I'd be satisfied by features a lot less complex. My favorite games are generally 2D. My favorite games that aren't I don't play anymore because they were multiplayer. But as far as 3D virtualization, I really don't see what's taken it so damn long. I don't see what would make that feature much more complex than "wrappers" for 3dFX Glide, which intercept the Glide calls and convert them to OpenGL or Direct3D. Wrappers that do that have been around for YEARS.
Unimportant. All Microsoft has to do is get companies to port the titles to the 360, (or let Microsoft do it for them). In that case, Sony can do fuck all. Konami has already agreed to this in the case of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" If somebody would just finish the port and release it. That's what I mean by "stealing from Sony back catalog."
When is somebody going to do this? Hell, when is somebody going to fork Dosbox and turn it into something usable? Dosbox has an immense amount of cool technical work in it, but the UI absolutely unusable. Why can't we have an actual Virtual Machine environment that can boot DOS from a disk image, and provide excellent sound support, and CGA/EGA/VGA/VESA graphics support? And *gasp* how about joystick support on par with most NES, SNES, etc emulators? Furthermore, how about some sensible CPU speed scaling? Like every other emulator for other platforms has available.
I don't know about other places, but Gamestops have playable demo stations. However I think they keep the controllers behind the counter. They are, rather understandably, worried about theft.
In my opinion, what's hurting/going to hurt the 360 in the race is not specs, and raw hardware capability, because realistically the 360 and the PS3 are pretty much dead even in terms of process power. The 360 is suffering from a horrendous drought of top tier content. Gears of War is the only thing thing out for christmas. Nintendo was able to put together a better line-up for the Wii for their launch window than Microsoft has gotten out for the 360 in a whole year. Microsoft needs more system sellers and they need them 6 months ago. I say this as someone who owns a 360. I'm an Apple fanboy, but I like the 360, I think its probably the best product Microsoft has ever produced. But it needs more top tier content. And for fucks sake, get some more stuff on live arcade. I don't know what's holding up "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" but I've been waiting on it since I bought a system in August. Microsoft needs to be making more agreements (by hook or by crook) to get as many of the PS1/PS2 classics on Live Arcade as they possibly can.
So in summary, Microsoft, I don't care what you have to do, but get lots more top quality games out there. Both original titles, and Live classics. Steal from Sony's back catalog as much as possible.
Here's the thing: I really kind of had of had my doubts about the Wii as far as attracting non-gamers went (see below), but these claims of the Wii only appealing to the young and the poor are really bizarre in my opinion. Outlets that I consider "hardcore" (like Penny-Arcade and its ilk) are positively abuzz about the Wii. As far as I can tell, "the Hardcore" are adopting the Wii and Nintendo's vision for it with open arms. Of course, as I've said in many places before, we won't really know until there are enough units out there, as the 2 or so million units sold so far appear to be insufficient to satisfy early adopter demand.
About my early doubts about the Wii and non-gamers, I've seen some very impressive things, that make me think Nintendo may just be crazy like a fox. Watching a forty year old stop at a Gamestop in the wall to play Wii sports, and responding with something equivalent to "This is fucking awesome!" and "When are these gonna be on sale?" impressed me very highly. Anecodotal reports of non-gaming girlfriends seizing controllers are also very encouraging.
It didn't really sound like a troll to me, just ignorant. Modern Consoles are just like modern computers. They have processors, ram, and video chips. They have optical drives, and local rewritable storage. They run an Operating System. This is true of all the new generation consoles (with the exception of the $300 XBOX 360, which has no storage and is useless out of the box until you add $100 or so in accessories.)
Although about the Wii specifically, I'm still hoping they'll add USB harddrive and Keyboard support in an OS update.
I think its more that mainstream industry PC gaming sucks lately, there's been a lot of cool indie stuff coming out this year. Defcon (a minimalist RTS by the makers of Darwinia) looks awesome. Lots of other stuff by Garage Games, Big Fish Studios, Introversion Software, etc.
