Also, you've probably encountered people who will specifically target humorless people for the very reason that a reaction is received from "fucking around" with them. Such a statement as yours is often a very good way to get people to do just that.
On a side note, my knock knock jokes are terrible.
Like just about everything else in life, sheltering is beneficial in moderation. That is, keeping your child in a bubble until they have to go to college is too much sheltering, while taking your three year old to a hooker is too little.
I was sheltered as a child. This was not the "never let anything in that might corrupt our poor child" sheltering, but the "when he's ready, he'll either ask or we'll tell him" sheltering. They didn't let me watch PG-13 or R rated movies before they thought I could handle them, even if all the other kids got to see them. My parents were able to talk candidly about sex when I hit puberty. I learned about many different religions and viewpoints in addition to my own when I was old enough to contemplate such things.
Through this process of beginning with a formidable fortress and slowly tearing down the walls, I entered my young adult and subsequent adult lives with a framework for my beliefs and the ability to think on them and change. Even though they largely determined where I started, I am the one who gets to determine where I finish.
One of the worst things you can do to your child is to drop them into the harshness of reality without an anchor or a sail.
Oh yeah, when you know you can't win an argument, just attack the premise as insane. Ok.
I don't know if you ever took logic, but one of the fundamentals states that should a conclusion follow from its premises, you can only refute the conclusion by refuting the premises.
They may not have included internet-based evidence in this endeavor simply because it's easy to find. Whether from the horse's mouth or otherwise. Although, I'll admit that using the term "Adults" in your search can retrieve some less desirable results.
The biggest problem with the PSP isn't inherent to the system itself, but to the vision of those utilizing it. It's in the very name of the portable itself, "Playstation Portable".
The PSP is treated as though it were a Playstation console, except portable. Little or no consideration is made that it is any different froma Playstation, save in its hardware specifications. As such, we see ports or sequels to games that fail to take into account the need for a different control scheme and game focus.
At the same time, it's drawing on many developers who are not used to working in the portable sphere of gaming. They know what sells on console, and assume the same is true on portables. It only takes a cursory look at the software library for the Gameboy and DS to see this is not true at all.
The result is a system with great potential that is wasted upon people who don't understand it. The PSP and DS both require a fundamentally different approach to game developement than a home console, but only the DS is seeing that.
I don't know about you, but when I look at the PSP and the PS3 I see the tears of engineers.
Somethine deep down inside me says, "A team of engineers poured their heart and soul into this, working with the crappy ideas marketing thrust upon them and doing their utmost to take their crap and make something beautiful." The end results may not be magnificent, but I can tell that someone tried to push them in the right direction.
The PR people need more than a slap in the face. They need to be dragged down to the R&D people and be forced to beg for forgiveness.
Firstly, the PSP is fighting against decades of nostalgia. Despite the rise and fall in their console market share, Nintendo has been the undisputed champion of hand helds. They've defeated Atari, Sega (who even made a handheld Sega Genesis of all things), and anyone else who happened to try to muscle in. Simply put, if you played a dedicated portable game system in the past 20 years it probably was either Nintendo or one of those crappy $5 battery eaters.
Secondly, Lumines was great. That doesn't sound like it was bad for the PSP, but it was all the PSP really had going for it at first (at least in terms of games). People who bought it for games had to wait a long time for the now oft cited excellent titles to appear on the system. That slump both gave Nintendo the chance to prove the DS had what it took, and took away what had otherwise been excellent momentum from the PSP.
Thirdly, load times. The PSP is, to my knowledge, the first handheld that sports the oft maligned loading bar. I remember this being the most common complaint about the portable a year or two back. It takes the DS all of 2 seconds to boot up, and as few as 5 to get from there to playing the game. The worst I've ever seen was 15 seconds from "flip to frag". However, the PSP reportedly could take in excess of a full minute to load a game.
