100 of the profits on their own games, vs. a licensing scheme where they would get at most %80.
So, now not only do they have the platform that most developers use for games, but they're also going to be the source for most advertising within those games. Makes you wonder if they'll be using it to pull any strings, like "hey, if you used our closed source development tools, we'll give you a discount on our ads!"
1. Start Menu. Most people use the Start menu to launch their applications. To do this, all you need to do is drag the Applications folder next to the Trash on the Dock. Then a simple right-click opens it up, similar to Start>Programs. Utilities, like setting up printers and Terminal, are at the bottom in the U section (so Applications>Utilities). For system stuff, it's just the other corner then (the Apple).
2. Hotkeys. Control is OK as a hotkey, but it's unnatural when typing a lot. It forces you to take your hand off the home row and use a finger not known for its dexterity. You'll notice that the apple/command key is right next to the keyboard, so simply slide your [left] thumb over a bit. It's a very natural movement and doesn't require you to lift your hand up. If you're a hunt/peck typist, though, it's just relearning the location, although I'd still recommend using the thumb.
3. Right Click. I don't know which mouse you're using, but every mouse I've plugged into my mac defaults the right click to "control click" and pops up a context menu where applicable.
4. Windows-style uninstall. This would entail using a Windows-style install, which would mean putting lots of random little files in random places. I much prefer Apple's "throw it in the trash like any other file" system, especially since it's smart enough to realize when something's been thrown away and removes references to it in the shell. If you're worried about the little 5k text file left over, well, they're easy to track down and delete as well, since they're usually placed in ~/Library/Preferences.
It took me a little while to get used to OS X, but it's really more an issue of some things just being different. They're not going to win converts by doing everything just like Windows; if anything, the things you point out do a good job of highlighting their differences. People have been using the "quirks" of OS X just fine for years now, and it's a great way to show people that there's more than one way to accomplish the same tasks, and the one you're used to isn't always best.
I assume the DVD-RW is mentioned to point out that he reuses the same disc or discs over and over again. It starts to eat into the effectiveness when you need to buy more RW discs, catalog them, store them, etc.
For many people, it was the first Final Fantasy game that they played, so it's obvious why there are many who hold it in high regard. But it's sluggishly paced and the characters are mostly interchangeable towards the end game, despite their roles (or lack thereof in some cases) in the story.
The thing that I don't understand about criticisms of the controller is that they seem to ignore the fact that "attachments" seem to be the order of the day. I'll balk at the Big N as much as the next guy if each attachment runs $20 and you need 4 or 5 in order to play the best games, but ignoring that, there's no reason he couldn't create a very creative game, and then create an attachment that really works for the game -- instead of having to graft it on to a standard controller.
It used to be the case because here, the NES was pretty much for kids -- in Japan, it was for everyone. But in Japan, they still focus on story and quirkiness. A good example is many of the Final Fantasy extras. They made FF4 "easy" for US gamers. Yet they added the ultra-difficult WEAPONs for the US release.
If anything, it's been the easier games that haven't made the jump across the pacific, especially if you look at some of the games released in Japan that are purely simulators or offer little competition.
- Memory leaks
- 321283 - Using Find causes documents to leak.
- 323532 - Leak when using history autocomplete.
- 323377 - Lots of leaks in nsInternetSearchService.
Numerous times would I come home to see Firefox using over a gig of memory and eating up about 40% of my proc cycles. A quick quit/restart of the app would fix it, but still -- I regularly close tabs and don't develop long histories on multiple open tabs, so it didn't make any sense.I just hope that those leaks are the ones I was actually experiencing...
When was it? Mine was in 2002, in Minnesota. Then again, given how different phone company's customer service reps are, maybe I just got nice ones (or you got mean ones)
After all, to me it's not so much that these words or phrases are bad. It's that they're often being used in entirely the wrong context, like your bandwidth example. Or using "download" seriously when nothing's being downloaded. At that point, it's only one quick hop over to cliche, and then the term's doomed, no matter how useful it may be perceived.
If anything, this will get more people to buy macs and will cause more of them to get sick of dual booting, and will put pressure on companies to simply support OS X. After all, even if your customers can boot into Windows, do you want to force them to?
I don't know if it's that new. Cybersquatting's been a term for quite a while, and this is just a type of cybersquatting that's based on typos. Which has also been around for quite a long time; basically as long as people have realized that with web ads, more traffic = more money.