True about few exceptions, but the ones that did exist are sorely missed. I miss the Russell Snipe/Johnny Wilson Computer Gaming World. It had real integrity and was a quality read. The late Nineties was really a painful period in the games industry, Sony and the 3D revolution cost us much more than anyone is willing to acknowledge. Scorpia, one of the very first female Gaming Journalists was fired due to orders from Ziff-Davis higher ups.
Additional problem, the components to make Airplanes, Zeppelins, Grandfather Clocks, and Pocket Watches, are not naturally occurring (gears, springs, struts, rivets, etc) Thus, even given a very large amount of time, they are VERY unlikely to evolve. The things which living organisms are made of (amino acids, lipids, sugars, various salts, water, etc) ARE naturally occurring. They form almost anywhere the prerequisite elements are found in the presence of an energy source, barring the presence of molecular oxygen. However, given that molecular oxygen is only known to occur in quantity where it is created by living things, that doesn't really pose a significant barrier.
Well, not draining per se but one could hypothetically ignite a sufficiently large thermonuclear device to burn off the atmosphere and oceans. However, that wouldn't leave the desired residue for subsequent study. More effective would probably be a number of space elevators launching the oceans bucket by bucket into space. however, nukes are much faster.
There's always the possibility the Chinese will come in and eat everybody's lunch, and given their much greater tendency (compared to the US government and others) to tell the various IP oligopolies to go fuck themselves, I'm all for it. I'd be perfectly happy to have a Chinese EVD player/recorder for my HD material, to go along with a Chinese Dragon Dream MIPS box running linux.
Actually, I had a Super Scope, and it was just as wireless as the device this company patented is. The scope itself was battery operated and wireless, it communicated with a receiver that was wired to the SNES, just like this pointer works.
The paten claim is on a wireless trigger operated pointing device. Even with priority in 1995, that leaves the NES Zapper, AND the SNES Super Scope, as wireless pointing devices from 1985 and 1992 respectively, and that's also just devices made by Nintendo. It ignores similar devices for the Sega Genesis, and Master System, among others.
You are correct, and I apologize for my error. I'm so used to consoles being UMA systems I didn't read any further in the wikipedia article. Although, I think my general point, that I think the PS3 and 360 are largely equal in terms of performance and capability, stands.
I remain EXTREMELY skeptical about Cell's vector performance being leveraged in the ways Sony keeps claiming. Your statement about Microsoft is very true. Personally I'm rooting for Nintendo to come back in a big way, although I don't really expect that we'll have any indications one way or the other for at least 3-6 months.
Could you do anything with a Latin work on Alchemy by Sir Isaac Newton? Even the other reply to my post, who claims to be doing graduate work on Newton (although in an unrelated field of newton's work) admits to being unable to read Latin. My point is that the number of people in the entire world capable of doing anything with it is vanishingly small. Let's suppose that scans of the work were available on-line (which I have nothing against), who is going to use them? A very tiny number of historical expects.
You're making an argument from authority, which is a logical fallacy. Newton was a genius in the Mathematics and Physics of his day (which he by and large created). He was not an authority on modern chemistry. Sure, I might be wrong, I'm willing to concede the faint possibility that there may be profound scientific insights in a Paper on Alchemy by Newton, BUT in the absence of any evidence supporting that claim, I'm willing to bet quite a large sum of money that there are no such scientific insights at all. At most the document may contain historical information on what Alchemists of his day believed to be true.
The only thing I've seen for the PS3 that looks even remotely impressive is White Knight, and I won't believe that would be impossible on the 360 for a second. If the PS3 has any edge at all over the 360, its the one year newer Nvidia graphics chip. The PS3 MAY have more memory speed than the 360, but the 360 has twice the capacity (512 vs. 256), so I'd say that's a wash, especially since I'm not sure how the RAMBUS components in the PS3 compare latency wise to the GDDR3 in the 360. I'm sick of the Sony Hype Machine. Of course I'm also tired of the Final Fantasy Fanboys that keep Sony alive in the console market. Both Sony and Squeenix need to be taken down a notch or two.