Fourthly, news. We don't hear much about the PSP in the news outside of how homebrewers have again bypassed the latest firmware update, or how the DS is outselling it 2 to 1. We don't hear about how a game sold incredibly well, only about how everyone loves New Super Mario Bros. or Nintendogs. We learned about the death of UMD, while at the same time learning about how Nintendo was broadening and expanding the market. While the games problem is at this point rectified, there isn't much good news to be heard.
Fifthly, the PS3. While it may not be fair, a number of people have turned against Sony for what they see as an outrageous insult to their intelligence and pride. Should the PS3 be viewed as such? Not really, but for some it is. That also translates into anger against anything Sony, which includes the PSP. Guilty by association I fear.
Lastly, Sony PR. All of the above are conquerable and defeatible obstacles, except Sony's PR is terrible. We might have figured it out back with the borderline racist squirrels, or the ill-conceived graffiti campaign. They might have noticed when their PS3 ads and marketing were similarly ill-received. However, the bottom line is that if Sony had made the Wii or the DS, even with the same line-up of games and Shigeru Miyamoto behind them, Sony's PR would block the pathway to success like a giant, immovable boulder. They more than anything else are in a position to solve the issues the PSP faces because they are mostly issues of image, but they have also proven themselves to be absolutely incopetant at their job. They're even bad at finding other people to do their job for them (again, see the graffiti and that "grass roots" website campaign). In short, Sony's ball and chain is their PR, and until they stop dragging that dead weight behind them they'll never be able to catch Nintendo.
I'd rather like that all to change. It'd be nice if the systems could be weighed purely on their merits and achievements rather than by the stupid things their PR departments do.
I didn't believe you at first, but I looked it up and you're right. That adds a whole new dimension to things, but somehow I doubt it will be widely implemented.
There are other reasons why the games take forever, players are overly cautious. Even if the walls are caving in around them as a the one player with a monopoly begins to clean house, they will desperately hang on waiting to land on that one property that will give them a monopoly rather than have a fair exchange with another player.
I can recall once I had a trade in mind but decided to give the other five players the chance to do something themselves for once. After I got to take my turn another ten times I gave up on waiting. It was just ridiculous.
My experience has been that the only difference between a PvP and a PvE server is being ganked. That would be excellent if 90% of the ganking wasn't done by bored players thirty or more levels higher than you, or later one or more tiers of equipment above you. I've never noticed any difference in the amount of World PvP that happens, excluding ganking.
PvP servers would be much more engaging if the ganking was not so one-sided. It is fun being surprise attacked by someone around your level because you stand a chance, however slim. It is not fun reaching your first contested territory on your level 23 and falling over dead because a level 70 breathed in your general direction. Unless it's a new PvP server and you're a quick leveler, that happens too often.
I made my point because, barring a greivous error on my part, the person I responded to claimed that it is people who don't have money saying that "money isn't everything" out of jealously or some such motivation. I just wanted to provide a counter-example.
As another counter-example, I really didn't care about money before I had it either.
Firstly, I have plenty of money. I don't think money is everything.
Secondly, Miyamoto's greatest games have all been inspired by things he did that weren't video games. If he had been focused on video games his whole life and nothing else, we wouldn't have many key Nintendo franchises we have today.
Lastly, people are not static. We change, we grow and we diminish. Our desires and needs do likewise. While some people are as you say, not everyone is. Change, like anything else, is best in moderation. Not too much, not too little.
Actually, it's arguable it did hurt a number of things.
1) A significant amount of manpower had to be expended in order to assure that the computer systems across the world supporting this change were ready for it.
2) A number of home and business computer systems alike failed to change, sometimes resulting in mischeduled meetings and moderate confusion.
3) Congress wasted time on this bill that could have been spent getting something important done, such as finally hammering out a definate government policy on Stem Cell research, abortions, or actually making a true impact on the energy issue we face.
Time and money were wasted, for an energy revenue of nil. It may not have increased energy costs, but costs in general were incurred.
It's just like half of slashdot has been saying this whole time, games like GTA, violent movies like 300 and other media with similar content only increase aggression in those predisposed to it. While that is in and off itself a cause for concern, and parental monitoring, the games themselves are not the root of the problem.