I'd like to second that. I think it makes a heck a lot of sense to standardize control schemes in this way, in fact, I'm rather surprised they didn't have this at launch. Wouldn't it have been cheaper for them to do it this way intead of including four GC controller ports on the new Hardware?
And what, precisely, would you do with it? Unless you are literate in the Latin used for technical literature in the 17th century (which all of Newton's official work is written in) It'd simply be a matter of, "Ayup, these scans contain images of one of Newton's treatises on Alchemy, isn't that awesome?"
I don't even really disagree with you, I'm enough of a pack rat of information that I would want to have such scans, or even the original book, but it would merely be a curiosity, as I lack the expertise to DO anything with it at all.
Why? The Edison lightbulbs are just junk, the 1st edition "Origin of Species" is interesting only as a novelty for librarians. The alchemical manuscript by Newton is possibly interesting, but only if the text is not preserved elsewhere, and even if its not the text is really only of interest to Biographers. The text itself almost certainly is of no scientific worth.
Better that they be in some private collection, so that at least then SOMEBODY could enjoy them. Very few people go to museums, University or Otherwise, and while many Museums and University Anthropology Departments house some fascinating treasures, nobody gets any enjoyment out of them. The sit around mouldering in drawers, boxes and crates. Most of the interesting stuff is never, ever put on display, and often nobody even knows it exists (Anthropologists being notoriously piss-poor at actually publishing anything).
I'm not just pulling this out of my ass either. If you know anybody who works at a major University with a Significant Anthro dept. see if you can talk to them. I am personally aware that the University of TN has literally metric TONS of artifacts scattered in crates throughout the campus. What's in them? Who knows? They aren't even really of any archaeological value any more, having been completely removed from their context.
As the AC pointed out, both the Nintendo 64 and the Gamecube were far more powerful (in terms of CPU, memory, and Graphics capability) that their Sony competitors.
While it is frequently bandied about that the Wii is only as powerful as the original Xbox, this isn't true either. The Gamecube itself was as powerful (in terms of CPU and grpahics capability, although it did have slightly less RAM, the performance of both was about the same) as the original Xbox. In reality, I think its pretty clear that beefed up Gamecube is more than adequate for gaming at 480p
Um right, there were no depressed people prior to the existence of TV. Of course.
Look, I agree with your idea that Advertising is a bane on the existence of man, it may even be responsible for some (or many) cases of depression today, but to imply depression wouldn't exist without advertising is more than a stretch, its absurd. Descriptions of conditions that were clearly major depression date back to the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depression
Huge problem with that. Buying a 25" HDTV is pretty much pointless when its 12' from the viewer. And most people are NOT changing how they're arranging their living rooms. Until people start making arrangements so they can fit a 40-60" HDTV in their living room, they aren't going to be able to see the "Wow!" because it won't look much different than progressive scan DVD.
Sure, the tiny minority that are installing 100" 720P and up front projection systems, THEY want HD. But those people are far to small a minority to count.
Your post seems to indicate that you think there's something morally objectionable about violating a student VISA by working to avoid quiting school. I find this point of view rather incomprehensible. Was this guy hurting anybody? Was he defrauding anyone? Not according to the article. He was conducting honest trade in an attempt to avoid having to stop his education. What a scumbag. Not.
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I'd be satisfied by features a lot less complex. My favorite games are generally 2D. My favorite games that aren't I don't play anymore because they were multiplayer. But as far as 3D virtualization, I really don't see what's taken it so damn long. I don't see what would make that feature much more complex than "wrappers" for 3dFX Glide, which intercept the Glide calls and convert them to OpenGL or Direct3D. Wrappers that do that have been around for YEARS.
Unimportant. All Microsoft has to do is get companies to port the titles to the 360, (or let Microsoft do it for them). In that case, Sony can do fuck all. Konami has already agreed to this in the case of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" If somebody would just finish the port and release it. That's what I mean by "stealing from Sony back catalog."
When is somebody going to do this? Hell, when is somebody going to fork Dosbox and turn it into something usable? Dosbox has an immense amount of cool technical work in it, but the UI absolutely unusable. Why can't we have an actual Virtual Machine environment that can boot DOS from a disk image, and provide excellent sound support, and CGA/EGA/VGA/VESA graphics support? And *gasp* how about joystick support on par with most NES, SNES, etc emulators? Furthermore, how about some sensible CPU speed scaling? Like every other emulator for other platforms has available.
I don't know about other places, but Gamestops have playable demo stations. However I think they keep the controllers behind the counter. They are, rather understandably, worried about theft.
So in summary, Microsoft, I don't care what you have to do, but get lots more top quality games out there. Both original titles, and Live classics. Steal from Sony's back catalog as much as possible.
About my early doubts about the Wii and non-gamers, I've seen some very impressive things, that make me think Nintendo may just be crazy like a fox. Watching a forty year old stop at a Gamestop in the wall to play Wii sports, and responding with something equivalent to "This is fucking awesome!" and "When are these gonna be on sale?" impressed me very highly. Anecodotal reports of non-gaming girlfriends seizing controllers are also very encouraging.
Although about the Wii specifically, I'm still hoping they'll add USB harddrive and Keyboard support in an OS update.
I think its more that mainstream industry PC gaming sucks lately, there's been a lot of cool indie stuff coming out this year. Defcon (a minimalist RTS by the makers of Darwinia) looks awesome. Lots of other stuff by Garage Games, Big Fish Studios, Introversion Software, etc.
True about few exceptions, but the ones that did exist are sorely missed. I miss the Russell Snipe/Johnny Wilson Computer Gaming World. It had real integrity and was a quality read. The late Nineties was really a painful period in the games industry, Sony and the 3D revolution cost us much more than anyone is willing to acknowledge. Scorpia, one of the very first female Gaming Journalists was fired due to orders from Ziff-Davis higher ups.
Additional problem, the components to make Airplanes, Zeppelins, Grandfather Clocks, and Pocket Watches, are not naturally occurring (gears, springs, struts, rivets, etc) Thus, even given a very large amount of time, they are VERY unlikely to evolve. The things which living organisms are made of (amino acids, lipids, sugars, various salts, water, etc) ARE naturally occurring. They form almost anywhere the prerequisite elements are found in the presence of an energy source, barring the presence of molecular oxygen. However, given that molecular oxygen is only known to occur in quantity where it is created by living things, that doesn't really pose a significant barrier.
Well, not draining per se but one could hypothetically ignite a sufficiently large thermonuclear device to burn off the atmosphere and oceans. However, that wouldn't leave the desired residue for subsequent study. More effective would probably be a number of space elevators launching the oceans bucket by bucket into space. however, nukes are much faster.
There's always the possibility the Chinese will come in and eat everybody's lunch, and given their much greater tendency (compared to the US government and others) to tell the various IP oligopolies to go fuck themselves, I'm all for it. I'd be perfectly happy to have a Chinese EVD player/recorder for my HD material, to go along with a Chinese Dragon Dream MIPS box running linux.
Actually, I had a Super Scope, and it was just as wireless as the device this company patented is. The scope itself was battery operated and wireless, it communicated with a receiver that was wired to the SNES, just like this pointer works.
The paten claim is on a wireless trigger operated pointing device. Even with priority in 1995, that leaves the NES Zapper, AND the SNES Super Scope, as wireless pointing devices from 1985 and 1992 respectively, and that's also just devices made by Nintendo. It ignores similar devices for the Sega Genesis, and Master System, among others.