Sony really needs to get in gear. Playstation HOME and LittleBigPlanet were a *Start*. They need more announcements of top tier exclusives, not defection and waffling on the part of developers.
I think you're spot on concerning HOME and LBP. They are a start but little else.
However, there are two factors relating to games that can push systems: Quality and Quantity. The AAA titles push systems, but so does the security of knowing there is a vast selection (even if most of it is crap).
Eidos may not have GTA4, MGS or FF quality titles, but they and those like them are just as important to the PS3's success.
What goes around comes around. For years, Sony treated its developers like crap because it could (and it stills holds its customer in mild contempt). Now they are surprised that devs aren't showing any loyalty? They are getting what they deserve.
I find this eerie, as it's generally what people cite as the reason behind everyone ditching Nintendo when the Playstation came out. There are much finer details to be had (such as why Nintendo acted as it did), but the similarity remains.
Oh wait, I thought I was a Sony astroturfer pretend-fanboi there for a second. Sorry about that.
You had me fooled.
I probably should have known better. Any astroturfer who writes that little generally can't speel or gramer. Anyone who can writes incredibly long multi-point horrors of fanboyism.
I don't know about you, but it honestly scares me when I find myself able to impersonate idiocy to near perfection like that.
The only crossover you mentioned that's remotely close to this is Street Fighter vs SNK, as those two franchises competed against each other for some time.
That's what makes this one so interesting. For ages Mario and Sonic were bitter rivals, spawning endless internet tirades and flash animations about who was better. Certainly those days have past, as great number of us lived and enjoyed that era.
Now if there was a game with Kratos facing off against Master Chief, that would be news to trump this.
Slashdot Mirror
Hence the explicit "I kid, I kid".
Also, you've probably encountered people who will specifically target humorless people for the very reason that a reaction is received from "fucking around" with them. Such a statement as yours is often a very good way to get people to do just that.
On a side note, my knock knock jokes are terrible.
I disagree.
Like just about everything else in life, sheltering is beneficial in moderation. That is, keeping your child in a bubble until they have to go to college is too much sheltering, while taking your three year old to a hooker is too little.
I was sheltered as a child. This was not the "never let anything in that might corrupt our poor child" sheltering, but the "when he's ready, he'll either ask or we'll tell him" sheltering. They didn't let me watch PG-13 or R rated movies before they thought I could handle them, even if all the other kids got to see them. My parents were able to talk candidly about sex when I hit puberty. I learned about many different religions and viewpoints in addition to my own when I was old enough to contemplate such things.
Through this process of beginning with a formidable fortress and slowly tearing down the walls, I entered my young adult and subsequent adult lives with a framework for my beliefs and the ability to think on them and change. Even though they largely determined where I started, I am the one who gets to determine where I finish.
One of the worst things you can do to your child is to drop them into the harshness of reality without an anchor or a sail.
I don't know if you ever took logic, but one of the fundamentals states that should a conclusion follow from its premises, you can only refute the conclusion by refuting the premises.
They may not have included internet-based evidence in this endeavor simply because it's easy to find. Whether from the horse's mouth or otherwise. Although, I'll admit that using the term "Adults" in your search can retrieve some less desirable results.
Examples:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3155881
http://www.gamespot.com/users/PsychoDuckRules/sho
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Grandpa-Wants-to-P
Hate to break it to you, but Jesus is on a three day vacation starting today. He isn't saying anything.
The biggest problem with the PSP isn't inherent to the system itself, but to the vision of those utilizing it. It's in the very name of the portable itself, "Playstation Portable".
The PSP is treated as though it were a Playstation console, except portable. Little or no consideration is made that it is any different froma Playstation, save in its hardware specifications. As such, we see ports or sequels to games that fail to take into account the need for a different control scheme and game focus.
At the same time, it's drawing on many developers who are not used to working in the portable sphere of gaming. They know what sells on console, and assume the same is true on portables. It only takes a cursory look at the software library for the Gameboy and DS to see this is not true at all.
The result is a system with great potential that is wasted upon people who don't understand it. The PSP and DS both require a fundamentally different approach to game developement than a home console, but only the DS is seeing that.
I don't know about you, but when I look at the PSP and the PS3 I see the tears of engineers.
Somethine deep down inside me says, "A team of engineers poured their heart and soul into this, working with the crappy ideas marketing thrust upon them and doing their utmost to take their crap and make something beautiful." The end results may not be magnificent, but I can tell that someone tried to push them in the right direction.
The PR people need more than a slap in the face. They need to be dragged down to the R&D people and be forced to beg for forgiveness.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree.
"He who sacrifices his girlfriend for a PSP deserves neither."
-Ben Franklin (paraphrased)
Tough to say.
Firstly, the PSP is fighting against decades of nostalgia. Despite the rise and fall in their console market share, Nintendo has been the undisputed champion of hand helds. They've defeated Atari, Sega (who even made a handheld Sega Genesis of all things), and anyone else who happened to try to muscle in. Simply put, if you played a dedicated portable game system in the past 20 years it probably was either Nintendo or one of those crappy $5 battery eaters.
Secondly, Lumines was great. That doesn't sound like it was bad for the PSP, but it was all the PSP really had going for it at first (at least in terms of games). People who bought it for games had to wait a long time for the now oft cited excellent titles to appear on the system. That slump both gave Nintendo the chance to prove the DS had what it took, and took away what had otherwise been excellent momentum from the PSP.
Thirdly, load times. The PSP is, to my knowledge, the first handheld that sports the oft maligned loading bar. I remember this being the most common complaint about the portable a year or two back. It takes the DS all of 2 seconds to boot up, and as few as 5 to get from there to playing the game. The worst I've ever seen was 15 seconds from "flip to frag". However, the PSP reportedly could take in excess of a full minute to load a game.
Fourthly, news. We don't hear much about the PSP in the news outside of how homebrewers have again bypassed the latest firmware update, or how the DS is outselling it 2 to 1. We don't hear about how a game sold incredibly well, only about how everyone loves New Super Mario Bros. or Nintendogs. We learned about the death of UMD, while at the same time learning about how Nintendo was broadening and expanding the market. While the games problem is at this point rectified, there isn't much good news to be heard.
Fifthly, the PS3. While it may not be fair, a number of people have turned against Sony for what they see as an outrageous insult to their intelligence and pride. Should the PS3 be viewed as such? Not really, but for some it is. That also translates into anger against anything Sony, which includes the PSP. Guilty by association I fear.
Lastly, Sony PR. All of the above are conquerable and defeatible obstacles, except Sony's PR is terrible. We might have figured it out back with the borderline racist squirrels, or the ill-conceived graffiti campaign. They might have noticed when their PS3 ads and marketing were similarly ill-received. However, the bottom line is that if Sony had made the Wii or the DS, even with the same line-up of games and Shigeru Miyamoto behind them, Sony's PR would block the pathway to success like a giant, immovable boulder. They more than anything else are in a position to solve the issues the PSP faces because they are mostly issues of image, but they have also proven themselves to be absolutely incopetant at their job. They're even bad at finding other people to do their job for them (again, see the graffiti and that "grass roots" website campaign). In short, Sony's ball and chain is their PR, and until they stop dragging that dead weight behind them they'll never be able to catch Nintendo.
I'd rather like that all to change. It'd be nice if the systems could be weighed purely on their merits and achievements rather than by the stupid things their PR departments do.
To both the Parent and Grandparent:
Pure Genius.
I didn't believe you at first, but I looked it up and you're right. That adds a whole new dimension to things, but somehow I doubt it will be widely implemented.
l es
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Monopoly/Official_Ru
There are other reasons why the games take forever, players are overly cautious. Even if the walls are caving in around them as a the one player with a monopoly begins to clean house, they will desperately hang on waiting to land on that one property that will give them a monopoly rather than have a fair exchange with another player.