I remain EXTREMELY skeptical about Cell's vector performance being leveraged in the ways Sony keeps claiming. Your statement about Microsoft is very true. Personally I'm rooting for Nintendo to come back in a big way, although I don't really expect that we'll have any indications one way or the other for at least 3-6 months.
Could you do anything with a Latin work on Alchemy by Sir Isaac Newton? Even the other reply to my post, who claims to be doing graduate work on Newton (although in an unrelated field of newton's work) admits to being unable to read Latin. My point is that the number of people in the entire world capable of doing anything with it is vanishingly small. Let's suppose that scans of the work were available on-line (which I have nothing against), who is going to use them? A very tiny number of historical expects.
You're making an argument from authority, which is a logical fallacy. Newton was a genius in the Mathematics and Physics of his day (which he by and large created). He was not an authority on modern chemistry. Sure, I might be wrong, I'm willing to concede the faint possibility that there may be profound scientific insights in a Paper on Alchemy by Newton, BUT in the absence of any evidence supporting that claim, I'm willing to bet quite a large sum of money that there are no such scientific insights at all. At most the document may contain historical information on what Alchemists of his day believed to be true.
The only thing I've seen for the PS3 that looks even remotely impressive is White Knight, and I won't believe that would be impossible on the 360 for a second. If the PS3 has any edge at all over the 360, its the one year newer Nvidia graphics chip. The PS3 MAY have more memory speed than the 360, but the 360 has twice the capacity (512 vs. 256), so I'd say that's a wash, especially since I'm not sure how the RAMBUS components in the PS3 compare latency wise to the GDDR3 in the 360. I'm sick of the Sony Hype Machine. Of course I'm also tired of the Final Fantasy Fanboys that keep Sony alive in the console market. Both Sony and Squeenix need to be taken down a notch or two.
I'd like to second that. I think it makes a heck a lot of sense to standardize control schemes in this way, in fact, I'm rather surprised they didn't have this at launch. Wouldn't it have been cheaper for them to do it this way intead of including four GC controller ports on the new Hardware?
I don't even really disagree with you, I'm enough of a pack rat of information that I would want to have such scans, or even the original book, but it would merely be a curiosity, as I lack the expertise to DO anything with it at all.
Better that they be in some private collection, so that at least then SOMEBODY could enjoy them. Very few people go to museums, University or Otherwise, and while many Museums and University Anthropology Departments house some fascinating treasures, nobody gets any enjoyment out of them. The sit around mouldering in drawers, boxes and crates. Most of the interesting stuff is never, ever put on display, and often nobody even knows it exists (Anthropologists being notoriously piss-poor at actually publishing anything).
I'm not just pulling this out of my ass either. If you know anybody who works at a major University with a Significant Anthro dept. see if you can talk to them. I am personally aware that the University of TN has literally metric TONS of artifacts scattered in crates throughout the campus. What's in them? Who knows? They aren't even really of any archaeological value any more, having been completely removed from their context.
While it is frequently bandied about that the Wii is only as powerful as the original Xbox, this isn't true either. The Gamecube itself was as powerful (in terms of CPU and grpahics capability, although it did have slightly less RAM, the performance of both was about the same) as the original Xbox. In reality, I think its pretty clear that beefed up Gamecube is more than adequate for gaming at 480p
Look, I agree with your idea that Advertising is a bane on the existence of man, it may even be responsible for some (or many) cases of depression today, but to imply depression wouldn't exist without advertising is more than a stretch, its absurd. Descriptions of conditions that were clearly major depression date back to the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depression
Sure, the tiny minority that are installing 100" 720P and up front projection systems, THEY want HD. But those people are far to small a minority to count.
Your post seems to indicate that you think there's something morally objectionable about violating a student VISA by working to avoid quiting school. I find this point of view rather incomprehensible. Was this guy hurting anybody? Was he defrauding anyone? Not according to the article. He was conducting honest trade in an attempt to avoid having to stop his education. What a scumbag. Not.