I can recall once I had a trade in mind but decided to give the other five players the chance to do something themselves for once. After I got to take my turn another ten times I gave up on waiting. It was just ridiculous.
My experience has been that the only difference between a PvP and a PvE server is being ganked. That would be excellent if 90% of the ganking wasn't done by bored players thirty or more levels higher than you, or later one or more tiers of equipment above you. I've never noticed any difference in the amount of World PvP that happens, excluding ganking.
PvP servers would be much more engaging if the ganking was not so one-sided. It is fun being surprise attacked by someone around your level because you stand a chance, however slim. It is not fun reaching your first contested territory on your level 23 and falling over dead because a level 70 breathed in your general direction. Unless it's a new PvP server and you're a quick leveler, that happens too often.
If it's anything like FFT:A, it'll make me want to avoid the system.
I made my point because, barring a greivous error on my part, the person I responded to claimed that it is people who don't have money saying that "money isn't everything" out of jealously or some such motivation. I just wanted to provide a counter-example.
As another counter-example, I really didn't care about money before I had it either.
Firstly, I have plenty of money. I don't think money is everything.
Secondly, Miyamoto's greatest games have all been inspired by things he did that weren't video games. If he had been focused on video games his whole life and nothing else, we wouldn't have many key Nintendo franchises we have today.
Lastly, people are not static. We change, we grow and we diminish. Our desires and needs do likewise. While some people are as you say, not everyone is. Change, like anything else, is best in moderation. Not too much, not too little.
Actually, it's arguable it did hurt a number of things.
1) A significant amount of manpower had to be expended in order to assure that the computer systems across the world supporting this change were ready for it.
2) A number of home and business computer systems alike failed to change, sometimes resulting in mischeduled meetings and moderate confusion.
3) Congress wasted time on this bill that could have been spent getting something important done, such as finally hammering out a definate government policy on Stem Cell research, abortions, or actually making a true impact on the energy issue we face.
Time and money were wasted, for an energy revenue of nil. It may not have increased energy costs, but costs in general were incurred.
...it hurts.
It's just like half of slashdot has been saying this whole time, games like GTA, violent movies like 300 and other media with similar content only increase aggression in those predisposed to it. While that is in and off itself a cause for concern, and parental monitoring, the games themselves are not the root of the problem.
I think you're spot on concerning HOME and LBP. They are a start but little else.
However, there are two factors relating to games that can push systems: Quality and Quantity. The AAA titles push systems, but so does the security of knowing there is a vast selection (even if most of it is crap).
Eidos may not have GTA4, MGS or FF quality titles, but they and those like them are just as important to the PS3's success.
I find this eerie, as it's generally what people cite as the reason behind everyone ditching Nintendo when the Playstation came out. There are much finer details to be had (such as why Nintendo acted as it did), but the similarity remains.
You had me fooled.
I probably should have known better. Any astroturfer who writes that little generally can't speel or gramer. Anyone who can writes incredibly long multi-point horrors of fanboyism.
I don't know about you, but it honestly scares me when I find myself able to impersonate idiocy to near perfection like that.
I wouldn't care if Rockstar lived or died, except that Jack Thompson would take the latter as a personal victory no matter the circumstances.
I dunno, I get the feeling that Tails and Luigi will have the high jump cornered, while Peach and Knuckles will vie against each for the long jump.
Now the triple jump, that Mario might win.
The only crossover you mentioned that's remotely close to this is Street Fighter vs SNK, as those two franchises competed against each other for some time.
That's what makes this one so interesting. For ages Mario and Sonic were bitter rivals, spawning endless internet tirades and flash animations about who was better. Certainly those days have past, as great number of us lived and enjoyed that era.
Now if there was a game with Kratos facing off against Master Chief, that would be news to trump this.
Honestly, that prospect excites me more than this game does.
Which is not to say this game doesn't excite me, Shigeru himself is working on it.